Hosting tips

Hi everyone! Does anyone know an easy way to send one-way SMS messages to guests using Zapier, Make, or another tool that integrates with Hospitable?I understand Hospitable has been working on a two-way SMS feature, but I'm done waiting for it. I really need this now.I'd like to automatically send messages such as booking confirmations, check-in instructions, access codes, or location details. Sometimes guests can't access their Booking.com or Airbnb messages, so SMS would be a useful backup.Any recommendations?Thanks!Luis

The checkout widget was working fine, but out of nowhere it stopped adding some of the taxes on direct bookins. My lastest bookings are being processed with not taxes. No one answers this urgent matter in the help section 

So I have a reservation coming in on Friday for a very popular luxury condominium (worth about $6 Million).  The guest messaged me today he made a mistake and needs to come in a day early.  This condo is booked back to back all month.  The guest returned saying he would give a bad review, if I didn’t give him a full refund.  I escalated this to Airbnb support.  There two solutions were 1) Full Refund (guest wins!) or 2) Let them stay and they will suppress the review.   ZERO mention of any repercussions  for the guests.  This is troubling on SO many levels.   Can you imagine if all Airbnb guests were empowered like this. Has anyone else experienced this.  I hate the felling of empowering guests to simply threaten hosts to get out of cancellation policies. 

my guest purchased a pet up Cell, but because she had added a pet in her booking, she was also charged by so now she’s been charged double how do I refund the app through Hospitable?

We are heading over to Orlando at the end of September for the Vacation Rental Xtravaganza Conference and we’d love to see you there! Join us and 300+ Florida STR professionals in one room for three days. The conversations, strategies, and connections you'll find there don't happen anywhere else. Use code HOSPITABLE20 for 20% off all ticket prices (also applicable for purchases of 2 or more tickets).

Hi all,wondering if anyone has experience with this: we'd like to offer airport transfer arrangements to guests as a paid add-on, collected via a payment link (not through Airbnb's Resolution Center) after the reservation is confirmed. Has anyone done something similar for transfers/taxis specifically, and if so, have you had any issues with Airbnb's Off-Platform Policy? Curious how others handle this in practice, given Resolution Center fees eat too much into a low-margin service like a taxi transfer. Would appreciate hearing real experiences, not just the official policy wording. BR,Azur

Hi Hospitable Support! I have a feature request/question.I have had the chance to use Guesty on my previous job. noticed that Guesty has an option when sending a message to a guest where the host can choose the communication channel—WhatsApp, email, SMS, or the OTA messaging system.Is this something Hospitable currently offers, or is there a way to choose the specific channel when sending a message? If not, would it be possible to consider adding this feature in the future?We manage guest communications across multiple channels, so having the ability to choose where a message is sent would be really helpful.Thank you!

Is there a way to set the minimum age of 21 for guest to rent a room ? 

Is anyone co-hosting for someone who already has (or had) their own Hospitable account? How do you handle it?Or, do you possibly have some sort of setup that involves multiple Hospitable accounts?I'd love to hear from folks with the more complicated setups.Right now the main thing I'm trying to solve is being able to have my own properties on Direct Basic while having co-hosted clients on Direct Premium. Which is currently not possible under a single account.

Hi everyone,I’m hoping to get some advice from hosts who have dealt with difficult disputes with Booking.com, especially around fraud and unpaid reservations.I’m currently in a situation where: a guest booked via Booking.com using a fraudulent account no payment was ever received the guest stayed one night and engaged in criminal activity (police involved) the property required professional remediation Booking.com was contacted during the stay but said they couldn’t intervene or cancel Despite everything that occurred, Booking.com issued a commission invoice for the reservation... After disputing the commission, Booking.com closed my account and is now threatening legal action over the charge.I’m curious if anyone has had any success reaching an actual human that understands the STR business at Booking.com? So far, out of all the OTA’s, Booking.com seems to be the worst one (by a very very large margin). 

How are the pop ups showing up on Airbnb to sell unbookable nights? I’ve seen this on other listings to add a day at a special rate. How can I get this to show up when there is an orphan night?

