Hotel Room Availability on WhatsApp, Turned Into Direct Bookings
This recipe answers “any room for these dates?” on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or web chat, quotes your room types and direct rates, and turns the answer into a booking. It reads availability and rates from your property management system and creates the booking there. It is the workflow that earns the most for a hotel, because it is where the guest decides whether to book with you. Part of the hotel workflows.
What happens today
A guest overseas messages at 11.30pm your time: “hi any room 12 to 14 dec 2 adult, breakfast included?”. The night auditor is busy with check-ins and does not see it. The morning shift replies at 9am with a rate. By then the guest has booked through an online travel agency, and you pay commission on a booking that started on your own WhatsApp.
The guest did not need a person. They needed the rooms available, the price, what is included and the cancellation terms, quickly and in a language they read easily.
The flow that works
- The guest gives dates and guests in their own words. AeroChat works out check-in, check-out, adults, children and any room preference, and asks only for what is missing.
- It checks availability and the direct rates for every night of the stay in your property management system.
- It offers up to three room types that fit, each with the direct rate, what is included and the cancellation terms for that rate.
- The guest picks one. AeroChat sends your booking engine link with the dates filled in, or, if you take bookings in the chat, sends a deposit payment link.
- When the deposit is paid, it creates the booking in your property system with the deposit recorded, and sends the guest a confirmation with the booking reference, the address and the check-in time.
A room is offered only when your property system shows it free for every night, and it is booked there straight away. That keeps you from selling a room twice.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
When a guest asks about room availability or rates, follow these steps.
- Find out their check-in date, check-out date, number of adults and children, and any preference such as twin beds, a connecting room or a high floor.
- Check availability in our property management system for every night of the stay. Only offer a room type that is free for all the nights.
- Offer up to three room types that fit the number of guests. For each one, give the direct rate per night and the total for the stay from our system, whether breakfast is included, and the cancellation terms for that rate. Example: Flexible rate, free cancellation up to 48 hours before arrival. Saver rate, 10% lower, non-refundable.
- Tell them our direct rate includes free wifi and a welcome drink (example), so they know what they get by booking with us.
- When they choose, ask for the guest name, phone number and email. Send a deposit payment link for the first night.
- When the payment is confirmed, check the room is still free, then create the booking in our system with the dates, room type, rate, guest name, phone, email and deposit paid. Send the guest the booking reference, our address and the check-in time.
- If the dates are full, say so, offer the nearest dates with the room type free, and offer to pass them to the front office for a waitlist.
Only quote rates and room types from our system, and inclusions from our fact sheet. Never give a discount. If the room is no longer free when the deposit arrives, apologise and hand over to the front office. For 5 or more rooms, or a wedding or event, collect the dates, number of rooms and what they need, and hand over to sales. Reply in the guest’s language.
Change the example rates, inclusions, cancellation terms and deposit to your own before you paste it.
What to connect
- Your property fact sheet. Upload your room types, maximum occupancy, inclusions and the cancellation terms for each rate to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Your property management system or channel manager. Cloudbeds, Mews or Oracle OPERA Cloud connect through their APIs. In Cloudbeds, create an API key in its settings. In Mews, approve the connection so Mews issues an access token. On OPERA Cloud, your team registers an application in Oracle’s Hospitality Integration Platform and shares its client ID and keys. Paste them in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat then reads availability and rates there and creates bookings in it.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles directly into your Airwallex balance. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect your property system, connect payments, upload the fact sheet, then switch it on.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What you still decide
- Which rates to offer in the chat, and whether the chat rate matches your booking engine.
- Whether to send a booking engine link or take a deposit in the chat.
- The deposit amount, and whether it is refundable.
- How many rooms count as a group, and who in sales takes them.
- Whether AeroChat creates bookings in your system on its own, or your front office confirms each one first.
AeroChat follows these as written. It does not offer a rate, a discount or a room your system has not shown as free.
The result to expect
Availability questions that arrive at night get a rate and a booking path while the guest is still comparing properties. Some of the guests who would have booked through an online travel agency book with you, and you keep the commission. Your front office stops typing the same rate reply and spends the time at the desk.
Measure it with your own numbers: direct bookings that started in a chat, and the time to first reply on availability questions, for a month before and after you start. In the first week, read a sample of the chats in the inbox and adjust the recipe where a reply was not how you would put it.
Next: pre-arrival requests and booking changes. See also payment link.
Answer your first availability question
Upload your fact sheet, connect your property system, paste the recipe and ask your own number for a room next weekend.
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