Guest journey overview

Updated on 2026-08-17

The Manage → Automated messages page no longer shows a dull table but a visual guest journey timeline — from the moment someone books until after departure.

How do you read it?

You see a vertical line with lifecycle stages:

• 🎫 Guest books
• 💳 Payment received (deposit or full straight away)
• ✅ Fully paid (remaining balance)
• 📅 X days before arrival (pre-arrival, payment reminder)
• 🏠 Arrival day
• ⭐ X days after departure (review request)
• ⏱️ Booking expires (not paid)
• ❌ Booking cancelled

Each stage has automations attached as cards:

• 🟢 green dot = active
• ⚫ grey dot = inactive (paused)
• Blue template badge (booking-confirmed, booking-fully-paid, …)
• Channel filter in plain language ("Only: direct, website" or "All except: booking.com, airbnb")
• 🔒 badge if the payment link is hidden (OTA bookings)

Stages without an automation show a grey "No email configured" placeholder — so you immediately see gaps in your flow.

You don't start with an empty schedule: every new environment comes with a default set of seven messages (confirmation direct and via OTA, payment received, payment reminder, pre-arrival, expired booking, cancellation). You can edit, disable or extend them — but from day one your guests get a confirmation.

WhatsApp on the timeline

Next to the e-mail cards, some stages also carry WhatsApp cards. These are built into BedFlow — you don't create them yourself — but you edit their wording under Message templates.

Two of them go out to your guest automatically:

• Pre-arrival, 2 days before arrival at 10:00 — check-in times plus the link to their personal guest page. For every booking, including ones from Cubilis, Hostaway or an OTA connection.
• Arrival-day welcome, at 09:05, right after the 09:00 welcome e-mail. This one follows your welcome mail: if that arrival-day automation is off, no WhatsApp goes out either. That keeps the timeline honest.

Both only go out when your property has a WhatsApp connection and the guest has a mobile number. If a number turns out not to be on WhatsApp, BedFlow remembers that instead of retrying every time — you'll see a warning on the booking. The welcome WhatsApp can also be sent on its own with the button in the room overview.

Adding a new automation

Click New automation at the top right. You enter a 5-step wizard:

1. When? — Choose a trigger type (booking_created, payment_received, days_before_arrival, …)
2. For which bookings? — Channels include/exclude (leave empty for everyone)
3. Which email? — Choose a template from the catalogue
4. Options — Active toggle, hide payment link (for OTA), hide payment deadline, order
5. Summary — live green card showing in one sentence what is going to happen. Updates as you tweak.

Example summary:

"🎫 On booking created → send Booking Confirmed — only for direct, website (without payment link)"

Active vs inactive

Every rule has an Active toggle. By default rules are inactive when I create them for you — so you can review the content (via Email Templates) before they go live.

No email is sent while the rule is inactive.