Airbnb has no way to for hosts and guests to share phone numbers via their email system. You select “contact the host”, enter your number, and it gets removed from the email, preventing the sharing of information.
Here’s the scenario. I stayed at a great place two weeks ago and left a jacket there. I contacted the host, who offered to give me the number of the person managing the unit (the host was traveling). The first few times we tried to share the number, in place of the number was a message saying the number had been removed. It took us a good number of attempts to trick the system, but we finally succeeded.
While we were going back and forth, I called Airbnb, waited about 15 minutes for someone to answer and then went round and round trying to explain the simple problem. They had no solutions. Wouldn’t it be really easy to say “we can’t share the host’s number with you, but we can give the host your number”?
That would be so simple. It would protect the host and allows us to contact each other with the host being in control. Did they do that? Nope. The person on the phone spent a few minutes telling me it was the host’s email account and not Airbnb that was stripping the numbers. Once I finally got her to understand we were using their system via ‘contact host’, she then denied that their system stripped out the numbers until I offered to send her the email with the number removed. At which point, she admitted that they did.
Then, believe it or not, she told me she could show me how to send the number. First, she said I should go to the listing. Then click ‘contact host’. I thought she understood that’s what we were doing from the five minutes of explanation we just endured. Clearly they have a serious shortage of skilled resources.
I know this isn’t a big deal for most and my issue was simple, but what if I had a problem while staying there and couldn’t get in touch with the host? What if I left some kind of medical device there? Clearly there needs to be a way to simply share a number. This whole incident shows that Airbnb is still very immature in their systems and processes and that means if you use them, be prepared for to waste time fixing simple things that their systems can’t handle. Also be prepared to get no help from folks who don’t seem to understand the fundamentals of how their own system works.
If you want to share a US phone number via Airbnb messaging, just type the area code, send; then type the prefix, send; then type last for digits, send. It beats the system.
I’ve send 3 messages to Airbnb help and still have not Reid reply. I’ve been working on my refund for 3 months now and still have not received a reply or the refund. I need Airbnb customer support to contact me ASAP.
Our details are wrong but we do not know how to Chang’s them please help urgently.
Sure you can share anything you want via AirBnb messages .. you just need to know how.
WRONG:
“my phone number is +123 456 789”
RIGHT
“my phone number is PLUS-ONE-TWO-THREE FOUR-FIVE-SIX SEVEN-EIGHT-NINE”
Try it next time … it works
Everyone should either print out a copy of their reservation or at least screenshot it. Then you will have all the info you will need. Back in the day no one ever thought of traveling without their itinerary! I’m a host. I have 4 rentals and a 6 bed hostel. Guests can be relentless. I had someone hound the piss out of me to ship his underwear to him in Germany! Much cheaper for him to buy new, right? And a potential guest (not sure how they got my address) was found with her nose smooshed up against my living room window trying to look in to see if I was home. I stay up late working and sleep in most days. I had just woken up when I discovered them peering in at me. Then the wife had the nerve to say”you don’t look like your profile picture”. I was kind and said I wasn’t expecting guests and I’m not pulled together yet. Instead of what I was really thinking. 🙂