Direct bookings from guests who already stayed

Someone who already slept in the house, and someone they send you, as long as that introduction did not start as an open message inside the platform. A stranger who just wrote on Airbnb about August does not count. Answer them on Airbnb.

The booking on your link does not pay Airbnb or Booking.com's fee. The booking inside the listing does. MyStay takes neither cut. The fee is £14.99 a month for one listing, with a free preview and a 7-day trial once Paddle collects a card to publish.

This guide has no percentage of guests who return. Anyone who states one without your data is guessing. You know which stays last year were people who had been before. That short list is the audience.

The clean moment is after checkout, once the platform booking is finished. A short note is enough: thank you, and the link if they want the same week next year. Do not attach a side deal that fights an open balance on the platform.

The second moment is a few weeks before the season they usually book. If they reserve in January for August, January is when the link matters. If you wait until they search the platform again, you pay for an introduction you already bought.

In the house, put the address next to the wifi. Repeat guests should not have to remember the listing title. WhatsApp on MyStay, if you turn it on, opens with the dates they picked. It does not replace the note you send.

• After checkout, not during a platform thread
• A reminder before their usual season
• The address written down in the house
• WhatsApp with dates filled in, if you enable it

See that the dates are free. Direct bookings block the calendar, and iCal pulls the platform calendars closer. iCal can lag, so a manual look in August is still sensible.

See the price and how to pay. Stripe confirms the stay when the card succeeds. A deposit takes a percentage now. Bizum or transfer stays pending until you see the money. If you are not ready to charge on the page, leave it as an enquiry. A link that only asks them to write is already better than sending them back to the app.

See the licence number if you need it shown. You type it. MyStay does not file it. If the draft copied one from the listing, read it.

Do not ask a guest with an open platform booking to cancel it and pay you off-platform. That can breach the platform's rules, and it is a poor start to a stay you want repeated for years.

Do not show one price and charge another, or hide the security deposit. Repeat guests compare with last time.

Do not delete the platform listing the day the website goes live, unless you no longer want new guests. The website does not find strangers by itself. The listing does. They can sit together if the calendar does not sell the night twice.