How to check a guest before check-in: blacklists and guest ratings

When to check a guest

Check before you confirm the booking and take a prepayment. After check-in, it is much harder to turn a guest away, and you will most likely have to refund the prepayment.

Pay particular attention to bookings:

• for a single Friday or Saturday night;
• for more guests than the property allows;
• with a request to check in without ID or without a prepayment;
• from a guest who avoids phone calls and rushes you to confirm.

These signs do not mean the guest is a problem, but they are a reason to clarify the details.

What to check

1. Phone and name. Does the name on the booking match the person you speak to, and does the guest answer the number given?
2. History with you. Has the guest stayed with you before, how did it go, and were there any no-shows?
3. Blacklist. Do other owners have reports about the guest?
4. Purpose of the trip and who is coming. How many people are coming, whether there are children or pets, and whether a party is planned.
5. Terms. Does the guest know the house rules, the deposit amount and the cancellation policy?

A shared owners’ blacklist

A blacklist collects cases where a guest caused damage, did not pay, broke the rules or threw a noisy party. The main value of a shared list is that it warns you about guests who have never booked your properties before.

To keep the list useful and fair:

• record facts: what happened, when, where and what the damage was;
• do not replace the description with labels like “unhinged”;
• attach evidence, such as photos of the damage;
• show other owners the guest’s phone number and documents only partially.

A blacklist entry is a reason to look more closely at the booking, not an automatic refusal. The decision stays with the owner.

Your own history and guest ratings

Even without a blacklist, every owner builds up their own records over time. If you note how each stay went after check-out, you can see at the next booking whether to accept that guest again.

A rating works best with several criteria: cleanliness after check-out, property condition, house rules and communication. An internal rating is visible only to your team and helps you decide without publishing an opinion about the guest.

Guest data and how to protect it

When checking and storing guest data, keep only what you need for the job and limit staff access. Access codes, phone numbers and passport details should not sit in shared chats.

How it works in Glavbook

• When you enter a phone or passport number in the booking card, Glavbook checks the guest against the blacklist shared by its users. If there are reports, a warning with the reason appears before the booking is saved. The booking is not blocked; the decision is yours.
• Reports are added by owners and staff with write access: the reason, a description, the date, the city and the amount of damage. Reports about the same person are merged by phone or passport number.
• Other users see phone and passport numbers only partially, only the author can edit or delete a report, and every change is kept in the history.
• A guest profile is created automatically from the phone number and keeps the stay history, no-shows and penalties.
• After check-out, the guest receives an internal rating for cleanliness, property condition, house rules and communication, with the housekeeper’s report taken into account automatically. Only your team sees the rating.
• The blacklist check and the guest database are also available in the mobile app.

More on the pages “Blacklist” and“Guest database”. Deposits and cancellation terms are covered in the article “Prepayments and deposits in vacation rentals”.

FAQ