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.

[Daniel1781]

I'm really dissapointed with this and I'm sure that a lot of other hosts and co-hosts are as well.

The new payment system lacks funtionality and is inconvenient.

[Deborah494]

Come clean1. Are you responding to an existential threat to your self defined community of users, clients and owners by the hospitality industry challenging some aspect of the split payment that makes you vulnerable to their legal  attempts to name you an unregulated sector of the hospitality industry?

[John330]

Hey Airbnb. First, this change is annoying. It makes more work for me and my housecleaner. But it really affects my housecleaner. Instead of getting paid throughout the month as she does the work, she now will have to send me an invoice and wait to get paid. Housecleaners are not rich people. This has a real impact on people's lives. I know Airbnd, it would have cost you a little bit more to keep the current system and you want every penny for yourselves. I get it. It would be nice though if, just once, one of you "do no evil" internet companies would actually take care of the "little people" who make the whole system work. 

[Susan--HostyMosty-0]

When will Airbnb fix the cleaning payout rule??? I no longer can see what I am earning for my cohosting. I have to go into each hosts account to calculate. This adds way more time and energy for something that was so easily accessible... it woulf be reall ynice if someone from AIrbnb responded to any of these comments...not ok!!!!

[James1033]

Two things have become very evident about AirBnB. They hide behind a call center and messaging system that prevents their customers from reaching anyone of authority. This is very disappointing and not the kind of company I want to do business with in the future. Second, they have continuously ignored the messages here, so we don't know if they are being read or not.  Prior to this decision I was fairly impressed with AirBnB, but now I wouldn't recommend them to anyone wanting to rent their property. I've already listed my property with another platform and will transition away from AirBnB regardless if they reply, respond, or reverse this stupid decision. 

[Silvia248]

Problem:

I have an Airbnb listing in one country and live in another country.

My co-host does the work in the listing's country. Co-host used to get his commission paid via co-host payment, which Airbnb has now cancelled.

The solution Airbnb suggests is to split payments (for host and co-host) in the payout rules with percentanges accordingly. My payout rules go 50/50, 50% to my bank account in the country where the listing is (from where I pay the listing's bills) and 50% to my bank account where I live. Airbnb only allows two payout methods in the payout rules, no more than that, so I cannot include a third account which would be my co-host's. That leaves me to have to calculate and effect co-host payments per reservation on my own. The way you had it before was intrinsic to Airbnb's model, taking the co-host payment away is a serious blow.

[Alexander505]

@Airbnb this setup is terrible. Please allow co-hosts to set up their own payouts and taxpayer info.

[Nathan185]

Airbnb's private market valuation is over $30B and it is a TECHNOLOGY company.  This really shouldn't be that difficult to address.  Please add back the co-host payout feature and make it possible for the payment sharing to occur after the cleaning fee is deducted. 

[Russell99]

It's become obvious to me they don't care about reponding to this need.

I think it's very simple why:

In essence I think it's because they have concerns that paying another 3rd party like a cleaner will mean they become liable for that person...as in the case for UBER...

https://www.icaew.com/library/subject-gateways/law/legal-alert/2017-12/case-law-court-of-appeal-conf...

Just my two penneth.

[James1033]

I’ve learned something very important about AirBnB because of their unwillingness to respond to this issue. They are not to be trusted! They don’t care about their “partners” the property owners. Their action and lack thereof pertaining to explaining and responding to member complaints is inexcusable.

I am testing other renting platforms and fully intend to remove my property listing from AirBnB as soon as a viable alternative is up to speed.

[James1033]

If this is the case they should explain it rather than sit silently and not respond to our questions and complaints.

[Gbolahan0]

Airbnb,

I understand you may have to change one or two things sometimes but this is one vital option you need open.

This is absolutly not convinient and I will give you examples:

1. When I had a property for airbnb in Philadelphia, I never met my cleaner, all she had to do is to give me her email and I register her. The way you have things setup now will have me ask cleaner/co-host to give me their account details. In this age of cyber crime, you are opening a lot of people to financial security risk. I know this because I am a consultant and I work on PCI related issue every day.

2. You also don't have an open for a dollar amount. This just complicate things e.g lets say, I had a guest who is staying for 3 months and I get $10,000 for that. the lowest amount I can pay a cleaner is 1% which is $1000. Who gives a cleaner $1000 to clean a 2 bedroom apartment (this is not to insult you but to point to my fraustration). Also, cometimes I clean my house my self and don't need the cleaner to do it.

3. You gave the option to use other form of payment. If I have to do this, I'll have to give the cleaner 1099 which in most cases they might be unwilling to sign. In such cases, it will be difficult for me to file my tax because from airbnb point of view, the pay me the money not the cleaner.

Solution: I know some people may prefer what you have there now especially if they pay a co-host a percentage of the income. However, I believe you need to consider including a dollar amount in the routing option, or revert to the way it was before.

Regards

Gbolahan

[Maria2956]

Mind you, this causes a huge tax problem in Greece. A host will have to pay all the taxes for the payout money and there is no way to avoid this, even though it includes the co-host's percentage. I am a host with a house which is not close to where I live. So I must have a co-host. I am not a company, I am an individual, and this means that the co-host is not my employee. So I don't know how to pay them. Am I supposed to act illegally and pay black money? 

[Lucas-and-Luz0]

This is unacceptable. This is a radical and limiting change and you're not providing an alternative. A set percentage is not the same as paying co-host the cleaning fees. Say my agreement with the co-host is that they get the cleaning fees. and let's say I booked the place for two longs stays in a month, the co-host should receive two cleaning fees. But with the new way, we are forced to set a percentage of the total payout? How does that make sense? What if the co-host only cleaned once? or... what if the co-hosts was not able to clean at all that month, they would still get a percentage of the payout. Sure, we can go other alternatives like I pay the co-host on cash, but then I have to pay taxes on this income. Seems like a total lack of planning, and you solution is to break it instead of fixing it.

[Russell99]

I think we’re at 250 plus Hosts / 17 pages of complaints about this removal of a feature and not one replay from AirBnb?

I think it shows they don’t care about our views. 

Totally disgraceful.