Direct bookings
Running your own direct bookings — checkout, payments and draft invoices.
Nobody Should Manage a Night Cap by Hand
Counting nights against a letting limit every month, for every property, forever, is a job that fails quietly. What it takes to hand it over safely — and what should still need your say-so.
Can a night cap be managed automatically? →
Which Nights Should You Give Up?
If a night cap means closing part of your year, the question is not how many nights but which ones. Rank the year by your own rate card and the answer changes by thousands.
Which nights should I close to stay under a night cap? →
Your Villa Sleeps Eight. Who Actually Books It?
An average party size hides the shape of who comes. What a group-size breakdown shows, why it changes year to year, and what it means for how you price extra guests.
What size of group actually books my place? →
Open an Airflow Account Without Leaving WhatsApp
Message Airflow on WhatsApp and you can sign up, set up your listing from a link to it, set your price and put your booking page live, all in the chat. Here is how it works, step by step, and what it does not do yet.
Can I open an Airflow account on WhatsApp? →
Can I Move from WordPress to Booking Software?
Yes. You can keep your WordPress site and add a booking engine to it, or move the whole site across. What comes with you, what does not, and the order to do it in.
Can I move from WordPress to booking software? →
Vienna and Berlin: When the Cap Depends on Where You Sleep
In Vienna and Berlin the number of nights you may let depends first on whether the flat is your main home. Why residence is the hinge, what each city allows, and how to set it up.
How many nights can I let in Vienna or Berlin? →
Travellers Find You While They Plan, Not After They Search
Booking sites wait for a traveller to type a search. On Airflow Guest and Airflow Stay your place is part of the trip while it is still being planned. How that works, and how to get your place in front of those travellers.
How do travellers find my place while they plan a trip? →
Confirmed in Their Portal, Paid to You
When a traveller on Airflow Guest books your place, the booking is confirmed inside their own Guest Portal and the money goes directly to you. Here is the whole journey, from request to payment.
How am I paid when a traveller books through Airflow Guest? →
Barcelona's Tourist Licences All Expire in November 2028
Roughly 10,101 HUT licences, none renewable, all gone by November 2028 — upheld by the Constitutional Court. No calendar setting fixes this. What the options actually are.
What happens to Barcelona tourist licences in 2028? →
Italy's CIN: The Code That Goes on Your Listing and Your Front Door
Italy's national identification code must appear in every advert and physically at the property. What the CIN is, how it differs from the regional CIR, and the €8,000 downside.
What is Italy's CIN code, and where must I show it? →
Amsterdam's 30 Nights — and 15, If You're in the Wrong Street
Amsterdam caps holiday letting at 30 nights a year, and at 15 in eleven central neighbourhoods since April 2026. Plus the per-booking reporting duty hosts keep missing.
How many nights can I let in Amsterdam? →
Paris Is 90 Nights Now, Not 120
Paris cut its principal-residence cap from 120 nights to 90 with effect from January 2025. What changed, what the 13-character number is, and how to count it.
How many nights can I let my home in Paris? →
London's 90 Nights: How to Count Them Before the Council Does
The 90-night rule applies to the property, not to you, resets on 1 January, and has a second condition most hosts have never heard of. How to count it properly.
How do I count London's 90 nights? →
Three Properties, Three Spreadsheets, One Sunday Afternoon
Multi-property owners reconcile by hand because each property lives in a different place. What a portfolio view shows that three spreadsheets cannot, including the pipeline nobody tracks.
How do I see all my properties on one page? →
Occupancy Was 78%. So Why Was It a Bad Year?
Occupancy and average rate both flatter a bad year. What a per-night value chart shows that neither does, and how to find the months where you discounted and still didn't fill.
What did each night of my year actually earn? →
Airbnb Says 15%. Your Books Say 18.4%.
Headline commission is not what you pay. A breakdown of what each booking channel actually costs once service fees and taxes are out, and how to see your own number.
What does each booking channel really cost me? →
Will My Garden Cottage Be Affected by Cape Town's 50% Availability Rule?
