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I’ve gotten a third-party booking request, which I know is against airbnb rules.
I could decline it, but that may affect my host ranking. I requested the guest to please withdraw the request instead (vs. having me decline it), but they haven’t done it yet.
Suggestions on what to do?
Thanks.
Call Airbnb, tell them a guest is trying to make a third party booking, you asked them to withdraw the request and they haven’t, and ask Airbnb to cancel the request from their end.
I have had so many private booking requests through airbnb, even as a newbee. My response has been that I prefer to use airbnb for the first booking and we can discuss private bookings for future visits. This has worked fine so far. I have done a couple of private bookings for friends-of-friends and this has worked well. If guests are decent, I would take them privately for repeat visits.
Send a message to Airbnb support so that they can cancel it for you without penalties.
@lagunafairway A third-party booking is one that someone books for someone else, and the person that books does not stay. It’s not when someone tries to book directly with you.
For those guests that ask through the AirBnB platform to book directly with you, I suggest you simply tell them “Per my agreement with AirBnB, I cannot accept a direct booking from you once you have contacted me through AirBnB”. AirBnB can shut you down if it looks like you are trying to help guests avoid paying their service fee.
Then, during their stay, contact them in person or via text or with a sign in your property that tells them how to reach you in case they want to book directly with you for a repeat visit. Be careful how you do this, as “asking or encouraging guests to book directly for you” even for a repeat visit is against the terms of service. So I simply educate the guests with “We accept bookings through Vrbo, AirBnB, or directly with us. Use whichever of those is best for you”’
I can’t tell here if this is a third-party booking or an off-platform one.
I’ve never had any problems with third-party guests and many of my third-party guests have become repeats.
If it’s off-platform. simply let them know that it’s against your terms of agreement with Airbnb.
For the future, make sure that your business card is in the rental for every stay so that previous guests can make repeat bookings direct.
Just did that…called airbnb and asked them to withdraw it.
How do you prevent future third-party bookings (by third-party, I mean a person books it for someone else - friend, family etc - but the person booking it doesn’t come to the home).?
I could state it in my listing asking guests to not send requests for third-party bookings, but other than that, do I have to call airbnb every time someone sends these requests?
Thanks.
I don’t. However if a guest makes it clear in the Airbnb message system that they are booking for someone else, and you don’t want to have a third party, tell the guest that it’s against Airbnb policy and that they must have their own account.
Tell them that if they contact Airbnb and an operative will walk them through the simple process of creating an account.
I’ve done this several times with success.
Yes, you’d have to contact Airbnb.
But hopefully you know the difference between an Inquiry and Request. If it comes as an Inquiry, you don’t have to pre-approve or decline, just tell the guest you don’t accept 3rd party bookings.
I told the guest to contact airbnb, but got no reply from them for 12 hours…finally, I had to call airbnb and ask them to cancel it. I can do it, but it’s tiring to have to do that every time someone makes a request like that and doesn’t do their part of canceling the request themselves…
“…every time someone makes a request like that.”?
Do you get a lot of those? I’ve never had one and I use Request to Book only.
It is my understanding that Airbnb rules that person staying is the person booking. If not, you are not covered for public liability. Even if a wife books for her husband you have to ask them to change the profile name for that stay.
I have learnt recently that ANYONE (known to the account holder) can, with the account holder’s permission, change the profile name to their own!
I queried this recently & Airbnb said it was ok to do that! I asked how, in such a short time frame, they had managed to check the new persons’ ID!!
…and what did they answer?
They didn’t answer at all. Gave up!
I’ve received a few of these. Since I have IB turned off and guests have to request whether they can book, I just politely decline their request and say:
‘Sorry, I’m unable to accept 3rd party bookings. However, you can tell them to sign up for an Airbnb account and then they can book directly.’
This doesn’t affect your acceptance rate as a host—if you’re not using Instant Booking—because you’re just declining a request vs canceling a booking.
Of course declines affect your acceptance rate- that’s exactly what acceptance rate is based on. It has nothing to do with cancelling an IB booking. That’s your cancellation rate.
Of course if you can get the guest to withdraw the request before the 24 hrs is up, meaning you won’t have to click on decline, your acceptance rate isn’t affected.
Deleted by poster. 2020
Ok, I’ve rewritten this a few times because I really want to get to make sure I’m not missing anything. I often get people requesting specific dates—only so that they can ask a general question (with no intent to book for those dates).
I answer their questions and then decline them. I do these declines at least 2x a quarter.
I haven’t seen any impact on my rankings.
However, I hadn’t been looking at the acceptance rates because these booking requests are inquiries until I accept. As a host, I can’t control people putting a date request in just to be able to ask me general questions.
Additionally, if I get some questionable booking requests, the request to book has not been approved and is still an inquiry.
However, when I go to this site below it says that acceptance rate can affect a host if its on reservations, but not inquiries.
It makes a distinction between declining an inquiry vs a reservation, yet I frequently get inquiries as reservations.
This is just a user error on the guests part, unless they really do want to stay and they’re just confirming suitability. If your place is not a good fit, the best thing to do, is to simply reply to the question (asap, to maintain good response rate and time), mention you don’t think your place is a good fit for their needs (because reasons) and to please kindly retract their booking request to free up your calendar. If they comply, then you don’t have to use the decline button and your calendar is re-opened for those dates, and the potential guest can now go find something more appropriate for them.
@superb-onion If it’s an inquiry message, all you have to do is answer them, you do not have to click on either pre-approve nor decline.
If it’s a request, and they are asking for something you don’t allow, or dates that aren’t available, explain that to them, and ask them to withdraw the request- if they do so, you won’t need to click on decline, which definitely lowers your acceptance rate. Also, Airbnb will send you threatening messages about declining too much if you do it a lot.
Guests cannot input dates on a request that aren’t available on your calendar, but they can ask for different dates, just like they can ask for anything, no matter how inappropriate- to accept their pet in a no-pets listing, ask you to have a 5 course meal prepared for them, whatever.