Airbnb user booking for her boss.

[Brittany1]

Wondering how my fellow hosts handle situations where the person who requests to book isn't the one actually staying in the apartment. We've had this happen multiple times, mostly millenials booking for their parents or business related bookings. We don't like to do any communication outside of Airbnb and will kindly direct people back to the website or app when they text or email. Our upcoming guest just sent a list of names and numbers for me to "coordinate with". My impulse is to tell her that we would like to communicate with her via airbnb and let her do the coordination.

I know that Airbnb says this...

"we require that Airbnb reservations are booked by the person who's going to stay at the listing. For the same reason, you’ll need to be an authorized user of whatever credit card—or other payment method—you use to pay for a reservation."

This person instant booked. Is there a point when making a reservation where Airbnb reminds guests that they cannot book for other people? Any tips would be helpful.

[Stephanie6]

Hi @Brittany1, I have had guests whose booking was made by an executive assistant and so far they have all worked out very well.  The person making the booking did all of the coordination, as they should, and it was all through airbnb.  Tell the person who booked that the communication needs to be with them and through airbnb - go with your instincts!  Let them know they can cancel if that won't work for them.  Alternatively, if they did not reveal that the booking was for other people until after you accepted, you can let airbnb know and ask airbnb to cancel the reservation (especially if you are uncomfortable with the situation).

[Emily140]

@Stephanie6your response appreciated here.... I just posted a similar question, related to my place in San Francisco.  Request just in from AirBnb user with no profile info (just a photo) looking for 91 days "for my boss and his family while they are in SF."  She did have one review from a beautiful huge house in the Hamptons that said, "Anna's executives were a pleasure to host, welcome back anytime."  This group are new AirBnb users (her profile read April 2017).  Maybe they don't realize the trust extended by AirBnb hosts giving up their HOMES is a trust borne of forthcoming openness generating high confidence it will be a win-win situation..... 

I'm stressing out and don't want to turn down a 3-month booking by a respectful executive family, not to mention $22k, but 1) there's a 2.5yo involved, 2) 90 days is a long stretch for me, 3) they have no flexibility on start date to allow me to set up to be away that long and for the child... 4)  I have no sense of who they are which is eating away my confidence by the minute that this is not some scam... even though I'm hard-pressed to figure out what the scam could be...

[Helen3]

Sounds like she has done this before. I am wondering why she hasn't set up as a business partner so she can do this legitimately.

Why not send her a link so she can do this?

I too would feel uncomfortable taking a family booking for this long outside of Airbnb 's rules.

[Paul154]

Sometimes accepting tech-adverse parents is the easiest.

Not without risk, but easy

I have had luck asking guests to cancel and then sign up legitimately. But sometimes they just cancelled (were they offended or scammers?...)

You can also point out to that Airbnb will credit them if they use link for a new guest signup

[Emily140]

@Paul154that's the best suggestion yet - very positive - remind them about the credit for signing up a friend!

[Queen1]

There obviously are some people taking advantage of your space and making profit out of your place. The 2nd day i became a host, i got instantly booked by a competitor of the same area very close to my place.

i have a few ideas to fix greedy people

1) cancel the booking at the last minute before the guests check-in

2) call the support to report the abuser

3) charge extra money

4) once guest come, do not allow check-in, because they are not the people booking

[Emily140]

@Queen1You're a tough cookie.  Good for you.  As I racked my brain trying to figure out what could possibly be the scam with someone investing $7500/mo in my space for the summer, I realize indeed it is a small investment compared to investment required to buy a similar property.... and a nice profit level one could make by doing nightly rentals at a higher rate than my monthly rate, and all the wear-and-tear (and neighbor grief) would be on me.  I wonder if there are international sites "like" AirBnb where someone could post my listing and serve a particular audience that I would never see - I wouldn't know where to look and if it was in Russian or Chinese I wouldn't be able to read it anyweay (I only suggest these languages because a high percentage of my local community are these nationalities).  I wonder if you could google your own images to see if they turned up elsewhere....

