Booking.com Guest Messaging Rules: What Hosts Can Send, When, and Why Links Get Removed

Almost everything written about OTA messaging rules is really about Airbnb. If your property also sits on Booking, which for many small hotels and B&Bs is the bigger channel, the mechanics differ enough that an Airbnb habit carried across will eventually cost you a message that does not land or a link the guest cannot see.

What can a host send a Booking guest, and when?

In general you can message a guest from the time of booking until seven days after check-out or cancellation, through the Extranet or the Pulse app. If a guest writes to you near the end of that period, Booking allows a reply window that can run past the seven-day mark. You never see their real email address, only an anonymous alias. And the partner terms bar you from using the messaging service, or the guest contact details Booking gave you, to send unsolicited electronic communications to anyone.

Where partner messaging actually lives

Two surfaces, one inbox. On the Extranet you open Reservations, click the guest's name, scroll to Conversation with guest, and type a message or pick a template. Replies land under Inbox, then Reservation messages. The Pulse app does the same job from a phone: Bookings, pick the guest, write under Messages.

Message templates can be scheduled to go out after booking or before check-in, the closest thing here to an automated pre-arrival sequence. One limit is worth knowing before you design around it. On attachments, the help page says: "To ensure partner and guest information-sharing safety, we don't support PDFs or QR codes as an attachment format – we only support images." If you need to get a printable arrival sheet to a guest through Booking's messaging tools, you will generally need to send it as an image or make it available through an approved link.

The clocks running on every reservation

We have not found these timings collected in one place. In several cases Booking's developer documentation is more explicit than its partner help pages.

The guest can write to you for more than two months after they leave. You can normally initiate messages for only one week. Booking does not explain the gap on any page we could find, and in practice a late guest message may be the only way further communication becomes possible after day seven.

The reservation detail you might want for a dispute also leaves the Extranet about three weeks after your own sending window has closed. As a practical matter, many hosts will want damage claims, reconciliations and reservation audits finished inside that thirty-day period.

The alias, and the phone number sitting next to it

Booking's privacy line is clear enough: "we don't share private email addresses. You and your guests will only ever see an anonymous alias ending in @guest.booking.com or @partner.booking.com."

On the same help page, the steps for reaching a guest include this: "If you'd prefer to call your guest, you can see their contact number by clicking Show phone number." And the FAQ at the bottom of that page answers "Can I get the guests' contact information?" with "we can't share any personal information with either party."

Booking's documentation refers to guest phone numbers being visible in some circumstances while also stating that personal information cannot be shared, and it does not explain how those statements fit together. Its own security article tells partners they "probably have access to a large amount of guest data, including names, addresses, credit card details, and phone numbers."

What reaches you varies by configuration, the address in your inbox is usually a relay, and being handed a detail is not the same as being free to use it. We wrote up where guest details actually end up across our own properties in a piece on guest data privacy.

Messaging security settings, and the link that quietly disappears

Under Property, then Messaging preferences, then Security settings, behind two-factor authentication, sit two admin-only allowlists. The email one registers which addresses or domains may reach your guests: "Any messages sent from unregistered email addresses won't reach your guests."

The link one catches people out. You register the URLs or domains allowed to appear in your messages, and after that, in Booking's words, "any links you haven't added will be removed from your messages. Your guests won't be able to click them and instead will see [Link was removed]." Booking's own example of what to register is "your property's website address or a link to your online check-in tool."

If you have ever switched this on and later had a guest say the arrival link did not reach them, start there. Registering your own check-in or guidebook domain is the documented purpose of the setting, not a way around anything. There is also a version you do not control: Booking says that if it detects suspicious activity on your account it will disable your ability to include links in messages at all, to stop criminals sending fake payment links in your name.

What the partner terms say about marketing

The clause people go looking for sits in the General Delivery Terms, section 2.9, Messaging Service. Clause 2.9.3 reads:

"The Accommodation shall not use the Messaging Service and/or Guest contact details provided by Booking.com to the Accommodation to send unsolicited electronic communications to any individual and fully indemnifies Booking.com for any claims from third parties and any fines resulting from the unlawful or unauthorized use of the Messaging Service and/or Guest contact details by the Accommodation."

