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To me, it’s really bad business sense and unworkable to have an option for host-only or split fees. All hosts on a platform should be using the same pricing structure, otherwise some listings look deceptively more expensive or cheaper than others.
And here’s a question I’ve asked before and never gotten an answer to. If hosts opt for host-only fee, what happens when a guest cancels and gets a refund? If guests pay the service fee and cancel, Airbnb doesn’t refund their fee. If a host is taking on the entire service fee, and Airbnb issues a full refund, do hosts get to keep the service fee, as Airbnb does, or does Airbnb refund that as well, since it’s “all inclusive”.
There are countless blogs about Airbnb’s fees being too high.
I agree with most of the posters here, the new pricing display is an attempt to hide fees & push us to the hosts to paying all booking fees.
In my market, STR vacation managers, hotels, & resorts do not include the fees & taxes in their posted nightly rates. Airbnb nightly rates appear higher but they really aren’t.
Airbnb pushed out this change without considering how it affects how the listing appears to the guest who’s shopping and what is the market norm.
I feel hosts will be pushed to keep their nightly rates the same but hosts pay the full booking fees or face possibly losing bookings because the initial search makes our rentals appear overpriced.
There is no volunteering in Spain. If you are a “connected” host (i.e. use a channel manager) then since December last year you are on the 15% host only scheme whether you want to be or not. It’s arbitrary.
If you’re not Vat registered, then it costs the host the difference between paying the Vat on 3% fees and 15% fees. Which on a high value booking can be a fair amount of money.
Correct. I suspect the 15% host only fee will eventually be rolled out across the board.
Just looked at local Airs. If you put in dates you’re looking for, instead of showing the cost of each rental so you can see up front the cost, they say,“Upfront prices, with totals not including taxes”. How clear is that? So if you’re searching you still have to click on each individual Air.
When I looked again, this BS was gone. They clearly don’t have a clue.
What I’m seeing, searching as a potential guest, is (what appears to be) pretty high rates for an area that is mainly agricultural & a couple of hours from resort towns where these higher rates can be expected. If I’m a savvy guest, I can figure out how to get to the “more info” tab, after I’ve started the reserve process. But, as a whole, what % of our guests are going to go to that length to see the price breakdown? Hmmm, in my experience, not many
This seems to be another ploy by Air to make their platform look transparent, while actually making the hosts look like greedy monsters! Can’t wait to see what’s next in their bag of tricks….
{quiet voice} I like it.
When I do a search now in my area, my listing is much more favorably priced compared to others than it was. Because I don’t charge a cleaning fee… we clean it ourselves. So the previous model seemed a bit like bait-and-switch to me. A potential guest used to see the low price from a nearby property, click on the link, like what they see, and book it, without having given mine even a look because of the higher pricing. What they would have paid would have been nearly the same. It seemed to me to be a serious marketing deficiency on my part, but I was unwilling to have a separate cleaning fee because I would have been pocketing it myself, and that seemed to me to be dishonest (only from my perspective regarding myself - I’m not judging anyone else on this matter).
As a guest, I care about how much I pay, not how much the host gets vs. the cleaning service, vs. Airbnb vs. taxes. It made me grumble as a guest when I clicked on a lower price only to find out after getting sucked in to the listing that they had an outlandish cleaning fee and I needed to start over.
I am GLAD as a guest to have a realistic idea of pricing up front before my first click, and I am GLAD as a host that a more equitable price is presented up front. Sounds like I am WAY in the minority, but there you have it.
I have had the same experience as a guest. It would be interesting to know how many hosts don’t like it strictly from a host perspective and never use Airbnb as a guest.
I’ve waffled for a week now, just how I feel about this. At first, I was miffed, but now I’m looking at how I can work it to my advantage. Thinking about dropping my mere $40 cleaning fee, & upping my room rate by $20 or $25… Gonna have to do my “gazintas” to see how it looks on paper. All in all, I don’t look so bad in a search, except for the 4.6 host down the road who doesn’t charge a cleaning fee. Do guests REALLY look at those star ratings that we hosts covet, or is it all about how much $ they can save?
I always use Airbnb when traveling, & was surprised to see when searching in Ky & Tn that this doesn’t seem to have rolled out back there yet. I’ll have to pay closer attention tomorrow when I’m seriously looking…
I really find this infuriating. If I look at local listings, the flags on the map, no prices.
The whole list of rentals, one after another, no prices.
You click on a rental, no prices. You have to put in dates.
No way to see what the prices are much less compare to others.
It’s not until you put in dates that they present costs on individual rentals.
This is utter BS.
Unless you add dates and number of guests the prices are meaningless. For hosts who charge extra person fees and vary prices according to dates this isn’t bs at all. I’ve had so many bookings for one when there are two people coming. If this pushes guests to correctly enter the number of guests I’m all for it.
Everyone who has used Airbnb as a guest has had the frustrating experience of seeing a price on a list or map and then clicking on the listing to find a much different price. But this doesn’t just benefit guests. Many hosts have complained here of seeing a competitor with an incredibly low price on the front facing list. But when you click on the listing the price would be much higher. The trick was to price one day at the low rate. So I click on a listing that says $285 but it’s really $350 a night on weekends plus a $149 cleaning fee. Now that weekend stay is $850 instead of the $570 I thought it might be.
This is something a plurality, if not majority, of hosts here have asked for for a long time. I hope they stick with it.
I understand what you’re saying, but to show a listing with no price whatsoever seems absurd. Yes, I agree about showing a price, then you click on a date and like magic the price has doubled.
I’m sure a lot of guests are going to find this really confusing.
And, I still think Air is doing it to cover up their fees.
To me to show a price with no dates or guests seems absurd.
On air flights you know you have to enter your dates, destination and flight times. My recent searches find RT flights to Nashville ranged from $319 to over $1400. Date, time of day and class of service all count. I’d think most Airbnb guests are familiar with this kind of pricing scheme.
I do understand and am sure I’ll get used to it. Been doing it mostly the same way as host and guest since 2015.
Stuck in my ways? I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Flights, forever I could fly cross country for about $300, it’s costing about that to fly to New England, 800 miles with trepidation having gone nowhere for 1 1/2 years. Probably be wearing two masks including the N95. @KKC
Earlier this summer I was disinclined to get on a plane. After thinking about it though, I think the air exchange on planes is good and people are supposed to wear masks. If I was seated right next to an anti masker or someone who spends the whole flight with it hanging under their nose I’d hate that. My main fear is flight delay, cancelation or a disruptive jerk. I wish the feds would require vaccines just like they require IDs.
edit to add: The number of people who fly globally each day and lack of spreader events on planes is reassuring.
I cancelled a trip to the PNW where I lived for 39 years when Delta started getting out of control. Sad, as I haven’t been back since moving 7 years ago.
One of my friends that I’ll be with said she didn’t think being on the plane was the problem, it was standing in long lines forever with no social distancing. Fortunately I’m not flying in or out of huge airports.
When I go to an airline site and enter departure and arrival airports, and dates, I can look on the calendar, where the lowest price flight for each day for the whole month and following months is shown on the calendar. Then I can click on one of those dates and scroll down the page which lists all the prices and flight times for that day.
I can also look, from that same page, at flights a week before or after that date to compare if I’m flexible about the dates.
That really isn’t anything like the way Airbnb is displaying (or hiding) prices.
