Booking.com guests can still get every message in your guest journey. The difference is that you now ask for their phone number instead of receiving it. A short form sent after booking collects it, with consent, and your journeys continue on the channel the guest chose.
What changed
Since 28 September 2026, Booking.com no longer sends guest phone numbers to connected hotel systems, including your PMS and Bookboost. This applies to new reservations and to changes made to existing ones.
Phone numbers you already have stay in place.
You can still see a guest's number in the Booking.com Extranet and the Pulse app.
Reservation sync, guest names, and stay dates are not affected.
Booking.com has told its partners the reason is guest safety: it wants to reduce phishing messages that use real booking details.
What this means for your journeys
If a journey sends on WhatsApp or SMS first, a Booking.com guest now has no number to send to. What happens next depends on your channel preferences for that campaign:
Email is active in the fallback order: the guest receives the message by email, through the address Booking.com gives you for the guest. It arrives in their Booking.com chat, without formatting or buttons.
Email is not active: the guest receives nothing, and you do not see an error.
Writing messages for Booking.com guests
A message to a Booking.com guest does not go straight to the guest. Booking.com receives it and shows it in the guest's Booking.com chat. On the way, Booking.com removes all formatting: buttons, colours, layout, and any link hidden behind a word disappear. Only the plain text arrives.
That matters most for links. If the link to your form sits behind a button, the guest sees the button text and has nothing to click.
What you write | What the Booking.com guest sees |
A button labelled "Share your details" | The words "Share your details", with nothing to click |
"Please share your details here", with "here" linked | "Please share your details here", with nothing to click |
"Please share your details:", with the form's Digital Reception token on the line below | The full web address, which the guest can tap |
How to write a message for Booking.com guests
Write the message as plain text. Do not use buttons or linked words.
Say in one short sentence what the link is for.
On its own line underneath, insert the form's Digital Reception token. In the message editor, open the tokens, go to Digital Reception, and choose your form from the Forms group, not Guest Forms. Do not paste the form's web address. Bookboost turns the token into the full link when the message is sent, and most phones and email apps make it tappable.
Send a test to yourself before you publish, and check the link opens.
An example message:
Hi Anna, we look forward to welcoming you on 14 October.
So we can send your door code and arrival details by WhatsApp, please share your phone number here. It takes one minute:
(Digital Reception token for your form)
If your journey already uses a template with buttons, create a plain-text version of the message for Booking.com guests.
How to keep reaching your Booking.com guests
Work through these in order. Step 1 stops guests being skipped today. Steps 2 to 4 bring WhatsApp and SMS back.
1. Turn on email as a fallback
Open each journey that reaches Booking.com guests.
Go to Channel Preferences.
Make sure Email is set to Active and sits in the fallback order.
Each guest still receives one message, on the first channel that works.
See Channel preferences.
2. Send guests a form that collects their contact details
This is the step that gives you back direct contact with the guest. Send a short form by email journey to guests who booked through an OTA, shortly after they book. What they submit is saved on their profile in Bookboost.
Note: If you have the Guest App feature enabled on your account, please use the forms section there. If you do not have subscribed to our Guest App, please use the forms under “Forms (Legacy)”.
Create a journey filtered to guests who booked through an OTA, with Email as the channel.
Insert the form's Digital Reception token into the message as plain text, from the Forms group. See How to write a message for Booking.com guests above.
Publish the journey and send yourself a test booking to check the link arrives and opens.
Keep the form short. Every extra field is another reason for a guest to close the page.
You do not need the Guest App to use a form. A form can be sent on its own inside a journey.
If you use Mews or Apaleo, switch on Update PMS in the form editor so the details are also written to your PMS. If you use Mews, you can also send Mews' own online check-in link instead.
3. Send your WhatsApp messages after the form
Once a guest submits the form, their phone number and preferred channel are saved on their profile. A campaign that starts when the form is submitted then sends your welcome on the channel they chose, usually within minutes of them filling it in.
What the guest experiences
They book on Booking.com.
They receive your email with the form link in their Booking.com chat (step 2).
They fill in the form with their phone number and choose WhatsApp.
Right after submitting, they receive your WhatsApp welcome.
How to set up the campaign
Go to Campaigns and create a new Journey campaign.
As the trigger, choose After Dr Form was submitted.
Write your welcome message. You can use your usual tokens, such as the guest's first name and arrival date.
Open Channel Preferences and set the order to WhatsApp first, SMS second, and email third. Check that all three are set to Active.
Switch on Prioritise guests' channel preference. It is off by default, so you need to switch it on for this campaign.
Activate the campaign.
Four things to know before you activate
The trigger starts after any form submission, not only this form. If you also use online check-in, guests who complete check-in receive this message too. Write it so it works for both, for example "Thank you, we have your details. From now on we will keep you updated here."
The guest's answers are not available as tokens. You cannot quote back what they typed, such as their phone number or arrival time.
WhatsApp needs a template approved by Meta. Approval can take from a few hours to several days, so submit the template before you build the campaign.
The guest must have opted in to WhatsApp. If they have not, or the number is missing, Bookboost sends the message on the next channel in your order instead. Make sure the consent question in your form covers WhatsApp.
4. Let guests message you first
When a guest messages you on WhatsApp, you can reply freely for 24 hours, with no outbound cost. Add your WhatsApp link as a plain URL to your pre-arrival message and have your WhatsApp number on your website. You can also put QR codes at reception and in rooms.
5. Check how many guests you can reach
Track two numbers per property: the share of Booking.com reservations with a phone number on the profile, and how many guests complete the form. If completion is low, rewrite the sentence explaining why you are asking before you change anything else. Think about a small incentive, e.g. free drink at the hotelbar, free (upgraded faster) wifi access etc.
Booking.com settings to check once
Whitelist your domains. In your Booking.com settings, add your own domain and the Bookboost domains to the whitelist. Without this, Booking.com can hold messages back before they reach the guest.
Set up the Booking.com email parser, so guest replies arrive as readable conversations in your Unified Inbox.
When you reply to a Booking.com guest
Booking.com never gives you the guest's real email address. It gives you a Booking.com address for the guest, and can issue a new one as the conversation continues. Reply to the address the guest last wrote from, and check it is set as the primary address on the profile before you send. If the guest has a personal email address on their profile, set that back as primary afterwards, or your next campaigns go to Booking.com instead of the guest.
For more detail, see Messaging Booking.com guests and What is the Booking.com email parser?
When a guest needs you urgently
For a guest standing outside at 1 am, look up their number in the Booking.com Extranet or the Pulse app. Use this for exceptions only. Copying numbers across in bulk brings the manual work back.
What this does not do
It does not retrieve numbers from Booking.com. Guests have to give them to you.
A number is not marketing consent. Without the consent checkbox ticked, you can contact the guest about their stay but not send marketing.
The AI Agent does not answer every Booking.com message. It responds to FAQs, not to individual requests. Your team handles those.
Guests who ignore the form stay reachable by email only. The form is an invitation, and some guests will not accept it.
Common questions
Do I need to change anything for direct bookings? No. This change only affects reservations from Booking.com.
Will the phone numbers I already have disappear? No. Numbers already received stay on the guest profile.
Do I need the Guest App? No. Forms can be sent on their own inside a journey. If you are not sure whether forms are included in your plan, contact support.
Can Bookboost set this up for me? Our support team can go through your journeys with you in a short session: which campaigns are affected, where to turn on email fallback, and how to build your form. You make the changes in your account.
Getting help
Open Talk to Us in the left menu, or email [email protected].