You can pre-approve inquiries automatically by using a New booking inquiry messaging rule. This allows you to give the green light to your potential guests without having to intervene yourself.
We already include a New booking inquiry template in your messaging rules (found in Guest experience) which you are free to edit as you see fit. We'll use this guide to explain how to edit the existing rule - you can check this article to learn how to create a new rule from scratch.
Please note: Hospitable can only pre-approve Airbnb inquiries. We cannot extend pre-approvals, nor can we pre-approve Vrbo inquiries.
Head to Guest experience > Messaging rules to find your list of rules. Select the New booking inquiry template from the list:
The rule already includes a passage of text that we've created for you, utilizing short codes to automatically populate things like names and dates. Feel free to adjust this message to suit your own tone!
The template is set to send immediately after an inquiry is received. You can delay the message by up to 60 minutes or opt to prepare (but never send) the message. This allows you to review the request yourself and reply manually if needed.
Automatically pre-approve inquiries is the setting you want to enable to pre-approve any inquiries. This will automatically send the pre-approval to your guest, allowing them 24 hours to complete their reservation. With this setting enabled, we won't send any other pre-approval-related rules to avoid sending repetitive messages to your guests.
Scope is important here, as we can only pre-approve Airbnb inquiries. We recommend scoping this message as such:
Platforms - Airbnb only
Hosts - Only Airbnb hosts
Properties - Only properties containing an Airbnb listing
This will avoid any confusion for your guests. A Vrbo inquiry could receive this message but not be pre-approved.
Once you have edited your rule, all you need to do is enable it by selecting the toggle next to its name - either from within the rule itself or on the Messaging rules overview.
As an inquiry is received, we will check the requested dates and send the message and pre-approval to your guest depending on the Timing setting of the rule. Airbnb guests aren't able to inquire about unavailable dates, so you don't need to worry about anybody being pre-approved in error.