Does AirBnB use "test travelers"?

[Paul585]

The past two days I have received inquiries from two people.  The first one asked if our place was accessible to a particular location in a nearby town, as she had an appointment at that location.  Rather than tell her it was easy to get to from our place I chose to give an honest answer and said it was pretty far away and suggested finding something in towns closer to the appointment location to maximize her being able to get to the appoinment in a timely manner.  She thanked me for my suggestion and said she would follow my advice.  I then declined in response to the inquiry, stating it was not a good match for the one who inquired, and included a reference to our previous email conversation where she said she was going to look elsewhere.

The second inquiry came the next day and asked if my room was available on a certain day.  Could she not tell from checking my listing if it was available or not?  I went ahead and pre-approved her stay, but it appears she will not stay as no reservation has been confirmed prior to the 24 hr deadline I have for my listing.

Both of these people had a very similar profile.  Does AirBnB have people make inquiries with no intention of obtaining a reervation just to see if I would turn them down for no good reason?  In other words, were these does airBnB use "test travelers"?

[Emiel1]

Hello @Paul

I don't think Airbnb is using so called "Mystery Guests", never heared about it.

[Kelly149]

I think the simpler answer is that ABB has a bevy of clueless guests who do not know how to read a listing or a map or a calendar.

Btw, don't ever decline unless you really have to. Look it up. Your declines are being counted and you can be put on notice. Better to let an inquiry expire or a traveler delete their own request or just answer and don't push either the approve/decline button.

[Susan17]

*All* travellers who use Airbnb can technically be regarded as test travellers, particularly as Airbnb now requires reviewing guests to tittle-tattle back to them on such ridiculous matters as 'Did your host supply toilet paper?', 'Was at least one towel per guest provided?' etc. 

What next? 'Was the bog roll provided sufficiently luxurious, and did your host adequately attend to their hosting responsibilities by coming round to wipe your arse with said bog roll when requested? If not, we strongly advise that you hit your negligent host up for a full refund'

[Helen56]

Funny. Irish through and through.  

[Robin4]

Paul @Kelly  @David  Emiel (sorry Emiel, I can't access your tag)

Paul you talk of mystery guests, I had a situation here early last year.

I had a booking request for a user from Dakota in the US. He was a solo traveller, had been an Airbnb user since 2010 and had no other information on his profile except 1 wishlist item....and that was my listing here in the back-blocks of Mt Barker.

He was flying into Australia from the US to stay a week in our property and then he was flying back to the US again....strange!

My reaction was....'I smell a rat here' ! I knew that at the time certain higher officials in the company were doing incognito stays, and from this guys profile and the fact that he was coming from the other side of the world to do nothing more than stay here, my thoughts were....this is one of those incognito stays!

Well come on.....you would think that wouldn't you? seriously odd scenario!

I worked my butt off trying to make the Taj Mahal out of that cottage....jeeez, did I put some effort into  it, thought up a couple of wonderful meals we could have and share, I was going to give this guy the stay of his life.....thought I might even end up becoming a @Fred!

Well Lee duly arrived and he was the loveliest of guests and we did have a great week, but my bubble sure did get burst! He was just a cowboy from the Black Hills of Dakota had not gotten over the loss of his wife who was a marathon runner and had been hit and killed by a vehicle on the road while out training. Each year he goes to a destination he thought she would have loved and last year chose ours.

So there you go, fame dashing in the crack of a 'stock-whip!'

Cheers......Rob

[Helen56]

But at least you gave him a wonderful vacation.

[Robin4]

I give all my guests a wonderful vacation Helen.....:-))

[Elizabeth429]

I once had a male guest from whom I didnt suspect anything until his check out day. He kindly suggested some changes which I agreed upon except one. They were reasonable and mostly aesthetic changes. He booked again a couple of months later and appreciated the changes. He gave me 5* all round both times. I dont know, there was something unusuall in his communication that I havent had with any other guest regardless of how well we got on.

[Fred13]

Cool story. Great guest.

[Fred13]

   Good question. I had a bit of a 'mysterious' guest, getting information from him was like pulling teeths and I suspected at first was a 'test traveller'.  He never told me what he did for a living, despite my many attempts to find out, but when he left he said: "Others should know about this place, and they will". That's it.

   One month later, an article appeared in one of NY's major newspapers (WSJ), then in other publications, then Airbnb did their thing and the rest is history. 

   A year ago (2 years later), he sends me a short, cryptic message: 'Glad to see all has turned out so well for Bird Island'. That's it, nothing more.

[J-Renato0]

Questions about location is not infrequently.  Questions about availability is usual. I have instant book on, but I have seen many guests asking questions about availability before booking, even if knowing that they could have checked it on the calendar. I think some guest want to confirm it, or just want to check if the host answer the questions in fast way, if the listing is active in practical terms. It has not to do with Airbnb.

About test travellers

There is a couple of seniors that wrote an article that was published in the Airbnb blog.

Probably they were testing some listings to have an idea on what makes an stay comfortable, easy and interesting.

In the article, they gave some advices to the hosts based on what they learnt from their experience.