Airbnb is taking on the worst features of hotels, without mirroring the things that make hotels attractive. Their cleaning fees are legendary, even while hosts give lists of chores for guests to complete (not just taking out the trash, doing the dishes, and washing the sheets but sometimes even mowing the lawn).
You can’t always rely on reviews to know what you’re going to get, or even that the place exists, and when Airbnb owners cancel on you or don’t deliver what’s expected the company doesn’t have your back.
Sometimes Airbnb – and competitors like Vrbo – are the best option like when renting a house with a whole family or in a town without hotels. But it seems like they’re working hard to kill that advantage, as evidenced by this reported listing which charges:
- Damage Waiver: you pay whether you damage the unit or not, and you won’t be charged for damage you cause if that damage is covered and you report it properly.
- Resort Fee: this is the most disingenuous fee that hotels charge, an extra cost for amenities that are part of the stay but somehow billed separately from the room.
- Booking Fee: this isn’t Airbnb’s charge for booking, this is a fee you pay to the unit owner in order to pay the unit owner a nightly fee in rent.
- Cleaning Fee: the cost of cleaning up after you, after you’ve already had to clean up after yourself (usually the cost of providing a service is included in the.. price)
- Service Fee: the money Airbnb gets paid for monetizing your eyeballs. Airbnb is a platform that gets consumers to visit looking for lodging, and homeowners to list their properties. Then Airbnb charges both renters and owners for letting them transact.
- Tax: One of the favorite ways of any local government to raise revenue is to bill out-of-towners, the money funds things local voters like while those voters don’t have to pay the cost.
In total the cost of this rental is more than double the rental cost of the unit for a two night stay.
It’s not clear what benefits or facilities the resort fee actually covers, perhaps it’s a condo in a community with a pool and sport court. Or maybe it’s a house in a community with a clubhouse, or you’re just paying for parking. Maybe it’s just near places you’d want to go.
It occurred to me that it could be one of the Marriott hotels that sell rooms through Airbnb, undercutting Marriott.com pricing. Or maybe it’s the fee for a property you book on Airbnb that actually exists?
Airbnb says it’s ‘working to fix’ how pricing works, and this is expected to take 17 months. But they don’t really have to do anything different other than move to the way they price on their Australia website which provides all-in costs when you search.
You are correct – the cleaning fees were never intentionally designed, which is why we're now playing catch up. This is one of my top priorities – we are redesigning how pricing on Airbnb works
— Brian Chesky (@bchesky) October 10, 2022
Saying that a tech company can’t just fix the tech behind pricing display has to be disingenuous, leading to the conclusion that this is all by design. When consumers search, Airbnb’s look cheaper than they are because fees aren’t included in the price they see. The price only goes up when you click through. That makes comparison shopping harder, and the guest experience far worse.
(HT: H.G.)
I believe Airbnb (assuming it operates in the United Kingdom) can’t charge add-on resort fees for U.K.-based bookings as that’s illegal under British law.
My non-touristy big town in the middle of nowhere has an 8% tax on short-term rentals on the ballot. We get a lot of 3-6 month medical and academic staff + grad students that need this. Absolutely voting No. And something other than AirBnB needs to rise to the top for this market. Craigslist used to be good for this sort of thing, but it’s pretty dead in my area, not sure if it’s dead everywhere though.
It would not be surprising if an Airbnb fee list begins to look like a card rental fee list.
But, fair being fair, does the Airbnb contract for royalties to the guest should the host monetize the images or videos from the peekaboo cameras?
They’re funded by VC’s. Once they have some form of monopoly power (and they do in the home rental market, even if they’re not a strict monopoly), they will abuse it. It’s literally their business model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k
^ Peter Thiel, specifically talking about how businesses want to be monopolies, but not regulated like them. It’s not hard to understand why they want to be monopolies.
The example you gave about the family arriving to no existing unit almost happened to us in Miami. I had booked a luxury rental for 2 families thru AirBnb. Pics were beautiful, and location was fantastic. Not cheap by any means. After sending the deposit, one of the kids (who was a real estate attorney) offered to check out the booking. And we were happy he did because the house did not exist-literally. He spoke to the actual owners who knew nothing about the listing, and told him that the house was torn down and is being rebuilt. Apparently the scammer used previous real estate photos of this property in their hustle. Worst part? AirBnb didn’t believe us. Took a week for them to send out someone to invesitgate. And then 2 or 3 week to refund my deposit.
TBF your assessment of taxes on out of towners benefitting locals and being slimy is in poor taste.
Tourists use infrastructure and public projects that they never contributed to and don’t find unless taxed, yet those same tourists can stress public assets significantly. It’s important to raise revenue from them to maintain local infrastructure…
The worst is when they display on the search page, only the daily rate but then when you click thru, it shows the cost with all the non-sense charges included. Reminds me of days when airlines would advertise $5 fares without mentioning all the other fees.
Maybe Chesky should end his ongoing tour of AirBnB properties and actually go back to work.
“Cleaning Fee: the cost of -”
Perhaps a typo, but an accurate one nevertheless, and best left as-is.