The clause names the guest contact details as well as the messaging channel, so its wording is not confined to messages sent inside Booking's inbox. It restricts unsolicited communications without going on to describe what a solicited one would look like.

The data annex adds the other half. Where Booking transmits personal data to you, "the Accommodation acts as an independent and separate Data Controller in relation to its own processing of such Personal Data." That is the role the contract puts you in.

We run properties, we are not lawyers, and none of this is legal advice. What that clause means in your market, and what your consent wording needs to say, belongs with your own counsel.

Airbnb and Vrbo answer the same question differently

All three channels are built to keep the guest relationship. Where they part company is on whether consent buys you anything, and each has written that down somewhere different.

Vrbo is the only one of the three that writes an express-consent carve-out into the policy text itself. Airbnb's prohibited list carries no equivalent, and Booking's clause stops at unsolicited. That same Vrbo policy tells hosts not to include "links, QR codes, buttons, or contact details that are intended to redirect guests away from Vrbo", so the test it sets is one of intent.

The clause-by-clause reading of the Airbnb side is in our post on getting direct bookings without risking your Airbnb account, and the pricing side of Booking is in our Genius programme post. Platform policies change periodically, so check your own extranet before you act on any of this.

Where we got this wrong ourselves

In the early years we had a QR code posted physically in the property that opened a form asking for the guest's email address for marketing. Because it was printed and left up, every guest saw it, whichever channel they had booked through. A printed code cannot tell channels apart. For a while that put us against booking channels' guidance, and we took it down. That episode is where our own data process started.

Where a legitimate contact list comes from

Not from extraction. It comes from a guest choosing to give you their details, with the consent recorded, on a channel where that ask belongs. On OTA reservations, many operators choose not to make the ask at all unless they have established that the request is permitted by both the platform's policy and the law that applies to them. What makes it workable is one guidebook you maintain once, where the ask appears or disappears according to where the booking came from, so it does not depend on you remembering. We covered the mechanics in guest registration for short-term rentals.

FAQ

Can I email a guest who booked through Booking?

Not at a real address, in most cases. What you have is an anonymous alias, and the partner terms bar using the messaging service or the contact details Booking provided to send unsolicited electronic communications. Service messages about the stay itself are what that channel exists for.

How long can I message a guest on Booking?

From the time of booking until seven days after check-out or cancellation. If the guest writes to the reservation, Booking's developer documentation says you can reply for up to 14 days from their message, "even if this exceeds the 7-day post-checkout limit". Guests get much longer than you do: 66 days after check-out or cancellation.

Why did my link disappear from a message to a guest?

The likeliest answer is that the messaging security link setting is switched on and the domain is not registered. Guests see "[Link was removed]" where the link was. Booking can also disable links on your account entirely if it detects suspicious activity there.

Can I message a Booking guest on WhatsApp instead?

Booking's guidance is to keep it on its own rails: "Only use Booking.com platforms, the Extranet, and Pulse app to communicate with guests securely." Its stated reason is security, since messages sent on the platform are stored and can be reviewed if something goes wrong.

Can I add guests who booked through an OTA to my mailing list?

Not from the contact details the platform handed you. Airbnb prohibits using guest contact information for marketing lists. Vrbo permits general marketing that travelers have expressly agreed to receive. Booking's clause covers unsolicited messages and stops there. The version that holds up everywhere is a contact who chose to give you their details on a channel where asking is allowed.

If you would rather not wire this up yourself

Our Guest Registration widget sits in front of the guidebook and captures name, email, phone, language and country from guests who register themselves. Each guest consents for themselves, so a family suite can produce several contacts where the booking produced one. Contacts export to CSV or push out by webhook into your own email tool, since we do not send marketing email and are not going to imply otherwise. Activating it needs your own privacy policy URL, a legal obligation on you rather than a SmoothStay rule.

OTA Compliance Mode, included on all plans, handles the channel difference. When a booking arrives from a channel you have flagged as restricted, the registration widget is switched off for that guest altogether, not merely stripped of its marketing opt-in. A reservation link inherits that from the booking sources you configured, while a general link you share through a channel carries whichever flag you set on it. Guest Registration sits on the paid plan, with a 14-day trial and no card.