@Jessica-and-Henry0
I share your experience, re 'the normal thing most 3rd party bookers who DON'T know...'
But as 'most' serves to intimate, there are always exceptions or enough ambiguity to leave a question mark.
My example:
Last year I had a booking from a lady from Kazakhstan stating she and one other woman would be staying for 4 days prior to travelling to Liverpool for a conference. Both were doctors, and she even named her colleague as the 2nd person.
The booking was 3 months before arrival, and the woman turned up with 2 other ladies, the one named in the original booking, and the other of course not. -- The lady who had booked then informed me the two ladies will be staying with me; while she herself would be staying with her daughter who lives round the corner, a few hundred meters away.
I immediately raised the 3rd Party rule, especially since neither of the two ladies now due to stay spoke a word of English. Moreover, they seemed unhappy with the room and a few other things....
I suggested they leave.
They decided they would rather stay, and the booker swore on her daughter's life that she wasn't aware of the 3rd Party booking rule.
The two ladies managed fine for the 4 days.
After departure, the booker gave me a one sentence bad review and low star ratings.
I duly complained to Airbnb and the Review & Ratings were deleted.
I was only left wondering if the lady who booked really intended to stay originally, and didn't know the 3rd Party Rule?
By a quirk of fate or coincidence, I belatedly discovered that she always intended to stay with her daughter because the daughter has a 2 bedroom flat! -- I discovered it because one day I told the story to a Russian lady who had stayed with me for quite a while. She immediately identified the daughter as one of her closest friends living round the corner, and confirmed the mother is a doctor who regularly visits her daughter in the 2 bedroom flat.
The mother had clearly intended to deceive.... Only, I could never be sure about her knowledge of the Airbnb 3rd Party Booking policy.