Forward Booking Emails from Outlook to Airflow
If your booking confirmations land in Outlook, the workflow is the same one every host knows too well: read the email, copy the dates, update a spreadsheet or calendar, remember to invoice later. Airflow removes that middle part. The confirmation that arrives in Outlook becomes a structured booking record, with the guest, dates, pricing and property already filled in.
Here’s how to set it up.
Option one: forward the email
Every resource in Airflow has its own unique email address. When a confirmation lands in Outlook — from Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia or a direct enquiry — forward it to that address.
Airflow reads the message and extracts the details: guest name and contact, check-in and check-out, total and fees, currency, and the property it belongs to. A booking record appears in your portal, ready to invoice and reconcile. Manage several properties? Each has its own address, so forwarding to the right one files everything correctly.
No API keys, no setup beyond knowing the address. It works from the Outlook desktop app, the web version or your phone.
Option two: connect Outlook directly
To skip forwarding entirely, connect your Outlook account. Airflow watches the inbox for booking emails from known OTA senders, runs them through the same extraction flow, and marks them as processed so nothing is handled twice.
You can combine both: automatic scanning on your main Outlook inbox, plus manual forwarding for anything that arrives elsewhere. That covers the messy reality of bookings — the co-host’s address, the personal account, the one platform that emails a different inbox.
An Outlook tip: use a rule
If you’d rather stay hands-off without connecting, Outlook’s rules can forward for you. Create a rule that matches your OTA senders and forwards those messages to your resource’s Airflow address. New confirmations then flow through automatically.
The direct connection is simpler and catches more, so most hosts prefer it over maintaining rules — but the option is there if you want it.
It knows what’s a booking and what isn’t
Forwarding the wrong thing won’t break anything. Airflow distinguishes booking confirmations from review notifications, general enquiries, receipts and newsletters. Only genuine bookings become records. You won’t find a phantom entry on your calendar because you forwarded a receipt by mistake.
What happens after the forward
Once a booking is in, the rest follows on its own. The invoice drafts in Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreshBooks or Google Sheets. The payout reconciles when it lands. The guest record is ready for messaging. Forwarding from Outlook is simply the front door to all of it.
For the full walkthrough of the extraction step, read How Booking Email Forwarding Works. To set it up across your portfolio, see automation and workflows, or get started.