Guest Portal (Mobile Guest App)

Haven has a fully mobile guest experience — the Guest Portal. It is a branded, mobile-first web app that every guest can open from any device. There is nothing to install from the App Store or Play Store: guests tap a secure link in their booking emails and the portal opens in the browser.

This is the single source of truth for the guest's stay. If anyone (a guest, a host, or an AI assistant) ever asks "does Haven have an app for guests?", the answer is yes — the Guest Portal.

What the Guest Portal is

The Guest Portal is the in-stay experience at /properties/{code}/guide. It's served from the host's own branded domain and is built for phones — guests open the same link throughout the stay.

It includes:

Trip details — dates, property, host contact, booking status
Check-in instructions — door codes, lockbox codes, arrival window, parking, building access. When a Seam smart lock is assigned, the unique stay PIN appears here; on the web guide guests can also unlock the door remotely during the access window
Climate — when a thermostat is assigned and guest control is on, booked guests can adjust heat/cool from the web guide during the stay
Wi-Fi — network name and password, one-tap copy. If the building or pool has its own network, add it under Edit Listing → Arrival → WiFi & contacts → Other Wi-Fi networks with a label such as Pool or Building. Each one shows in the guide's Wi-Fi tile under the unit's network and stays hidden until the guest's arrival details unlock, like the unit Wi-Fi. They are not synced from your PMS, and they do not appear in the printed guide, the {wifi_info} shortcode or the mobile app
Directions — a page with the property pinned on a map, its full street address (one-tap copy, for a taxi or ride app), your own directions from Directions to property if you wrote any, and an Open in Google Maps button for turn-by-turn navigation. Like Wi-Fi and the codes, it shows once the guest's arrival details unlock. The address and pin come from Location in the listing editor
House manual — appliance instructions, quiet hours, trash day, hot tub / pool rules, anything the host has documented
Local guide — host-curated restaurants, coffee, hikes, beaches, attractions, with maps and directions
Local weather — a live forecast for the property's location, shown in °F or °C (host's choice)
Climate — when a thermostat is assigned and guest control is on, guests can adjust the temperature from the guide during the stay. See Smart Thermostats & Climate Automation.
Direct chat with the host — in-portal AI assistant grounded in this property's data, including private stay details (codes, Wi‑Fi, contacts) that never reach the public site chat. If the assistant cannot answer a listing-specific question and the guest agrees, the full chat is passed to your Messages thread and emailed to you. Guests can also open Message host in the same chat to write you directly. Every reply is graded and any gaps surface in Analytics → Chats so you can add the missing context once for all your sites — see AI guest chat and Chat insights.
Rental agreement — once the stay is confirmed and paid, guests review and digitally sign before arrival
Guest ID verification — optional Stripe-hosted government ID check (and matching selfie) before Wi-Fi and lock codes unlock, shown after the stay is confirmed and paid. See Guest Identity Verification.
Receipts, payment methods, and add-ons — native experiences and add-ons, Truvi screen-and-protect, optional Host Co store
Itinerary — everything the guest planned or bought for the stay, day by day. A Your itinerary card on the Home tab shows the days with items on them and opens a full-screen, scrollable day-by-day view; the Offers tab has an Itinerary view too. Each item shows its time (or the time the guest requested, until you confirm it) and a Gift from your host chip when it was your gift. Add more on any day opens your offers with that day already chosen. Works for Haven bookings and for Airbnb, Vrbo and PMS stays with a guidebook. See Plan your stay: the guest itinerary.
Expenses — when you add an expense to a stay (a minibar, a late checkout agreed on the day), an Expenses card appears on the guide's Home tab: each line, what is paid, any stay credit taken off, what is still owed, and one Pay button that opens secure checkout. A tab the guest's stay credit covers is settled without a card. Guests sign in with their reservation to pay. See Add an expense during a stay.
Security deposit — where the host asks for one on that guest's booking channel, a task to add a card for a refundable hold, paid through Haven. This is how Airbnb, Vrbo and PMS guests place a deposit. See Security Deposits.
Checkout list — the "Before you leave" checklist guests tick off during the stay and on checkout morning (built-in and host-added tasks in the host's order), plus the checkout time and notes. See Checkout Tasks.
Guest profile: signed-in guests tap their name on the card right under Your tasks on the Home tab, on a phone and on a computer, to add a photo, where they're from, a few lines about themselves, interests and languages. On a computer the same card also sits at the bottom of the sidebar. Until the profile is filled in, the card says Introduce yourself and a ring around the photo shows progress. You see the profile as About the guest on the reservation and in Marketing → Audience. Sign out sits at the bottom of the same sheet. See Managing your trips. In the editor's phone preview the card shows a sample guest, Maya Torres, with a finished profile, so you can see what guests see. She isn't a real guest, and nothing you change on her profile is saved.

