Booking.com changed the way they send email addresses for guests who book rooms at your hotels.  They used to send the actual guest email adddress (such as me@gmail.com), and now they send an 'alias' email address that looks like this: 200158071-qu9v.4kqw.yjzp.xveh@guest.booking.com.

If you were to send an email to that 'alias' address, Booking.com routes it to the actual email address of the guest (such as me@gmail.com).

Booking.com claims they did this because scammers are increasingly trying to find ways to gain access to their 'platform' and this will help to protect travelers (and partners, such as BookingCenter) from email-based attacks. Regular email traffic between partner and guest is still possible. The difference is that the identity of the partner (BookingCenter) and guest (the traveler), will be protected.

We know that email addresses to guests are very important for marketing and follow-up purposes.  And systems such as BookingCenter often use email as a unique identifier.  The actual email can still be obtained from the guest upon check-in/out, so train your staff to do so.

The email address remains valid until 2-months after checkout. For example, the alias email address for a booking made now (say in May, 2015) for a December checkout, will still be active until February, 2016.  After that date, though, sending an email to an expired 'alias' will not go anywhere.

Change is constant in our world.  Here's hoping this change from Booking.com will make good sense.