AI guest messaging for Hostfully
TravelPal answers your guests in the Hostfully thread for their stay. It connects with an API key from Agency Settings and your agency UID.
One Hostfully connection works in both directions. Each item is explained below.
What TravelPal reads from Hostfully
Vacation rental property management companies that run their properties, their booking site, and their digital guidebooks on Hostfully. Hostfully says it has more than 62,000 properties.
A property, built from all three of its records
Hostfully keeps the facts about the building, the written descriptions, and the amenity list in three places. TravelPal pulls all three into one property and the AI answers from it. That includes the address, room and bed counts, and amenities. It also has the check-in window, the checkout hour, and the minimum and maximum stay. It also includes the property time zone, so quiet hours follow local time. Hostfully has no field for house rules, so rules come from your knowledge base.
Leads, filtered down to real stays
Hostfully keeps bookings, inquiries, holds, owner blocks, duplicates and its own sample records in one record type. It is called a lead. TravelPal sets up a guest only when the lead is a booking and its status is booked. So a held date gets no greeting, and an owner block is not treated as an arrival. Each real one brings the channel it came from and the channel's own confirmation code. It also brings the party count and the guest's preferred language.
One thread per stay, with every sender named
Hostfully keeps one thread for each booking, not one for each guest. So the history is the conversation about that stay, not everything a person ever wrote. Each message shows who sent it. It can be the guest, someone at your agency, the owner, or Hostfully's own platform automation. It can also be an Airbnb user the channel does not name. A platform receipt is never mistaken for one of your people.
Money lives in the order, so TravelPal reads the order
The rent, cleaning fee, other fees, services and any adjustment sit on a separate order. The order is behind the lead. TravelPal reads that order for the stay it is working on. It keeps Hostfully's own line ids and reads a refund as a refund, not as a second sale. So a refunded extra is not counted twice in your upsell numbers.
What TravelPal writes back to Hostfully
Every message goes out through Hostfully, never around it. So your Hostfully inbox shows exactly what each guest was told.
Replies on whichever of the two rails can reach the guest
Hostfully sends a direct message when the lead came from Airbnb, Vrbo, or Booking.com. It sends email for everyone else. TravelPal picks between the two from the lead's own channel, not from a setting. A guest who booked on your own booking site gets email. An Airbnb guest stays inside Airbnb. Hostfully returns its own status on each send, and TravelPal treats accepted as accepted, not as delivered. See how the messaging works.
Each sale is emailed to your team
On Hostfully, TravelPal sells the extras you price yourself, like a damage waiver or an extra clean. Each sale is emailed to your team, so nobody has to find it in Hostfully. Early check-in and late checkout are not sold on a booking that came from Hostfully. TravelPal changes no arrival or departure time on a Hostfully lead.
Extra nights go to your team, not through the alteration
TravelPal does not call Hostfully's alteration, so it moves no dates on a lead. When a Hostfully guest asks for another night, your team gets the request and the dates. Your team makes the change in Hostfully. A guest who booked on a channel is sent there either way: a channel TravelPal cannot name is never treated as direct.
Connected in four steps
Hostfully turns on API access for your account. TravelPal does the rest itself.
Ask Hostfully to open the API
API access is a paid add-on on the Hostfully plan. Hostfully turns on production access for an agency by email. One note to your account manager covers both. Use the same note to ask for personal-data access on the key. A key needs it before it can change a guest's stated arrival or departure. Everything after that you do yourself.
Copy the key and the agency UID
You make the key in Hostfully, under Agency Settings. Paste it into TravelPal together with your agency UID. Hostfully gives you the UID; you do not create it. A mistyped paste costs one retry and no lockout.
Run on the sandbox first
Hostfully asks every integration to start on its sandbox. TravelPal points there until you switch the environment to production. You can read a full set of answers against test leads before any live guest sees one.
Switch to production and the properties import
TravelPal subscribes to Hostfully's booking and inbox events itself and imports your properties. From then on, every booked lead gets its own private guest link. If you disconnect, TravelPal removes those subscriptions from your agency and leaves none behind.
TravelPal shows the connection at every step: connected, last update, and any error in plain words. To see the other setup steps, read what onboarding involves.
What the Hostfully connection will not do
Know the limits of Hostfully before you turn anything on. Every property management system has its own limits. TravelPal works inside them, not around them.
SMS and WhatsApp can be read, not answered
These messages show in the Hostfully inbox and TravelPal reads them. But Hostfully's send has only two types: a channel direct message, and email. So a guest who texted is answered by the type Hostfully can deliver. A guest with no email address on a channel without direct messages is held for your team. TravelPal does not write to them somewhere they will not look.
No availability is read and no night is blocked
TravelPal does not quote availability from your Hostfully calendar, and it never holds a night in it. To hold a night, TravelPal would have to create a block record and later delete it. That delete is the same action that removes real bookings, so TravelPal does not use it. A sale that needs a date goes to your team instead.
No place in the thread for a note to your team
Both of Hostfully's message types are visible to the guest. The only notes on a lead are two free-text boxes, and a save replaces everything in them. That would erase what your staff last typed. TravelPal does not write in them. It also never sends a guest-visible message to reach your team. What a person needs to see goes to your own channel and by email, and the thread waits.
When TravelPal's AI is not sure, it stops and asks your team instead of guessing. This rule is the same on every system: see the safety guardrails.
Hostfully integration FAQ
Does Hostfully have to switch anything on before I connect?
Yes, and it takes one email. API access is a paid add-on on the Hostfully plan. Hostfully turns on production access for an agency by hand when you ask. Your account manager can settle both in the same thread. In that note, also ask for personal-data access on the key, so the connection is ready for everything on the roadmap. After that you make the key yourself in Agency Settings and paste it into TravelPal.
Which Hostfully guests can TravelPal reply to?
Airbnb, Vrbo, and Booking.com guests get a direct message inside the channel thread. Every other guest is answered by email, including guests who booked on your own Hostfully booking site. SMS and WhatsApp messages can be read in the Hostfully inbox, but Hostfully's send does not carry them. So TravelPal answers those guests by direct message or email, whichever it can deliver. It does not turn a text into something else.
What happens to my inquiries, holds, and owner blocks?
Nothing. Hostfully stores all of them as leads next to real bookings. A lead can read as booked when nobody has booked. TravelPal sets up only a lead that is a booking with the status booked. Inquiries, holds, owner blocks, duplicate copies, and Hostfully's own sample record are skipped, not greeted.
Can TravelPal see the door codes in my Hostfully account?
No. Hostfully shares lock and door codes through its API. TravelPal never calls that part of it and never subscribes to its updates. The house manual is kept out of what the AI reads for the same reason. Managers type codes and wifi passwords into that free-text box. Hostfully's own wifi fields and guidebook links are left out on the same rule. So are the owner notes on a property. What a guest is told about getting in comes from what your team publishes for guests in TravelPal. It does not come from Hostfully's code list.
Does connecting Hostfully cost extra with TravelPal?
No. The flat $25 per unit per month covers the connection, the messaging and the upsells. So does Growth, at $15 plus 20%. On the Flat plan TravelPal takes no commission on what it sells for you. The API add-on on your Hostfully plan is Hostfully's own charge, and TravelPal does not add to it.
Not the system you use?
TravelPal connects to 33 property management systems. Below are the systems closest to Hostfully in how widely they are used.
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Hostfully is a trademark of its owner. TravelPal is not affiliated with or endorsed by Hostfully.