Every field you add costs you completions. The forms that work ask for the least they can get away with, in the order a guest expects, and say why they are asking.
Building a form is covered in Create a form. This is about what goes in one.
What you have to work with
Three groups of building blocks.
Inputs. Email address, phone number, name, identification, birthday, address, country.
Context. Text blocks and dividers. These are not decoration: a sentence explaining why you need an ID number is the difference between a completed form and an abandoned one.
Consent. A checkbox, for when you are collecting data you intend to market to. See Guest consent statuses.
The OTA profiling form
The highest-value form most properties can build. A guest books through an OTA, you get a masked address, and you cannot reach them. This form asks them for a real one.
Text. "Get reservation updates straight to your inbox. Fill in the form with your details."
Email address.
Phone number, with a note to include the country code. Without it the number may not validate. See How phone numbers are validated.
Consent checkbox. "Yes, I agree to receive communications from [Hotel Name]."
Thank-you text.
Four elements. Resist adding a fifth. The guest is doing you a favour, and every extra field lowers the number who finish.
The online check-in form
Longer, because it has to be, and guests accept that because check-in has an obvious purpose.
Text. "Welcome to online check-in for [Hotel Name]. Complete the form for a faster arrival."
Email address and phone number.
Identification.
Birthday.
Address and country.
Divider, then the consent checkbox, so agreeing to marketing is visibly separate from checking in.
Thank-you text.
Fields Bookboost already knows are pre-filled, so a guest sent this by token is confirming rather than typing.
Asking for more
Extra questions worth their cost, because each one lets you do something later rather than just knowing something:
Estimated time of arrival. Feeds late-arrival and early-check-in messages.
Purpose of travel. Business against leisure, which changes what is worth offering.
Room or amenity preferences. Actionable at the front desk.
Language. Lets you send in the right one afterwards.
Ask these as dropdowns, not free text. Only fields with fixed options can be used as an audience filter afterwards, so a free-text answer is something you can read one at a time and nothing more. See Segment guests by a form field value.
And before adding any question, decide what you would do with the answer. A question nobody acts on is a field that cost you completions for nothing.
What this does not do
There is no branding panel. Colours, fonts, and logos are not configurable on a form. Your wording is the branding.
Payment link forms take no input fields. Text and dividers only.
Answers do not always reach your PMS. That needs a two-way integration; otherwise they enrich the Bookboost profile only.
A consent checkbox is not a consent strategy. It records agreement. What you may then send depends on the consent set up in Settings.
What to do next
For what happens to check-in data in your PMS, see Online check-in.
Getting help
Open Help at the bottom of the left menu and choose Talk to Us, or email support@bookboost.io.