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Marcia Chen
  • Kihei, HI
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Guest vetting - your concerns?

Marcia Chen
  • Kihei, HI
Posted Jun 23 2017, 04:40

I'm in my 7th year renting out a condo in Maui when we're not using it. We get most of our guests through VRBO and Flipkey.

I would like to hear from some other vacation rental owners about your thoughts on vetting guests. I am concerned that VRBO is moving toward instant-booking only, which I would hate. Why?

1)I don't want guests who regard our condo as a quasi-hotel. They may then have expectations that we can't fulfill. For example, if something goes wrong, we fix it as quickly as we can, but it's not as quick as a hotel and we can't move them to another property in the meantime. In addition, when I have some back-and-forth communication with them, they understand that we owners are real people and they become more reasonable when it comes to posting reviews.

2)Although we can sleep 8 people in our 2 bedroom condo, I want only families if there are more than 4 guests. If some of the 8 are kids, it works out well. What I definitely do not want is 6-8 unrelated adults coming to Maui for a wedding. Our place would be much too small for them, and I don't feel they would treat the place well. Another scenario I don't want is one or two adults chaperoning a cadre of teens or pre-teens, which is a definite possibility in summer.

I don't see how I can reliably screen out such unwanted scenarios with instant booking. What incentive would there be for a grouping of people I didn't want to tell the truth? What I do now is ask guests to describe their group and their situation when they inquire or make a booking request. If I'm not satisfied that it's a family (two couples is also OK), then I don't allow the booking.

I'd like to hear your input on the above along with what scenarios you may be concerned about screening out.

We don't have concerns about people ripping us off or stealing things because our guests are always flying in from afar.

I understand that on AirBnB you get some info about what other hosts said about guests, but I don't believe their system would address my concerns.

Marcia