Invite links and how travellers connect
A traveller is not a user of your console. They never log in. They reach the concierge through a messaging channel, and the invite link is what ties their chat account to their record on one trip.
Sending the link
On the trip's Travelers section, a traveller who has not connected yet shows an Invite link button.
- Click Invite link.
- A panel opens with one link per channel you have set up — WhatsApp, Telegram, or both.
- Click Copy link beside the channel that traveller already uses, and send it to them.
Both links activate the same way and reach the same assistant, so the choice is purely about where that person prefers to be reached. Send WhatsApp to someone who lives in WhatsApp; do not make them install anything.
The links look like this:
- WhatsApp —
https://wa.me/<your number>?text=/start%20<token>. Tapping it opens a chat with your number and pre-fills the message; the traveller only has to press send. - Telegram —
https://t.me/<your bot>?start=<token>. Tapping it opens your bot with a Start button.
If no channel is set up yet, the panel says so and shows the raw activation code instead — see Branding and channels to connect a number or a bot first.
Treat the token as a credential
The token is unguessable, single-use, and consumed the moment someone opens the link and presses start. Whoever presents it is linked as that traveller. Send it to the traveller directly — never to a group chat, and never to a shared inbox that other people on the trip can read.
A link that has already been used, or one that never existed, returns a bilingual message telling the person to ask their agency for a new one. Ask for a fresh link from the console when that happens.
What activation records
Opening the link and pressing start is the opt-in. The platform stores the moment of consent on the traveller record, links the chat identity, clears the token, and sends a welcome message naming the trip and its dates.
The chat identity is also stamped on the contact, which is why it survives beyond this trip.
Seeing and changing where someone is connected
A connected traveller shows a badge naming the channel they are actually on — WhatsApp or Telegram — and their row's button becomes Connection. Open it to see the channel and, on WhatsApp, the number they connected from.
That panel also holds Disconnect, which is how you move someone between channels or onto a new phone:
- Open Connection on their row and click Disconnect.
- Their chat identity is unlinked and a fresh invite link is issued.
- Open the panel again and send them the link for the channel you want.
Disconnecting is deliberately more than a UI reset. It clears the consent recorded at activation, so no automatic message reaches that traveller until they activate again — not countdowns, not the daily brief, not alerts. It also unbinds the contact, so adding them to a future trip will not silently reconnect them on the old channel.
What it does not touch: the traveller stays on the trip, and their documents, room, payments and conversation history are all kept. Before this existed the only way to change someone's channel was to remove and re-add them, which threw the conversation away — that is what Disconnect is for. Only owners and admins can do it, and it is written to the audit log.
Repeat clients skip the link entirely
If the contact activated the assistant on any earlier trip, adding them to a new trip connects them immediately. There is no invite link to send, and they receive a short heads-up on their existing chat telling them the new trip is loaded and inviting questions about it.
If the message does not arrive — the channel was blocked, or the bot changed — the traveller is still connected on the record. The heads-up is best effort and never blocks the add.
One trip at a time
The concierge answers about one trip, not a portfolio. When a connected person writes in, the platform picks the trip that is relevant now: an active trip whose dates cover today, otherwise the nearest upcoming one, otherwise the most recent. A traveller cannot ask it to compare two of their trips in one conversation.
The no-login page
Not everyone wants a chat bot. The 🔗 button on a traveller's row copies their personal document page — a no-login web page showing their itinerary, their documents, their room, payments and upload buttons for everything you have asked them for.
Use it for travellers who never activate, and alongside chat for anyone who prefers uploading from a browser. It is the same page the concierge hands out when a traveller asks for "the link". Group leaders get an equivalent page covering their whole group — see Groups, leaders and rooming.
After they connect
Once the trip is active, connected travellers start receiving the automatic messages: countdowns, daily briefs, check-in reminders, alerts. What goes out and when is listed in What the concierge sends, and when, and each traveller can turn the volume down themselves — see Languages, notification levels and guardians.
Travellers who never activate receive nothing. Documents you need from them still have to be chased another way; see Requesting documents and chasing them.