AirBnB's Drip Pricing

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This news item passed me by at the time, but it seems that last year the Australian Government required that AirBnB alter the way they display search results to Australian users.

In the rest of the world, when you search AirBnB for somewhere to rent, and set a budget, AirBnB will show you places that appear to be in your budget, but - once fees and taxes are added - actually aren’t, a practice termed Drip Pricing. That’s no longer legal in Australian, apparently, so now Australian users’ searches have to return accurate pricing information from the get go.

Interesting to anyone but me? Maybe not, but here’s the info for any fellow policy wonks:

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I think it should show the full price globally. Nothing worse than looking and you see a place and then theres a 15% fee on top.

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Definitely. If I’m searching for a 5 day stay, it should average the cleaning fee into the daily rate. If I’m searching for 4 guests, then the added fees should be put in the daily rate for my search. Of course if I’m just randomly searching properties without dates that’s my fault (which is why the profiles list fees too), but it’s misleading to search properties in the $50-100 range and find a place you love, and then realize once your done it’s closer to $130 a night…

Which is why in some ways I hesitate to add fees and maybe just raise y total rate and then just offer a 10% discount at a week since I offer a separate apartment and don’t mind a longer stay.

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Doubt ABB will change in their own but you’ve got a good chance advocating to your government to change the laws like we did. It was motivated by the airlines advertising these cheap flights (not nearly as cheap as you can get in UK) but then they charge you for 50 things on top and it’s more than double what you thought! People got fed up & we have pretty robust consumer laws here. It will soon be illegal for shops to add their highly inflated fees for paying by card too.

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here in France the nightly price displayed in search results has always been inclusive of all fees (cleaning fees, extra guests fees…), at least for as long I have been a guest.

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I just saw something new -

Not only does Airbnb not include the taxes and fees, adding 28% to the cost of your room, but here in the mid-Atlantic, the fees are actually hidden. You have the nightly room rate in large numbers, and then ‘total’ is in about 1/4 the size, but no detail about taxes or fees, you have to click on an arrow to get that detail.

I don’t like that, at all! Someone could EASILY think they are paying $252 a night when really is is $283 - now the print with the real price is much smaller. UGH!

AND HOLD THE PHONE!!! They are not even showing the cleaning fees at ALL!!! I was looking at listing after listing and realized no one had a cleaning fee showing. That’s because Air is wrapping that into the price and not showing it as a line- item.

I used to like booking.com because they DID quote the price with taxes added. I guess they stopped because it’s harder to compare to travelocity and other pricing sites if you aren’t all playing by the same rules.

Makes it even harder for me because their nightly price doesn’t include taxes, and neither does mine, but then I have to charge it when they arrive - if I roll it into the price it puts my pricing at an unfair disadvantage - in DC, a mile from here, taxes ARE added and colllected by airbnb

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