Third Party Bookings

[Donald472]

I'm noticing more & more that guests are booking our cottage for someone else, be it an apparent family member or even an employee.

Is this common practice? 

I'm considering putting on our listing that we'll only accept third party bookings with prior approval as we're not too keen in this.

Further to this, surely it would be better if guests who make instant bookings had a profile picture of themselves? 

Am I being pedantic?

Am I being paranoid?

Thank you,

Donald 

[Shelley159 · Accepted solution]

Hi @Donald472 

You don't have to accept third party bookings. You can put text in your listing to emphasise it, but it's already against Airbnb's policy:

Booking a stay for friends and family - Airbnb Help Center

Those booking for employees should use Airbnb for Work.

Airbnb's review system and resolution process don't make sense when the person booking didn't actually stay in the listing.

From what I can see in the Community Center, international hosts are far keener to reject third party bookings than local hosts (the Airbnb policy doesn't generally seem to be as strictly enforced by hosts here, and many international hosts seem to be stricter with enforcing rules in general).

There's no reason you can't block third-party bookings - Airbnb is on your side of this argument. Simply send the help article above in the message thread to the guest, and aplogise that Airbnb unfortunately doesn't allow you to accept a third-party booking.

[Donald472]

Thanks for the prompt reply. 

Thank you too for the Airbnb article link.

Your response has given us more confidence in cancelling a booking if we feel uncomfortable with a potential third-party booking. We're going to amend our listing and will use the article link in the descriptor  

[Shelley159]

Hi @Donald472 

Just on this point: 

Your response has given us more confidence in cancelling a booking

I just want to make sure you know that - as a host - you should never cancel a confirmed booking outside of extreme circumstances. If you meant that you will decline a booking request from a third party, that's OK (try to avoid declining too many bookings overall, as that can affect your search rank).

If you discover after the booking is already finalised that it was a third party booking and you want to cancel the confirmed booking, contact Airbnb Support and ask them to cancel due to the 3rd party policy violation. Make it very clear that they should not process it as a host cancellation (which carries heavy penalties), but as a booking that violates Airbnb's policy.

[Donald472]

I would have to say that all of the bookings that have been for third parties that we've hosted in our cottage have turned out to be so only after the booking has been accepted or confirmed.

We've even had an instance where a woman made a booking and two young men arrived at our front gate, one of which alleged the booking was made by his mother. Not great from a security perspective...

Thanks again for your feedback

[Joelle43]

Hello @Donald472 

Great advice from @Shelley159 and to answer your last questions - No - you are neither being pedantic nor paranoid - you're just being cautious and rightly so!

I have put in my house rules that third party bookings are not allowed as per Airbnb's own regulations.  I have referred guests to Airbnb's policy on Airbnb for Work several times by sending them the help link

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/1277 and asking them to set up their company details.

As for the profil picture, I have toggled that switch which says that guests need to have a proper photo of themselves to book.  I am not on IB so can check all the above when they send me a Trip request

[Donald472]

Great advice from you too Joelle, thank you for making the effort to reply.

Will follow your idea and toggle the profile picture required button on our listing - although I really thought we had done so when we created our listing. 

Yes, I've just checked and it is indeed toggled on. Our most recent instant-booking's profile picture is definitely not of the guest. So it appears things do slip through the cracks...

[Helen3]

It's quite rare. Just confirm Airbnb doesn't allow third party bookings and as them to get the family member to book directly @Donald472