When the Auto Pilot agent decides a guest message needs human attention, it escalates. This article covers what triggers an escalation, what happens when one fires, how to wire up notifications so your team actually gets pinged, and the template variables you can use. For the main Auto Pilot setup guide, see Hostify AI — Auto Pilot Mode.

How escalation works

A single escalation does three things atomically:

Adds an internal note to the inbox thread, summarizing the situation and what the guest needs.
Stars the thread so it's visible at the top of the inbox.
Fires the "Escalation" event in your account's automation pipeline.

The first two are visible immediately to anyone looking at the inbox. The third is how your team actually gets pinged off-platform (email, SMS, WhatsApp, Slack-relay, etc.) — but only if you've set up an Auto Message on the Escalation event.

Without an Auto Message on the Escalation event, the agent's escalation just sits in the inbox waiting to be noticed. Configuring the Auto Message is the step most people miss the first day they turn Auto Pilot on.

What the agent escalates

By default, the agent escalates for any of:

Complaints about cleanliness, damage, or safety
Refunds or pricing changes of any kind
Emergencies (flooding, lockouts, security, suspected medical)
Maintenance issues during a stay (broken appliances, leaks, missing items)
Special requests requiring approval (pets, parties, extra guests, smoking, deliveries)
Reservation modifications (date changes, extensions, cancellations)
Anything it can't confidently answer from the data it has

Custom Instructions can shift any of these into "approve automatically" — see the examples in the Knowledge Base & Content Best Practices article. You can also use Custom Instructions to add new escalation triggers ("Always escalate if the guest mentions [keyword]").

Setting up the Escalation Auto Message

Go to Automations → Auto Messages → Add a new auto message.
When to send: pick the Escalation event from the event dropdown. (The Escalation event is status-independent — it fires on any reservation status, including inquiry / cancelled / past stays. There's no "before/after" timing — it fires immediately when the agent escalates.)
Template: in the template picker, pick "Inbox Escalation (AI)" — Hostify ships a global template pre-filled with all the relevant escalation variables. You can edit the body afterwards.
Send via: typically email (to your on-call address), SMS, or WhatsApp (to your on-call phone). The default template supports message, email, and HTML email. For WhatsApp, see the WhatsApp escalation section below.
Send to: "Email" with one of your team's addresses, or a team member, or a custom-field address.
Subject (for email): a sensible default is [AI handoff] ###{{guest_name}} - ###{{listing}}.
Listings filter: typically "all listings" for escalations, but you can scope it to specific listings if some properties have different on-call teams.
Save.

From now on, every time the AI agent escalates a thread, the team receives the notification through the channel you picked.

For step-by-step Auto Message creation guidance, see How to create an Auto Message.

Escalation via WhatsApp

You can receive escalation notifications on WhatsApp — useful for on-call teams who need instant mobile alerts. The setup differs slightly depending on which WhatsApp integration you use.

Hostify WhatsApp number (shared)

If your account uses the Hostify WhatsApp integration (the shared Hostify business number), Hostify provides a pre-built escalation WhatsApp template on the shared WABA. This template is already approved by Meta and has the escalation variables pre-mapped.

To use it:

Go to Integrations → WhatsApp and click Sync Templates to pull the latest templates.
Create an Auto Message on the Escalation event with Send via: WhatsApp.
In the template picker, select the escalation template.
Set the Send to field to host (your team receives the WhatsApp notification).
Save.

No Meta approval is needed on your side — the shared WABA handles it.

Your own WhatsApp Business Account

If you connected your own WABA, you need to create and get a Meta-approved template first:

Go to Integrations → WhatsApp → Templates → Create Template.
Write the template body using numbered placeholders (###{{1}}, ###{{2}}, etc.).
Submit for Meta approval.
Once approved, edit the template and map each placeholder to a Hostify variable (e.g. ###{{1}} → escalation_note, ###{{2}} → guest_name, ###{{3}} → listing).
Create the Auto Message on the Escalation event with Send via: WhatsApp and select your approved template.

