Cabin… It sounds like they aren’t really being transparent about this… How do we know a booking REALLY came from an ad or just from regular Search? I don’t quite trust it!
1 Like
Kona,
I was thinking the exact same thing. When you type airbnb into a google search, the first search result is the one that says “AD” (in yellow). Is that not considered a google ad? If so, then I imagine many people clicking on it.
12-15% is just way too much if you are also going to be sitting side by side with others who are only paying 3%. It’s one thing to list on booking.com and jack your rates up 15% to cover the cost - but you wouldn’t be able to cover the cost this way
yeah, this is the kind of ad we’re talking about (for example, searching for “London Holiday Apartments”)
2 Likes
Did anybody actually received bookings marked as “from online ads” with extra fees?
Hello all. Yes it happened to me only yesterday for the very first time. I got confused why they charge me much for for a one nighter than they did on my 4 nights booking. Contacted them, representative did not know it too and had to speak to her manager. This is the response: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/994/how-does-online-advertising-affect-bookings
If you have already been charged this fee however, best to not untick as it says you will only be charged once. So, I am going to leave mine as searchable on search engine now as I have been charged anyway. Bit way too high in my opinion. But…if it is one-off, I think it is fair.
2 Likes
@noniklid, can I ask you to share with us some screenshots of the site and emails you get in which you got notified of the increased fee?
I’d like to update the article with that part that I wasn’t able to confirm yet.
1 Like
Hello there,
I was by no means notified. Being a new member, I hosted about 7 people, and this week, the 8th.
It was this 8th reservation that I got charged a huge fee. On the invoice, no where this hike of fee was explained. Only shows me, 3% fee and VAT.
Hence I contacted them. April, who chatted with me, did not understand what my problem was. She merely read of the charges on my invoice i.e. 3% plus VAT. So, I asked her, not to read what she sees on the invoice as £38.00 minus 3 percent and plus VAT is not £7 pounds and get her to calculate that I am charged much more!
Then she went away for awhile, about 3-5 mins I suppose, and came back apologising not knowing about this google ad charges and her manager had informed her of it. So, both her & I learn this as something new 
She then follow-up our conversation with an email sending me the link I have provided above again for my info. I can’t unfortunately take screenshots of the chat as it was yesterday! I have screen shot of her email though. How do I upload it? Funny thing is, when I spoke to my guest about how he made the booking, he says he just go to airbnb site directly as he used it before and knew it. So…I don’t know. He might have got to airbnb via a google ad link.
Here’s her follow up email.
Not sure what you meant by screenshots of the site. Which site did you require? I only have the link provided to me on the previous comment.
in particular, in the "Confirmation page" of the booking (e.g. like the one below, at a link as www.airbnb.com/reservation/itinerary?code=BOOKING_CODE) or in the automated emails you received connected to a reservation (not the ones from customer support), were you ever informed about the increased fee?
sadly for those of us who rent a room in our homes, there don’t seem to be any alternatives to airbnb. i already don’t charge much for my room and i do provide little extras that eat into my profit margin. not happy…
1 Like
There’s always flip key or Wimdu. Not sure if they deal with shared home rentals but you could try.
Stephanie,
You can list on Booking.com. They charge 15% but I just increase my rates by that much in order to cover the cost. I use PayPal to accept payment from the guest.
Im definitely going to look more into this.
The thing is, if this is to support google adwords type service, where the extra cost pays for enhanced search results in google. Then it may be worthwhile for some. I guess thats how it seems to me at least.
For others (like me) I am not after the most guests and maximum occupancy, so I would opt out of this. Hopefully its not going to become a standard charge, as you say.
Just by way of update on my own situation.
I check the reservation details again on email, and it refers to the normal 3% fee.
So there must have been a glitch with the ipad app or something, because it had definitely indicated $70 service fee, and indicated the guest had paid a much larger figure.
I will presume it was/is one of the glitches with the ipad app.
Amen! I noticed a big fee jump just yesterday. They’re going to monkey around and price out customers. My customer jumped ship and I don’t blame her. I was cutting her the best deal possible and then AirBnB comes along and dumps a $50 fee on them.
The topic has now been covered by other sites as well (e.g. http://www.tnooz.com/article/airbnb-increases-host-fee-as-it-tries-way-to-pay-for-google-advertising/).
Did anybody get more detailed information from Airbnb?
@AllAboutAirbnb no I haven’t received any information. I opted out of the google search on airbnb now though!
@AllAboutAirbnb yup its still there its not under your hosting page thought but rather your whole account…
Go to account settings under your profile picture, privacy, uncheck "Include my profile and listing in search engines like Google and Bing (recommended)
1 Like
You should opt out and check the reason as the fees being way too high.