What API and data model would support a new AirCover workflow for group travelers

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Airbnb is a travel marketplace connecting guests and hosts; its products include stays, experiences, host tools, guest booking, trust and safety, payments, and reviews.

Airbnb wants to explore a new AirCover workflow designed for group travelers, where multiple guests may be part of the same trip, contribute to planning or payments, and need clarity on protection, support, claims, refunds, rebooking, and communication during a trip issue. Today, AirCover experiences are often centered around the booking owner, but group travel can create ambiguity around who is eligible, who can report a problem, who receives updates, and how support actions affect the whole group.

In this technical PM interview, define the API and data model needed to support this workflow. Focus on how Airbnb’s systems should represent group members, trip roles, AirCover eligibility, issue reporting, evidence collection, support case status, notifications, and downstream actions such as refunds, rebooking assistance, or host communication.

Your scope should assume a global marketplace with guests, hosts, customer support agents, trust and safety teams, payments, messaging, and reservation systems. The design should balance guest trust, host fairness, privacy, reliability, abuse prevention, and operational simplicity.

The experience should consider:

- Core user roles, such as booking owner, invited group traveler, host, and support agent

- Key entities and relationships needed in the data model for reservations, group membership, AirCover coverage, incidents, claims, evidence, and case state

- API capabilities required to create, read, update, and resolve AirCover-related workflows for a group trip

- Permissioning and privacy rules for what each group member can see or do

- Integration points with Airbnb systems such as reservations, payments, messaging, notifications, identity, and support tooling

- Reliability, idempotency, auditability, and state transitions for sensitive support or reimbursement actions

- Security, fraud prevention, and abuse controls for claims submitted by non-booking travelers

- Rollout, observability, and metrics needed to validate that the workflow is working safely and effectively

The goal is to describe a clear technical product design that enables group travelers to receive appropriate AirCover support without creating confusion, privacy leaks, unfair host outcomes, or brittle operational processes.