Hospitable adds backup teammates, so a declined turnover reassigns itself

Hospitable's 2 October release changes how task assignment works. You can now name backup teammates on a task, and if the primary person declines, the job moves down the list on its own.

The cascade is automatic. When the primary teammate declines, the task goes to the first backup, who gets a notification to accept or decline. It carries on through the backup list until somebody accepts, or until the options run out. If nobody accepts, Hospitable tells you the task was declined.

For anyone running turnovers with a pool of cleaners, that is the gap closed. The old failure mode was a declined task sitting unnoticed until a guest arrived to a dirty property. Now the fallback is configured in advance rather than chased by phone.

You can also create a new teammate while you are in the middle of creating or editing a task. If you search for someone and they are not there, you add them on the spot instead of leaving the flow.

Two changes to automated messaging

Automated messages about reservation details now wait until the guest's payment has been confirmed. Hospitable's reasoning is that guests were receiving confirmation messages that contradicted the payment status on the same booking.

This is a changed default rather than a feature, and it is worth understanding before you notice it. A message that used to go out on booking may now go out later, or not at all if the payment never confirms. If your pre-arrival sequence depends on the first message landing immediately, check it.

The Inbox now also shows certain automated emails that Hospitable sent to the guest, so you can see what they have already been told before you reply. Vrbo payment recovery emails are the first ones included, with more direct payment emails to follow.

Booking.com guest verification

Eligible Booking.com reservations now carry a banner in the Inbox chat when the guest is unverified. Tapping it opens the verification flow. Dismissing it hides the banner for that reservation on that device.

The timing is not accidental. Booking.com stopped passing guest phone numbers to connected systems on 28 September, which removed one of the ways a property could confirm who was arriving. An identity check inside the Inbox is a partial answer to that.

The rest of the release

Wi-Fi details in the Guest Portal now come with a QR code, so a guest scans instead of typing a password. The password is still shown.

Owner payouts now show more clearly how a payment will be divided.

Upsells and Rental Agreements have moved under the Guest Experience menu.

On iPhone, the Inbox reply box stays visible while you scroll a conversation, and the keyboard closes on scroll while keeping your draft.

What to do

The backup teammates feature only helps if you populate it, and it will not retrofit itself onto existing recurring tasks. If turnover coverage is the thing that wakes you up, that is the twenty minutes of setup worth doing this week.

Then check the payment-confirmation change against your message timeline, because it moves when guests hear from you rather than what they hear.