I would warn her and say that Airbnb might be monitoring our messages, and that she’s likely to get her account deactivated. And like what some of the folks say, she doesn’t seem to be such a good guest and she’s likely to cause trouble. I’ve had stingy guests like her in the past and blocked them out.
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That whole Muslim thing and ham…awkward.
they fees are not high. Before air there were only hotels… or hostels…or B&B, or VR via PM or vrbo. The fact that a person can go on the internet, onto a site, and find a room or an apt, for a ridiculously low price, is a fantastic happening. Paying for that matching service is part of the deal. Without air, neither you, nor your guest, would ever get together.
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JUST. SAY. NO. Or ask WHAT PART OF NO DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND???
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Faheem, i had plenty of people who booked me for one day, and then paid me in cash for others. They booked me to see if they like the place, and then stayed. I have a guest here now who booked for 1 week, and now is staying 3 more and pays me cash. Of course i dont charge him Air fees. I really would not be afraid to deal directly with a guest instead of sending him to book through air only based on a fact that if he breaks something then i cant go to resolution center. I think i can succesfully deal with my guests by myself without Airbnb involved.
I dont like to host people who save every penny. People on a budget is one thing, I am myself on a budget but people who have very limited amount of money but still want to travel have their habits.I had guests who wanted to use every single amenity i offer because they had very little to go on. They brought loads of laundry for 1 night stays, wanted to cook every meal, and ate my food. Thats how my rules were created because of their behavior.
I have had several repeat guests and they have never asked to side track airbnb and pay cash.
If someone has asked to stay an extra night I ask them to use the airbnb website to do so.
For whatever airbnb lacks in customer service or any other booking forum, if anything does go wrong neither parties have any recourse with them at all.
I think it’s one thing to continue their stay with cash, but not agree to do it before their booking begins. Just no benefit for the host.
I’m a by the book sort of person. If Airbnb isn’t collecting taxes for you (which I wish they would where I live!), then you’ll still have to collect and pay them to your government. Sure, there are plenty of people who do this and don’t pay sales or occupancy taxes as warranted by their governments, but I think that’s a shortsighted and foolish way to go. I’d hate to be tapped on the shoulder one day with a massive amount of back taxes owed! That said, I list through Airbnb, so I want to keep everything by the Airbnb ways of doing things, so no cash under the table. It’s also better for my bookkeeping to have it all right there to see and to download.
Hi @cabinhost,
I’m not sure what you mean here. You mean you need a credit card to bill further stuff to?
Certainly booking through ones own site is an option, but I don’t have one, and anyway, it wouldn’t help if a guest contacted one via Airbnb. I mean, directing such a guest to ones own site would probably also be a violation of the TOS.
BTW, do you have insurance to cover you in the event of damages, if booking through your personal site?
Airbnb has made some private arrangement with the Indian govt, and I don’t think anyone knows exactly what it is. It’s something like 15% with a 40% rebate. How is this tax calculated? What rebate? Who decided this? I admit I haven’t tried contacting Airbnb about this, but based on past experience it would be a waste of time.
And my specific comment about the tax money is that nobody is tracking what Airbnb is doing with the money. How do we know if it actually gets paid as taxes, especially as (in this case) nobody knows what arrangement Airbnb has made with the Indian govt?
This is true in other places, but at least in those places, there are presumably saner and more transparent tax laws that everyone knows about.
The upshot is that if I try to pay tax on another platform Airbnb’s tax arrangement would be of zero help to me if I was trying to figure out what taxes I owe.
Thanks everyone for the responses. I won’t try to respond individually, partly because most people were saying similar things.
I didn’t think that the proposal scheme was a violation of the TOS, but I guess it is. Otherwise, as @EllenN succintly put it
Which really makes further action moot. I haven’t actually responded to the guest, nor can I think of any reason why I’m required to do so. Life is too short. Does anyone think I’m obliged to reply?
