Guest is booking for someone else

[Ernesto67]

So a guest has booked my apartment and she disclosed from the start that she was booking on behalf of someone else.  I agreed on condition that I get copies of all the guests IDs, which they have provided. After doing my due diligence on those IDs I didn't find anything untoward about the guests but I would like to know the views of the community. The booking was done yesterday for an end of January check-in, so I still have time to cancel if I wish. What's your views? Thanks!

[Alon1]

@Daniel6978 

Daniel,

If you can prove that the Guest who booked did not stay at the listing, i.e. deceived you, you are entitled to have the Review removed under Airbnb's own rules and regulations.

18 months ago I managed to have 3 undisclosed 3rd Party bookings Reviews deleted.

It was a long and complex story, but the end result is concisely stated in the words of the Case Manager who eventually took action: 

'Due to their reviews containing a confirmed 3rd party booking violation, we have determined it is in our community’s best interest to remove this review because it breaches Airbnb policy.'

The deletion of the Reviews included automatic deletion of the Star Ratings. (Two were 1 * and the other 4*)

Consequently, I would urge you to take it up again with Customer Services and insist that a Case Manager take action based on this rule. 

.

[Huma0]

I would never accept a third party booking. I want to know who is staying with me, be able to correspond directly with them (you also get a sense of what they are like by the way they communicate) and be sure that they have read and understood the listing and house rules.

Then you have all the review problems mentioned above and, even more importantly, the insurance issues. From what I understand - and I have double checked this with Airbnb CS - the host is NOT covered by the Host Guarantee if it is a third party booking. 

As someone else mentioned, third party reservations are against Airbnb rules unless they are business bookings made by an approved user. If you then have issues with or damages from the guests who stay, Airbnb does not have to help you. Sure, you could try to claim from the person that booked, but if Airbnb know you knowingly accepted a third party booking, they might just tell you, "Sorry, your problem!" I guess it would probably depend on the CS rep you get on the phone. I wouldn't want to take the gamble.

[Huma0]

PS I have had a couple of occasions where the guest staying turned out not to be the person I was communicating with at all, but rather someone communicating on behalf of the guest from their account. In one case it was a husband pretending to be his wife (apparently he booked all her travel arrangements for her) and another time a son pretending to be his mother because she couldn't speak any English.

In both cases, I didn't find out until check in.

So, technically it's not against the rules but, apart from this just being WEIRD (why not just say in the messages who you really are and why you are writing on behalf of the guest?) it does create some issues.

Firstly, you have no sense of who this person is. Secondly, it means that the guest who is actually staying has not read ANYTHING.. One of the ladies admitted her husband had just shown her the photos of my listing and told her there were cats and she said, 'okay'. So, your guest may well arrive with unrealistic expectations or might repeatedly break your house rules (the latter happened in both cases).  

The other lady needed her son to translate. He didn't stay overnight, but he was here constantly, cooking, eating, hanging out, going up and down to her room. In fact, I saw more of him than her. I'm not really okay with that. He hasn't paid to be there and it's not fair to my other guests either.

Not sure how I avoid this kind of thing in the future when there are no obvious red flags in the correspondence.

[Paul75]

How can you tell if a booking is from a business booker? as per https://www.airbnb.co.uk/third-party-booking? ?  I often get personal accounts that businesses use to try to make a booking for there staff .. 

[Helen3]

Simple. If it is a business booking, they should book from an Airbnb at Work account.

If a guest tries to book a business booking on behalf of someone else from a personal account this is a third party booking and not allowed. @Paul75 

[Paul75]

@Helen3  yes I know that what I am saying is as a host how can you tell the difference between a personal booking and a business booking? 

[Paul1255]

@Paul75 
If a company is booking a official work trip on behalf of one of their employees, in my experience the person booking the trip operates from a company branded account (the company logo appears where a profile pic usually does) and the Airbnb account of the person who is staying is added into the chat by the booker so you’re able to communicate with both directly.