The following escalation-specific variables are available for WhatsApp template mapping: escalation_note, escalation_type, assignee_name, assignee_email, priority — alongside all the standard reservation variables (guest_name, listing, checkin, etc.).

Variables available in the Escalation Auto Message

When the Escalation event fires, the auto-message template can use these escalation-specific variables in addition to all the standard dynamic variables:

###{{escalation_type}} — sub-type of the escalation: ai_agent (the AI itself escalated) / damage / extra.
###{{escalation_note}} — the internal note text, usually the most important content of the notification.
###{{priority}} — yes if the agent also starred the thread (it always does), else no.
###{{assignee_name}} — name of the user the thread is assigned to (the bot, by default).
###{{assignee_email}} — email of the assigned user.
###{{thread_link}} — full clickable URL into the Hostify inbox at this thread. Put this in the message body so the on-call person can jump straight in.
###{{thread_id}} — the internal thread id (useful for cross-system tracking).
###{{guest_name}}, ###{{listing}}, ###{{checkin}}, ###{{checkout}}, ###{{nights_count}}, ###{{guest_email}}, ###{{guest_phone}}, ###{{last_message}} — standard reservation context, useful in the subject line and body.

The pre-built "Inbox Escalation (AI)" template uses these defaults:

The AI agent could not resolve a guest enquiry and has handed it off.

Why it was escalated:

###{{escalation_note}}

###{{guest_name}}

###{{guest_email}}

###{{guest_phone}}

Listing: ###{{listing}}

Stay: ###{{checkin}} → ###{{checkout}} (###{{nights_count}} nights)

Reply: ###{{thread_link}}

Last message in thread:

###{{last_message}}

For WhatsApp templates specifically, the escalation variables (escalation_note, escalation_type, assignee_name, assignee_email, priority) are available in the WhatsApp template variable mapping dropdown when editing a template.

Common patterns

Single on-call mailbox. One Auto Message → "Escalation" event → send via Email → to your shared support inbox. Easiest setup; the whole team sees every handoff.
WhatsApp alert to the on-call phone. One Auto Message → "Escalation" event → send via WhatsApp → to the host. Great for instant mobile notifications. Works with both the Hostify shared number and your own WABA.
Per-property-group routing. One Auto Message per group of listings, each scoped to those listings, each sending to a different email/phone. Good if different cities have different on-call teams.
Tiered notification. One Auto Message via SMS or WhatsApp (concise body) for instant alerting, plus a second Auto Message via email (full template body) for the audit trail.
Slack / Teams / PagerDuty. Most chat tools accept an inbound email address — point the email Auto Message there. For PagerDuty, route to the email integration of the relevant service.
Scope by escalation type. Use Auto Message filters to send different notifications based on ###{{escalation_type}}. For example: route damage escalations to a different mailbox than ai_agent ones.

Things to know

Escalations during off-hours still happen. The agent's working-hours gate controls when the agent replies, not when it can escalate. If you don't want an Auto Message at 3 a.m., add a filter on the Auto Message itself.
An escalation can fire even when the agent stays silent on the guest side. If a guest's message looks like an emergency at midnight, the agent escalates and stays silent on the guest side; the team handles the guest reply. You'll still get the email/SMS/WhatsApp notification.
Escalations are not retried. The trigger fires once when the agent escalates. If your Auto Message is misconfigured at that moment (e.g. wrong recipient), the notification is lost — but the thread is still starred and has the internal note, so it's visible in the inbox.
The same thread can be escalated multiple times. During back-off, the agent will not fire a second full escalation; it adds a quiet internal note instead. So your team gets one notification per "real" escalation, not a spam loop.
WhatsApp templates require Meta approval. If you use your own WABA, your escalation template must be approved by Meta before WhatsApp notifications will work. Customers using the Hostify shared number get pre-approved templates automatically via Sync Templates.

Auto Pilot — Escalation Setup & Notifications