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Multiple changes over the years appear like this. Maybe it’s beta, maybe it’s no clue. Some changes disappear and are never seen again.
Are they simply complaints or do they provide analysis based on data and research?
Rover (for pet services) charges sitters 15-25% and the pet owner also pays a portion, I think it’s 5%.
What are ebay fees now? 12-15%?
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.
I love it and think it’s an improvement.
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.
I agree partially with both of your viewpoints. And in that same vein, the previous format of showing an averaged (or whatever they were doing) price when no dates were entered did not work well. However, I don’t think that not seeing any prices at all without dates works either because the price is one of the main things that differentiates listings.
If I go to google and say, “flights from ATX to LAX” or “hotels in St Louis” it brings up a list of flights or a list of hotels with prices based on dates that are automatically inserted by google. The dates seem somewhat random but are about a week out, maybe they are based on popular dates in the near future, I don’t know.
For some reason, being shown results with some dates entered, cues me to enter my own dates. This system is fairly common on other sites too. I just looked at some I never use. Booking.com and Expedia also both filled in random dates for me, prior to me entering a destination as did Travelocity, Kayak, Hotels.com, Hotwire, Priceline and Orbitz thereby cuing me to enter my own dates but at least showing real prices from the get-go based on the dates that were automatically entered.
VRBO made me enter dates before I could continue and look at any listings at all, being the most effective of all the sites I looked at.
Trip Advisor did show some listings and a map prior to me entering dates but the screen was covered with a pop-up calendar to push me into entering dates. They made it easier to enter dates than to continue without entering dates.
Vacasa was almost the same as the previous ABB system and showed listings with some kind of averaged pricing prior to me entering dates but they made a much stronger effort at cueing me to enter some dates, it was difficult to proceed without entering dates. More than Airbnb ever tried. Evolve did the same with no cueing at all to enter dates but the prices were marked as “AVG price” in big red letters.
In summation, Airbnb was previously handling this overall more poorly than any other booking site and now they’ve now made big changes that, you guessed it, is just a new way to handle searching and booking more poorly than any other site. None of the round wheels are good enough for Airbnb.
Goggling flights is a good way to find pricing.
Airbnb isn’t about one plane flight versus another. I don’t look at the kind of plane I’m going to be flying on.
Air is a place to stay for a night or for 28 nights. I still don’t think blank pricing works for this. As a guest, I bring up the list and look at rentals partially based on price. Sometimes I don’t have the dates, just want to see the rentals and the pricing.
Ed. Now when I look the prices are back on the map, on individual rentals. They seem to mix it up on an hourly basis.
I do, is that weird?
I only threw the flights bit in as an extra example of better search and book processes.
What? It is not really possible. Without any dates what price do you show? I guess you might mean comparatively, as in you would like to see an average price? Or you want to see prices for some dates, even if they are not your dates? There is still so much difference from one weekend to another.
I don’t think blank pricing works either, but I think being forced to enter dates works. Even if you are not sure about your dates, you can at least choose some in the same season or day of the week that you might travel so that the prices are relevant to your travel. If you are planning on going to Paris in July, there is no point in looking at Airbnbs in Paris in January or in getting an average of those two prices.
Transparency with the listed prices have been in the EU since forever (can’t remember when we got the total price on all websites). This was not because Airbnb were trying to be noble or anything but bcause our regulators required all businesses to show their total price so the consumer didn’t get screwed (further) when you eventually hit the check out and payment page.
July is too hot, May is better or even being there Nov/Dec.
As per usual whenever Airbnb “experiments” a new format, it’s full of glitches and randomness.
A host posted on the CC a screenshot of what guests see when entering dates and number of guests in the request form on his listing.
There was no breakdown at all. Only total price was listed.