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Connect Hostaway or Guesty

Bring reservations, payouts and guest messages in from your channel manager, map each listing to a unit, and reply to guests through Reviews.

Updated 2026-10-18

If you run your short-term listings through Hostaway or Guesty, Rentals can read your reservations from it instead of from each listing's calendar link. Each reservation becomes a stay with its turnover cleaning, its money counts in the unit's figures, and you can read the guest's messages and send a reply you have approved.

You connect with keys you make in your own Hostaway or Guesty account. Only someone who manages the business can connect, sync, disconnect or draft a reply.

Where to find it

Open Rentals. On the Units tab, the Channel managers panel sits under your units. It shows once you have at least one short-term unit (see how to run short-term rentals).

The Channel managers panel with Hostaway and Guesty, both not connected
The Channel managers panel with Hostaway and Guesty, both not connected

Get your keys

Hostaway asks for an Account ID and an API key. Both come from your Hostaway dashboard: copy your account ID, and make an API key there.

Guesty asks for a Client ID and a Client secret. In Guesty, open Integrations → Developer tools → OAuth applications and create a new API application. Copy its client ID and client secret.

Keep the keys private: anyone with them can read your account.

Connect

  1. On the service's card, press Connect.
  2. Paste the two keys into the boxes.
  3. Press Connect Hostaway (or Connect Guesty).
The Hostaway card with the Account ID and API key filled in
The Hostaway card with the Account ID and API key filled in

The button stays grayed out until both boxes are filled. While it reads Checking…, Otto asks the service whether it accepts the keys. If it does, Otto says the service is connected and the card reads Connected, not synced yet. If it does not, the keys are not kept.

Match each listing to a unit

  1. On the card, press Sync now. Otto reads your listings and reservations.
  2. Your listings appear under the cards. Beside each one, pick the short-term unit it belongs to.
  3. For a listing you have no unit for yet, press Make a unit, pick the Owner…, and press Make. The unit is made as a short-term unit with the listing's name, address and bedrooms.
  4. Press Sync now again (after two minutes) to bring that listing's reservations in, or wait for the next sync.

A listing left on Not mapped brings no stays. Each unit takes one listing.

What syncs, and how often

Otto reads each connected service on its own about every 30 minutes. Sync now reads it straight away and says how many stays are new, moved and cancelled.

  • Listings: the name, address and bedrooms.
  • Reservations whose checkout is within the last month or still to come. Each one that is confirmed (in Hostaway, new or modified) becomes a stay on its unit, with a turnover cleaning, just as a stay from a calendar link does. When the dates change, the stay and its turnover move. When it is cancelled, they are cancelled.
  • The guest: only their first name, how many guests, the channel it was booked on, and the confirmation code. Their email and phone are not kept unless you press Save guest as a contact on the stay.
  • Money: each reservation's total, payout, channel fee, cleaning fee and taxes, as the service gives them, shown on the stay to positions that see money. The payout counts in the unit's figures on the Money tab when it is in your business's currency. If you also imported a payout file with a row for the same confirmation code, the file's row is used instead, so nothing counts twice. An amount the service does not give shows as "—".

The card shows Synced with the time of the last good read, or Sync failed in red with the reason.

A unit that still has a calendar link

A unit that reads both a calendar link and a channel manager would get every stay twice, so Otto holds the listing back and says so beside it: "This unit still reads an iCal link, so its stays would arrive twice. Remove the link to use this listing."

  1. Open the unit. Under Calendar links, press Remove on each link.
  2. Press Sync now on the channel manager's card.

Stays the link already brought are taken over by the matching reservation when the dates are the same, and keep their turnover, so no second cleaning is booked.

Guest messages and replies

Open a unit that is mapped to a listing. Its Hostaway: (listing) or Guesty: (listing) panel lists each stay still to come, with the guest's first name, guest count, channel and confirmation code.

  1. Press Messages to read the conversation. Messages are read from the service when you ask and are never stored. Refresh messages reads it again.
  2. Press Draft reply. Otto writes a short reply from the stay's dates, the unit's address and checkout time, and what you have taught Otto about your business. It never makes up a door code, wifi password, time or address: if the guest asks for one you have not given, the reply says you will confirm it.
  3. The draft waits in Reviews. Read it, change the text if you like, and approve it.

Nothing is sent to the guest until you approve it: approving sends it through Hostaway or Guesty. Copy draft copies the text if you would rather send it yourself.

Messages and replies are for stays still to come or under way.

Disconnect

Press Disconnect on the card and confirm. The keys are deleted from Otto and syncing stops. Stays already brought in stay, with their turnovers. A reply still waiting in Reviews cannot be sent until you connect again.

You can also delete the keys in your Hostaway or Guesty account, which stops them working everywhere.

If it doesn't work

  • "Hostaway did not accept those credentials. Check them, then connect again." (or Guesty) — copy the keys again from your account.
  • "Hostaway was read in the last 2 minutes. Try again shortly."
  • "Hostaway asked us to slow down. Otto will try again in a few minutes."
  • "Guesty gives each client ID five tokens a day and this one has used them. Syncing picks up again within 24 hours."
  • "Listings map to short-term units." — edit the unit and set Let to Short-term.
  • "Another listing is already mapped to that unit." — set the other listing to Not mapped first.
  • "Hostaway has no conversation for this reservation yet." — the guest has not written yet.
  • "There are no messages in this conversation to reply to."
  • "Hostaway is no longer connected. Connect it on the Rentals page, then approve again." — shown in Reviews when a reply is approved after disconnecting.