Booking.com sits between you and the guest, and it rewrites what you send. Links get stripped, the guest's address changes from one message to the next, and a campaign that reads perfectly in the editor can arrive with nothing clickable in it.
None of that is a fault in Bookboost. It is how Booking.com handles messages, and this is what to do about it.
Links are removed unless they are written out
Booking.com strips HTML and CSS from messages, which takes buttons and linked words with it. A guest sees the text and no way to act on it.
Two ways round it:
Write the full URL out as plain text, rather than hiding it behind a button or a linked phrase. It survives, and most clients make it tappable.
Send the campaign on WhatsApp or SMS instead. Booking.com does not touch those, so links behave normally.
If you build campaigns that target OTA guests, keep URL tokens as plain text in those campaigns as a habit rather than remembering case by case.
The guest's address changes between messages
Booking.com does not give you the guest's real email address. It gives you an alias, and it issues a new one as the conversation moves along: an @guest.booking.com address for the reservation, and @mchat.booking.com addresses for messages.
Two consequences worth knowing before they bite:
Reply to the alias the guest used. Check that it is set as the primary address on the profile before you reply, or the message goes to an alias Booking.com has already retired.
Set the primary address back afterwards. If the guest has a personal email address on their profile, switch back to it once you have replied. Leave the alias in place and your campaigns go to Booking.com rather than to the guest.
Whitelist the domains
Add your own domain and the Bookboost domains to your Booking.com whitelist. Without that, Booking.com can withhold messages before they reach you at all.
Double-check the address before sending to a guest who has both a personal address and an alias on their profile. It is the easiest thing to get wrong and the hardest to notice.
What this does not do
It does not restore your formatting. Booking.com strips HTML and CSS, and there is no setting that prevents it.
An alias is not a guest email address. It belongs to Booking.com, it expires, and it is not something to keep for marketing.
It does not apply to Expedia. Expedia connects directly and behaves differently. See Set up the direct Expedia integration.
The AI Agent does not reply on Booking.com. It is the one channel where it does not.
What to do next
If Booking.com messages are not reaching Bookboost at all, this is not the article. See Setting up Booking.com to send guest messages to Bookboost, and What is the Booking.com email parser? if they arrive as raw emails.
Getting help
Open Help at the bottom of the left menu and choose Talk to Us, or email support@bookboost.io.