Checkinea sends guests two different emails around their stay. They're easy to mix up, so here's what each one does and where you control it. Part of the automated guest journey — see how this fits with the OTA auto-message and SES filing in The automated guest journey.
The check-in invite
This is the email that gets a guest to your online check-in form. It's host-triggered, not automatic — you send it yourself from the booking's page with a Send invite email button. It uses a fixed template and contains the guest's personal check-in link; the email's "from" name is your property's name.
By default it's sent once per booking. Once it's gone out, the button becomes Resend, with a confirmation prompt before it fires again — useful if a guest lost the email or it bounced. The booking page shows the current delivery state (sent, delivered, bounced, marked as spam, or failed) so you know whether a resend is worth trying.
If a booking has no guest email yet, Checkinea tells you to add one before it will send anything.
Arrival instructions
This is a fully automated email with practical arrival information — door codes, parking, wifi, directions — sent to the guest ahead of check-in without you having to trigger it. Unlike the invite, its content is entirely up to you.
Turning it on and timing it
Arrival instructions have their own on/off toggle ("Enable arrival instructions") and a lead time: how many whole hours before your property's check-in time the email goes out — anywhere from 0 to 24 hours before. At the 24-hour end of that range, the send falls on the day before check-in rather than on check-in day itself.
Writing the message
The body is free text. You can drop in these merge fields and Checkinea fills them in for each guest at send time:
{{guest.name}}— the lead guest's name{{property.name}}— your property's name{{booking.checkIn}}— the check-in date{{property.checkInTime}}— your check-in time{{property.checkOutTime}}— your check-out time
A message must have some text before you can turn it on, and it can only use
the fields listed above — Checkinea rejects the save if the text contains a
{{...}} placeholder it doesn't recognize.
Where to configure it
- Account default — Properties → Account defaults → Arrival tab. This applies to every property that hasn't set its own version.
- Per-property override — that property's own Arrival tab. Once you save an override there, it takes precedence over the account default for that property only.
When it's sent
An hourly background job checks which bookings are due and sends the email once per booking — if it's already gone out for a booking, the job won't resend it. Today it's sent in your language (the account owner's), not necessarily the guest's.
Writing a good arrival message
A short, concrete message beats a long one. Cover:
- How to get in — door code, lockbox, key pickup, or where to meet someone.
- How to find the place — parking, entrance if it's not obvious from the street, floor/apartment number.
- Wifi — network name and password.
Keep it specific to the property rather than generic — this is the last thing a guest reads before they show up at your door.