I don’t get your hate campaign with Airbnb. I’ve used them 30 times in the last 5 years so with nothing more than minor irritations. Yes, Airbnb isn’t perfect. Yes some hosts take advantage. Yes I’m sure bad things happen sometimes. You clearly like your 5-star hotels and front-of-the-plane travel, and it’s not that. A bit more balance would be appreciated.
While I’m having a gripe:
* I also don’t get your beef with soap/shampoo dispensers – you presumably touch door handles all day long, and they get a lot more traffic than they do. I think your immune system is up to it.
* Do you ever worry about the legacy of your carbon footprint on your daughter and her generation? I worry about mine, and it’s a tiny fraction of yours.
* It would be nice if comments could be up/down voted or moderated. It’s all too often a toxic brew that makes me sad. I mostly don’t read them because of that.
OK that will do. Hopefully this won’t stir up too much bile!
The only saving grace is Airbnb has not begun asking guests to tip or give a gift to hosts.
Just like Uber which used to be a good deal but is now just as expensive as a taxi and sometimes more.
Airbnb can be positive but the last three my wife and I have used were absolutely filthy. They had 5* ratings and great comments but they were discussing. We are not that picky but when you take your shoes off, like polite people do, you should not have black bottoms on your white socks within hours. You should not find old food under the bed or a stack of wet clothes in the closet. One said quaint courtyard which turned out to be artificial grass that smelled like dog urine and the apts were full of people smoking pot. 5*.
We have started using hotels whenever possible. The consistency of the hotel experience when you stay within a brand is what we like. That and not having to do chores when we leave.
Airbnb is just the worst.
@Nick yes they do and no they don’t for the reason you gave.
It’s considerably worse than that wherein,.imho, they just rip off our US cousin’s. If you search a property in Airbnb in the UK you get the ‘total price’. Then switch on your vpn and look at that same property as if you were a US based customer. A the fees and a substantially higher price because of it.
I constantly telle US friends to reverse the a ove process as it doesn’t matter where in the world the property is
If you purchase ‘im the UK’ then the entire sale is covered by our laws and you don’t get any of that BS
I own an apartment that I rent out on Airbnb and I can attest that this article is a bunch of nonsense. There are no resort fees or booking fees or damage waiver fees. Airbnb does not allow owners to charge such fees. And as an owner I can also attest that Airbnb bends over backwards to support guests – not owners.
Please refrain from publishing defamatory lies
but unlike hotels, resorts, etc. with airbnb the upfront price quoted on the site includes all this “drek”. I don’t like it but I’m also not going to get stung because a price like that would never result in my clicking, much less booking.
Airbnb is a service company that facilitates bookings for travelers thru an app. It is no more a tech company than an airline with an app or hotel chain with an app.
Hard to believe there are so many airbnb defenders. Must be the scammers…
My favorites are the user/guests giving 5 star ratings for fear of getting gigged…. And the host of a dump telling you that you nightly fee was only $300 when clearly you paid $800 after all the additional fees.
The true amusement is that companies like airbnb and uber came in to disrupt the incumbents, and are now both doing everything possible to minimize the difference. It’s also funny to complain about cleaning your own airbnb given the state of hotels, but I digress. Caveat emptor. If you don’t like an airbnb charging a gigantic “cleaning fee” on top of the nightly rate, don’t stay there. If you hate the idea of taking out the trash/recycling, well, good luck with a hotel. Hotels and airbnb should be required to display “all-in” pricing; until then, expect shenanigans. Airbnb is no different than buying anything else online. Read the reviews. Do they sound genuine? Are there details that suggest an actual stay? Are the photos consistent with the listing? Reach out to the host with questions. Read the “house rules.” I’ve never had anything but enjoyable stays on airbnb, but I’ve also never just arrived with no interaction at all with the host.
@Jason
Tourists pay numerous taxes on top of “tourist” taxes for local services they do not and never will require. In fact, most tourist taxes go to pay for local tourist promotion orgs to help promote MORE tourism to the area.
Tourists will never require public schools for their kids, rarely commit much crime, (dont @ me with tales of spring break college kids), rarely require local medical care or emergency services (and are usually insured by a private insurance due to their tendency to be better off financially), and aren’t homeless. They go out to eat and buy things primarily. They are basically every governments ideal citizen from a financial standpoint. Gouging them with taxes just shows the incompetence of local governments to deal with their own problems, and allows them to pay their highly compensated and underworked government employees more.
@jason wrong 100%. There is this tax called real estate tax based on a property value be it a house cottage hotel or resort. That tax includes the cost for the city/ town to provide fire rescue , schools and police services. The hotels do not have any kids going to the elementary schools. The hotels base their nightly rates to include the cost of this real estate tax. The I as a guest at the hotel am paying for elementary schools fire police rescue and other services which I will never use. Then the city adds a hotel tax onto my bill for providing NOTHING. It is not like I need animal shelter services while on holiday. This is called taxation without representation and why the colonist kicked out the British
Jason is dead wrong. We pay sales taxes which more than covers the “infrastructure” we are using.