Do you use a different Air BnB account for your rentals?

Question

Just a quick question:

Do you recommend a separate AirBnB account for hosting vs. being a guest? We're FINALLY ready to list our STR and I'm trying to figure out if I should list it on my personal account or create a new account attached to our business email. My husband and I will be managing 2 full-time STR. I've been leaning towards a separate account but I wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

Michael Greenberg · Answer

I have been hosting and staying as a guest under one account for 4 years and have never experienced anything negative by doing so.

Mike

Cliff H. · Answer

Similar situation to @Andrea Cole and surprised to see the number of number of folks using one account for both hosting and travel. Coming over after many years on the LTR side of the house and one of the greatest lessons over time was ensuring adequate separation of business vs personal communication. Yet here in context of AirBnB that line seems to blurred by design.

While I’m quite familiar with AirBnB’s philosophy on the matter, it seems at odds with the reality of how increasingly “corporate-ized” the platform has gotten in the last couple years. Anectdotedly I am seeing many more “LodgingInc” business-esque host names popping in listings versus Mary Jane’s STR. Any others seeing this too?

More importantly, for those of you using popular AirBnB tools that leverage your account login, can you clarify if tools are limited/sandboxed to prevent access to the guest side of your account (in the same way as a co-host account)?

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences. Great question and thread!

Andrea Cole · Answer

Thanks all! One account it is. Glad I asked.

Thanks so much,

Andrea

Nancy Bachety · Answer

@Andrea Cole One account for both hosting and traveling. You will have a lot more interactions as a host than as a guest and  staying within one account will make your life much easier. To your concern about business and personal email accounts, it won't matter at the end of the day as long as you read your emails.

You can set up a free google phone number and use that as a phone number on your account if you wish. I mostly communicate on the app (vs the phone number on my airbnb account, by choice) so using my cell phone number on my account doesn't matter to me.

With more that one property to manage, one account will be easier to manage. And then consider using a channel manager like mentioned above. We just started testing out Airgms and like it for streamlining communication.

Others here use Lodgify, MyPorter, and others.

Good luck.

Ethan Cooke · Answer

@Andrea Cole - I agree with @Michael Greenberg and @Julie McCoy--I have a single account as a Host and Traveler and it works great. When I am inquiring or booking a place on AirBnB, the Host sees that I'm a SuperHost. And when I'm doing pricing and calendar management for my AirBnB listings using a computer or the App, I can easily toggle from Host to Traveler to see the exact pricing/fees that potential Travelers see with any of my listings.

Kevin Lefeuvre · Answer

Let's talk "profile" and "account". Single profile no issue. Maybe the confusing thing is that there is a different UI both in the app and the desktop, traveler vs. host. The airbnb mobile app gets sometimes confused with the host vs. guest default . Even your inbox is different. So technically it IS a different "account" under the same "profile".

Go under your "profile" and you'll see that you can "switch to traveling" if you are hosting or vice versa "switch to hosting" when you are in the traveler account.

Hope this helps.

Julie McCoy · Answer

I have a single account for hosting/traveling and have never experienced a downside.

Chris Gottshall · Answer

A friend of mine uses separate accounts so that emails related to his rental business go to a business email address instead of being tossed in with all his personal emails; and to have separate phone numbers for business and personal use. I'm not aware of him having any issues with this so far.

Caroline C. · Answer

@Andrea Cole I have one account for both host and travel and I think that is best. Another advantage is when you are trying to book a place yourself, it will be pretty clear to another host looking at your profile that you are also a host.

Do you use a different Air BnB account for your rentals?

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