Your Airbnb account can change overnight. Algorithm shifts, fee increases, a sudden suspension, and if your entire guest relationship lives inside the platform, you have nothing.
In this episode, Tim walks through 10 platform-compliant ways to collect your guests’ real contact info, legally, automatically, and without sending a single message that could put your listing at risk.
- The in-property QR code strategy that converts at the highest-intent moment of any guest stay — and why the offer matters more than the placement
- How WiFi login tools like Stayfi turn a giveaway you’re already offering into an automatic email capture that runs in the background 24/7
- Why your Stripe dashboard may already hold dozens of real guest emails you’ve never used — and how to start putting them to work
- The exact post-stay message approach that stays compliant with OTA terms while sending guests directly to your own contact form
- How listing on Google Vacation Rentals and VRBO direct changes the contact info equation entirely — every booking comes with real data by default
If this episode helped you see your guest list differently, subscribe so you never miss what’s next. Share it with a host who’s still relying entirely on platform traffic — it could be the most important thing they hear this year. See you in the next one.
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There’s no question that OTAs like Airbnb and VRBO are cracking down on you getting your guests’ information so that they can book with you directly
And they take extreme measures if they catch you doing this. They will remove your account. They will even go as far as blacklisting your address so new accounts cannot be added to that address
But there’s a lot of legitimate ways that don’t violate any policies that you should be doing with each and every reservation to capture as much guest information as possible
So today we’ll be breaking down all of those options. Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast
Let’s just get right into it. The number one rule, the thing that you absolutely cannot do, is solicit your guest information directly through the OTA channel, so directly through the message platform on Airbnb or VRBO or booking.com. This gets flagged right away.
Of course, the OTAs already know this, right? And they’ve put measures in place to make sure that you do not get your guest’s contact information. Let’s start with Airbnb. They currently mask any email that you receive on behalf of the guest, and they also create a temporary phone number that is not the actual phone number of your guest
Both of those expire after the guest’s reservation, and if you didn’t collect their information in another legitimate way, then you don’t have their contact info
vRBOBooking.com do share the guest’s name and email after the booking, but you gotta make sure that you save it
Now we’re gonna go through all the steps pre-booking, during the booking, post-booking to capture as much guest information as possible. But we’ve also put together a little handy guide.
You can grab it in the link down below
So before you can get any value out of having your guest’s direct contact info, you need to have a direct booking website, right? We’ve talked about that a lot on this channel. If you’re new here, we’ve been running for over six years, quick actionable episodes to help you with your short-term rentals or your portfolio.
My team and I manage two hundred and fifty-plus properties in over forty cities and quite a few different countries now, so we’ve learned a lot over the years, and I hope you find all of our insight helpful
You can catch all of our prior episodes at strriches.com. Okay, so in order to capture some value from this guest contact list, you need a place for them to book.
A direct booking website is a requirement. Most PMS programs luckily have this built in where you can create at least a easy template version really in just a few minutes. But if you wanna take it a step further, well, then you can go to a third-party company, there’s lots of those these days, that will integrate with your property management software, but create you a much more custom website
I was recently interviewed on another podcast, Book Solid, with Gil Chen, and he runs a company called Crafted Stays. This is all they do, is create custom websites for all their customers that integrate with the property management software that they’re already using There’s another company out there called Host AI that are making some really cool direct booking websites.
So if you’re not happy with your existing one, I’d suggest reaching out, seeing what’s currently available
All right, so there’s really three times, three places where you can get your guest’s contact info. The first place is before they actually make a booking, when they’re visiting your direct booking website. So you wanna make sure you have a pop-up on there, for example, something that pops up. Maybe you’re offering a discount.
You capture their email and their phone number. I know Host AI, the website company I mentioned, even has a way for their potential guests to bid on future reservations if they didn’t like the price that was showing up. So there’s some really clever ways out there to capture guest information before they actually make a decision to book with you at your property
Now, your direct booking website’s not gonna create demand on its own, right? So oftentimes this is the place where repeat guests go back to, but you can also drive that demand by doing your own social media
People browsing on Google, I hope that you have your properties listed on Google now. You can also include your website on Google so it shows up on Google Maps. And again, make sure your website has something that you can offer the potential guest, like a guidebook or some sort of future value
okay, so that’s step one. You got a direct booking website. You have some creative ways to capture guest contact info or potential guest contact info. Really, the big one is when you have guests at your property, you wanna make sure you’re capturing all that, and there’s several ways to do that The first one is you can have a pre-arrival or check-in form.