Your tasks on the Home tab is a to-do list: it shows only what the guest can still do. A task leaves the list the moment it is done, such as the How did you find us? survey once answered or skipped, a form once submitted, or a security deposit once the card is on file. Tasks the guest can't act on are left off too: one waiting for you to confirm it, an ID check Stripe is still reviewing, or a task whose link has no value yet for that stay. A trip member the booker invited sees only the guest forms, because the agreement, ID check, deposit, survey and your own tasks are the booker's. The card's header keeps the count of what's done ("1 of 2 complete"), and once nothing is left the card no longer shows. Guests who opened the guidebook from their link without signing in, such as Airbnb guests, can answer the survey too.

Both task lists are scoped by booking channel. Each check-in and checkout task can be shown to, or hidden from, guests who booked on the Haven site, directly, on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, or any other channel, so an Airbnb guest and a direct guest may open the same guidebook to different lists. Hosts set this from the channel pill on each task row under Edit Listing → Arrival → Check-in & tasks and Checkout & tasks.

How guests get to the portal

Every confirmed booking automatically sends a Guest Portal access email with a secure invite link. The link uses a per-booking token, so the guest opens the portal without a password and without signing up again. That is only about opening the portal. Booking on your site does need an account: checkout asks every guest to sign in or create a Haven guest account before they pay. See Do guests need an account to book? Guests who opt in to reservation texts at checkout also get the same Guest Portal link by SMS when the stay is confirmed, when it is cancelled, and the day before check-in. From the email:

Guest taps Open my guest portal.
The portal opens in their browser, scoped to their booking.

Hosts can also re-send the access link from the reservation drawer, or just ask the Haven assistant ("resend Cindy her guide link", "text the check-in link to the guest arriving Friday") and it sends it by email and/or SMS to the contact details on the reservation. Hosts can also print a Guest Portal tent card for in-property reference (QR code + URL).

A guest who lost the link can get back in from your site itself. The menu on every listing and multi-unit site page has Sign in to view your reservation (there is no separate Create account or Sign in there). A guest who booked through Haven signs in with the email they booked with and lands straight in the portal for that stay — on a multi-unit site, the listing they booked. A guest who booked on Airbnb, Vrbo, or another site has no Haven booking to sign in to; the portal they land on offers Find your reservation (arrival date plus the name on the booking). Once they have opened the guide from its link, been approved by you, or accepted a trip-member invite, signing in with that same email lists the stay on their Trips page and takes them to its guide from your site's menu. Once signed in, the same menu row reads View your reservation.

The portal works without a signal

Guests arriving somewhere with no coverage can still open their guide. The first time a guest opens the portal with a connection, their phone keeps a copy. After that the same link opens with no signal and no Wi-Fi. You do not switch anything on and the guest does not install anything. A short notice tells them the first time it is saved.

Works offline	Needs a connection
Check-in instructions and check-in photos	Chat with the assistant or with you
Door code and lockbox code	Remote lock / unlock, thermostat
Wi-Fi network and password	Live weather and maps
House manual and custom pages	Buying add-ons, requesting quotes
Property tab, local guide, gallery photos	Signing the agreement, ID verification
Checkout time and checkout list (read only)	Uploaded PDFs and videos
Search across all of the above

What to know:

The guest has to open the guide once while online, on the phone and in the browser they will use at the property. A link opened inside an email app's built-in browser is saved for that app only, not for Safari or Chrome. If your property has poor coverage, ask guests to open the guide before they travel. The pre-arrival message is a good place to say so.
The copy refreshes every time the guide is opened online. Offline, the guest sees the last version their phone saved, with a notice showing when that was. If you change the door code after they last opened the guide, they need a connection to see the new one.
It respects the same access rules as the live guide. A guest only ever saves what the portal showed them, so details that are still locked (before the arrival window opens, or before a required agreement or ID check) are not in the copy. The copy is deleted from the phone two days after checkout, and as soon as the guide stops being available to that guest.
Your own view is never saved. When you are signed in as the host, or previewing in the editor, no offline copy is made. To try it, open the guest link in a browser where you are not signed in to Haven, let the page finish loading, then turn on airplane mode and reload.
On iPhone, a copy that has not been opened for about a week can be cleared by Safari. Guests who add the guide to their Home Screen should open it from there once while online, because the Home Screen keeps its own copy.

