AI replies to OTA guests

The assistant that answers guests on your Haven sites can also answer the guests who never visit them. When someone who booked on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com writes in their booking thread, the message reaches Haven through your PMS, the assistant reads it against that listing, and a reply goes back the same way, usually inside a minute.

Nothing is switched on for you. Each connected PMS starts at Off, and an account-wide switch has to allow it as well.

What it answers from

It draws on the listing, its guest portal, and your AI knowledge: the same sources as the chat on your site, so a guest hears one answer wherever they ask. Replies are written in the language the guest used, whatever your listing Language setting or your voice says: your voice shapes the tone and wording, never the language.

For questions about the area rather than the property, it can also look things up. It knows roughly where your listing is, so a guest asking the weather this weekend, how long the drive from the airport takes, whether somewhere is open on a Sunday or what is worth doing nearby gets an answer instead of a wait — the same as on your site's chat. It will not search for anything about your property itself: your price, your availability, your rules and your amenities come only from what you wrote. And it only states what it is confident in. If what it finds is unclear or out of date, it hands the question to you rather than guess in your name.

Arrival details follow the rules your guest portal already applies. A guest who has not booked is told nothing about the address, entry codes or Wi-Fi, and is never given a phone number, an email address or a link, because the booking platforms forbid contact details before a reservation. A booked guest receives door codes and Wi-Fi only once the listing's reveal window has opened and any pre-arrival steps you require are complete.

Turn it on

On Communication → Inbox, press AI replies in the list. The same choices are on Communication → Message automations.

Open Communication → Message automations, choose {your PMS} bookings at the top of the guest journey (it reads Airbnb bookings, with the Airbnb logo, when you have no PMS connected), and find the AI replies to guests card on the Messages row of Whenever this happens, below the timeline. Choose per PMS on it opens AI replies to OTA guests.
For each PMS, choose a mode:
- Off: the assistant stays out of those threads.
- Draft for approval: it writes a reply and leaves it in your inbox. Nothing reaches the guest until you press Send.
- Send automatically: it replies on its own and hands the conversation to you when it should not answer. That is all — choosing draft or send is you saying yes, so it also turns on the AI replies switch under Settings → Account & Profile → Account → Guest communications, and lifts the master Automated guest messages pause if that is off. The Send-automatically confirmation tells you, and no other kind of automated message is turned on. You can still turn AI replies off there to stop every PMS at once. Only Off keeps the pause. Choosing Draft or Send lifts the pause so other categories already switched on can go out. To keep messages held, leave Automated guest messages paused and set each PMS to Off. Do not set Draft or Send in order to stay paused.

The same per-PMS control appears on Communication → Inbox (the AI replies button in the list), on Message automations, on each PMS card under Settings → Integrations in its Guest messages section, and on the AI replies switch itself in Account → Guest communications, which lists every connected PMS with its logo and the same three choices. Changing it in one place changes it everywhere. If you later turn AI replies off, its row says nothing is sent and offers Turn on AI replies right there. After you turn the pause back on, a PMS still on Draft or Send says nothing is sent, which is what you see after you turn the pause back on. Choosing Draft or Send itself clears the pause. On the Free plan, Draft and Send are locked and the row says AI replies need a paid plan, with a See plans link.

Most hosts begin with Draft for approval. A week of reading the drafts shows where your AI knowledge is thin, and filling those gaps is what makes Send automatically dependable. A quick way to fill them: save the answers you type most as saved replies and turn on AI may use this.

Choose which listings it answers for

Once a PMS is set to draft or send, its row in Message automations gains a listings control. Every listing starts included. Turn individual ones off there, or from the listing itself under Edit Listing → Arrival → OTA guests → AI replies to messages.

Which PMS supports what

PMS	AI replies
Hospitable	Replies land in the guest's booking thread, or their inquiry thread if they have not booked. Connections made before messaging was added need to be reconnected.
Hostfully	Replies land in the booking thread for Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com guests.
Guesty	Airbnb replies land in the thread. Vrbo and Booking.com replies reach the guest by email.
Lodgify	Replies post to the booking's conversation.
Track	Replies go out through Track on the guest's booking channel. Track sends no webhooks, so Haven sees a new guest message on its next scheduled check (about every 10 minutes) and replies then.
OwnerRez	Replies land in the thread the guest wrote in: the Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com conversation, or the email or text thread of a direct guest, and inquiry threads. A connection made before 28 October 2026 needs one reconnect first; a read-only connection cannot reply.
Airbnb connected directly	Not available. That connection only allows saved templates.
Hostex	Replies land in the booking's Hostex conversation. Hosts still connected through Airbnb see the row below.
Uplisting	Replies land in the booking thread. Haven sees a new guest message at once only when your Uplisting API key is saved under Instant updates; without it, on the next hourly sync.
Host Tools	Replies land in the reservation's Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com or Houfy thread through Host Tools.
iGMS	Replies land in the booking's Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com conversation, or by email on an iGMS direct booking — once your iGMS connection includes Guest messages and Replies to guests (the iGMS card's What syncs row). Until iGMS enables them for Haven, the control is greyed and iGMS guests are answered in iGMS; once it has, Reconnect iGMS on the card turns them on.
Smoobu, Beds24	Replies land in the booking thread. Hosts still connected through Airbnb see the last row.
Hostaway	Replies land in the booking's Hostaway conversation: the Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com thread, or by email on a direct stay. Hosts still connected through Airbnb see the last row.
Hostaway via Airbnb, and any PMS connected through Airbnb	Not available. These connect through Airbnb, which only allows saved templates.

