What are Stays?
Stays in Centro
A stay is Centro's model of a guest's visit — a booking with a check-in and check-out date, the guest (or guests) it belongs to, and the room or rooms they are staying in. Stays are what connect a real guest to everything Centro does for them: the app they open, the door key they receive, the intercom code at their door and the information shown on their in-room touchpanel.
If you run a hotel, serviced apartments, or any property that hosts guests, stays are the backbone of your Centro deployment. Most of Centro's hospitality features — Flexipass Wallet Keys, the Oracle Hospitality integration, and 2N intercom access — are driven by the stay behind them.
Who uses stays
- Guests see their own stays in the Centro app: an upcoming or current booking, an online check-in, and — once checked in — their room key. See Guest check-in.
- Front-desk and management staff create and edit stays, move them through their lifecycle, review guest identity documents, and issue keys. Staff also set up the stay types that decide how each stay looks and behaves. See Managing stays and stay types.
- Centro itself keeps everything in step: as a stay is created, changes, or ends, Centro provisions and revokes door keys, intercom codes, and wallet passes automatically.
The stay lifecycle
Every stay moves through a series of states. The state controls what the guest can do and what Centro provisions for them behind the scenes.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Booked | The reservation exists but the guest's arrival is still ahead. |
| Pre check-in | Arrival is near. The guest can complete online check-in before they arrive. |
| Checked in | The guest has arrived and checked in. Room keys and intercom access are active. |
| Pre check-out | The stay is coming to an end. |
| Post check-out | The guest has left. Keys and access are revoked. |
| Archived | The stay is closed and kept for records. |
| Cancelled | The booking was cancelled. Any access that was granted is removed. |
As a stay reaches check-in, keys and access are provisioned; as it reaches check-out, cancellation, or archival, that access is revoked — so door permissions always match the booking without staff having to manage keys by hand.
How stays are created
Stays reach Centro in two ways:
- Automatically from your property management system (PMS). When Centro is connected to a PMS such as Mews, reservations sync into Centro as stays. New bookings, changes, and cancellations flow through automatically, and each guest and room on the reservation is mapped onto the Centro stay. This is the usual path for a live property.
- Manually by staff. Staff can also create and edit a stay directly in Centro — useful for walk-ins, demos, or properties without a connected PMS. See Managing stays and stay types.
Either way, once a stay exists it behaves the same: its stay type governs how it looks and what integrations apply, and its lifecycle drives the keys and access the guest receives.
How stays connect to the rest of Centro
| Feature | What the stay drives |
|---|---|
| Flexipass Wallet Keys | A mobile wallet room key (and optional physical key card) provisioned from the stay and issued after check-in. |
| Oracle Hospitality | Guest profile and reservation data flowing into Centro. |
| 2N intercoms | The stay's booking code becomes the guest's door PIN, and the stay type can push a welcome screen to the intercom display. |
| Dashboards | The Stays dataset lets you build occupancy and stay-based dashboard content. |
| The Centro app | Current Stay and Stays List elements show the guest their booking and check-in. |
Start with Managing stays and stay types to set up how your stays behave, then see Guest check-in for what your guests experience.