Auto-reply to new inquiries from Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com

When a guest who hasn't booked writes to you on Airbnb, Vrbo or Booking.com, with a question or a request to book, Haven can answer straight away in their booking thread: "Hi Alex, thanks for your message about Lakeside Cabin. We got your request and will get back to you as soon as possible." The message goes out through your connected PMS, so you don't need an auto-response set up in Guesty or any other PMS.

It is off until you turn it on.

When to use it

You can't always answer a new lead within minutes, and you want the guest to know their message arrived.
You were using your PMS's own auto-response for inquiries and would rather manage it in Haven.
You have AI replies on Draft for approval, so nothing reaches the guest until you press Send.

Turn it on

Open Communication → Message automations and choose {your PMS} bookings at the top of the guest journey.
Under Whenever this happens, find Auto-reply to new inquiries on the Messages row.
Turn on its switch. The confirmation lists what will send. If automated guest messages are paused, confirming also lifts the pause.

The same switch is Auto-reply to inquiries under Settings → Account & Profile → Account → Guest communications. Turning it on in either place turns it on in both. Turning on Haven messages for a PMS under Permissions doesn't turn it on: it only ever starts from its own switch. Like every automated guest message, it needs a paid plan.

Change the wording

Click Booking chat on the card. The editor shows a preview with sample values. You can use three shortcodes:

{guest_first_name}: the guest's first name, as your PMS reports it. The default wording writes {guest_first_name|there}, so it reads "Hi there" when the PMS sends no name.
{property_name}: the listing's name.
{host_first_name}: the contact name on the listing, or your first name.

Haven refuses links, email addresses, phone numbers and social media handles. Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com penalize listings that share contact details before a guest books, and this message only ever goes out before a booking. Shortcodes that need a booking, such as the guest portal link or check-in time, aren't available here for the same reason. Reset to default brings back Haven's wording.

When it sends, and when it doesn't

Once per guest. A thread gets one auto-reply at most, on the guest's first new message. If they write again, nothing more is sent.
Never after you've replied. If you or your team have already written in that thread, it doesn't send.
Only for new messages. Messages Haven reads from history, for example when you first connect a PMS, never trigger it.
Only before a booking. It covers inquiries and requests to book that haven't been accepted. A confirmed booking's thread never gets it.
Your PMS's own switch still applies. If Haven guest messages are turned off for a PMS, nothing is sent to that PMS's guests.

The card shows how many auto-replies went out in the last 30 days. Each one is in your inbox, tagged Sent automatically, so you can see what the guest received.

With AI replies on

The auto-reply and AI replies work together:

On Send automatically, the guest gets the auto-reply first, then the AI's answer to their question a few seconds later. The auto-reply doesn't count as your answer, so the AI still replies.
On Draft for approval, the guest gets the auto-reply right away, and the AI's draft waits in your inbox.
If the AI hands the conversation to you, the guest has already heard that you'll get back to them.

Which PMS can send it

It works through a PMS that both passes inquiries to Haven as message threads and can post a written reply into them: Guesty, Hospitable, Hostfully, Lodgify, OwnerRez, Hostaway, Track and Beds24. On Guesty, Airbnb guests get it in the Airbnb thread, and Vrbo and Booking.com guests get it by email, which is how Guesty delivers messages on those channels.

It isn't available on Airbnb connected directly, or on any PMS connected through Airbnb, because those connections only allow saved templates. The card lists each of your PMSs, and greys out the ones Haven can't post through, with the reason.

Some leads never reach Haven as a message thread, so they don't get an auto-reply: Lodgify enquiries that aren't attached to a booking, Hostex inquiry messages, and Smoobu and Uplisting leads (neither sends Haven its inquiries).