This article explains why messages between your property and a Booking.com guest can fail to appear in the RMS Message Centre or fail to reach the guest, and how to fix each cause.

Messages with Booking.com guests travel through the Booking.com connection, not through Form Letters or email. In RMS they appear in the Message Centre under Online Travel Agent. Either the property or the guest can start a conversation. Messages can be sent from the time of booking until 7 days after the guest checks out, or until 7 days after the booking is cancelled. Booking.com self-service requests are not supported; only direct messages between the property and the guest are.

Applies to: properties connected to Booking.com through Channel Management.

Please Note! RMS is highly configurable. Some Terminology, User Access & Permissions, Images, Labels, and Functions used in these articles may differ from your setup. CLICK HERE to find out more.

Quick Checks

Run through these first. They account for most missing messages.

1. Open the Message Centre from the top toolbar and set the date filter to cover the period the message was sent. Only conversations within the selected dates are listed.
2. Select Online Travel Agent in the left-hand list. Booking.com conversations do not appear under Online, SMS or Email.
3. Check the stay dates. Booking.com closes the conversation 7 days after check-out, or 7 days after a cancellation.
4. Check how the message was sent. A Form Letter or email sent from RMS is delivered by email through Booking.com, not through the Message Centre conversation, so look for it in the reservation's correspondence rather than under Online Travel Agent.

Possible Causes

Guest messages are not arriving in the Message Centre because Guest messages is not enabled for the RMS connection on Booking.com

When a property connects a connectivity provider such as RMS on Booking.com, it chooses which features the provider manages: Rates and Availability, Reservations, Content and photos, and Guest messages. If Guest messages was not selected when the connection was set up, or when the connection was set up again or switched, guest messages stay in the Booking.com extranet inbox and never reach RMS. There is no messaging switch on the RMS side of the connection.

Fix:

1. Sign in to the Booking.com extranet.
2. Click Account, then Connectivity provider.
3. Check that the features integrated for RMS include Guest messages.
4. If it is missing, follow Booking.com's steps in Setting up and working with a Connectivity provider. If the option is not available to you, contact Booking.com through the extranet inbox.
5. Send a test message from the Booking.com extranet inbox and confirm it arrives under Online Travel Agent in the Message Centre.

Links in your messages are not reaching the guest and show as [Link was removed]

Booking.com's messaging security settings control which links can reach guests. When the link setting is enabled, any link that has not been added to the approved list is removed from the message and the guest sees [Link was removed] instead. A separate Block all links option removes every link, including approved ones. These settings are managed on Booking.com by a user with admin rights to the extranet account, and they need two-factor authentication to open.

Fix:

1. Sign in to the Booking.com extranet with an account that has admin rights.
2. Click Property, then Messaging preferences, then Security settings, and complete two-factor authentication.
3. Click Add a link and enter the specific URL or the whole domain your messages use, for example your online check-in page, then click Add domain.
4. If Block all links is switched on, switch it off if you want any links to reach guests.
5. Send the message again from the Message Centre and check the guest's side.

Booking.com's own guide is All about our messaging security settings.

The message was sent by email to the guest's Booking.com email address

Booking.com guests book with an alias email address ending in @guest.booking.com rather than their own address. An email sent from RMS to that address, such as a Form Letter or a confirmation, is delivered by Booking.com's email relay, which applies the property's messaging security email setting: mail from a sender address that has not been registered with Booking.com does not reach the guest. The email is not sent through the Message Centre, so do not expect to see it under Online Travel Agent. To hold the conversation in the Message Centre, send the message from there instead.

Fix:

1. In the Booking.com extranet, click Property, then Messaging preferences, then Security settings, and complete two-factor authentication.
2. Click Add an email address and enter the address or domain your RMS emails are sent from, then click Add email address.
3. If Block all email communication is switched on, no email reaches the guest, including from approved addresses. Switch it off if you rely on email.

Prevention

When your property changes or reconnects its connectivity provider on Booking.com, check that Guest messages is included in the features selected for RMS before relying on the Message Centre for guest conversations. Register the links and email addresses your property uses under Messaging preferences on Booking.com when they are first set up, so later messages are not stripped.

Still Not Working?

The connection features and the messaging security settings are managed on Booking.com, so contact Booking.com through the extranet inbox for those. If a message shows in the Booking.com extranet inbox but not in the Message Centre after the checks above, submit a ticket to RMS Support and include:

• The property name and the reservation number.
• The date and time the message was sent, and who sent it.
• A screenshot of the conversation in the Booking.com extranet inbox.

Related Articles

• Booking.com: Channel Information
• Message Centre
• Online Critical Alerts in the Message Centre