Using a credit in my account to book a reservation for a friend

[Mike38]

I got an $800 credit when trying to book a place with a group of friends who were traveling for a wedding. The host cancelled on us three days beforehand, and airbnb support was very helpful in offering this $800 credit to help find another place with short notice. Unfortunately, at this point, others in my group were hesitant to trust airbnb to book a backup, and we went with a hotel instead.

Now I am looking into options for this $800 credit. It has to be used by June 16. We are thinking of giving it as a wedding gift to the newlyweds. I asked about transferring the credit to another airbnb account, but airbnb said this is not possible.

Practically speaking, would it be feasible to contact a host about booking a reservation for someone else (not sure, but they might have an airbnb profile that I could reference)?

I'm asking in the "hosts" room since I hope to get the perspective of hosts for this.

[Tracy0]

Hosts are usually wary to take third party reservations as they do not get the protection of the Host Guarantee (for whatever it's worth, that's debateable!) But booking a third party reservation means a) they don't get the insurance protection b) they may not have adequate communication/assurance from the people who are actually the ones turning up c) they won't know for sure who is actually coming as it's another person/verification who is making the booking and d) technically no review can be left for them as AirBNB wouldn't let you review them as you never stayed (and the other people don't have AirBNB accounts).

As a rule I don't take third party reservations anymore....I had one assurance that yes they read the rules etc etc but they turned up clueless, thinking it was more like a bed and breakfast, was surprised I didn't cook for them and were grumpy the whole time.  So because I cannot communicate directly with the person staying, I just don't do them.

You may find someone who does, though...but if they are experienced they will have these issues in the back of their mind.

Hope that helps!