Payments update: Retiring the Group Payments feature

[Airbnb]

When we introduced Group Payments, we were trying to create a simple way for guests to split booking costs when traveling in a group. This arrangement meant the person organizing the trip wouldn’t have to pay all of the money up front, and hosts would have more visibility into who’s staying in their home since they’d be able to see profiles of everyone who contributed.

But we heard from you that holding your listing for 72 hours while waiting for all of the guests to pay was inconvenient. We considered the overall usefulness of this feature and its impact on the whole community and have decided to remove it in mid-September 2018. Any existing reservation that was paid for with Group Payments will be honored; we’re simply preventing new reservations from being made with Group Payments. We appreciate your feedback and will continue to work to build the simplest, most beneficial tools to support your hosting success.

[Grayson0]

Why not force the booking guest to pay in full up front when they are ready to reserve. Then create a feature for the booking guest to request payment from their friends. The split wouldn't hold up the booking. The booking guest would be 100% on the hook for the funds. But ABB could facilitate the split without the host having any inconvenience. 

[ChuckandCarole0]

Doesn't seem possible right now to reply to a specifc post, but i will say:

thanks so very much Lizzie! 

I don't want my space to be blocked off at all for any amount of time, until the guest has paid. if people are not prepared to pay, don't book yet! it's inconsiderate and rude.  i am a really busy hostess, and if someone cancels, and those days open up, and are now being held for someone that may or maynot come thru with payment....guess who loses?

[Lizzie]

Thank for mentioning me @ChuckandCarole0. It is good to hear your feedback and I am pleased you are happy with the outcome. 

[Sarah977]

@Grayson0 @Grayson0   Doesn't seem necessary to me for guests to have to have Airbnb facilitate requesting payment from the rest of their party. We live in a high-speed digital age. The guest doing the booking can easily send a screenshot of the total payment to all their group, and their friends or family can do an instant online transfer for their share to the booker. If they're too lazy to do this themselves, which takes minutes, they'll probably be too lazy to read the listing description, clean up after themselves or bother to answer host messages.

[Staci0]

We NEED groups to have “Group Payment” options!!! This is a business imperative for more enterprises to allow Airbnb for corporate approved travel.

And yes, we also need visibility for exactly “who” will be in the property at all times as well as timely payment. 

Please find a solution to allow group payments or it will negatively impact corporate travel adoption. And I can only speak for myself but I prefer corporate travelers to recreational.

Stopping this program outright is a cop out. We need solutions that benefit both corporate business guests and hosts.

[Rosan1]

Hi, it’s was a great tool in NYC the only problem was the time but if there was to reduce it to 12-24 hours to finalize the process 

[Steve245]

I agree with @Jess78!  Perhaps it could be like any other inquiry and would not be guaranteed until paid in full.  Groups could take as long as they want, but if they really want to book there would be incentive to do it quickly before another group swooped in and took the spot.  This would not put hosts at risk as they would have the option of accepting another booking if a group was taking longer than they liked and/or they had a better offer. 

[Ricardo583]

It makes perfect sense, at least for me.👍 but as another user already suggested it would be better to allow hosts to offer this option or not, it's up to us if we want to wait 24, 48, 72 hours or even more...

[Carol567]

There were many good reasons to not continue with the group divided payments... ie. how did you determine how much each needed to contribute when someone could opt out during the waiting for the payment period...who would pick up the non payment and if someone didn't want to stay the full time, did they get to pay less?. In theory it sounded good but in practice it did not work and I want to thank the team for listening to our needs.

[Wesley57]

I don’t understand the downside of having group payments.   Can we bring it back?

[Jeff-And-Jenny0]

Not a good idea at all. It will discourage people from booking. Air bnb is driving me crazy and I get most of our bookings from bookings.com anyway. 

[Imogen11]

I'm still not sure why there needed to be a calendar block at all. 

If ABB supports the the concept of a split payment model, why not earmark your own money to the host's pending earnings? The balance can be collected from other guests in the usual way, with a caveat that after X days of non-payment the booking guest's card will be charged for the outstanding amount. 

I realise this is a blow to ABBs cash flow but as booking fees are held sometimes months in advance it would balance out anyway, surely? And small hosts whose livelihood depend on reliable payments wouldn't be affected. 

[Jim-and-Rinette0]

Do the major hotel chains offer a group booking option? Not! 
I am sure that any adult group (and there in lies the problem) can come to an mutual understanding of their accomodation needs before tying up 2, 3 or more spaces before deciding which one fits the need of the entire group. Come on, make a decision - then book, but don't tie up my calendar while you surf for 72 or even 24 hours in order to gain a concensus from your travel buddies.

[Pat-And-Mike0]

Agree with Jim, Bali, Indonesia.  Give the host the option.

Hosts should also be given more options on cancellation.  

Hosts should be given more flexability in many areas.

[Bettina106]

Dear Aibnb Team,

Very disappointed to hear this feature is going to be discontinued.

I have booked using group payment and it was fantastic, it meant I wasn’t out of pocket 5000€. Other expenses from the same trip I still haven’t been reimbursed from people joining the trip. It meant one thing less to worry about collecting.

Also as a host I have had people inquiring whether I could hold dates for a week until they had collected all funds. I think this really was a simple way to collect funds and put some pressure on group members to pay their cut!