Reply to your guests (inbox)

The inbox gathers the exchanges of all your stays in one place, wherever they came from. It lives in the Sales & marketing menu, under Inbox.

One principle governs everything else: one conversation per reservation. There is no free-floating thread with a guest, and no pre-booking discussion — every conversation is attached to one specific stay, and its header links back to View reservation #…. A conversation is born with its first message: the guest writes from their guest space, or their message arrives from Airbnb, Booking or Abritel/Vrbo.

The path, screen by screen

1. Open the inbox

   In the side menu, under Sales & marketing, open Inbox. The page states its promise straight away: “All your guest conversations, in one place.”

   On an account with no exchanges yet, the screen shows No conversation and the hint “Exchanges with your guests will appear here.”

   

2. Find the right conversation

   The left column lists the threads, most recent first. Two filters are always there — All and Unread — and channel pills appear only when a thread from that channel exists: YStay for a direct reservation, then Airbnb, Booking, Abritel/Vrbo. The Search guest, subject or listing… field filters every conversation, not just the ones currently on screen.

   Until a thread is open, the right column reads Select a conversation to view it.

   

3. Reply to the guest

   An open thread shows the guest's messages on the left, yours on the right, split by day. At the bottom sits the composer: Write a message…, the Send button and the Ctrl/Cmd + Enter to send shortcut. Insert a template… drops a prepared text into the composer with its tokens already filled in — you read it over before sending.

   On a conversation that came from a channel, your reply is also pushed back to that channel in the background. A quiet status then appears under your bubble: Sending to Airbnb…, then Delivered to Airbnb or Not delivered to Airbnb — consider following up with the guest (the channel's own name replaces the one in the example).

   

4. Have the AI prepare a draft

   Above the composer, Suggest a reply asks the assistant for a draft based on the conversation at hand. The button turns into Drafting…, then the proposed text fills the composer — it is yours to read, correct and send with Send. The counter next to it — for instance 3 / 200 AI suggestions — tracks this month's usage.

   The assistant receives two distinct things. First, bounded reservation fields: the guest's first name only, the check-in and check-out dates and times, the number of guests, the title, type, city and address of the unit, your arrival notes and the outstanding balance. Those fields never carry the email address or phone number from the guest record, their surname, or any payment detail. Second, the last ten messages of the thread, passed on as they are: their text is neither filtered nor redacted. If the guest typed their phone number or their address into a message, that information travels with the rest.

   

What the guest gets on their side

• An email for every message you send, if their address is known. That is the guaranteed channel: it goes out whatever device the guest has, carrying the conversation's subject.
• The conversation in their guest space, where they can reply at any time — including after checkout, about a forgotten item or a deposit.
• A notification on their phone, only if they installed the app and claimed their reservation. It does not carry the text of your message.
• Your reply inside the original channel for an Airbnb, Booking or Abritel/Vrbo reservation, subject to the delivery status described above.

There is no public link to a conversation: everything goes through the guest space or the channel.

What tells you a message has arrived

• A notification in the dashboard's Notifications feed, at the rate of one entry per unread conversation: further messages refresh that same entry instead of stacking ten of them.
• A notification on your phone through the field app, when the signal first appears only, and without the message excerpt — it opens the reservation page.
• No email is sent to you for a guest message: the inbox and the notifications feed are the only two places where the signal lives.

When something looks wrong

• The expected conversation is not in the list. Its thread does not exist yet — usually because no message has been exchanged. Check the active filter too — Unread and the channel pills hide everything else.
• The thread is open but empty. The screen shows No message and Start the conversation below. — write the first message.
• A Not delivered status. The channel refused the reply or never confirmed it, and the platform does not retry on its own. Send your message again, or reach the guest another way.
• A banner instead of an AI draft. Four possible messages, none of them blocking: “AI reply suggestions are included in paid ShortStay plans.” (with the View plans link), “You've reached your AI suggestion quota for this month.”, “The AI assistant is temporarily unavailable. Please write your reply manually.” and “The suggestion didn't come through. Try again or write your reply manually.” In all four cases the composer stays usable.
• Access is denied. The message “Your role doesn't allow access to the inbox. Contact the account owner.” points at a team role without inbox rights.

Next

• Take your first reservation and manage your calendar — where the reservations these conversations depend on come from.
• Create and publish your first guidebook — answer once and for all the practical questions guests ask here.
• Listings — complete and distribute the listings that feed the inbox.
• Automate your guest messages — the four triggers that write for you, and what they will never do.
• Handle reviews and rate your guests — the note left after the stay, and the reply you give it.