Anyway, I still think the extra money Airbnb adds on top is high. Granted, part of that is taxes. And if you went another way, there would probably also be a surcharge to pay. But I’m still peeved about it.
Hi @J_Wang,
I said no to the cooking bit. I guess I forgot to mention that. As I did mention, the house rules say no cooking, and I didn’t see a reason to make an exception. Maybe if I had an excellent guest who had visited before and wanted to try some experimental Indian cooking…
But I don’t think that was the most important issue there.
This sentence isn’t entirely clear, but I assume you mean that parties booking without the protection of Airbnb or a similar site don’t have any protection against things going wrong,
What I mean is, if the guest decides not to show up at the last minute…then I have received no payment. Basically I blocked off the dates (from others booking) - in exchange for nothing. That’s why I would only block off the calendar in exchange for a credit card payment first.
I don’t actually have an online booking system at all through my website. I just send an invoice through PayPal business account. Guest can pay with credit or debit card.
My partner has his own insurance to cover the rental, but as far as smaller guest damage then I collect a damage deposit. Similar to the imaginary one that Air collects - lol. The difference is that I actually charge for it at time of booking.
But…I also am aware that VISA does not allow their card to be used for damages unless the cardholder agrees to it. So basically it is just a deterrant for the guest to be on better behavior…thinking they have some money at risk. But in reality, if I did decide to withhold money and guest didn’t agree to it - they can just run to their bank and initiate a chargeback. The guest would win, and I would be stuck with a chargeback fee.
The only time I can do what I want with the damage deposit is when I receive a check from the guest.
As far as Air collecting taxes - this is how it works for me. Air turns in a lump sum for the entire state of NC. I think the amount they collect and submit (for me) is somewhere under transactions tab?? BUT - Air does not report my amount to my individual account, they just report as a lump sum along with everyone else in NC.
So when I go to send in my monthly lodging tax - I have to report the amount of my sales that is “exempt” and turn in the difference. For example - if I had $4,000 worth of sales for the month, and $1,000 of that was done through Air. Then I report my total sales of $4,000. Then there is a section where I report the amount of sales that are “exempt” - these are the sales done through Airbnb. Then I turn in taxes based on the difference ($3,000 in sales).
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Hi @Yana,
yes, I think the concern about people who are very focused on saving money is that they might be difficult or picky guests. Possibly more likely than average to leave a bad review. Though of course I’ve no statistics about that. And I don’t think I’ve yet booked a guest who asked for a discount. They usually tend to disappear.
And I think paying in cash after one day with no pre-arrangement is fine. Clearly that isn’t a violation.
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Hi @cabinhost,
Thanks for the clarifications. We’ve discussed this before, but I’m not good at remembering the details.
Ok, so you use a credit card to do the bookings. I think you said once that you’d collect a cash deposit up front if the arrival date is further away. But I think under most circumstances getting people to send you a cash deposit with no recourse against fraud would be difficult. A credit card would work, because the guest has the credit card company to fall back on.
That doesn’t sound like a good situation. But it’s also no worse than being subject to Airbnb’s whim.
Right. Which would be difficult to collect, I imagine. At least for me. Maybe such things are possible if you have a long-standing record of trustworthiness.
And one question about the Airbnb taxes. Do you have any proof they are sending the govt the taxes? Is there some record you can look up?
I don’t have any proof - Air does not send me copies of their monthly tax deposits. I can only see under my transactions what they have “supposedly” turned in on my behalf. But like I said, it all gets turned in with thousands of other people too…not to each person’s individual account.
Ah, ok. I wonder if anyone is keeping track.
Oh for sure! And it didn’t cross my mind that there might be a non-Indian cook wanting to use your kitchen. I was thinking of traditional Indian cooking by an Indian. That kind of cooking is fairly involved, so as a host I wouldn’t want to compete for kitchen time 
Certainly. And our kitchen is used by our cook a good part of the time. And if he was not there, there would be nobody to supervise the guest. Not a great situation.
I wish I could afford an Indian cook 