Airbnb messages coming from account owner
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Official comment
I am happy to announce that Co-Host messaging for Airbnb has launched!
For details, please visit our User Guide:
https://support.hostaway.com/hc/en-us/articles/1260803557189-Inbox-Overview -
At least give us the option to choose.
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Hi Phil. I assume you meant to send the message to me, the OP.
I’ve seen people complain about this issue with Hostaway come up in multiple property manager forums and it’s an everyday problem for me:
I am set up as the “Primary Host” in all my clients’ Airbnb accounts. When I respond to an Airbnb guest through Hostaway (whether it’s automated or not), the message appears on Airbnb as sent by the Account Owner (my client, the property owner) and not me (the property manager). This creates confusion with the guest AND the property owner (who didn’t write that message). It’s very important for me that the guest sees the message coming from the Primary Host (not the Owner). Hospitable and Guesty have addressed this issue and fixed it, so to my understanding this is not an Airbnb API issue/restriction which is what Hostaway Support responded to me in Ticket 193539. For the time being, I have to continue messaging guests directly from Airbnb, which defeats the purpose of having unified messaging via Hostaway.
Thanks.2 -
Hey Chad,
You're correct- apologies to OP!
Thanks for the use case, this is valuable information.1 -
@chad and @your, my understanding is that this is a limitation with Airbnb's API and not a limitation of Hostaway. Basically, Airbnb doesn't allow software to connect to their API via a co-host. It can only be connected by the account/listing owner. This is why you need to add your owner's airbnb account to Hostaway and the listings wouldn't show up in Hostaway by your account simply being added as a co-host, even if you are made "primary host" on the listing. By the same token that you can't add the properties to Hostaway via a co-host relationship, you also can't message.
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@Tommy that’s what I was told, and I would accept that as an impediment BUT both Hospitable and Guesty allow messages to show on Airbnb as sent from the Primary Host whether they’re the account owner or not.
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@Your that's actually incorrect. I'm currently with Guesty and transitioning over to Hostaway! I'm just finishing up our onboarding now and going live tomorrow. I've been with Guesty since 2021. I've brought this up to them as well and that's how I found out it's a limitation of Airbnb's API. I actually also brought it up to Airbnb recently also. I'm in their Experienced Co-Host program. In the program, they started pushing for managers to set up co-hosting relationships with homeowner accounts instead of creating new listings, so when they brought that up on a webinar I opened up this whole can of worms about that's incompatible with all PMSs. They said they expect to start working on it soon.
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@Tommy I’m going by what users of both PMS are saying, and here are the actual instructions for both of them:
GUESTY: https://help.guestyforhosts.com/hc/en-gb/articles/9350506116893-Managing-Co-Hosted-Airbnb-Listings
HOSPITABLE: https://help.hospitable.com/en/articles/6024863-airbnb-how-to-change-the-host-account-messages-are-sent-from1 -
I could do this on YourPorter as well. Assuming the functionality carried over to GuestyForHosts, unless the API was updated to prevent it
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Interesting. I stand corrected! In that case, +1 this would also benefit us.
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Hey Everyone!
We're happy to announce that this request has been pulled into planning stage and we're working to release quickly
Thank you all for your feedback!0 -
@Phil AWESOME!!!
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@Phil Is there any update on this please? When it might likely be available to message guests as the Primary Host? :)
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Hey @krystal- as soon as it's pushed into release, I'll make an announcement in this thread :)
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Release it soon!:)
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I was about to create a new post with the following request, but maybe this is the right thread for it (if not let me know).
Add Option to Select Who a Message is From (for Airbnb Co-Hosts)
I have a co-host for my Airbnb listings; however, it seems like there is no way to respond to people's messages in Hostaway and have that message be from the co-host. An option to select who the message is from would be perfect.0 -
I agree, it is confusing to the property owner when I send a message through Hostaway and it says that the property owner sent the message rather than the property manager.
Looking forward to the release on this to solve confusion to the guest and property owner.
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This would be helpful because all of my clients own their listing so I am the co-host on each one.
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@phil Any update on this one please?? :) (fingers crossed!)
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@Krystal- I don't have a timeline for you, but am confident in saying that this request is currently in development!
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Hi @Phil :) Sorry to ask AGAIN, it's been 6 months now and this is feature we REALLY need - I'd just love an update if possible please as if it's another 6 months we really may need to look into other channel manager options that can do this for us. (90% of our listings have the property owner as the listing owner so we can't communicate with guests from Hostaway). Even if we could just change messaging to come from PRIMARY host (us) that would be SO, SO helpful.
Many thanks
Krystal
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It would be extremely helpful if there were more transparency about the features being developed, including an estimated timeline for their release.
Allowing six months to pass without updates on something that is clearly in demand by many users is not the best way to foster engagement or build trust within the community. Providing regular updates would greatly encourage users and customers to stay involved and feel valued.
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Hi Phil, I would like to have an update on this as it’s definitely needed as I have a team and as mentioned reply is coming from the owner and not my team. Any updates?
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Hey everyone!
We appreciate your patience while waiting for this highly anticipated feature. I am happy to announce that we are looking to launch Messaging for Co-Hosts in the coming weeks (possibly sooner)!
Please watch for messaging in your Hostaway Dashboard for any announcements, as well as our change log, and once it's released, I'll update this thread.
Thank you everyone!0
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