How to check in AirBnB guests remotely

Fed up of in-person key handovers?

Working in the short term rental and property management industry can be extremely hectic and time consuming. Having to meet up with guests, cleaners and property managers to hand over keys to allow access to properties all over a city takes up a lot of time. If you own multiple properties across different locations, it may seem impossible to be able to be everywhere at once.

It’s more than likely that the idea of automating this process has come across the minds of many in the short term rental industry, and until recently there hasn’t been many secure options for landlords to choose from.

Leaving keys under plant pots, purchasing expensive lock boxes to drill into the walls, getting relatives to do you a favour and hand over the keys themselves; all options however none that don’t have their flaws. What other choice do you have?

Where to leave keys?

Multiple companies have attempted to fix this gap in the market over the previous couple of years, with many companies attempting to provide individual lockboxes for properties at a cheaper price and then sell a subscription to their software, thus making it a large capital investment for many landlords leaving them tied in for the long term without flexibility or losing their money.

The team at KeyNest takes a different approach, they have thousands of automated lockers across Europe and North America to provide a network of locations which allow hosts to drop off their keys at their convenience, and can give access to whoever they want to collect the keys remotely.

With over 4,000 active locations, most of which open 24/7 there is likely to be a location right next to you whether you’re in Manhattan or in rural Suffolk.

How do guests pick up keys?

The check in process for the guest couldn’t be more simple, the host provides them with a single use 6 digit collection code which they give to the shopkeeper which gives them access to their keys, at the end of their stay they simply return the keys to the shop they collected them from, no code required.

KeyNest have developed integration with booking processors such as AirBnB which allows hosts to automatically send the single use check in code 48 hours before their check in date which is a great feature of the service.

Using NFC technology KeyNest tracks all the keys movements in and out of stores which allows them to notify their customers when their keys have been collected and dropped off, giving them peace of mind of where their keys are at all times.

Am I tied into a lengthy contract?

At KeyNest there is no minimum contract length, hosts are free to use the service as much or as little as they like, there are different levels of pricing options available for different needs from paying per collection to monthly and yearly plans for multiple collections, there’s plenty of flexibility for all types of hosts and situations.