Airbnb is making a donation to federal employees

"Last Friday, hundreds of thousands of federal employees went without paychecks. We know some of you in the host community are included in that group, and we want to help.

Starting today, we’re offering all federal executive branch employee hosts some financial support. If you host either an Experience or three nights in your listing between December 18, 2018 and March 18, 2019, we’ll give you up to $110 extra on us.

$110 is equivalent to the average amount US hosts make hosting one night. All qualifying hosts will receive the payout shortly after the program ends.

At Airbnb, we take our responsibility to our community seriously. We’re proud to offer our support and stand with you through the remainder of the shutdown and beyond."

https://view.airbnbmail.com/?qs=dba5d3e5529062785e2eb65d0f0b6b01beed7c4e61d911116bb57fdf3feaf1c02d547622796df83dd51ee00af997328069f0f1ab9f3915cb47d8c5cce1dd6d02dea2727611847b406e126d0308a3fd7f

Sorry for going way off topic @KKC but I just wanted to point out that the $110 figure should be of interest to hosts who believe that Airbnb rentals have to be the cheapest in town in order to be successful.

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It all depends on the listing. That’s an average of hosts who have multimillion dollar homes and hosts who offer a very basic room in a home with multiple listings and a bathroom down the hall shared by multiple guests. Honestly, it’s such a meaningless number (along with the other conditions attached) that they should have just left that off and given all federal employees some money.

True - but you know how much I have a bee in my bonnet about hosts who don’t charge enough - couldn’t resist :wink:

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I wonder how many upper level military staff run Airbnbs…

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I couldn’t believe they made this stipulation.

So, these people are making the choice between mortgage payment and food RIGHT NOW and you’re going to give this token payout 2 MONTHS from now when the program ends in March?!?!

Useless gesture. It’s almost like virtue signalling. Might as well have said “our thoughts and prayers are with you”.

If they actually wanted to help they could have made a special offering of that loan program so federal employees could receive payment now against their future bookings.

LOLOL.

Virtue signalling is definitely in Airbnb’s wheelhouse. And while I agree it could be better, it’s still something. They don’t have to do anything at all and this will cost money even if it’s not until April. That’s really more than thoughts and prayers.

I’d be very curious to know (really know) how much they pay out. The “up to $110” is very squishy. That sounds to me like only the highest priced listings would get that much. Maybe someone here will be willing to apply and share their experience.

I don’t know about this but I bet there are a lot of federal employees running Airbnbs in the DC area. The one I stayed with 2 years ago was.

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I can’t help feeling horrible for these people. I wish that we collectively could offer a gesture as hosts. But it’s tricky to manage. I collect a small amount, and it goes … Where?