Hosts asking another host for detail on guest review

[Alex208]

I have recently only been accepting guests through Instant Book due to a few bad guest stays.  I now have a guest asking to book, and the review on them only says "they stayed at my home" with three stars. Is it okay to reach out to the host and ask for more information? 

[Sarah977]

@Alex208  A review like that is generally the result of a terrible guest, but one that might have been local, and the host fears retaliation if they get specific about the bad behavior. It's what's known as a "coded" review. Nothing the guest could get upset about, but a strong hint to other hosts.

If I saw that, I wouldn't feel the need to contact the host, I would not accept the booking.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if another host sent me an inquiry requesting more info about a guest, the only annoyance of it is that the host has to respond within 24 hours.

If you are new to requests and inquiries, be aware that if it's an inquiry message, you don't need to either pre-approve or decline, all yóu neeed to do is message back. If it's a request, you do need to either accept or decline within 24 hours, but first try to get the guest to withdraw the request, so you won't need to decline.

[Pete69]

Self-explanatory. Decline the guest.

But, it can't hurt to ask the host for the dirty details. Maybe they'll sing... maybe they won't.

[Till-and-Jutta0]

Trust & Safety doesn’t like if you send a message to a host other than for purpose of booking his accommodation. The host might flag it, or T&S could send you a warning. Personal experience 😣

[Kelly149]

@Alex208 a more direct strategy, albeit a little sneaky, is just say to the guest "I'm sorry to bring up a sore subject, but it appears that one of your past hosts gave you a really bad review (the guest doesn't know how the stars were marked!), could you tell me more about that?"

In my experience, how they answer that question tells you more than that past host could.

Good luck!

[Kevine-Thierry-Serge0]

I read a lot of strange stories about guests and hosts on airbnb, I think it's better to clarify what happened