How to make the guest actually read the house rules etc before booking?

[Ingrid732]

How to make the guest actually read the house rules etc before booking?

We have cats in our home and I want this to be clear before a guest arrive that they are ok with this fact.

We offer a room for "women only" and still there is some men booking. I don't know if I have the right to cancel the booking due to this or not? 

I would like all guest to confirm that they have read ALL information about our booking BEFORE they book. How to do this? 

[Gillian166]

1) ask them to read the rules. this is not your house rules "info for guests"  but rather whatever you put under rules and policies. Info for guests isn't visible before booking.

2) Put an easter egg in the rules, so they have to respond to the question you've put in there. mine is (right after the bit about driving responsibly on my farm to respect wildlife) "i hope we see a kangaroo".  so any guest who doesn't write that hasn't read the rules. 

 One of my listings is a home share, even though they have a whole wing to themselves they do share the kitchen and in the beginning SO many guests didn't read properly, so now in my scheduled message, the first they get after booking, i say "thank you blah blah blah, in case you skimmed, the kitchen is a shared facility. if this is an issue please feel free to cancel penalty free right now". Even if it's inside my cancel window i would give such a guest a full refund. (hasn't happened yet)

We have 2 cats and 2 dogs. I mention them in the listing and also in the arrival messages. if a guest didn't read the listing properly, despite all my best efforts, and wants to cancel,Frankly, tough luck, they will forfeit one night.  But, you could also put a pic of your cats in the listing photos.  That should help too. 

[Ingrid732]

Thank you for your advice, I will try this hope it will help. It is really frustrating when guest complain about stuff, like that we have cats etc, when it is in the information text. 

[Ingrid732]

Thank you so much for your good advices. 

[Huma0]

@Ingrid732 

Ditto what @Gillian166 said. I message all guests asking them to "please confirm you have read the full listing and house rules (not just the summaries - please click on the links to see everything), paying particular attention to X, Y, Z," depending on which room they book, but X, Y, Z always includes the cats.

In my rules, the Easter Egg question is: "

Please message me with the names of my cats (Pinot, Grigio and Merlot) so that I know you have been able to find and read the full house rules."

When guests message saying they have read everything, but don't answer that question, I know that they have not and they are asked to look again. Usually they then come back with the names of the cats.

My cats are mentioned in several places on the listing and one is also in some of the listing photos.

As for hosting women only, you are allowed to do this if you are a live in host in a shared listing. If it's a complete unit then you can't refuse people based on gender.

[Ingrid732]

Thank you for your advice! I will absolutely asked them to mention my cats names. I am not sure what "live in host in a shared listing" means. I don't want to discriminate anybody but for two singel women it feels so much safer to host a singel woman compared to a singel man. 

[Branka-and-Silvia0 · Accepted solution]

@Ingrid732  it means if you live alone or with another woman and you host in the same household then you are allowed to accept only women. If you are off-site host and rent the entire apartment/house then you are not allowed to discriminate by gender and have to accept men as well

[Ingrid732]

Ok, I live with my daughter 19 years old, in other words two singel women in our home (apartment) where we rent one of the rooms. I hope it will be ok to discriminate by gender for us otherwise we have to stop hosting on Airbnb?

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Ingrid732 

Gender Identity

Airbnb does not assign a gender identity to our users. We consider the gender of individuals to be what they identify and/or designate on their user profiles, and we expect our Airbnb community to do the same. This includes respecting the pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them, etc.) any users within the community identify themselves with.

• Airbnb hosts may not:
  • Decline a booking from a guest based on gender identity unless the host shares living spaces (for example, bathroom, kitchen, or common areas) with the guest.
  • Impose any different terms or conditions based on gender unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.
  • Post any listing or make any statement that discourages or indicates a preference for or against any guest on account of gender, unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.

• Airbnb hosts may:
  • Make a unit available to guests of the host’s gender and not the other, where the host shares living spaces with the guest.

Link; https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/2867/nondiscrimination-policy

[Ingrid732]

Okej bra, "om inte värden delar vardagsrum (till exempel badrum, kök eller gemensamma utrymmen) med gästen". Betyder att jag har rätt att avboka.

[Rebecca181]

I put a sentence at the end of my house rules that tells the guest to include a certain word or number and send it to me in a message when they book. 99% of the time, no message was sent to me. So I'd write the now-booked guest and thanked them for the reservation, then nicely let them know they needed to read ALL of my house rules. 99% of the time they DID and sent me the appropriate message back, as requested. And nobody ever had a problem with this. Airbnb seems to have the house rules buried so deep at times that it was the only option I had.