What to Send a Guest Before Arrival, and When
Most pre-arrival problems are timing problems. The directions went out six weeks early and are buried in an inbox. The house manual went to a guest who never paid. The access details arrived the night before, after the guest had already messaged twice to ask for them.
The information is rarely the issue. Every host knows what a guest needs: dates, a way in, directions, the house rules, what is still owed. What goes wrong is when it is sent, and who it is sent to.
This guide gives you a timeline: what to send at each stage between booking and arrival, and why that stage is the right one. Then it shows how to run the whole sequence without writing a single email by hand.
The principle: send it when the guest can act on it
Every message before arrival should pass two tests.
- Can the guest use it now? Directions sent at booking are useless; the guest won’t need them for weeks. The same directions three days out get read and saved.
- Should this guest have it yet? An unpaid booking is not yet a guest in your property. Your house manual, your arrival notes and anything that says how to get in belong to people who have committed.
Hold both tests and the timeline almost writes itself.
Stage 1: at booking — confirm, and hand over one link
Send: dates, the booking reference, the total, what has been paid, and a single place to find everything else.
Don’t send yet: access details, the full house manual, or anything the guest won’t need for weeks.
In Airflow, the booking confirmation goes out automatically when a booking confirms, and it carries the guest’s personal trip link to their portal. That link is the most useful thing you send all booking. Every later message can point back to it, so the guest never has to dig through a thread to find what you told them.
Stage 2: once paid — unlock the details
Payment is the natural dividing line. Before it, the guest needs to know what they are buying and how to pay. After it, they need to know how to arrive.
Airflow’s guest portal draws that line on the server, not just on screen. Until a booking is confirmed by payment, the portal shows the guest what they need to commit: the price breakdown, any extras, and a way to pay. The Documents & downloads, Before you arrive, Travelling companions and Report an issue sections stay hidden, and your documents are not sent to the guest’s browser at all. For a direct booking, a deposit counts as payment.
Once the payment lands, those sections open on their own. You don’t have to remember to send anything.
If a guest has paid a deposit but still owes the balance, what to do when a guest hasn’t paid the balance covers the follow-up.
Stage 3: about a week out — release the documents
Send: the house manual, the directions, parking instructions, local recommendations.
A week is long enough for the guest to plan their journey and short enough that they will still have the details when they travel. Adjust it for your property. A remote lodge with a long drive may want more notice; a city studio needs less.
In Airflow, each document you upload in Media & Files has a Guest access setting:
- Hidden — never shown to guests
- Always available — shown in the portal as soon as the booking unlocks
- Days before check-in — released a set number of days before arrival, and the guest is emailed when it unlocks
Whatever you choose, the Stage 2 rule still applies: no document reaches a guest whose booking is not yet paid, even if its release date has passed.
That makes documents the right home for anything sensitive. The property details in your settings (check-in time, parking, pets, house rules, directions) are shown in the portal’s property information, so keep door codes and passwords in a document instead.
Stage 4: three days out — the pre-arrival email
Send: a reminder of the dates and reference, a friendly note, any extras worth offering, and the link back to the portal.
This is the email guests actually read. They are packing, planning the drive, and thinking about what they want from the stay.
With Airflow’s Guest Email Automations add-on, the Pre-Arrival email goes out three days before check-in by default. You can change that under When to send in hours or days. It reminds the guest of their dates and booking reference. It also lists the optional extras you offer, so the airport transfer or late checkout is in front of the guest at the moment they are planning. And it carries a Manage your trip button back to the portal. Add your own words in the Custom message box; merge tags such as {{guest_first_name}} and {{check_in_date}} fill themselves in.
If you haven’t set up extras yet, selling the airport pickup at checkout shows how.
Stage 5: check-in day — the welcome
Send: a short welcome and your final arrival instructions.
The Check-In Day email goes out on the morning of arrival (9am). One thing to know: the default wording does not include your access details. It tells the guest their host will provide them. Airflow has no field for a door code or WiFi password; WiFi in your property settings is a yes-or-no amenity. So put your arrival specifics in that email’s Custom message, or point the guest to the document you released in Stage 3.
The whole timeline at a glance
| When | What the guest gets | How it happens in Airflow |
|---|---|---|
| At booking | Confirmation and personal trip link | Sent automatically on confirmation |
| Once paid | Documents, Before you arrive, companions, issue reporting | Portal unlocks on payment, withheld on the server until then |
| About a week out | House manual, directions | Document set to Days before check-in; guest emailed on release |
| Three days out | Pre-arrival reminder, extras, trip link | Pre-Arrival automation |
| Check-in morning | Welcome and final instructions | Check-In Day automation with your custom message |
| Balance due | Reminder of what is owed | Balance Due Reminder automation, for deposit bookings |
After the stay, Post-Checkout and Review Request complete the sequence. Stop sending guest emails manually walks through each automation in more depth.
What to know before you switch it on
- Automations start switched off. A new property sends no lifecycle emails until you turn them on. The Automations page shows an Enable recommended button, which switches on Pre-Arrival, Check-In Day, Post-Checkout and Review Request in one click.
- They are a paid add-on. Guest Email Automations is listed on the pricing page. The booking confirmation and the guest portal are included with every plan.
- Each email uses one action from your monthly allowance. If you run out, the email is skipped rather than sent.
- They send from your own mailbox where they can. With Gmail or Outlook connected, they go out from your address. Otherwise Airflow sends on your behalf, and replies come to your email.
- Channel bookings are included where the booking carries a guest email address, so a guest who booked elsewhere gets the same timeline and the same portal link.
Send less, at the right moment
A good pre-arrival sequence isn’t more email. It’s a few messages, each sent when the guest can use it and only to guests who have paid. Set the timing once per property and every booking after that follows it.
See what your guests get, or get started and set your first document to release a week before check-in.