Add to Home Screen

The Home tab has an Add to Home Screen tile. It puts the guide on the guest's phone as its own app, with your property's name and icon, and it opens straight to the guide with no browser bar.

On Android and in Chrome or Edge on a computer, one tap opens the browser's install prompt.
On iPhone and iPad, Apple only lets the guest add it themselves, so the tile shows the three steps: Share, Add to Home Screen, Add.
The tile disappears once the guest is using the installed app.

If you do not want the tile: open Edit Listing → Arrival, press and hold any tile in the phone preview until the tiles wiggle, then tap the ✕ on Add to Home Screen and tap Done. It is hidden, not deleted. To bring it back, turn its switch on in the guide's component list, where it is listed as Add to Home Screen. You can also drag it to a different spot in the grid like any other tile.

Every tile on the Home and Property tabs drags the same way, the Welcome message, About and Amenities tiles included: press and hold until the tiles wiggle, then drag. Welcome is switched off and on in the guide's component list; About and Amenities under Guide layout & tabs.

Removing the tile only removes the button. Guests can still add any page to their Home Screen from their browser's own menu, and the offline copy is saved either way.

Offers button

The Home tab also has an Offers button, a tile that opens the Offers tab. It always says that tab's name: rename the tab with the pencil on it in the phone preview, and the button changes too. Guests see it whenever the guide has an Offers tab for them. Take it off with its ✕ (press and hold any tile first), and bring it back, or put it on the Property tab, with Add a card → Offers button in Guide layout & tabs. To put one particular offer inside a page, see Show an Offer in a Page.

House manual

The Home tab shows a House manual tile that opens your House Manual inside the guide, page by page, with an Open PDF link for saving or printing. It is added automatically: Haven builds the manual the first time you open Edit Listing → Arrival, and refreshes the guide's copy a few seconds after you stop editing the manual. Nothing to upload.

Until the manual is in the guide, your phone preview shows an amber House manual · Add tile. Tap Add and Haven creates the manual from your listing (or uses the one you already edited) and puts it in the guide; the preview reloads with the tile in place. Download PDF in the House Manual editor does the same. If adding fails, the House Manual editor opens so you can fix what stopped it.

The manual prints your Wi-Fi password and door codes, so the tile follows the same rule as the Wi-Fi tile: it appears when the guest's arrival details unlock and stays hidden before that. In the layout editor it carries the Guests only chip for the same reason.

If you do not want the tile: turn off Show in guest guide at the top of Edit Listing → Arrival → House manual PDF, or its switch in the guide's component list (Edit Listing → Arrival → Guide components, listed as House manual). It disappears from the phone preview and from guests' guides. It is hidden, not deleted, and the PDF is still yours to print.

To bring it back: turn Show in guest guide on again, or click Add page beside the phone preview and pick House manual under Bring back a built-in. You can also drag it to a different spot in the grid like any other tile. (The eye on the card is different: it picks which stages of the stay the card shows in.)

Search the guide

A search field sits at the top of every tab of the guide except Chat. A guest types a word and the matches appear beneath the field as they type; there is nothing to submit. It searches everything in the guide: Wi-Fi, door code, check-in and checkout, house rules, your custom pages, amenities, contacts, local guide places and offers. Each result names the tab it lives on, and tapping it opens that tile or page: "fireplace" opens your House Rules sheet where the fireplace is mentioned, or your Gas Fireplace page.

It matches words, it does not answer questions. "hot tub" finds your hot tub page; "is it OK to use the hot tub after ten" finds nothing unless those words appear in your guide. Short searches work best. For a question, there is the Chat tab.

Search follows your guide's rules. It never shows arrival details a guest has not unlocked, a custom page they cannot open, or a tile you have switched off.

When a guest has no connection, chat cannot work, so the Chat tab shows Search your guide instead, over the copy saved on the phone. Chat comes back by itself when the connection does.

Print the guide

Some guests want the guide on paper. At the bottom of the Home tab, Print this guide gives them three ways to get it:

Print opens a print-ready copy and brings up the print dialog.
Download PDF saves the guide to the phone or computer as a PDF.
Email me a copy sends a link to an address the guest types. They open it on the device that has the printer, and print or download from there. The link works for 30 days.

The copy holds what that guest can read in the guide on the day they print: welcome message, check-in and checkout, Wi-Fi, their door code, address, house rules, contacts, your custom pages and links, and the local guide. It is in the language they are reading the guide in, and it carries a QR code back to the live guide. Chat, polls, offers and door controls are not on it.