Quick update on JottoGo.Some of you gave us feedback on the beta over the last few months, and this is what came of it.For anyone new to it: JottoGo automatically writes and formats a personalised printed welcome letter for every booking. Your cleaner prints it at turnover, or it just prints itself on a schedule, and it's on the dining table when guests walk in. Guests actually read it; nobody skims paper with their name on it. Which also makes it the best spot in the house to mention your upsells like late checkout, mid-stay clean, or whatever else you offer.The main beta feedback was that pricing didn't make sense for seasonal or low-turnover properties. That was true, so we changed it.It's now $3 per booking, capped at $15 a month per property. That covers everything a booking generates: the guest letter, a version for the dog when one's booked (sounds ridiculous, but every dog owner who's stayed with us has left five stars), and a printed turnover checklist for your cleaner. Billin

First time in 2 years. No new  reservations for 3 weeks for 2 properties on Airbnb or VRBO. Operate with all 5 stars reviews for 2 years. This came out of nowhere and isn’t getting any better. Competitive prices and discounts offered. I need feedback please. 

Has anyone used IntelliHost? If so, what are your thoughts overall and what is your opinion on the Premium level vs the Agent level subscription?

Is anyone successfully using Bellhopt?  I’m in Austin, Tx and I’d love to offer grocery delivery as an option but it’s way too hot to leave groceries outside for more than a few minutes. I don’t have the option of putting them away myself. Thank you!

I’ve been getting a lot of people fighting back on doing them because “Airbnb “ is telling them to not do anything off platform? 3 years never had these problems until now. Always been listed I require those as well. Just odd all of a sudden, would love to know what Airbnb is feeding them from that side. Anyone else experience this?

I desperately need some help! ​@Brandon Huetteman doesn’t have any appointment times for the next two months and I can’t get find education anywhere on Hospitable or get answers from Smarty.  I finally hired a bookkeeper and we’re really struggling to find an accurate way to reconcile reported booking payments to what is actually deposited.  Airbnb and Vrbo do lump deposits making it extremely difficult to determine what is what with 18 different properties.  Does anyone have a system or report that works?

It would be great to be able to set the minimum night stay based on what platform (Airbnb, VRBO, direct booking). Guests are different personas depending on which platform they come from and that determines the length of stay us hosts would want to offer/encourage. 

We just had a guest with two EV vehicles and want to attract more therefore we are looking into charging stations as well. Seamless integration would be very nice. I see Hospitable integrates with https://guestcharge.co/ which seems to serve only the UK market. Does Hospitable plan to integrate with https://www.ok2charge.com/electric-vehicle-charging-software , https://evmatch.com/solutions/vacation-rentals/ or other?

Hi everyone,I’m putting together a monthly virtual networking meetup for Airbnb hosts, lodging owners, hotel managers, food & beverage and hospitality professionals.The goal is to create an open, communicative space where people can share resources, learn from industry experts, exchange ideas, and maybe even organize some fun onsite visits, in person events and inspiring property walk-through in the future.What we do can be a pretty niche and isolating line of work sometimes, and I’d love to connect with more like-minded people who care about hospitality, creativity, guest experience, and building meaningful spaces.No fees, commitments, sales pitches, or catches — just an old-school community vibe where people can support and learn from each other.If that sounds interesting to you, feel free to send me a direct message or reply to this post. First meet up will be mid August.Thanks so much,Chris : ) 

What is the best way to complete this? Does Hospitable have a native integration with GHL? I’m considering using Webhooks of Zapier. Curious as to if anybody has done this yet. Thanks in advance. 

Hey all,I’m still very new to booking.com and it’s a bit of a struggle.We have a guest that booked a non-refundable stay but now chose to cancel for personal reasons. I’ve agreed to give her a refund if we can get the dates rebooked.In the booking.com platform I only have an option to cancel and agree to waive the cancellation fee. I can’t find out what the cancellation fee really is but all google searches and their support Chatbot make me believe it is the full reservation fee. Has anybody gone through this before? Is there something wrong in my settings?Thanks,Thomas

This issue has been occurring for the past few months.Upon new guest arrival, a message is automatically sent to guests stating : “We encountered an issue while setting your code on the lock. No need to worry! Please use this code instead xxxx”The problem is that the “backup” code is always the exact code it was meant to be in the first place!Eg: if the code was always meant to be 5566 (the last 4 digits of a phone number), then this error message is sent out to the guests just before checkin saying “We encountered an issue while setting your code on the lock. No need to worry! Please use this code instead 5566”It’s confusing for guests and also unnecessary. This is happening on both ABB and BDCThanks in advance to anyone who can explain and solve this. 

I have received 4 bookings recently via either Airbnb or VRBO that have went straight to Pending and awaitng my approval.  I believe I have all the settings correct for Instant Book and have never had any issues in the past. Some of these bookings were over a week in advance so they wouldn’t be considered last minute bookings. Anyone have any suggestions? 

Has anyone signed up for the top rated guest discount? Did you raise the markup for Airbnb to account for this? Does the discount stack?