Your Guests Keep Asking the Same Five Questions
What time can we check in? How do we find you? What’s the WiFi password? Can we bring the dog? How much do we still owe?
If you run more than one property, you have answered each of these hundreds of times. Every answer is correct, polite and quick to type. Together they still cost you hours, and they arrive at the worst times: the evening before arrival, at a traffic light outside the gate, at 11pm from a guest whose phone is on 4%.
The questions aren’t the problem. Guests ask because the answer isn’t anywhere they can find it. Often you did send it once, in a confirmation email weeks ago that is now under forty newer messages.
The fix is to answer each question once, in one place the guest already has, and make sure that place is in front of them when the question comes up.
Why the same questions keep coming
Three reasons, and none of them is careless guests.
- The answer was sent too early. Directions sent at booking are forgotten by the time anyone packs the car.
- The answer is split across channels. Some of it is in an email, some in a message thread, some in a PDF attachment. The guest can’t remember which.
- There is nowhere to look. An email is not a reference. Guests search their inbox, give up, and message you instead.
Airflow gives every guest a personal trip portal: one link, sent with their booking confirmation, that holds their stay from booking to checkout. The job is to put each answer there, and send the guest back to it at the right moments.
Question 1: “What time can we check in?”
Where the answer lives: your check-in and check-out times, set once in Settings under Listing & Publishing.
They show in the Property info section of the guest’s portal, beside the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and maximum guests. The guest’s own check-in and check-out dates sit at the top of the portal and on their booking confirmation.
If you allow early check-in on some days and not others, say so in the check-in day email (see below) rather than promising it in general.
Question 2: “How do we find you?”
Where the answer lives: the Directions / How to get there field in your listing settings, and your property’s location.
The portal shows the location with an Open in Maps link and your directions underneath. Write them for the last kilometre, not the whole journey: which gate, which turning, where the sign is hidden by the hedge. Guests can find the town on their own. They can’t find your driveway.
For a longer route, such as a lodge down a dirt road, upload a directions document as well and release it a week before arrival (more on timing below).
Question 3: “What’s the WiFi password?”
Where the answer lives: a house manual document, not a settings field.
This one needs care. Airflow’s property settings record whether you have WiFi, not the password, and there is no field for door codes either. That is deliberate. The property information in the portal is visible to anyone with the trip link, even before they pay, so it is the wrong place for anything that gets someone into your property.
Put the WiFi password, access codes, appliance instructions and the rest of your house manual in a document uploaded to Media & Files. Set its Guest access to Days before check-in, choose how many days, and the guest is emailed automatically when it unlocks. And whatever the date, no document is released to a guest whose booking isn’t yet paid. The portal holds back all documents on the server until the booking is confirmed by payment. A deposit counts on a direct booking.
Question 4: “Can we bring the dog?”
Where the answer lives: your Pets allowed and Smoking allowed settings, and your house rules.
Pets and smoking show in Property info as Allowed or Not allowed. Your House rules text appears in the portal too, so “no parties” and “quiet after 10pm” are written down where the guest can find them. Where to park is best covered in your directions, since that’s where the guest will look as they arrive.
The best time to answer this question is before booking, not after. Your house rules also appear on your booking page, so the guest with the Great Dane finds out before paying, not at the door.
Question 5: “How much do we still owe?”
Where the answer lives: the Payments tab of the guest’s portal.
The guest sees the booking total, what has been paid, the balance still due, and a way to pay it themselves. Nobody has to write you an email to find out. If they owe a balance and haven’t paid, the portal says so, which is a gentler reminder than a message from you. What to do when a guest hasn’t paid the balance covers the cases where it isn’t enough.
Send them back to the answers at the right time
A portal only helps if the guest opens it. That is where timed email comes in.
With the Guest Email Automations add-on, every lifecycle email carries a Manage your trip button that goes straight to the portal:
- Pre-Arrival, three days out by default: dates, reference, your extras, and the link
- Check-In Day, the morning of arrival: your final instructions in the Custom message
- Balance Due Reminder, for deposit bookings
Every email that points back to the portal teaches the guest that the answer is already there. Stop sending guest emails manually covers setting the automations up. Two things to know: they start switched off, and each email uses one action from your monthly allowance.
Before and after
| Question | Answered by hand | Answered once in Airflow |
|---|---|---|
| Check-in time | Typed per guest, per message | Set once, shown in Property info |
| Directions | Pasted into a message, lost in a thread | Directions field, Open in Maps, optional timed document |
| WiFi and access | Sent the night before, sometimes to the wrong person | House manual document, released on a date you set, only after payment |
| Pets and house rules | Explained on request | Property info and house rules, also on your booking page |
| What is owed | Looked up, then messaged | Payments tab the guest checks themselves |
What this doesn’t do
Honesty matters here. The guest can still message you, and some will. Airflow doesn’t answer guest messages for you. What changes is the number of messages: when the answer is one tap away in a link the guest already has, far fewer people need to ask.
It also only works if the answers are written down. An hour spent filling in your listing settings and uploading one good house manual is the whole investment.
Answer it once
Write each answer once, put it where the guest already looks, and let the timing do the rest. The questions don’t disappear, but they stop landing in your inbox.
See what the guest portal looks like from your guest’s side, read more about what your guests get, or get started and upload your house manual today.