A PMS the assistant cannot reply through is still listed, greyed, with the reason beside it.

What it hands to you

Some questions are yours to decide, and the assistant treats them that way however confident it is. It passes the conversation to you, without replying, when a guest:

asks for a refund, a cancellation, different dates or a different guest count, a discount, or anything about payment, deposits or damage;
follows up on a change of dates or guest count you agreed to in the thread but have not yet made on the booking;
asks for an exception to your rules, such as an early check-in you do not already offer;
reports something at the property broken or not working, such as no hot water or the Wi-Fi being down;
reports any other problem with the stay or is unhappy;
may be unsafe or locked out;
asks for you, or for a person;
asks something about your property that your listing, guest portal and AI knowledge do not cover, or something about the area it looked up without finding a confident answer.

A hand-off does not shut the assistant out of the thread. It passes that question to you and says nothing to the guest, then goes on answering what it can — so a guest who asks you for a refund and then asks what time check-out is still hears back about check-out. Anything else that is yours to decide is passed to you the same way. Only Pause AI stops a thread, and only you can press it.

You are told of a hand-off by email, and by text if the AI needs you alert is on under Settings → Account & Profile → Notifications.

A hand-off says nothing to the guest. For a guest who hasn't booked yet, turn on Auto-reply to new inquiries as well: they get your "We got your request" message as soon as they first write, and the assistant still answers their question, since the auto-reply doesn't count as your answer.

With AI replies on or off, a guest message from 12 hours before check-in through 24 hours after it also texts you through New guest message when you are on a paid Haven plan, including a host whose manager pays, so a guest who is locked out on arrival reaches you either way. On the free plan the message still lands in Messages, and no text is sent. See Guest Chats by Text and WhatsApp.

When the hand-off is about something broken, it can also go to your handyman or as a separate text to you — whoever you chose under Tasks → Setup → When a guest reports something broken. Nobody else hears about it until you choose. See Team Automations.

Every reply is also checked before it goes out. One that reads as vague, or that contains something the guest should not receive yet, is held as a draft rather than sent.

In your inbox

Open Communication → Inbox.

AI replies in the list turns this on for each connected PMS: Off, Draft for approval, or Send automatically. It is the same setting as on Message automations.
Each thread from a PMS shows where the guest booked, for example Airbnb via Guesty, in the header and on its row in the list.
A message the assistant sent carries an AI reply tag beneath it. A draft you edited before sending is yours, and carries no tag.
Draft with AI above the reply box writes a reply for you on request. See Draft a reply with AI yourself.
Replies waiting on you appear in the conversation where they would have gone, outlined rather than filled. A draft offers Send, Edit and Dismiss. A hand-off shows why it was passed to you, what the guest needs, and a suggested reply when the assistant wrote one.
Needs you in the filter row narrows the list to threads with something waiting.
Pause AI in the thread header takes a conversation over, and Resume AI hands it back. This is the only thing that stops the assistant in a thread; a hand-off does not.

A reply you send from a draft goes to the guest through your PMS, exactly as the assistant's own replies do.

On your phone

The Haven app on your phone shows the same drafts and hand-offs. A thread with something waiting is marked AI draft waiting, AI handed this to you or AI reply didn't send in Messages, and opening it shows the reply at the bottom of the conversation with Send, Edit and Dismiss (or Mark as handled), as on a computer. The Review and send link in the notification opens that conversation directly.

Draft a reply with AI yourself

You don't have to wait for the assistant, or turn AI replies on, to get a draft. In any guest conversation on a listing, on a computer or your phone, press Draft with AI above the reply box (on your phone it's the first chip above the message field). It asks What should the message say?

