I have an international student arriving tonight who will be staying for 3 days until he can get into his student residence. He is coming from the other side of the world, planning to arrive by midnight tonight. I found out today that the account is actually his mother’s (brand new account) and she has booked this on his behalf. I’m inclined to let the 3rd party booking slide I guess, since there’s no way he can create his own account mid-air. I think I will let the mom know tomorrow just fyi for the future. Any thoughts?
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"I’m inclined to let the 3rd party booking slide I guess, since there’s no way he can create his own account mid-air.”
That’s what I would do.
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Exactly what I would do.
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Contact the person who made the third-party booking, and have them add the students name to that persons profile. This is how airbnb suggests. Remember, without the student on the reservation You have no recourse, communication, or agreement with the student.
For me, I would handle it a bit differently, by asking the student to create his own profile, cancel the mother’s booking, and have a student rebook. I have never felt comfortable with people showing up on my doorstep having no responsibility
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This is great information! I didn’t know that. I bet that the mother would be appreciative also of this information so that she could do this in a proper way going forward (or the son going forward opens and uses his own account).
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“Contact the person who made the third-party booking, and have them add the students name to that persons profile.”
I hadn’t thought of that option. Thanks!
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Years ago I made my first Airbnb booking as a guest - it was for my daughter and her two friends. I let the host know that it wasn’t me that would be staying and she approved it.
There were a few issues, like the apartment wasn’t ready at check-in time and they had to wait outside for an hour… there were a couple of other things as well. It was awkward to write the review on their behalf and years later, as a host, I regret not rating her higher because overall they had a good stay.
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I didn’t know this was an option either… that’s great! Makes sense.
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I agree 100%. I will work with the guest and airbnb to make it happen but I am not risking my home and asset.
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While as parents we never really give up trying to help our kids out when needed and possible, these helicopter parents who book for their kids need to realize that if Junior is mature enough to go study abroad and live on his own, he should be arranging his own accommodation, not letting Mommy do it for him.
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I keep trying to take care of my son who is 23 years old and in law school. My DH gives me dirty looks and tells me to stop “babying” him. Fortunately, my son seems to be able to take care of himself - except when the money runs out!
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yep, mine does. That’s why I let a few of these types slide by when I see it’s a valid reason.
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because in some cases it means a party?
maybe other people have different insurance requirements?
Well, one thing I’ve read about re 3rd party bookings is that the 3rd party often hasn’t read the listing info, house rules, etc. And then if they are awful guests, Airbnb won’t support you booting them out, because you chose to take the booking.
Also the person who booked can leave a review and rating, when they never stepped foot in the place.
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I just switch from a commercial policy at over $3000 to a homeowner with a rider or $1200. There are exclusion for when guests cause damage on purpose.
Part of it is that I want to know who is coming to my home too.
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I was concerned that he would be arriving at 1am and have trouble getting in and then have to message his mom in China to message me - or for any other question or concern for that matter. Also, he wouldn’t have a vested interest in the review since it would be someone else’s account.
Anyways, we got it sorted. She added him to the account (thanks for the suggestion). He did indeed have some trouble figuring out his way and I was able to help him.
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This was actually one of the issues I encountered earlier this summer. For me it was not the insurance coverage, I have that. It was that the woman booking, for two of her employees, had inquired a couple of weeks earlier. I told her if she booked to either add them to her reservation or set up a business account to book. When she booked she had done neither and the booking was less than 24 hours out for two nights.
English was her second language, she had never used Airbnb, and she had difficulty communicating with me. I was worried that I might have the same issue with the guests as I knew nothing about them. The guests could not read or agree to my house rules, check-in or check-out info, or other specifics about what areas are shared with guests and which ones are not. I also have a hot tub and fire pit that require additional instructions.
I cancelled on the side of precaution as they had no access to my listing and I knew nothing about them.
I contacted Air to cancel it as a third party booking and got basically the same kind of pushback I posted about earlier today. It also took about 24 hours to resolve.
Reading this thread, I am reminded of the many times when I first started booking guests when I would get a reservation request saying “I’m booking this front for my husband because he doesn’t use Airbnb}, or “I’m booking this for my husband because I do all this kind of work for him”. I get it that you help your spouse out, but I felt uncomfortable when I met these husbands, they had no idea about house rules, their responsibilities as guests, and some of them had no idea that they were going to be in the environment that they walked into. It seem to me that there was no collaborative effort with the wife but that the husband was simply a boss and left those details to their underling.
A lot of boomers from my generation have lived their whole lives as privileged males floating from one situation to another with their wives, their women, etc. doing all the drudge work. When confronted with their misogyny they either bristle and explain that this is the right way for life to be, or look at me quizzically, thinking, I am sure, that I simply “don’t understand the rules of our generation“.
I also see this when a couple comes in and one of them has taken charge of the booking, male or female, and the other spouse has never seen or heard of any of the lengthy exhaustive information in our listing. I cringe realizing how the booking will go.
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Yes, parties is the problem. It’s even a potential issue when the guest is staying at the house, but they’ve neglected to pass along the house rules to others.
Even if insurance covers damage, etc. I don’t want to spend the time and energy… and it sometimes affects future bookings.
The other issue is keeping your rental license.
Recently we had a direct booking from a company, and the guy booking it wasn’t staying. It wasn’t disclosed to me ahead of time and it was only after they arrived that I found out the name of the new contact. I was really miffed. I like the actual guests to be prepared.
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I’ve never been worried about them. I can’t see why it would matter unless, as you say, the host doesn’t have the correct insurance coverage.
I’m sure that there are many so-called hosts out there who don’t have STR insurance or any required licenses. In fact, quite a few of my neighbours have ‘tried Airbnb’ and lasted a couple of months, if that. I know that they weren’t insured and licensed.
I don’t worry about guests not having read the listing or about parties as both apartments aren’t big enough to have any sort of party.
I don’t like guests obviously asking for a third party booking in the Airbnb message system because if ever the company wanted to cause problems for me down the line (although why would they? 
) they have the ‘evidence’.
Otherwise a third party booking is just a same as a direct booking.