You live in the five-bedroom house and let the two-bedroom cottage. Under Cape Town's draft by-law the erf is one property, so the cottage borrows the whole house's capacity — and the answer flips entirely if the City counts it the other way.
Will Cape Town's 50% rule affect my garden cottage? →
Short-term Letting in the City of Cape Town
What the City of Cape Town's draft Short-Term Letting By-Law, 2026 actually requires: registration, a registration number on every listing, availability and occupancy data sharing, and the 50% room-nights rates threshold. Comment closed on 5 October 2026; rating changes are due from 1 July 2027.
What does Cape Town's draft short-term letting by-law require? →
Copenhagen's 70 Nights and the Reporting Condition
Denmark lets you rent out your whole home for 70 days a year only when every booking goes through a platform that reports your income to the tax agency. Otherwise it is 30.
How many nights can I let my home in Copenhagen? →
How to Get Direct Bookings Instead of Relying on Airbnb
A practical plan for moving part of your business off the channels: somewhere to book, somewhere to be found, a reason to trust you, and a way to keep the guest once they arrive.
How do I get direct bookings instead of relying on Airbnb? → Turning a Repeat Channel Guest Into a Direct Booking, Without Breaking the Rules
Your best guests keep coming back through the channel, and you pay commission every time. What the channels forbid, what they do not, and how to be the easy option when a guest goes looking for you.
How do I turn a repeat Airbnb guest into a direct booking? →
Where Your Bookings Are Actually Sold
A row of tiles under your bookings list and calendar showing every place each property can be booked, whether it is live, and the listing title Airflow matches your booking emails against.
Where can each of my properties be booked? →
Is a Direct Booking Actually Worth More? Run the Numbers
A direct booking does not save you the channel's whole commission. A worked example of what each side really costs, the largest discount you can offer before you lose money, and when direct is worth less.
Is a direct booking really worth more than an Airbnb one? →
Tourist Tax and City Tax on Short-Term Rentals: How to Charge It Properly
How tourist, city and occupancy taxes on short-term rentals are worked out, who collects them, and how to charge them correctly on your direct bookings.
How do I charge tourist tax on a short-term rental? →
What to Send a Guest Before Arrival, and When
A pre-arrival timeline for short-term rental hosts: what to send at booking, once paid, a week out, three days out and on check-in day, and how to automate it.
What should I send a guest before arrival, and when? →
Staying Under Cape Town's 50% Letting Threshold
The draft by-law counts nights your property is available, not nights it's booked. Here's how the 50% maths works and what it means for your rates bill.
How do I stay under Cape Town's 50% letting threshold? →
No-Shows and Guests Who Never Pay
Abandoned checkouts, offers that expire, and the stay nobody turned up for. What each one should do to your calendar, your books and your task allowance.
What should happen when a guest never pays or never arrives? → How to Take a Deposit on a Direct Booking
How much to ask for, when the balance should fall due, and the edge case that trips up every booking system: a guest who books inside your own balance window.
How do I take a deposit on a direct booking? →
What to Do When a Guest Hasn't Paid the Balance
The balance was due last Tuesday and nothing happened. How to chase it, how to reach a guest whose email you never got, and what to automate.
What do I do when a guest hasn't paid the balance? →
Your Calendar Still Shows a Cancelled Booking
A guest cancelled on the channel, but the dates are still blocked everywhere else. Why feeds leave stale blocks behind, and how to clear them.
Why does my calendar still show a cancelled booking? →
Setting a Cancellation Policy for Direct Bookings
Free cancellation until when? What to charge, what to put in writing, and the one safeguard that stops a guest's throwaway email cancelling a real booking.
How do I set a cancellation policy for direct bookings? →
Cancelling Shouldn't Take Your Listing Down
Downgrading and closing your account are two different decisions. Now they have two different outcomes — one listing stays live, takes bookings, and gets paid.