The printed copy follows your guide's rules. Arrival details a guest has not unlocked are left off, and the page tells them the date to print again. The emailed link is checked again when it is opened, so a copy requested early still prints the details that exist that day, and a cancelled stay prints none. A tile you switched off is left off the page. Checkout prints for a guest who has unlocked their arrival details, even before the stay starts, because a printed copy is usually made before travel.

The email counts as a message your guest asked for. It is sent on any paid plan and does not wait on your automated-message switches. Haven limits how many copies one person can request in a short time.

What's gated vs. public

Surface	Public (no booking)	Linked stay (until checkout)
Photos, amenities, description	✅ Visible	✅ Visible
Cancellation policy, fees	✅ Visible	✅ Visible
Wi-Fi password (incl. other networks)	❌ Hidden	✅ Visible until checkout
Door / lockbox codes	❌ Hidden	✅ Visible until checkout
Remote door unlock (web guide)	❌ Hidden	✅ During the lock access window
Thermostat (web guide)	❌ Hidden	✅ During the stay, if you allow it
Check-in / checkout times	Generic	✅ Exact times for this booking
Checkout steps, key return, during-stay notes	❌ Hidden	✅ Visible
Host and emergency contacts	✅ Visible	✅ Visible
House manual, local guide	❌ Hidden	✅ Visible
Direct host chat with stay context	Anonymous Q&A	✅ Booking-aware until checkout

A confirmed booking links the guest to the stay only until checkout (midnight in the property's timezone on the checkout date). After that they are a stranger again: the email page gate still applies, and Wi-Fi, door codes, and directions stay hidden. A current or upcoming booking at the same property still links. An open guide skips the email page, but a visitor with no stay still gets none of the arrival details or stay instructions — only Make the whole guide public (under Arrival details → Advanced access, for a lobby QR or table tent) publishes them. Your contacts are always shown, so a guest you could not match to a stay can still reach you.

This is enforced server-side; the portal cannot leak in-stay details to anyone who is not linked to an active stay.

The portal needs a paid plan

Until you subscribe to a Haven plan (or a partner covers your billing), the Guest Portal opens only for you. You can build and preview everything in Edit Listing → Arrival, but anyone else who opens the link — guests, QR-code scans, table tents — sees a "This guest guide isn't available yet" page with a link back to your listing. Your listing page itself stays public. The portal opens to guests the moment your plan is active; see Subscription Billing.

What the host configures

Everything in the portal is configured per property in Edit Listing:

Photos, description, amenities — the public side of the portal
Check-in / checkout / Wi-Fi / house manual — under the property's guest-experience sections; the exported House Manual PDF also shows as a House manual tile on the guide's Home tab (see above)
Formatting the guide text — directions, check-in steps, checkout notes, during-stay guidance, early and late check-in notes, and the details on a check-in or checkout task are written in a rich text editor: headings, bold, italic, underline, bulleted and numbered lists, and links. Text that was already in those fields opens formatted, with its line breaks and links as they were, and guests read it the way it looks in the editor
Check-in and Checkout tiles — each is one tile on the guide's Home tab, where the door code and the checkout checklist are. Check-in stays up from booking through the stay and Checkout from the first day of the stay until after it. The Property tab holds house rules, during-stay guidance, guest access, quiet hours, pets, and safety
Smart lock — unique door codes per reservation, with Unlock / Lock next to the signed-in row on guidebook Home (enabled during the stay's access window). The Arrival guide preview shows the same buttons after a lock is assigned. See Smart Locks & Automated Access Codes
Local guide — curated recommendations (AI assistant can draft them from the property's address)
Rental agreement — toggle, body text, signature requirement
Custom pages & polls — extra guide pages (with printable QR codes), uploaded PDFs up to 5 GB (house manuals, menus, appliance guides — guests scroll them page by page right inside the guide), and guest polls that guests answer from Quick info or a scanned sign. To fill those pages from an existing guidebook, see Import a Guidebook.
Branding — logo and color come from the property's site / multi-unit site, so the portal matches the host's brand

There is no separate "build the guest app" step. Filling out the property is filling out the guest portal.

Guide weather (Fahrenheit or Celsius)

The portal's Home tab shows a live local weather forecast whenever the property's location has coordinates set. You choose the temperature unit your guests see:

Go to Edit Listing → Arrival.
Under Auto-send, find Weather and choose Auto, °F, or °C. The choice autosaves and updates the guest portal immediately.

