I have done it before through CS and I don’t see why we could not have special joint profiles for people who want to travel together
I think it is mainly because of transparency: the persons behind joint profiles can split/separate and you would have references from hosts that could mainly refer to only one of the two persons and are not representative.
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Now I also write a reference about all the people if I hosted a group
About linking profiles: the kind of link could be different: cold be a “housemate” one, useful just because the guest can easily know who are the other people in the house, but no more (it is not fair to leave a reference to someone that is not actually the one that invited you unless it explicitely ask for it - think about a couple where one of the two is in the condition and in the mood to have guests and tend to them, and has accepted you, and the other is extremely busy at work, with little or no time to give to other people).
the other link is the travelmate link. This is the link passed to hosts and that can be used to leave references.
Otherwise note that for privacy reason this link is published together with hospitality requests sent to a possible host, but it is not present in the profile of anyone.
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I really like the linking concept as described by @Jesse and others above. I’ve used the profile linking feature on workaway.info that folks mentioned, and I think it’s a great tool. I definitely share the concerns around group/shared profiles mentioned by others, as I have also had experiences where the group/couple broke up and so the past references basically became useless at best, or even completely misleading.
I don’t use Airbnb too much, but if I’m not mistaken I think they also have some kind of system now that encourages each individual traveler in a group to have their own profile that can then be linked when making a request. I think the argument there is similar in that it not only helps with coordinating/communicating but also encourages everyone using the service to actually have a profile on the service where folks can leave (potentially negative) feedback about them.
I see @Jesse mentioned this feature is now planned, but it’s waiting on available developer time while more important things are worked on. That sounds good, I just wanted to check in since it’s been a little while. Have any more specifics been hashed out behind the scenes on exactly how this could be implemented, or at least how a version 1 of the feature would work? Would it be useful to discuss some of the finer details while we’re waiting?
For my own sake I was just going through some different scenarios in my mind. I believe the workaway.info implementation is pretty simple because each profile is either for a host or a traveler, but not both, and linking is just on the traveler side. (At least this is my understanding, so someone correct me if I’m wrong.) Whereas for Couchers each profile is potentially doing both hosting and traveling. These might even overlap in time.
For example, Person A lives with their partner Person B and they always host together as a couple. They want to be linked so that requests from travelers go to both of them and either one can respond and everybody involved sees all the messages back and forth. Afterward, everybody would be prompted to leave an individual reference for everyone involved. Probably it’s okay if folks just want to write one blurb if that seems appropriate, but it should exist as a separate instance, so to speak, on each person’s profile.
But now suppose Person A is going away for the weekend with some other friend Person C, but Person B is staying home because they have to work 
. A and C want to link their profiles so they can send joint requests, see all the messages, do all the references, etc. But since it’s just for the weekend, Person A and B don’t necessarily want to be de-linked, even temporarily. They might still be actively accepting or in the discussion phase with future guests for the following week or still getting around to writing references for guests from the previous week. Is there a good way to handle this kind of complexity? (So that Person B isn’t getting messages related to the A & C trip, but A is still getting messages about A & B’s hosting stuff.) Seems like it should be possible right? Are there any other complex corner cases folks foresee?
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Hi, I like to come back to this topic, after I made a similar one since I forgot about this.
So I am in the situation now where we are hosting people and have 2 profiles, and we would both like to be able to write a reference.
Don’t want to argue against other options described in this topic,
but,
the freedom to write a reference to whoever I want, regardless if I hosted or not,
even out of the context of this topic, should be possible like it was on the “old” couchsurfing.
There simply is no reason for this restriction.
And from a development point of view, it’s very simple to implement, since all functionality is already in place.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there are two ways to accomplish this at the moment (that is leaving a reference when your partner is the one who accepted the request, or similar situations):
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Send a friend request with something like “I want to add you as a friend so I can leave a reference.” And then when they accept, you write a reference.
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Have the guest send a new hosting request to your profile. (This can even happen after they leave, just make the dates for the next couple days or something.) Accept it, and then in a few days the system will let you leave a hosting reference.
Perhaps if it’s not too much of a bother, an improved option for the time being could be added that would work like this:
The user wanting to give a reference goes to the other user’s profile, clicks the references tab, a button shows up somewhere that says “Write a reference for so-and-so.” You click it and go through the regular reference process. In the meantime they get a notification that “So-and-so says they hosted (surfed with, met up with, etc.) you and wants to write you a reference. Couchers has no record of that. Did you stay with (host, meet up with, etc.) so-and-so?” If they confirm, the reference goes through, otherwise it doesn’t. I think there obviously has to be some kind of confirmation to prevent spam/vandalism.
And I would also reiterate that a “linking” feature as outlined above is really the right long-term solution for this particular case.
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