Does my listing stay live if I cancel my plan? → Show Airbnb and Google Reviews on Your Website
Your best reviews sit on a channel that charges commission. How to get them onto your own site, what each platform's terms allow, and four pitfalls.
How do I show Airbnb and Google reviews on my website? →
How to Set Seasonal Rates for a Short-Term Rental
Fixed rack rates or a percentage off a base? Recurring seasons, minimum stays, discount stacking, and a yearly increase that compounds correctly.
How do I set seasonal rates for a short-term rental? →
A Booking Is a Thing at a Time
One booking engine for nights, days, per-person tours, appointments and timed sessions, with the same checkout, invoice and books behind every type.
Can one system take nights, tours and appointments? →
Price Next Season Before You Have To
See what each season actually achieved against the rate you set, then apply a yearly increase per season, only where your own booking data supports it.
How should I price next season? →
Quote in Their Currency, Bank in Yours
Quote a guest in their currency and keep your books in yours. How Airflow locks the exchange rate, tracks the balance owed, and keeps Xero reconciled.
Can I quote guests in their currency and bank in mine? →
The Pin on the Map Is Deliberately Wrong
Keep your property's exact address private on a public listing, and release it automatically on confirmation, on payment, or days before arrival.
How do I keep my exact address private on a listing? →
It's a Trip, Not a Booking
Guests have trips, not bookings. Paste an itinerary or forward a flight confirmation and Airflow builds the plan: stays, flights and activities in one place.
How do I turn an itinerary into one trip plan? →
Your Reviews, On Every Surface You Own
Put your Airbnb and Google reviews on your own booking page, website and embeds. Airflow reads them out of the notification emails you already receive.
How do I put my reviews on my own booking page? →
Go Live on Your Own Terms
Publish your direct booking page, your marketplace listing and your website embed separately, per property. Or run Airflow accounting-only, with no public page.
Can I publish my booking page and listing separately? →
Every Booking You Already Have, In One Place
Import existing bookings three ways: a CSV or Google Sheet, an iCal feed, or typed by hand. Every route blocks the dates before it touches your books.
How do I import the bookings I already have? → Accepting PayPal Payments for Your Bookings
How PayPal fits into your booking workflow, where Airflow handles the payment, and how to keep your accounts clean either way.
Can I accept PayPal for my bookings? → Taking Bookings from Instagram & Facebook (Meta)
A lot of enquiries start on Instagram or Facebook. Here's how to turn that interest into a real booking without losing it in your DMs.
How do I take bookings from Instagram and Facebook? →
Your Website Builder Bill Is Just the Start
A website builder gives you a brochure. For less than a Wix subscription, Airflow gives hosts the website and the operating system behind it — and moves your old site over in one conversation.
Is a website builder enough for a booking business? →
Guest Payments & Deposits
How Airflow handles guest payments — from deposit collection at booking to balance payments via the guest portal, with support for Stripe, Paystack, and manual methods.
How does Airflow take guest payments and deposits? →
The Guest Portal Experience
After booking, your guests get their own trip portal — itinerary, property details, documents, payments, and companion sharing. No app download required.
What do my guests see in their portal? →
Your Custom Booking Website
How Airflow gives you a branded direct booking website where guests can browse availability, book, and pay — with zero OTA commission.
How do I get my own booking website? →
WordPress Booking Plugins Are Holding You Back
WooCommerce Bookings, Amelia, Jetwoobuilder — WordPress plugins promise booking management but deliver frustration. Here's why they fail, and how Airflow's WordPress plugin and embeddable widgets turn any website into a direct booking system.
Are WordPress booking plugins good enough? →
Your Booking Business Deserves a Real Website — Not a Linktree
Airflow's Website addon gives property managers a professionally designed, mobile-ready site with booking integration, custom domains, and managed hosting.
Why does my booking business need a real website? →
Your Own Booking Engine, for Free — Why Direct Bookings Change Everything
Every Airflow plan includes direct booking: a Stripe-powered checkout, draft invoices, and full guest ownership — with no monthly fee for the booking engine.
Can I get my own booking engine without a monthly fee? →