Manage reservations as the organizer
Confirm what has arrived, release a reservation, keep track of everything — all from the activity stream of your wishlist.
As the organizer you look after the reservations on your list. There is one exception: in surprise mode these tools are closed to you, and there is a section on that below. You confirm what has arrived, and you release a reservation when it falls through — when the PayPal money never landed, say, or when somebody messages you wanting to swap gifts.
When you need this
Familiar situations:
- 🟡 PayPal money never arrived — somebody reserved a wish and then sent nothing. Release it so another person can step in.
- 🔄 A swap agreed on WhatsApp — a friend reserved A and would rather give B. You free A up again.
- 💳 Money came by bank transfer — no online payment, but the money is in your account. Confirm it, and your own books stay straight.
- 🎁 A gift handed over in person — somebody brought it to the party. Confirm it, and the person who gave it counts as confirmed from then on.
Where it all happens
There are two places. Under each reserved wish on your list you see “✓ Reserved by” and the name, with the buttons that fit its current state: Money received or Gift received, Cancel, and Send again to resend the confirmation — that one only when the person left an email address. Not every state has every button: a Stripe payment, for instance, you can neither cancel nor mark as received yourself — once it has gone through, it counts as received by itself. With several contributions, open the “N contributions” line to see one row per person.
The overview lives in the Activity tab of your wishlist: one stream, newest first, with every reservation and every contribution in it, and the message that came with it if there was one.
Four filters sit above the stream, and each carries its own count:
| Filter | What it shows |
|---|---|
| All | Every reservation and every contribution |
| To review | Payments somebody reported that you have not confirmed yet |
| With message | Entries where somebody wrote something |
| Money | Contributions and support payments only |
A filter whose count is zero stays visible with its zero and simply stops being selectable — so you always see that there is nothing there, rather than wondering where it went.
Reported as paid: with PayPal or a bank transfer, the person giving can tell us they paid. That entry waits under To review until you have checked your own account and confirmed it. Wishlist.de cannot look inside your PayPal or your bank, so only you can say the money arrived.
There is no email address anywhere in the stream, on purpose. Just over half of the people who contribute leave none, and what you actually need is that fact — so a row that has no address says so, and no row ever prints one.
Confirming what arrived
In the Activity stream a confirm button only appears on a payment that is waiting for you: Money has arrived once somebody has reported paying, Mark as received on a contribution from before the payment system changed. A gift has no confirm button in the stream — you confirm it under the wish itself. What you press depends on what you are confirming:
| How it was given | What you press | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe (card, SEPA, Apple Pay) | nothing at all | Only a payment that went through confirms itself; a pending or failed one never does |
| PayPal | Money has arrived in the stream, or Money received under the wish | Confirm once the money is in your PayPal account |
| Bank transfer or cash | Money has arrived in the stream, or Money received under the wish | Confirm once the money is in your account |
| Somebody buys the gift | Gift received, under the wish | Confirm once the gift is in your hands |
A short window opens, and you confirm once more.
Stripe still pending? A Stripe payment that has not cleared — a SEPA direct debit takes a couple of days — offers you no confirm action at all. Wait for Stripe. Confirming early would only muddle things.
Releasing a reservation
Releasing a reservation makes the wish available again, and the progress of the list is recalculated on the spot. In the stream the link reads Release reservation; under the wish the button reads Cancel.
In the window that opens you get:
- A checkbox that emails the person a short cancellation notice. It is ticked by default when they left an address. If the two of you already sorted it out somewhere else, untick it.
- While that box is ticked, an optional field addressed to them by name (Note to Sam, for instance) — say, that the two of you agreed the swap on WhatsApp. The note goes into the cancellation email. It stays private between you and that person: only they get it, and it never shows up on the list, not in the Activity tab either.
When nobody left an email address, the checkbox is off and stays off, and there is no note field.
What the other person sees
Leave the email on, and they get a message titled Reservation canceled (Contribution canceled, with the amount, for a money contribution). For a reservation, it asks them to sort things out with you directly if they already bought the gift; for a money contribution, it asks them to contact you about a refund if they already sent money, for example via PayPal or bank transfer. If you wrote a note, it follows word for word, under Note from the organizer.
The activity stream records it too, without your note. Releases and confirmations both appear there, so whoever is co-organizing keeps the thread.
Common questions
Can I release a reservation somebody paid through Stripe?
No, and neither the stream nor the wish offers it. A payment that went through Stripe is Stripe’s record, not ours, so we never rewrite it here — an attempt is refused with a note pointing you at a refund. A refund you issue in your Stripe dashboard, where the money actually sits. Once Stripe has refunded the full amount, the reservation is released here by itself.
Can my co-owner manage things too?
Yes, both organizers have the full set of rights: whoever created the list and the co-owner can both release reservations and confirm what arrived. More about co-owners →
What does it do to the totals?
Releasing a reservation takes it straight out of the progress — if the list stood at 60 percent and you release a €50 contribution, the bar drops accordingly. Confirming changes nothing, because the reservation was already counted.
Does any of this work in surprise mode?
In surprise mode the person being given to is also the owner. For the promise to hold, these tools are closed to the owner while it is on — only the co-owner can manage. So if you use surprise mode, invite somebody as co-owner to look after the list.
Do my co-organizer and the gift givers get a notification?
Your co-organizer, yes; the gift givers, no. Every release and every confirmation appears in the activity stream, which only you and your co-owner can open. Whoever gave the gift gets a separate email, as long as you leave the notify checkbox ticked.
What about a pending Stripe payment, a SEPA direct debit for instance?
With SEPA, Stripe waits a few days for the payment to clear. In the meantime the entry sits there marked as on its way. You do nothing — Stripe reports back by itself, whether it worked or not. Do not confirm such an entry early; the webhook handles it.
If the bank of the person giving does not collect the debit, your Activity stream shows a line like Sam’s payment of €25.00 for “Coffee machine” did not come through — the bank did not process it. The amount is available again. Sam gets an email asking them to try again, if they left an address. You do nothing.
Somebody canceled an online payment — do I see that?
No. While the payment page is open, the amount shows as pledged on the wish. If they cancel, it becomes available again automatically after a short while — with no entry in the Activity stream and no email, because no money moved.