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Hi everyone!

We’re excited to share that our new Guest Vetting Service (GVS) is now live for all Direct Premium bookings - with the exception of Custom Quotes (coming soon)! After several weeks of testing, refining, and listening to feedback, we’ve rolled this out across the board to help keep you, your homes, and your guests safer - and to make guest vetting less of a burden in the booking flow.

GVS replaces our previous vetting provider (Autohost) and gives us more flexibility, faster improvements, and better visibility into guest risks. The rollout has gone incredibly smoothly so far - with over 400 vetted reservations processed and accepted, and a growing share of all bookings now going through GVS.

🛡️️ Key benefits:

  • Improved ID verification: Powered by iDenfy, a dedicated global ID verification provider focused entirely on identity, not lodging or STR.

  • Automated party risk notifications: Since Truvi doesn’t cover party reservations, you’ll now be notified automatically (via email and in the UI) when a party risk is detected.

  • Streamlined, relevant risk rules: We focus on meaningful signals that point to potential fraud, rather than flagging every minor detail.

  • Fewer blocking support reviews: We only intervene manually for reservations that are unverifiable (e.g., invalid ID photos) or that expose us to legal or financial risk as the merchant of record. Everything else goes straight to you for review and decision-making.

💬 We’d love your feedback!
This is just the beginning - and your input is crucial. Whether it’s about the experience, communication, edge cases, or ideas for improvement, we want to hear it.

👉 Drop a comment below. We’re here, listening, and iterating.

Thanks for trusting us with your bookings - and for helping shape this together!

– Tom & the Direct team

I have had a booking (HOST-VEVUGH) stuck in verification pending since yesterday. The guest promptly entered ID and Photo and its clear and looks good to me. The status also says

ID Check: Approved

Sexual Offender Check: Approved

But I cannot still accept it as the main status still shows

Verification Status:

Pending: The guest has not yet completed identity verification.

 

This is incorrect. The reservation expires in another 5 hours and there is no one responding to chat messages. I need some help immediately. The lack of support over phone for direct bookings is depressing.

I got this sorted out later, more details here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hospitable/posts/1768853727027645/?comment_id=1768901377022880&notif_id=1749923191491992&notif_t=group_comment

But the process is not as smooth as the post above states. It needs further fine tuning

Hey ​@Diamond Lagoons ,

We’ve made a couple of improvements to streamline the guest flow and give you better visibility:

✅ “Purpose of Stay” is now an “Assessment”
This means it now appears in the ID Check and Sex Offender Check sections - making it immediately visible to you as pending, just like the other core tasks.

✅ Removed the success screen after the ID document task
Guests now go directly to the next step (Purpose of Stay) without hitting an unnecessary confirmation screen. This removes an extra click and avoids any misleading “all done” impression.

These were the two main friction points we identified:

  • Making the task status clearly visible to you as the host

  • Reducing unnecessary guest interaction (and confusion)

Let us know if there’s anything else we can smooth out!

Quick update! 🚀

As of Wednesday, we’ve enabled reusing previous ID verifications for new custom quote reservations - with a few important conditions:

  • The ID must still be valid (not expired)

  • It must be from a previously accepted reservation

✅ If those conditions are met, the guest skips the ID check task and goes straight to the “Purpose of Stay” step - saving time and reducing friction.

On the host side, we’ve improved the experience compared to the old “verification skipping” behavior:

  • You’ll now see the full ID data and images, even if the verification was reused

  • There’s no difference in visibility or risk evaluation between reused and fresh ID checks - all relevant info is shown in the inbox and evaluated specifically for the current reservation

This should make things smoother for repeat guests while keeping everything fully transparent and secure for hosts. Let us know how it feels in practice!

That’s awesome! Nice work folks!!!

This is great! Just a slight suggestion: If it is a needed field, I would make purpose of stay up front in the journey before ID check. I have a feeling folks could leave the page after ID upload is complete since they know this was an ID check and probably not go into the last page. Again I have not see screenshots of how the flow is, but just something I think would further make sure it is a mandatory field (should probably show an example inline or so as well so folks don’t just enter blah blah or just vacation”

I have never used this yet. Is there a charge for the guest or host or is this included with the plan?

I have never used this yet. Is there a charge for the guest or host or is this included with the plan?

Its included with Direct Premium I believe. No charge to both.

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