Messages and the guest check-in page

Connected mail links the mailbox that receives your Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com notifications. Rentalhand reads only mail from those platforms, every few minutes, and files guest messages, bookings and payouts. Nothing else in the mailbox is read. If you would rather not connect, forward the notification emails to your Rentalhand address instead.

Airbnb messages shows the conversations of every listing you connected in real time (Calendar → Connect Airbnb). A guest’s message appears within seconds, grouped by conversation with the stay it belongs to, and your reply goes straight back to the guest in the Airbnb app from the box under the thread. Check now pulls the latest threads if you do not want to wait. With the guest assistant on, a suggested reply appears under the latest question; under Automatic answers per property you can let confident answers on a property’s threads go out on their own, which only takes effect while the assistant is set to answer on its own.

The Inbox below it shows guest messages read from notification emails and from the check-in portal. Emailed Airbnb and Vrbo notifications have no reply channel, so Reply copies your rendered answer to the clipboard and opens the right thread for you to paste and send; portal messages get Reply by text or Reply by email. With the guest assistant on, a suggested answer appears under each message to send, edit or reject.

Templates fire before check-in, on check-in day, mid-stay, before checkout and after checkout, by text or email, at the property’s local send hour, with placeholders such as the guest name, times, Wi-Fi, the door code and the portal link. Scheduled messages list what will go out and what failed, with Retry.

Every stay has a private page at /stay/<link>: house rules with an I agree button, Wi-Fi and parking from the guidebook, the door code once the stay begins, a message box that lands in this inbox, and the extras you sell. Paste each property’s Find my stay link into the platform welcome message so guests can find their page and leave a phone or email.

1. Connect Gmail or Outlook under Connected mail, or copy the forwarding address and set up a forwarding filter.
2. Install the starter templates, then edit the wording; the placeholders list sits beside the editor.
3. Add a guest’s email or mobile on a reservation so messages and the portal link can reach them.
4. Copy the Guest check-in page link from a stay, or press Send to guest.

• Gmail connections have limited availability while Google reviews the app; Outlook and forwarding work for every account.
• Scheduled templates are Pro. On Core the inbox, the templates editor and the check-in page work, and you send messages yourself.
• For a stay booked on a channel you connected through Rentalhand (Airbnb), scheduled messages, including the {{portal_link}} check-in page link, are sent inside that guest’s Airbnb conversation, where they read and reply, so no email or phone is needed. The template’s email or text is the backup when there is no open conversation.
• The guest assistant (suggested replies and automatic answers on the check-in page) is Pro as well. On Core nothing is drafted; your setting is kept and resumes when you upgrade.
• The door code is never in the page before the stay’s window begins.
• Guest extras (early check-in, late checkout, mid-stay clean) are Pro. Plain requests still arrive as messages on Core.
• The guest assistant appears when the AI concierge is switched on; otherwise its controls are hidden.
• Automatic answers on Airbnb threads are off for every property until you switch them on, and even then anything about money, complaints, safety, booking changes or that the assistant is unsure of waits for you as a draft. A conversation without a linked stay (an inquiry) never gets an automatic answer.
• Airbnb messages needs the property connected through Channex; messages that arrive by email keep working as before. Rentalhand installs Channex’s Messages add-on on each connected property by itself (Channex charges it at $0.50 per unit per month); nothing to set up on your side.