Many OTAs will not provide us with the guests direct email address. Instead, they will provide an alias email address.
Here’s some examples of what alias email addresses can look like:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
You’ll notice that the email domain contains the booking site name instead of a normal email address like @gmail.com or @outlook.com
The first part of the email address may also contain a combination of the guest’s name e.g. the first example above is for a guest named Komba Madua.
These email addresses are provided by the OTA to protect the guests privacy by temporarily forwarding any emails to their actual email address.
If we send an email from [email protected] to that email address, it will still go to the guests direct email address that they provided to the OTA. Note that you can’t email them from your own personal account, it has a filter to only allow emails from the property.
Here’s what it looks like when we email them on the alias:
This alias email address also provides some filtering on the messages to prevent certain information being sent. The filters are not too extensive on Booking.com and Expedia, but Airbnb filters a lot more – this is why we request their direct email address.
Here’s an example of a transaction ID being filtered out as they think it is a phone number:
These alias email addresses also expire after a certain amount of time, we won’t be able to use that email address on their next booking a year later.
When the guests complete their VCI, it will show them this alias email address and they might be confused! It won’t allow them to submit the VCI with that email address anyway, so just explain that the OTA gives us this temporary email address and they will have to replace it with their direct email.