How to use WhatsApp click to chat: Send messages to someone not on your phone address book

tech.hindustantimes.com:

Have you ever experienced the tiring process of messaging someone on WhatsApp when their phone number is not saved? Even sometimes you must have saved a number of unknown people just for the sake of a single WhatsApp message. If you can relate to this, then here is a WhatsApp trick that will solve your problem. This is so because you can send WhatsApp messages and chat with people without saving their numbers on your phone contact list as a one-off event. You may want to reach out for a service contact or ask a business query on WhatsApp for a one-time chat, all that is now possible without saving the contact in your phone address book. All thanks to WhatsApp's click-to-chat feature!

It allows you to begin a chat with someone without having their phone number saved in your phone's address book as long as you know this person's phone number. Also, they should have an active WhatsApp account. If you meet these two conditions, then you can create a link that will allow you to start a chat with them. By clicking the link, a chat with the person automatically opens. The click to chat feature works on both your smartphone and WhatsApp Web. Looking forward to trying this trick? Check how to create your own click to chat link on WhatsApp.

You can use https://wa.me/<number> where the <number> is a full phone number in international format.

Note that you must omit any zeroes, brackets, or dashes when adding the phone number.

For example, don’t use the link as - https://wa.me/+001-(XXX)XXXXXXX

Use this :  https://wa.me/1XXXXXXXXXX

You can also create your own link with a pre-filled message that will automatically appear in the text field of a chat.

Just use https://wa.me/whatsappphonenumber?text=urlencodedtext where ‘whatsappphonenumber’