Making an offer

Where a lender takes offers, you can ask for a different price instead of booking at the listed one. Everywhere else, Jelly it at the price on the listing and it is done.

An offer is always a total (the whole stay, or the whole sale price), never a rate, and it is measured against the price the piece lists at for your dates, a closet discount included. Dates that are already booked or closed can't take an offer.

Verify your ID first. An offer can book the moment it is accepted, so it asks for the same one-time ID check as booking does, before you send it. See Your account.

Three kinds

• Lower: the same dates, less money. Only where the lender takes offers.
• Longer: dates that run past the lender's period. This one is not about price: a stay beyond the published period is hers to approve, so Jelly quotes the total and sends it to her even where she takes no lower offers at all.
• Buy: an offer to keep the piece, and only where the listing shows a sale price. A rent-only piece takes no offer to buy. See Buying a piece.

Some offers book instantly

A lender can set the lowest amount she will take. A Lower or Buy offer at or above it books on the spot: she has already said yes to that number. A Longer offer always waits for her, because it is her calendar you are asking about.

Her minimum is private. Below it, the answer is that this closet does not take an offer that low. The number itself is never shown, and Jelly sets no floor of its own: no percentage of anything is required.

Sending it: a temporary hold, not a charge

When you send an offer, we place a temporary hold on your card for what the booking will cost. This is not a charge. You are only charged if the lender accepts. If she declines, the offer expires, or you cancel it, the hold is released automatically.

• Your saved card is used, and the hold is placed there and then. If there is no card on your account, or your bank wants you to approve it (3-D Secure), you add or confirm a card as you send the offer. The offer reaches the lender only once the hold is on your card. If you close that step without finishing, the offer isn't sent and nothing is held.
• If you chose your Jelly credit, that much is set aside for the offer (you can't spend it elsewhere while the offer is open), and the hold on your card is for the rest. If your credit covers it all, nothing is held on your card. Money you owe Jelly (a late fee, say) comes first: if that credit is needed for it, the offer closes, its hold is released, and you are told. Send it again whenever you're ready.
• Two lines on your statement? One is the charge and one is the temporary hold. The hold comes off on its own, usually within a few hours depending on your bank.

While an offer is open

• The dates are not held. Someone else can book the piece in the meantime, which is the honest reason to Jelly it outright when you know you want it. If they do, or the lender closes those dates, your offer closes and the hold on your card is released.
• It expires. The lender chooses how long she has to answer, and the usual window is 24 hours. An offer also dies at the rental start date, whichever comes first (or, sent on the day the rental starts, with the stay's last day). You are told either way, and the hold is released.
• A paused closet takes no offers. A closet whose owner paused it (or let an offer expire) is hidden from the Shop until she unpauses it, and an offer to it is refused with "This closet is paused right now".
• You can cancel it until the lender answers: from your offers, Cancel offer. The hold on your card is released.
• Its address stays put. The delivery was priced to the address on your offer, so that address's street can't change until the offer is answered. To have it go somewhere else, add the new address, cancel the offer and send it again.

The card is charged when she accepts, at the total she accepted. See Paying for a rental. Her side of all this is Offers on your listings.

When she accepts

• The hold becomes the charge: exactly what was held when you sent it, and your credit if you chose it. You don't have to do anything when she says yes: it is booked and you are told what was charged.
• A hold lasts up to seven days. If hers is a long answering window and the hold has ended by the time she accepts, the card saved on your account is charged instead, the same total.
• If that payment doesn't go through (the card is declined, or there is no card saved), nothing is booked and nothing is charged, any credit you chose comes straight back, and you are told why. Your offer stays open: update your card in Account → Payment methods and she can accept it again while it is open.
• If it can't be booked as you sent it (something changed since: the delivery you picked can't reach you the way it was priced, or your bank wants you to approve that charge yourself), you are never charged a different amount: nothing is charged, the hold is released, and you are asked to send it again.
• If the bank is slow to answer, it shows as being confirmed. Nothing is booked until it is, and you both hear as soon as it is settled.
• If someone else books those dates while your payment is going through, it isn't booked: the payment is refunded to your card, any credit you chose comes back, and you are told.