Airbnb Host and Investors Forum General Advice 1 2 3 4 5 … 10 Next » A Short Term Rental (STR) Forum Community

[walker5555]

We have guests arriving in 10 days and I've already assisted with travel tips and recommendations. Now they want to add everyone to a whatsapp group chat. I personally think some guests need boundaries as this is not a 5 star hotel with concierge and 5 star prices and I have a day job and cannot immediately cater to all of their questions (most of which have nothing to do with the home itself).
How do you handle this type of request?

[parke424]

Are they new guests? Sounds like that are not familiar with how airbnb operates. A simple response like this should do:

“Hi guest, Airbnb requires us to keep our communications on their platform for the safety of all parties so I won’t be able to join a WhatsApp group. Please don’t hesitate to message me through the app if you have any questions and I will usually be able to respond within a few hours.”

[ChrisFromTheOC]

Even if its something innocuous like going off app to ask for suggestions its against the TOS which clearly mentions Whatsapp:

"It's against Airbnb policy for hosts to ask you to take your booking off of Airbnb or to communicate outside the Airbnb platform through a messaging service (ex: WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.), text, or any platform other than Airbnb prior to booking. If you choose to pay for your booking outside of Airbnb, you will lose the AirCover protection that comes with booking through our platform for no extra cost."

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/209

[planeteurope]

Anytime i've had guests try to go to whatsapp it always smelled like a scam. Are you sure these are actual legit guests? The scammers who run "pig butchering" operations also sound like legit people until they try taking over your assets...

[criscokid]

Never take communication off the app.