Interesting. Is it provided by airbnb in France?
There still seems to be some misunderstanding about this:
To my knowledge, it is NOT mandatory for any booking Airbnb guest to provide any additional guest details during the booking process.
What your friend asked you (regarding your name and email address) is an optional feature which is not necessary to complete a booking.
Since, like for you, it would be great for us and any other Airbnb hosts to receive such additional information as well, I responded to Julieâs message about how she handles this matter which sounds very interesting and well working.
She must be allowing bookings only by request which facilitates her approach to make guests provide all required details in order to be able to make a reservation.
Still, I was wondering if there may be instances where a guest would try (or forget) not to fill out the form one week before check-in - given that the reservation has been approved. What would happen then?
We try to explain as best as we can in our listing that all guestsâ details are required by French law and that we are collecting this information (filling out the necessary form) at check-in - this is what I meant when I said âwe still get their information at check-inâ. However, if we get 2 or 3 guests reservations, we would prefer to get those details already up front, if possible.
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I donât know if I fully answered your questions, but if they book months or weeks in advance, in the Greeting message I state a form will be needed to be filled out with some personal information as stated in my house rules. This gives them ample time to cancel. I have never had an issue and everyone has filled out the form.
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Hi o had sent a more lengthy message explaining, but it isnt getting posted for some reason. Will try again
It is very clear in my house rules as I have it as the first line item. A week before arrival, or if it is two days before on a last minute booking, I send them a message saying âyour trip is coming upâŚplease fill out this form and access instructions will follow once I receive itâ
I have only had a couple of issues getting them to fill out. In one case they told me it was way too long to fill out but when they did, they disclosed two dogs coming as well as I do have a line item for that. This was never booked for, so it gave me th opportunity to add the charge required.
Another case, the gentleman gave me some push back, but I explained it was required by the Town (which it technically is, but I think Iâm the only one who follows this rule for some reason). He did fill out and as it turned out he had double the amount of guests there.
I find the ones that give you pushback are planning something outside of your rules. That is my experience. Jotform is a great site and easy to put together any kind of form. When I initially talked to airbnb about needing access to the guests information, they told me as long as I mention it in the house description and rules, that is my wish for my property. It gives me some control.
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Thanks for clarifying everything. I will check into Jotform.
Ah right, so you disabled direct booking right?
I have had it both ways, and because I am clear in my property Description it is never a problem.
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Great, thanks Julie!
Isnât this a third party bookingâŚwhich airbnb does not allowâŚ
No. My friend and I travel together but my friend books the airbnb.
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Please define âthird party bookingâ
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To my knowledge Airbnb does allow bookings by Airbnb members who reserve an accommodation for someone else.
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Airbnb is asking the booker to list the guestsâ names etc. but this isnât mandatory.
We just had a check-out of two workers who got booked from their bossâs Airbnb account. No mention that this is a business related booking nor that someone completely different will be staying with us. Our request to provide all guestsâ details BEFORE check-in has been ignored and we havenât gotten a response to our inquiries in ABB chat either. So these bookings are a bit tricky and we will have to adapt to those in the future as the house rules have also not been communicated to the people who stayed.
Their policies say the opposite. And Airbnb has no idea whether a guest is booking for someone else, unless itâs a business account. Itâs up to the host to determine if the guest is booking for a third party.
If you realize itâs a third party booking and call Airbnb, they will cancel it for you with no penalties. But they will also tell you that itâs âup to youâ if you want to accept it. However, if you do, and the guests cause damages, Airbnb may say it isnât covered because you accepted a third party booking.
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I am flabbergasted. I thought, I recall myself doing this research on the Airbnb website and reading that a few years back it was allowed for family members to make reservations for someone else.
Iâm very happy to read that this has changed - if it ever has LOLâŚ
No idea where I got that idea from.
So, now itâs getting interesting. We had multiple reservations in the past from (which turned out to be) companies that booked accommodations for their on-site workers in town. Almost never did the person who reserved our accommodation tell us that they are a business that is putting their employees under our roof. Only by checking their reviews it was somewhat revealing that they are a company.
Now my question: Are these types of bookings not allowed? And if they are, shouldnât the person who makes the reservation be required to provide the details of the guests that will be staying with us? I probably have to take Airbnb support up on this.
I wait with fascination, to see what information you will be given. Particularly when you ask the same question to multiple CSRâs 
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Iâve had many third-party guests over the years mostly booked through Airbnb.
We have also used Airbnb to book local accommodation for my in-laws when they have visited.
These have never been a problem whether we were the hosts or the âguestsâ.
So the question of it not being âallowedâ by Airbnb isnât really relevant (for me anyway). As @muddy says Airbnb doesnât know if your guests arenât the person who booked. There isnât a third-party booking police force. 
As for the damage aspect, most seasoned hosts have proper STR insurance which they use for damage claims.
Itâs been a long time but I donât think Iâve ever claimed from our insurance company for damage caused by guests.
I certainly wouldnât claim for wear and tear items or accidental damage such as a broken vase or glass.
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Correct. Third-party bookings are not allowed. If you decide to do a third-party booking, airbnb may say itâs OK, but ultimately any damage claims will reference the fact that the people who booked weâre not the people who stayed. There is a separate kind of booking if you are set up for it specifically as per airbnb specs; a business booking. Once you have registered this etc. with airbnb you can do that.
While everybody has different experiences with guests, and by and large most guests are fairly honest and OK, the common third-party booking of the boomer wife booking her boomer husband, while innocuous, also set you up for failure, since the person whoâs In your Airbnb has no financial or moral obligation to follow your house rules, etc. since that person is not the one whose credit card is being used, nor are they listed as guests in your house, Airbnb will certainly not cover damages, etc.
Finally, reviews by the people who stay are always important, but reviews by people who book their third-party people in are not only irrelevant, they are also dangerous for us hosts who are looking to reviews for accuracy and quality of guest
Are such bookings marked as âBusinessâ if they have been made by such accounts? I never saw any indication that one of our guests did have such a business accountâŚ
Wow, thanks so much for explaining it in such detail! Much appreciated.
Our âbusinessâ bookings never showed up like this. They were always regular Airbnb profiles usually with a profile picture of the company owner who made the reservation for his employees.
Also, they book directly, without inquiry, and once the booking is confirmed Iâll never hear from them again. All automated messages will remain unanswered and often even unnoticed (not read by the booker). Kind of frustrating to have these guys send someone over and in the end no one knows anything like arrival times, number of guests, length of their stay (yes, even that doesnât even match the bookings sometimes), itâs like playing roulette.
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Thanks. Same for me here. The last company that booked with us has 20-60 employees according to public records (which is more tricky to find out in Europe). So I did forward them the link to the Airbnb for Work FAQs to learn more about it.
I did contact Airbnb before, inquiring how it works if a booking is made by a family member who wonât be staying with us in case of damage. I was told that this doesnât affect my coverage as the person who books will be held liable. Itâs all I needed to know although we still ask for the guestâs personal details and ID them when they arrive (as long as they are not French nationals who booked for themselves).
I honestly donât see the issue when asking for IDs of our guests as we welcome them in our home. Hotels easily have the power to flat out charge the guests CCs if any damage occurs, why shouldnât I also take precautions to protect my interests in case something goes south?