Leave it empty and press Draft: the assistant writes a reply to the guest's latest unanswered messages.
Say what you want sent and press Draft: for example "send the guidebook link", "send the rental agreement" or "tell them late check-out at 1pm is fine". The assistant writes that message, whether or not the guest is waiting on a reply. The three suggestions under the field fill it in for you.

Either way it writes from the same listing, guest portal, AI knowledge and voice, and puts the message in the reply box. Read it, change what you like, and press Send. Nothing reaches the guest until you do.

Links it can add. When you ask for one, the assistant pastes the real link for that guest's reservation: the guest portal with the digital guidebook, the rental agreement or identity check (both open in the guest portal, signed in), the payment link for an approved booking that isn't paid yet, any guest form published on the listing, the Offers tab for add-ons, a further guidebook you name, and your Google review link. It never makes a link up. If the one you asked for doesn't exist for this guest (the agreement is already signed, the reservation isn't confirmed yet, nothing is owed), it writes the rest and a line under the button says Check before sending and what it left out.

It works on every conversation about one of your listings: Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com threads through your PMS, and guests who booked on your own site. It doesn't depend on the PMS's Off / Draft / Send mode.
If you've already typed something, the draft goes after your words rather than replacing them.
When the guest asked something that is yours to decide, such as a refund or an early check-in, or the draft contains something the booking site doesn't allow yet (a link before the guest has booked, for one), a line under the button says Check before sending and why.
If you leave the field empty and the guest's last message has already been answered, it tells you nothing is waiting instead of writing a draft.
Entry codes, the Wi-Fi password and the address follow the same timing as everywhere else: the assistant can't put them in a message before the guest is allowed to have them.
Each draft uses your Haven AI credits like an AI reply to a guest does. When the credits run out you're asked to add some first.
A client of a property manager gets it in their own account whenever they have Messages, and their manager gets it when working in the client's account.

Teach it from what it missed

On a hand-off, Add context opens your AI knowledge with the guest's question and the missing fact already filled in. Save it, and the test that follows asks the assistant that same question again so you can see the new answer.

It also learns from you without being asked. When you answer a guest yourself (in your PMS, your Haven inbox, by email or text), or correct a draft before sending it, Haven turns your answer into AI knowledge marked Learned, so the next guest who asks gets the same answer. Messages → AI knowledge → Learned lists each one with the replies it came from, where you keep, edit or remove it. An answer that states a price waits there for your OK. See Haven learns from your replies.

Every exchange is also recorded under Analytics → Chats, in the OTA messages group. Each reply there is marked Sent to the guest, Draft, not sent, or Handed to you, and the same grading and insights that cover your site chats cover these. Open in inbox returns you to the thread.

Make it sound like you

The assistant writes in a warm, plain tone until you tell it otherwise. Settings → Account & Profile → AI assistant → Your voice, on its Guest messages side, is where you say how you sound, what to always or never say (a sign-off, no emojis), and paste a reply or two in your own words. It also learns from the drafts you edit before sending and the replies you write yourself: a Learned note appears there with the reason, which you can keep or remove. Facts still come from the listing and AI knowledge, never from your voice. See Teach Haven your voice.

Limits worth knowing

The assistant answers threads for stays that came from your PMS, PMS inquiries, and a guest who messages you from their Haven guest portal on a stay that is already in your PMS. That reply is posted into the PMS thread as well as the Haven thread. A Haven booking that is not in a connected PMS is answered on Haven only.
A guest on one of those stays who writes by text, WhatsApp or email gets the same treatment: the assistant answers under the same switches and hand-off rules, and the reply travels back on the channel the guest used, as well as landing on the thread. A guest who texted STOP is never messaged; see WhatsApp and texts with guests for what STOP turns off on WhatsApp. With the guest texting number on, a booked guest can text Haven's number first, without waiting for a text from Haven, and the message is matched to their reservation by their phone number. The first time you choose Draft or Send, the confirmation tells you it turns the guest texting number on as well; turn it off any time under Settings → Account & Profile → Account → Business info.
When a stay's thread is answered automatically, the guest portal shows one Message host chat instead of the usual Ask AI and Message host pair — writing to you there is talking to the assistant, so a second assistant tab would be the same thing twice. Guests on Draft for approval, or on a stay the assistant does not answer, keep both tabs.
It cannot change a booking, issue a refund, or send a code to a lock. It will not tell a guest that it has.
The booking keeps its booked dates and guest count until you change it on the platform. When you agree to a change in the thread, the assistant passes on your yes and tells the guest the booking still has to be updated — it never says the reservation is already set for the new dates or guest count.
If a guest asks whether they are talking to a person, it says it is your automated assistant and that you read the conversation too.
A guest who sends several messages in quick succession receives one reply covering all of them.
To keep two automated senders from answering each other, it writes at most ten replies in one thread per day.