Understanding the Risky reservation detector agent

The Risky reservation detector is an agent that identifies and manages potentially problematic bookings. It scans reservations for risk signals and automatically creates a task in Guesty when a reservation needs review, allowing you to review it before the guest arrives.

Limitations

• The agent doesn't automatically decline or modify reservations; it only creates a task to alert you. 
• Reservations from booking channels like Airbnb and Booking.com are scored differently because guest photos and payment details are often not shared.

Understand the Risky reservation detector agent

The detector automatically scans new and upcoming reservations for risk signals. The scans run on a schedule and can also be triggered manually.

• Scheduled: Scans run twice a day at 09:00 and 20:00, based on your account's timezone.
• On-demand: Trigger a scan manually from the AI hub.

Each scan reviews the following reservations:

• Reservations confirmed in the last 24 hours
• Reservations with a check-in date within the next 48 hours

Run the Risky reservation detector manually

In addition to the scheduled daily run, you can trigger the detector manually at any time from the AI hub.

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the side navigation menu, click AI hub.
3. At the top, select the Operations tab.
4. Click the Risky reservation detector tile.
5. Under "When it runs", click Run now.

Review the results and status of the run in the activity feed.

Review the Activity feed

Each time the detector runs, it adds a report to the Activity feed. Every flagged reservation gets its own row with links to the reservation and its task. Reservations that weren't flagged appear as a count.

Follow the steps below to review your activity feed.

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the side navigation menu, click AI hub.
3. In the left submenu, click Agent activity.
4. Click the relevant row with the agent's name to review the report details in the right-side panel.

Risk scoring categories

The detector looks for risk signals in the following categories:

• Booking pattern: Includes signals such as last-minute bookings, short weekend stays, inconsistent group sizes, under-occupancy, and direct or manual bookings.
• Guest profile: Includes signals like the payer's name not matching the guest's name (a third-party payer), a missing profile photo, or a guest's address matching the local area.
• Communication signals: Includes signals like explicit mentions of parties or events, questions about property capacity, requests for discounts, or a vague purpose for the trip.
• Property context: Includes signals related to the property itself, such as being an entire-home listing, having a pool or hot tub, or being a high-capacity property that hosts 10 or more guests.

How reservations are flagged

A reservation is flagged only when it has at least one strong risk signal. Soft or context signals, such as under-occupancy, can't flag a reservation on their own, even when several of them add up.

Each flagged reservation gets one of the following labels:

• Review required
• Review recommended

Payment signals

Payment issues don't flag a reservation in the following cases:

• The reservation uses Channel Collect.
• The reservation is paid with a virtual card.
• The outstanding balance is 1 or less.
• A past payment attempt failed, but the reservation is fully paid.

Risky reservation tasks

An unassigned "Administration task" is automatically created for each flagged reservation. If a task for that reservation already exists from a previous scan, a duplicate task is not created. Find and manage these tasks in your tasks report.

Each task includes the following details:

• Title: "Risky reservation review — [Confirmation Code]".
• Start date: The day before check-in. If that date has already passed, the task starts today.
• Description: The risk signals identified and a checklist of what to verify.

Learn more about managing tasks.

Review and act on a risky reservation task

The Risky reservation detector creates unassigned tasks to bring attention to a booking, but it's up to you to decide what action, if any, to take.

Step by step:

1. Sign in to your Guesty account.
2. In the side navigation menu, click Operations to open the dropdown menu.
3. Under Field ops, select Tasks.
4. Locate the unassigned task titled "Risky reservation review".
5. Review the task description to understand the flagged risk signals and decide on the best course of action. For example, request a damage waiver, add house rules, or cancel the reservation.