In the meantime, how can we suggest to AirBnb to create a simple method to REPORT the 3rd Party booking user/abuser in one click? 

[Monika64]

@Queen1 While you have been in the unfortunate situation of 3rd party booking, I'm not sure that some of the suggestions you had are beneficial for you. If you (yourself) cancel the booking last minute you will not get any money, will be charged 100$ fee and you will not be able to rent your place trough Airbnb as the days will be blocked. You will be penalized unless you can explain it to Airbnb why you did it without contacting them. Regardless, if you get the penalty removed you might loose money if you cannot rent your place immediatelly.

Same with not allowing check-in. I'm guessing you'd have to contact Airbnb on the spot otherwise you will run into problems explaing yourself later.

I don't even think it's possible to charge extra money, again, without explaing it first why you'd want to do that.

In my opinion, contacting Airbnb right away is the only option when you suspect 3rd party booking.

[Emily140]

@Monika64I wish there was an easy way to do it (contact AirBnb immediately).  It does seem calling is a pretty labor intensive approach --although I'd do it if I had an actual booking to cancel, but not if I'm getting a 3rd Party request, right?  I just flagged the user with no profile info who tried to 3rd Party Book me for the summer.  Her lack of openness, language/style of communication and lack of response suggests she's got undisclosed agenda. 

In flagging, you get three options only, no fill-in-the-blank "Other" category:

(1) User should not be on Airbnb,

(2) User offers other means to contact, or

(3) Inappropriate content (offensive, whatever). 

So I pushed (1) hoping I'd get a second screen with a place to put "requested 3rd Party booking, please advise how to register for Business Travel Manager."  Nope, no oppty to add info.  Just got "thank you for flagging this user" or such. 

I can't CONCLUDE this user should not be on AirBnb, but they are requesting something that is not allowed on AirBnb...

Ideally, AirBnb would simply and graciously invite them to properly register for corporate 3rd Party booking within x time period or discontinue their profile. 

Seriously, management would benefit from giving us a suggestion box.  Maybe one accessible to Level 10 folks...

[Monika64]

@Emily140 You are absolutely right, there should be a flag option for 3rd party bookers, definitely! Unfortunatelly there is no suggestion box other than "host voice" which doesn't seem to mean much when it comes to urgent matters 😞 I just hope they hear us on some of the suggestions!

As for Level 10 folks ... as one of the main contributiors mentioned it here before Level 10 doesn't always mean you know all about Airbnb, it just means you spent a LOT of time here :-)))

[Emily140]

Hmmmm.... I'll check out Host Voice.  Call me self-righteous, but I think it's a critically-needed idea to implement.  I for one felt REALLY STRESSED about the inquiry and it took awhile before reading through community posts - grateful to the clarity of notes like yours - before I really clued in to WHY I felt so stressed--the risks, and indeed the practice is not permitted!  This weirdness needs to be simply removed from the booking and hosting equation.  Maybe adding keywords to our conversations helps these issues get noticed?  #3rdParty

[Emily140]

@Monika64I created a Host Voice posting !

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Voice/Report-3rd-Party-Booking-Requests/idi-p/411381

[Queen1]

@Emily140Very likely, I will pay attention to chinese forums to investigate this.  Yes, you can trace your images of the property, however, if the 3rd party edited the photos, original info stored in the photos will be lost. So far the best technology to find out copyrighted videos are from Ytube, they are so amazing. maybe airbnb should be using videos instead of photos. need some innovation.

@Monika64it is very easy to reject check-in, just take out your phone to take a pic or video of the guests who are not the one booked, send to airbnb. problem solved.  Secure your door.

[Queen1]

@Emily140   I will send you a PM with the link that i found. Look through at the photos and prices. 🙂

Even though I know a lot, I can't tell more insider things about china on internet, because it will get me into more trouble. The reason those customers don't want to book using their own info is because they can't afford to let others know about their trip in USA. When you rent out entire apt, that is exactly what they need.  If you must rent out entire apt, I suggest you install hidden cam, you will become a hero. 🙂