We highly suggest having a rental agreement for every property where your guest is signing, maybe they’re entering their name and their email, and then you simply capture it on the back end
Most of the industry leading PMS tools now, like Hostway or Guesty or OwnerRez have these rental agreements built in. So make sure you’re taking advantage of that if you’re not already
We use another company on the back end called Charge Automation that creates our guidebooks. It also handles our payment processing. Another note on that in a second. But we use this for our guidebooks and our rental agreement, so it’s a really easy way for us to capture all of our guest contact info
A lot of you out there have probably heard of guest verification tools. So these are biometrics or running some additional security on the back end
Companies like Truvy, which was previously Superhog, or Enso Connect or Safely, these companies can all do some additional security pre-check-in requirements that protect your property a little bit more, but also get that guest’s info for you
All right, now for a big one that I think most people probably overlook is that every time you process a payment through Stripe, you’re capturing that guest’s email and their name, and you should be saving that contact list
We recently brought on some really luxurious properties. One of them actually has 23 bedrooms. Yeah, way past Airbnb’s guest limit. They can sleep over 100 people, and so they have these massive corporate events, weddings, you name it. But you better believe that adds up to a lot of guest contacts, and luckily they were collecting them because
and they were able to use that list really easily. So their calendar wasn’t looking quite as full. They sent out some mass messaging using a company called Quo or previously OpenPhone. They got a whole bunch of responses, and they booked up their calendar. Of course, if they didn’t have devices in the property or ways to capture that guest info, that would not be an option
So if you’re operating a luxury property or any sort of vacation rental, especially where you have guests coming back time and time again, it’s really essential that you are collecting their info. Now with AI and the tools that we have available, it’s a lot easier to reach guests or potential guests as well, But we have to have their contact info to have the option
So those are a few options before the guests actually check in. You have a rental agreement, you have some sort of additional background check that you might be doing, or you’re processing that payment and capturing the contact info on the back end
Now, once the guest is already at your property, we’ve talked about StayFi a lot. This is what creates a splash page in your property. So it’s a device that connects to your internet router, and when the guest shows up for the first time, what’s one of the first things they do? They connect to the internet.
This basically creates a splash screen between your guest and the internet. They need to put in their contact info first, and then they have internet for the whole time they’re there at the property. The beauty behind this is that you get to collect not just the person making the reservation, but essentially everyone there at the property, or at least everyone that connects to the internet
But you wanna go a couple steps further. You wanna make sure that you have some printed documents in your property. You wanna make sure you have a QR code printed out that links to your digital guidebook. Again, when that digital guidebook opens, you can ask for their email
We like to put magnets right on the fridge. Most people end up seeing the fridge, right? It’s also a reminder that they can book with you directly and also book with you at the best rates
So there’s a few options during the stay, and lastly, we have some options after the stay, after our guests have checked out
Remember, you don’t wanna be soliciting their contact info directly through the message platforms, but you can send links through the platform. So after a guest has checked out, you wanna of course send a message and say you hope that they had an amazing time
Now you have one last opportunity after your guests check out, and that’s in a post follow-up message. So you should be just checking in with your guests regardless to say, “Hey, I hope you had a really good time.” Maybe you want to mention something about the review process or let them know that you’ve already left them a five-star review
You have to be really careful again about asking for any sort of contact information in any message that goes through the platform
But you might do something a little bit more subtle and just remind them that the guidebook is theirs to keep, and next time they’re back in town, they’re welcome to use it again. Of course, that guidebook’s going to have links to your direct booking website, right?
So the OTAs are tremendously helpful, right? They spend millions of dollars to help us market our properties, but it’s our obligation to make sure that we get our guests’ contact info so we can build that relationship. And like our newest partners that just joined us, it creates an opportunity to help fill those calendars if they’re not looking as occupied as you want them to.
I hope that this episode gave you a couple other ideas and some good insights. Until next time, I hope you have a fabulous week