By default this is set to Auto, which picks the unit from your property's country — US-style locations show Fahrenheit and the rest of the world shows Celsius. The Auto button shows which one it resolves to (e.g. "Auto (°C)"). Pick °F or °C to override it. If no weather appears at all, add your property's coordinates under Edit Listing → Space → Location — the forecast only shows once a location is set.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an iOS/Android app to download? No native app — and that's intentional. The Guest Portal is a mobile web app guests open from a link. No App Store friction, no updates to push, and it works the moment a guest gets their confirmation email.

Does the portal work offline? Yes. Once a guest has opened it with a connection, the same link opens on that phone with no signal. See The portal works without a signal for what is saved and what still needs a connection.

Can guests print the guide? Yes. Print this guide at the bottom of the Home tab prints it, saves it as a PDF, or emails the guest a link to print from another device. See Print the guide.

Does the guest need a Haven account? No. The invite link is scoped to their booking via a secure token.

Can guests chat with me directly through the portal? Yes. The portal includes a property-aware AI assistant for instant answers (Wi-Fi, checkout time, "where's the closest coffee") and an escalation path to message you. Those messages land on your Messages thread — they are not email-only. If your account has a phone number, the same chat can text or WhatsApp you when those switches are on under notification settings. Guest replies to a stay text or a host message email also show up there. See Guest Communication.

Do non-Haven-booked guests get a portal? Yes. Guests booked through Airbnb, Vrbo, or a connected PMS also get the Guest Portal. Haven syncs the reservation and can auto-send a personal guidebook link. You can optionally require a rental agreement, guest ID verification, and Screen & Protect on those OTA bookings (you pay for paid features only when they are used — identity after the guest verifies, Screen & Protect when the stay starts). Auto-send the guide under Direct guests is on by default for Haven bookings. For Airbnb, Vrbo, or PMS stays, turn on the same toggle under OTA guests on Edit Listing → Arrival → Guidebook access so those guests actually receive the link and can complete ID verification in the guide. You also choose who sends (Haven or your PMS). Wording lives in Communication → Message automations → Guidebook; the listing page only picks which guest form the message offers. See OTA guidebook automation. Account-wide Guest communications can pause or turn off OTA guidebook auto-send — see Guest communications settings. The guest does not need a Haven account — opening the link binds their device to that stay. General guide content (house manual, local tips) stays open for trip members; only Wi-Fi, door codes, and check-in details wait on agreement / ID when you require them. See Guest security options.

Can Airbnb and Vrbo guests invite their travel companions? Yes. On a stay you opted into the guest experience, the guest opens the Guests card on the guidebook home and invites the rest of their party by email. Each person who accepts creates a free Haven account with their own email address, joins the guidebook, and lands in your guest list in Guest CRM. An OTA reservation usually gives you one relay address for the whole party, so this is often the only way you meet the others. Direct bookings work the same way.

Does the guide ask about the stay afterwards? Yes. For 30 days after checkout, a guest who opens the guidebook sees a How was your stay? card on the home screen. It opens the same private feedback and testimonial form as the post-stay email, and it is the only review ask Airbnb, Vrbo and PMS guests get from Haven. See Guest Feedback and Testimonials.

Do guests see their loyalty points in the guide? When your loyalty program is on, a signed-in guest with points sees them on their profile card at the top of the guidebook, as a gold pill. Tapping the card opens their profile, which shows the balance, what it is worth, and a link to all their rewards on Haven.

When does a guest see the door code and Wi-Fi? From local midnight on the day your listing's Arrival details window opens (Edit Listing → Arrival → Guidebook access (When arrival details appear), default 1 day before check-in), once any agreement, ID check, or check-in-blocking form you require is done. The same window governs the reservation page, the trips dashboard, the check-in emails, and any email or text where you used {wifi_info}, {check_in_details} or a door-code shortcode, so a guest never sees the code on one surface before another. A check-in email sent while an agreement, ID check or blocking form is still outstanding leaves the code out and tells the guest it appears once they finish those steps. The street address and exact map pin follow the same window: until then the guide, the reservation page and its "add to calendar" file show the town. The code itself can come from a smart lock, your PMS, or one you type on the reservation — see Door Codes & Smart Locks.

Do I need a Haven booking website for the guidebook? No. Guidebooks work standalone. You can use every guidebook feature — including guest verification, upsells, auto-send, and optional CRM email capture — without publishing a Haven direct-booking site. Guests can open the guidebook once you're on a paid plan.

Is the portal branded? Yes. It uses the property's (or multi-unit site's) logo, colors, and domain. To the guest, it feels like the host's own app, not a Haven-branded one.