A friend of mine here in Prague is also a superhost and encouraged me to use the host referrral programme and earn money from airbnb for referring new hosts. He, however, gets about $70 more than me for referring a new host. I wasted an hour on the phone talking to the airbnb hotline and asking why I get less than him. As is often the case the hotline was useless and unable to give me a proper reply except to say - the computer decided this.
Did anybody else have the same experience?
Higher referral fee in areas where they WANT hosts.
Yes I get that although the hotline did not tell me this. On the contrary they insisted that the payout is the same for all locations.
My friend and I are both in Prague and both referring new hosts in Prague.
The payout is shown BEFORE the new host is referred so BEFORE airbnb knows where the new host will be.
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Are you a superhost? If you’re aren’t and he is, then that could explain it. Superhosts get a bonus on the referral.
We are both superhosts and my rating is 4.97
€680 for me if I refer someone, been rising over past eighteen months.
JF
Hi John,
That’s interesting. So you see a different payout figure on your dashboard as time goes by? It does not stay the same.
€680 is huge, more than twice what I get. My pay out is €321, my friend’s €395
But nobody so far at airbnb can explain why this is and if there is anything I can do to increase the payout.
It was in region of €400 earlier in the year. Two years ago it was €225.
In my humble opinion, I think they’ve simply realised what a good judge of character I am and with to remunerate me accordingly.
JF
Haha so I suppose I should not give the hotline a hard time but should start praising them instead 
No, feck’em. Why would you want to increase your competition!
JF
And yours is more than twice what I get. Mine is US$144 (€130)
Hhhhmm. Strange that the hotline seems to know nothing about different rates and, in particular, what they depend on. Evidently does not depend on where the superhost is based or where the new hosts are based. But upon performance or maybe anticipated performance. Well I look forward to watching my payout reward go up. So long as it goes up and not down I can live with that.
It definitely does depend the location of the referring host as well as superhost vs. not. But apparently it also depends on other things. One thing that is likely is how many times you’ve referred other hosts in the past.
Not once by me.
Did consider it a year or so ago with someone who would not have been competition, but they went ahead and opened an account. Then they wanted me to mentor them…
One guess at my response 
JF
No it changes fairly often. The difference in you and the other host’s referral pay could be merely the difference in what day you each did it.
I’ve had a couple of acquaintances who have decided to become hosts. It’s frustrating when they know I’m a host. It seems like they would at least ask me first, but no. Same with friends and acquaintances who open accounts without asking me if there happens to be a referral code. If nothing else I’d expect them to ask me for tips on booking a place.