Expedia Guest Messaging: Authorise Butler AI's Sender

Your Expedia guests are reachable. The message just has to come from an address Expedia recognises. For Butler AI, that means adding our exact sending address to your authorised senders in Expedia Partner Central, then testing on one live booking before you rely on it. This guide covers the setup, the test, and the escalation path if something still bounces.

Expedia guests do not give you their personal email. Each booking carries a guest alias, typically ending in m.expediapartnercentral.com, and messages sent to that alias are relayed into the Expedia conversation for the booking. Expedia only accepts those messages from senders the property has authorised, which is why a perfectly valid message from an unlisted address can simply never arrive.

One detail trips people up: adding just the domain, heybutler.io, may not be enough. Add the exact address Butler AI sends from.

This is the documented route, and it is a per-property setting:

1. Log in to Expedia Partner Central and select the property.
2. Go to Guest Relations, then Message Centre, then Settings.
3. Find Authorised email addresses.
4. Add the actual address Butler AI sends from. We use notifications@heybutler.io as the example here; confirm your property's real sender address with us first and add only that.
5. Save, and repeat for every hotel property in your group. The setting does not carry across properties.

This is a standard Partner Central setting, so no direct Expedia integration is needed. It is also not a guarantee of delivery on its own, which is why the test below matters.

With the sender authorised, Butler AI sends to the booking's Expedia guest alias. Messages sent to that address should appear in the booking's conversation in Expedia Partner Central, so your team can see the exchange alongside the rest of the booking's messages.

Sender authorisation alone should never be treated as guaranteed delivery. Before turning this on across the property:

1. Pick one active Expedia booking.
2. Send a simple message with no links.
3. Check that it appears in the Expedia conversation for that booking.
4. Ask the guest to confirm they received it.
5. Only then send your normal welcome or check-in message, links included.

Testing plain text first, then links, tells you which of the two is failing if something goes wrong. A message that arrives plain but disappears with links in it is a different problem from a sender that was never authorised.

Some properties do not see the Authorised email addresses option, and some see it but still get failures. In either case, ask your Expedia account manager to authorise the exact Butler AI sender address for guest messaging on that property. Send them three things so they can trace it quickly:

1. The property ID.
2. The reservation ID of the failed message.
3. The timestamp of the failed message.

Reaching OTA guests before they arrive is what makes pre-arrival messaging work for the part of your occupancy that never gave you a direct contact. Once they arrive, the same guest can move onto the WhatsApp conversation described in how one QR code connects guests to your hotel's WhatsApp, and the whole sequence is covered in guest journey automation.

If you want Butler AI set up for your Expedia properties, we will confirm the sender address, walk through the test with you, and be on the call if Expedia needs a nudge. Start at heybutler.io.