Lockbox, codes and keys

What Absolute actually supports

This is not a pairing tool for August, Yale, or any other brand. We do not push a unique code from an app into a lock. You choose how people get in: a lockbox on the wall, a door code you change, a physical key, or you (or a named neighbour) at the gate.

Write that method on the listing before anyone books. Online check-in on Absolute should already show you who is coming. Share the live code or the box combination only after that file exists — not on a public social post, and not in a WhatsApp to a number you have not matched to the reservation.

What guests need on arrival

The code must work when they arrive, including after dark. The box must open. The path to the box must be the path in the photographs and the pin — not a second courtyard you describe in a voice note at 23:00.

Leave light on the box and on the lock. A guest who cannot see the keypad will message you and Absolute in the same hour. If the listing said “host at the gate”, be there in the window you wrote, or name the person who will be.

Codes, boxes, and keys

Change the door code or the lockbox combination between stays. Do not reuse last month’s number. Do not write the live code in the public house rules. A printed card on the table for the wifi is fine; a printed card with this week’s door code that the last guest can photograph is not.

If you use a physical key, say how many copies exist and where the spare sits. A key under a stone is only acceptable if the listing already described that stone. A second address sent after booking is how people get lost and how we review the host.

After they book — Absolute check-in

The guest completes check-in on Absolute. You see the names that belong to the reservation. That is when you send the code, the box steps, or the time you will be at the gate. If a name is missing or an extra person appears, write to Absolute before you hand over a key — extra people are a message, not a courtesy at the door.

Directions must match the pin. Parking, the steep path, the dog next door, the gate that sticks — those belong in the arrival note you reuse, not in a new novel every Friday.

When the box fails

If the box fails, you or a named neighbour must still get them in. Message the guest and Absolute the same hour. A failed code at night is not a problem you sleep on. AbsoluteCover assumes the stay can start; a locked courtyard is a listing problem.

Keep a working spare that is not advertised. Tell Absolute who holds it. Do not send a stranger’s phone number to the guest without naming that person on the listing.

What not to do

Do not send a new address in WhatsApp. Do not leave a key under a stone you did not describe. Do not post this week’s code on Instagram. Do not ask the guest to “just climb the wall”.

Do not treat a brand-name smart lock as if Absolute had paired it. If you bought one, you still manage the codes. We will not reset it from our side. The promise on the listing is a way in that works — not a logo on the door.