Total Prices are Live

I just went to the website and got this pop-up.

Wow. This whole time I thought they were going to show the total nightly price on the map. What it would cost nightly with the cleaning fee and service fees. But it’s the entire cost of the stay all together. I guess that makes more sense. It does look exactly like looking at the airbnb Australia site.

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Do you have to opt in to this as a guest or host?

Actually, I just did an incognito search and didn’t see it.

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It’s working here on the (New England) East Coast USA. It shows a nightly rate as normal and then in lighter gray it shows the total (both before taxes). When a GUEST goes on the site, it asks for their preference, and if the guest chooses total price, †hat is all it shows.

This seems to solve the ‘lowball’ rates that say a very low nightly price but have (for example) a large cleaning fee.

Not here, further down the East Coast, yet.
OK, guess I have to correct, it’s not on the map but on individual listings.

Ed. And, with this change my rental comes off the back pages to the front. Bizarre. Maybe now I’ll get some bookings.

What I find really interesting is that you don’t see the breakdown of fees when you go into a listing. You have to go back and switch off the total to see the separate costs before booking.

As I have mentioned before, this is all anyone cares about. The ‘cleaning fee’, etc are nonissues for guests because the ‘free market’ will make those airbnbs that have outsized cleaning costs but low nightly cost for the location less competitive with us.

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Honestly as a guest all I care about is the total, unless I can figure a way to find the host and book direct. I usually start by googling the listing name if it is unique.

RR

That’s why the breakdown of fees is important to me. I want to know what I am paying to the accommodation provider vs what I am paying for the “protection” of AirBnB (or any other OTA).

And I recall @muddy wanted to know the fees, too, to see if the cleaning fee was outrageous.

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“Outrageous” cleaning cost can also be “Fair pay to a worker” or “the going rate in the area”. How do you know when you look at a ‘fee’ without knowing the circumstances?

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Even as close as we are to one another, I am seeing something different than you are. I can’t see any nightly prices anywhere unless I click on the total in the list but not on the map. That total price and breakdown when you click looks exactly like it did before on my end. But the map has huge numbers on it. I don’t care for the way that cut-down the visibility.

Then you guys just wouldn’t opt-in to see the total prices.

I don’t think I’ll opt-in either. We’ve always been able to see the total price in the list of listings by scrolling. I prefer having the combination of seeing nightly prices on the map and then glancing over to the left to see the total price in the list. It also makes more sense when comparing to hotels at the same time because they only show nightly rates. And I’ve been traveling by nightly price my whole life and it’s worked out totally fine.

I guess don’t think or plan in “total price”, I think and plan in nightly price. I know what nightly prices are in my budget. Thought this was going to be useful for me because I believed they were going to show the total nightly price (nightly rate+cleaning fee and service allocated to a night) on the map. I would like that but this is not useful to me.

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Yes you have to opt-in. I got that pop-up box when I went to the site this morning. Once I started looking around on the search page a toggle appeared that allows me to turn it off. It may just not have updated for you yet. These things always seem rolling.


(sorry, i cropped it a little tight but you can see the toggle a bit at the top)

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Yes, I would, as part of the search. But once I find a property I like, I’d turn off the total cost setting.
The difference is that I am knowledgeable and curious and can make the system work for me. That’s not true for most guests.

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That’s interesting. I think I’ll only use it as a host to see what my listing looks like on the map next to other listings. Not being able to see the nightly price is disorienting to me. I’m so used to searching that way and then looking at the total as I scroll as a double-check I guess. To me, it’s better to have two views instead of just one I guess.

Not long ago, someone here from Australia, I think it may have been @lisanddavid posted their listing. And it was a link to Airbnb.com.au (naturally of course) but I ended up looking on the map around her area it felt so strange to not have any information on the nightly rate.

In thinking about it, I believe it’s because I have a sense of what the difference between a $100 listing and a $250 listing. Depending on my travels, I know which direction I want to go.

This will make those hosts who have chosen to pay the 15% fees as part of the booking cost look much more reasonable, because the real comparison was only available at the end of the process.

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That should help with that. There’s only one host in my market that chose to do that and his price always stood out as crazy high. Only if guests use the total price option.

This makes me realize the issues that will be created because it’s optional. I’d rather it be one way or the other. It kind of complicates a pricing strategy to have to accommodate both scenarios: one with nightly prices and one with total prices.

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almost makes me want to have two mirrored listings one with this price and one with a high cleaning fee. Then I can attract all types of guests. One group hates cleaning fees, and the other doesn’t pay attention to details and just clicks book.

Airbnb is brilliant!

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Maybe guests think these hosts have a more thorough cleaning process so they charge more. I think it makes sense to have different ways of attracting different types of guests.

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I hear you – especially since, if you choose the “I’m flexible” option and say you have a week available, it will give you a mix of options that range from 5-7 days, so the total prices you see really don’t compare.

Question: In those countries where it previously hasn’t been showing total price, what happens if you have different prices on weekends and weekdays? Does it show the average per-day price over a stay or does it show the range of per-day prices?

I didn’t realize that it wasn’t always a full week, 7 days. I guess if you’re flexible, you’re flexible? Oh, those were the days, lol.

I don’t know about other countries but in the US it is 100% rumor that the total price isn’t shown. It is absolutely shown. It’s been right there in the list of listings, just not on the map. The list shows total prices and the map shows nightly rates (like hotels do).

When I search for a place to stay I zoom in on the area I want to stay in, set my filters and then scroll through the list of places that come up for that area. The total prices are right there beneath each listing. You can also then click on the total price to see the breakdown of it if you want (the nightly price+cleaning fee+service fee).

This new option that also shows the total price on the map is subtractive, not additive. It displays less information, not more.

It shows the rate for the specific dates that have been entered. It doesn’t matter if the prices are completely different every day, it’s averaged. If you book 3 days that are priced at 140, 154, 160 then the nightly rate averages to $151/night.

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Sooo, once a guest chooses the total only they never know how much Air gets??//

Some people may want to know that I’d think.

I think it should be one way or the other.

Those who get the total and then pay taxes should say so on their listing if that is the case because otherwise that is Not the total paid by guests.