Some background information:
1. Airbnb has a referral program for guests and for hosts, where they pay the referrer once their referee is a guest or a host in an Airbnb for the first time.
2. I own Disney Vacation Club timeshares. The rules of the program 100% permit renting out rooms.
I want to earn host referral credits with Airbnb. Is it ethical for me to give interested parties one night at a luxury Disney World resort together with a "Make Money On Airbnb" book, in return for using my Airbnb referral link? They can keep all the profits from the listing (or they can even keep the night for themselves and use another property as the listing). Is this considered "gaming" the referral program?
Here are my 2 cents:
1. It is ethical because I am doing exactly what Airbnb is doing--offering financial incentives to host for the first time on Airbnb. Also, I am providing the book in order to assist and incentivize people to continue hosting after the free night is gone.
2. It's not ethical because most people who sign up will probably do it just to get the nice profit from the room and never host again, especially since they won't have anymore free rooms from me to list. But, here are my counter-arguments to this point: (a) the same thing can be said regarding the Airbnb referral program (ie: most people will host once for the incentive and won't do it again), (b) even if they never host again, simply having another account open and access to a new potential customer is worth it for Airbnb, and (c) even though I am only giving one free room to get people started, if someone has a good experience, they might rent their own private home, or maybe even find other properties to rent.
Thoughts?