News about the co-hosting split payout feature

[Airbnb]

We recently shared that as of August 1, 2018 we’ll no longer offer the co-hosting split payout feature. Many of you use and appreciate this feature, and we understand that this change has implications for the way that you do business as hosts. It’s always our intention to improve your experience in any way we can, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience this change will pose for you. We’d like to give you some background on why we’re making it and offer some alternatives for paying your co-hosts.

It’s important to note that we are not removing co-hosting. We’re invested in helping you succeed, and co-hosting overall has been a valuable tool for many of you. So why are we removing the split payout feature? When we added the ability to pay co-hosts through this special feature, the number of co-hosts was rather small and we built a system that handled the volume well. But in order for this feature to meet the needs of a much larger community of hosts and work seamlessly with Airbnb’s evolving platform, we would need to completely rebuild the feature so that it grows with your needs and meets our internal reliability standards. We’re not building a feature to replace this one yet, but we know it’s important to certain hosts and co-hosts and will continue to evaluate ways we can improve and grow the co-hosting program.

The good news is we’re exploring the best way to introduce a new and improved feature. We can’t give you a date yet, but will keep you informed. In the meantime, you can still pay co-hosts through the Airbnb platform by changing your Payout Preferences to split your payment with your co-host. To do this, with your co-host’s permission, enter their payout information in your Payout Preferences tab, and set the percentage you would like to share. If your co-host is not comfortable sharing their account details or ever withdraws their authorization, you can pay them outside of Airbnb through secure online payment apps, bank deposits, cash, or checks.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and we’re grateful for each and every one of you who host and co-host—and support local businesses while you’re at it! We look forward to building a feature that will be useful to you and better meet the needs of this growing community.

[Rebecca75]

Could you please add a cleaning fee routing option to the payout preferences too? This would enable us to send just the fixed cleaning fee rather than a variable percentage of the booking. It would be extremely helpful. Thank you!

[Karin1624]

Yes I agree this feature is desperately needed!!

[Jim2129]

I pay the cleaning service but the cohost gets their cohost  percentage of Airbnb’s cleaning fee that they collect and then payout. Is this the issue you are bringing up? Have you gotten any answers to help with this?

[Ian244]

I appreciate the update in regards to the co-hosting program. Speaking for myself, the bigger issue is the elimination of the "find a co-host" feature. If the co-hosting community was valuable to the success and growth of Airbnb as a whole, one would assume connecting host to co-host would be made as easy as possible. in addition, given that Airbnb is one of the most innovative and prosperous companies in the world, it would make a whole lot of sense to have the improvements made to the current payout system in place before making the decision to hinder this program. The co-hosting program is very valuable to me, in fact if I could co-host and clean full time I would. It is easy for me to complain and that is not the purpose of my message, I will adapt and the fine folks that work on this team have been great up to this point so thank you for that. I just want to reiterate that the co-hosting program and the ability to grow with Airbnb is a huge benefit to me, and I would greatly appreciate if the features that make this program so accessible and convenient will continue to be available. thanks again for considering my comment. -ian b.

[John891]

You lost you main advantage from the other platforms. I do believe that the culture of Airbnb is more than just hosting, but with no automatic payments why don’t we just go to Booking.com? It’s more famous and has more visitors. The main difference is the payments process.... I hope you just listen to your community and rethink this radical change, before it’s too late for you. Don’t you ever forget: we do own the houses and we do choose the platform. 

[Rosabel1]

Yes but my understanding is that for the payment to be split , two different payment methods need to be chosen

"each person needs to be paid with a separate payout method" so the two partie can't both use paypal for exemple?

That issue should have been forseen, you launched the co-hosting system it did not plan a sustainable future for it and now that thousands of people have modeled their businesses on it you give 1 month notice for them to change the most important part around and the part that in any business is the most important part and most likely to create problems and diagreements THE PAYMENT !

Its not fair for the people that trusted you, its bad business practice and definetly a huge planning mistake

[Rosabel1]

Why cant the people using it currently keep using it and you just apply these changes to new co hosts??? its been working fine fine so far, we should not be peanalized because of your planning mistakes

[Mike340]

"We’d like to give you some background on why we’re making it and offer some alternatives for paying your co-hosts"

"It’s always our intention to improve your experience in any way we can,"   (LOL) 

It begs the question, therefore,  why you dont give the reasons and some alternatives ...

.....WHEN YOU ANNOUNCE THE NEWS 

who on earth is running Airbnb ?? 

[Adam-and-Ike-0]

This is a useless statement to send to hosts who know that the co-host feature has been working just fine so far. This was only put together because we started making our voices heard at this bad decision., and it really sounds like it's just a made up excuse. They way this is described is not how an IT/dev team rolls out a global feature like co-host split payments... by stopping it to "re-work" it. Haha. It smells like there's something else going on we're not being told.

[Adrianna2]

This reply ISN'T an explanation! Nor does it address our concerns as owners and co-hosts! This is the reason I used Airbnb as our platform over the competetion! Changing such an intregral part co host payments is HUGE!  For the properties in which I co host, there is a security in knowing that Airbnb, not a third party is distributing the agreed to funds. Owers who are out of area or too busy or for whatever reason use a co host like the ease of the payment structure as is. This change takes a huge step backwards! As a cohost, having to wait on an owner for payment, send messages, follow up...again doesn't make sense! Not to mention owners who have zero tech skills to even make the payments. I would venture to say a number of owners are of an older, less techy, generation. Majority of cohosts are younger. The system in place fits that! NOT THE UPCOMING CHANGE! Booking.com...here I come!

[Bridlewood0]

I find it hard to believe that enterprise software would not be able to handle this when it can handle millions of reservations. Don't know what the real reason is, but this isn't it.   And unless I'm mis-understanding, the workaround is not a workaround - there's no way to send the cleaning fee to the co-host, and if I understand correctly - the tax implications are a mess - hosts now would need to send 1099s to the co-hosts. What a mess. 

[Jules55]

Thank you for finally addressing the issue however you haven't really addressed the core issue at all.

I also find it incredibly hard to believe that you built the split payment system without building it to be bullet proof at scale. It honestly sounds like a whole load of bs that the current set up needs such tweaking as to be scrapped. You can roll out updates to your current payment system as you go along and not cancel the whole thing.

If it's a loss making exercise why not increase your service fee at time of the booking so this cost is absorbed by both host and co host?

It's also curious to hear this as for me up to this point I've taken hundfeds of co payments without a hitch! And if anything the fuxfu clear much quicker than before.

The alternative with the payout preferences is very clunky, confusing and doesn't seem to address Cleaning fees either. It puts up a massive barrier to entry and also means you would normally have to hold someone's hand through the process for it to work.

Your platform is supposed to be forward thinking and one that takes pride in helping your community grow and evolve with you - doing this is not only backwards but is going to isolate many of us and make us consider looking at our other options.

[Jules55]

Also in your message you're saying you need to completely rebuild the feature and then in the next sentence saying you are not going to rebuild the feature so which is it:

"we would need to completely rebuild the feature so that it grows with your needs and meets our internal reliability standards. We’re not building a feature to replace this one yet, "

???

[Helen56]

Just keep it for those hosts and co-hosts who are already using it while you work on a new one.

Seems really strange that you can handle millions of guest payments and payments to hosts, but not payments to co-hosts.  This doesn't make sense.

@Airbnb