Take Direct Bookings on WhatsApp with Lodgify

This recipe turns a guest who is ready to book in chat into a booking in Lodgify, with their details and arrival time recorded. Part of connecting Lodgify to WhatsApp and AI chat.

What happens today

A guest agrees to the price on WhatsApp and says they want to book. The owner says they will send the details later, then has to enter the booking in Lodgify by hand and copy the guest’s name and email from the chat. In the gap, the dates can get booked through a listing site, or the guest changes their mind.

The flow that works

The guest says they want to book.
AeroChat collects their name, email, phone number and arrival time.
It checks availability in Lodgify once more.
It creates the booking in Lodgify with a note of the conversation.
It tells the guest what happens next and when to expect the payment link.

The recipe

Copy this into AeroChat

When a guest says they want to book a property, follow these steps.

Confirm the property, arrival date, departure date and number of guests.

Ask for their full name, email, phone number and expected arrival time.

Check availability in Lodgify for those dates again. If the property is no longer free, say so and offer the nearest free dates or another property.

Create a booking in Lodgify for that property and those dates, with the status Tentative (example), the guest’s name, email and phone number.

Add a note to the booking with their arrival time, any special request and the channel they used.

Tell them the booking is held and our team will confirm and send the payment link within two hours (example).

Never confirm a booking as paid. If they ask for a discount or a special arrangement, collect the details and hand the conversation to our team. Reply in the customer’s language.

Change the booking status and the confirmation time to your own before you paste it.

What to connect

Lodgify. Open Settings, then Public API, in Lodgify and copy your API key. Paste it in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat reads availability and creates bookings.
Your knowledge base. Upload your booking terms, deposit rules and house rules to AeroChat so it can answer questions before the guest commits.

After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect Lodgify, add your knowledge base if the recipe uses one, then switch it on. If it built the connection from Lodgify’s public documentation, the checklist asks you to check it once against the current docs.

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 status a chat booking gets in Lodgify.
Who confirms the booking and sends the payment link.
Which requests always go to a person.

The result to expect

Guests who decide in chat get their dates held in Lodgify straight away, with every detail already filled in. Fewer direct bookings slip away between the yes and the payment.

Measure it with your own numbers: bookings created from chat, and direct bookings as a share of all bookings, for a month before and after.

Next: answer availability and price questions.

Works on every chat channel

This workflow runs the same way on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, TikTok, Telegram, the chat on your website and email, with the same Lodgify connection behind it. See what each channel does on the Lodgify integration page.

Take your first direct booking in chat

Paste the recipe, add your Lodgify API key, and book a test stay from your own phone.

Start your 7-day free trial. No credit card needed.

On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.