I am very picky. If your phone number is not available you are not staying at my house. I’m going to trust you with my most valuable material asset and the source of my income and you are not going to trust me with your phone number? Not happening.
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Oh, so they have grave privacy issues, but get into your off-limits areas. Serious jerks.
I would have been tempted to stand outside while they were checking out, eating one of the fresh warm baguettes, making mmm-mmm good, you don’t know what you’re missing, sounds. 
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They clearly told me that they were choosing to pass on the baguette. My career for 30 years was as an artisan baker. I once had a guest leave a review that said “whatever this host offers you from her kitchen, do NOT turn down.” I think this was the first guest that did. It is always a fun point of bonding for me with the guests. But anyway I’m not sorry to have missed bonding with people such as these.
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As an aside I think sometimes guests will ignore a question that they don’t want to answer when I have sent it through the Airbnb platform. If I text, they are more compelled to respond. For instance, I do not accept kids under 12. My house’s description has as its first line “no children under 12.” If I ask them on the Airbnb platform they will ignore the question and hope that I will simply accept the request. Two questions I find that with are “what are the ages of the children” and “is the person making the reservation the person who is staying at my home?” When I don’t get an immediate answer I always know the answer. And I decline.
The other day I got a request for two adults and two children. Even though it is the first line of the description, I asked the ages of the children. The very slow answer was “three and five and oh yeah I guess there are five of us because I forgot about the newborn.” I shouldn’t have done this but I got a little sassy and I said “I’m curious why you have requested my home. The first line of the description says no children under 12.” The potential guest called me a nasty b-tch!
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I almost always use text after a booking has been confirmed (both on AirBnB and BDC) to communicate on logistics etc. where having the platform keep a record is not important. I have had many instances where the guest missed an important message because they did not have their app running or it did not have notifications enabled and they missed an important message. But most people seem to always get their SMS and now SMS is not limited to 160 characters it is a good communication option
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Muddy, I am here having a good laugh😂
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Whew you dodged a bullet there. How are you going to review the awful “Do not contact me via text” guest? Sounds like a real turd of a person.
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I will give an honest review. “Note to future hosts: make sure to only communicate with these guests via the Airbnb platform as they became very angry when I used the designated phone number to text them offering a warm from the oven baguette. Also make a point of reminding them to read over the house rules since several were broken during their very short stay in my home.”
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I often include if I would or would not host again and sometimes the star rating.
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Don’t say this; instead state the objective facts: “as they objected to an off-platform message . . .”
Be specific: what house rules were broken?
Just an idea of what I will include. I will be diplomatic and will make no judgment calls.
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Do make sure to say they opened cupboards clearly mentioned as off-limits to guests.
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Yes it is inappropriate to text guests except in an emergency, but if I were your guest I would not have replied like that. That was rude.
My guests all know I have their phone number because I use the last 4 digits of it as their keypad entry code.
Yup, I change the entry code for every guest and delete the old codes. Who does that? Like no one.
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I’m so glad you worked that out so wisely and peacefully. Very good way to go. That’s why I hang out at this forum, to learn better ideas on how to handle the unexpected.
I would have contacted AirBnB customer service and said WTF. And depending on what Customer Service said, I would have cancelled the booking.
I disagree. Over the years countless guests have told me that they rarely look at the Airbnb messages once the reservation is accepted and wish I had simply texted.
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What? I do that and many other here have posted that they also do it. I have a couple of regulars whose codes I don’t delete, but everyone else I have to program into the app.
You probably wouldn’t have- it was a request, not an IB, and she has pages full of great reviews. She also sent a really nice, informative message along with the request. There’s probably a reasonable explanation, which I’m going to ask her about when she’s here, as to why there’s no phone number on her account.
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I do! Our keypad deadbolt has 30 memory slots to hold codes. So I program them about a month in advance and each code has assigned “active” dates that coincide with their stay. 30 min after the checkout time it deactivates. (I give a little grace period to allow for "Oh SH]T! I left my phone charging on the nightstand!) I can also unlock and lock remotely, as well as program and delete codes and dates remotely. Kwikset Smartcode 914. The lock still functions with existing codes if the power/internet is out–I just can’t remotely manage it in those instances. It is a royal pain managing it manually, though. Batteries (4 AA) are still reporting at 60% after over 9.5 months. It also can be operated by a physical master key that only my wife an I have copies of. It’s a game changer.
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Wow! I have never rec’d anything like this and I text guests, I try to use the app mostly though, but this is not ok. This guest sucks 100%. It probably hurt your feelings when you were scolded that way when you had such a lovely offer of free baking. Keep on bing awesome!
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I agree with the guest wanting to stick with the app, but they should’ve responded in a nicer way. If I had been the guest and you had texted me directly, I would’ve just copied your text, went into the airbnb app, pasted your text into a message and responded back to you through the app. In this way, I would be telling you that this is how I prefer to communicate.
As a host, I always text through the app with guests. It creates a ‘communications history’ or record that can protect both host and guests–should an issue or dispute later arise. It eliminates any ‘we said, they said’ because Airbnb can just view the record of the communications. It’s just a few extra taps to get to the app and inbox. Why distribute one’s personal number widely if there isn’t a strong reason to share it? Plus, the app keeps all the guest communications in one organized space. When I have a returning guest, I like to look back at the previous conversations to see if anything came up in the previous visit that I need to consider for their next visit. If I had to look back through all my personal text messages for that information though, I don’t think I’d be able to find it.
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