Take Direct Booking Enquiries on WhatsApp with Hostaway

This recipe answers date and price questions in chat from your Hostaway calendar, and creates the reservation in Hostaway when the guest wants to book direct. Part of connecting Hostaway to WhatsApp and AI chat.

What happens today

A past guest messages on WhatsApp to ask whether the same apartment is free in December. Someone checks Hostaway between turnovers, works out the price and replies the next morning. The guest has already booked through a listing site, and you pay the commission on a guest who came to you first.

The flow that works

AeroChat asks for the dates, the number of guests and the property.
It checks the listing calendar in Hostaway for every night of the stay.
It replies with the price and minimum stay, or offers other free listings.
It collects the guest’s name, email and phone number.
It creates the reservation in Hostaway on the direct channel for your team to confirm.

The recipe

Copy this into AeroChat

When someone asks whether a property is free or what a stay costs, follow these steps.

Ask for their check-in date, check-out date, number of guests and which property they want, if they have not said.

Check the listing calendar in Hostaway for every night of the stay. If all nights are free and the stay meets the minimum, reply with the price per night and the total.

If not, check our other listings in the same city (example) and offer up to three that are free.

When they want to book, ask for their full name, email and phone number.

Look up the guest in Hostaway reservations by email or phone. If they have stayed before, say welcome back.

Create a reservation in Hostaway on the direct channel for that listing and those dates, with the status Inquiry (example), their details and the channel they used.

Tell them our team will confirm and send the payment details within two hours (example).

Never offer a discount. If they ask for more than 30 nights (example) or more guests than the listing allows, collect the details and hand the conversation to our team. Reply in the customer’s language.

Change the reservation status, the stay limits and the confirmation time to your own before you paste it.

What to connect

Hostaway. Create an API key in your Hostaway dashboard and copy it with your account ID. Paste them in when AeroChat asks. AeroChat reads listings, the calendar and reservations, and creates reservations.
Your knowledge base. Upload your house rules, cancellation policy and property details to AeroChat so it can answer questions before the guest books.

After you paste the recipe, AeroChat builds the workflow as a draft and shows a checklist: connect Hostaway, add your knowledge base if the recipe uses one, then switch it on. If it built the connection from Hostaway’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 Hostaway, and who confirms it.
Which listings AeroChat can offer as alternatives.
Which enquiries always go to a person.

The result to expect

Guests who message you get dates and a price while they are still on the chat, and direct enquiries land in Hostaway as reservations your team can confirm. More repeat guests book with you directly.

Measure it with your own numbers: direct reservations created from chat, and the share of bookings on the direct channel, for a month before and after.

Next: handle date changes and cancellation requests.

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 Hostaway connection behind it. See what each channel does on the Hostaway integration page.

Take your first direct enquiry in chat

Paste the recipe, add your Hostaway account ID and API key, and ask the chat about one of your listings for next month.

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On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.