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.

[Lynn248]

From the comments I've just read, it sounds like you have a lot of angry and frustrated hosts and co-hosts. For me, airbnb is the best platform because I get the most rentals that way. I love the current co-host payment system because it's easy. Now I'll ask my housekeepers to text me when the property is clean, and then I'll paypal or venmo them. I own 3 properties and manage another I don't own. It's not convenient, but it's not the end of the world for me. Someone working on a larger scale might see a much bigger inconvenience and/or cost to doing it manually. Still, I wonder if Airbnb couldn't partner with Paypal or a similar company to do the housekeeping/co-hosting payments? Like the partnership with August locks that actually "looks" at my airbnb calendar and sends a code to guests to open the smart lock. If they can do that, why can't they send my housekeeper her fee automatically? Yes, there's a cost and it sounds to me that most hosts would be willing to pay (automatically!) a small reasonalble amount to get this feature. Airbnb built an empire from an air mattress and a laptop. I know they (YOU!) can solve this too. 

[Ming27]

I have the same concern.

[Tami41]

Very bad news. Based on what I've seen here, if I (Co-Host) receives the payments to my bank account, and the main host receives the payments to his bank account, can not we split the payments between us? It must be through two different payment methods (bank account and PayPal for example)?
Thank you for your answer

Tami

[Tracey165]

Any sensible people would have the new improved payment system ready to be used before they withdrew the old system that was of high value to hosts. Does Air bnb not have any consideration for hosts?

[Deanna70]

Absolutely DISSAPOINTED by this change and feel its going to disadvantage hosts and co-hosts immensely - BUT especially co-hosts who manage properties for hosts who do not want to manage their property on any level and rely on the co-host to do everything - by removing this payment we now have to rely on the host to pay their co-host when they dont want to be involved and will most likely be too busy to action the payments or pay someone else to do it for them - this will result in hosts having to raise prices on the nightly rate to cover costs and most likely impact and disadvatage the co-host being paid on time and will also result in extra time spent raising invoices so another increase in costs - VERY BAD decision and one that I'm sure will impact not only hosts - co-hosts - guests - and the airbnb platform. 

[David2717]

I don't have anything to click on to add routing rules.

[Lizzie]

Hello @David2717,

Nice to meet you.

Can I just ask do you have more than one payment method set up? I believe if you only have one setup to begin with, the option to add routing rules won't show – so this might be why you are not seeing this.  

If you do have more than one payment method setup on your account, I would recommend contacting our Support Team and they can take a closer look. 

I hope this helps. Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,
Lizzie

[Claude169]

I just want to add to the general sentiment here and I will add to most of the other comments that I am co-hosting for Chinese owners who don't have the possibility to do bank transfers from China. At the moment we have no satisfying solution that would allow them to pay me.

[Z5]

Keep the cleaning fee payout! It helps keeps things simple!

[Frederick47]

I could not be more disapointed that this features has disapeared.... I will add so much work to manually calculate on my side. I really do not understand why you are talking this away. Please add it back 🙂

[Lewis6]

Removing the Co-Host payout is a huge mistake. I own five homes and share my income with five different co-hosts and now I have to pay all five separate. 

[Luke170]

Hi AirBnB,

You really need to make this change easier. I've been all over the payout site and I can't find the original place where I made the split with my co-host, in order to adjust it. If this gets dropped on us, a shortcut would be very helpful. 

Thanks

Luke

[Paul325]

To add even more confusion to this disastrous decision, adding a payout rule only affects NEW reservations booked.

So apparently, co-hosts will still be getting paid their percentage and cleaning fees automatically for upcoming payouts, but we'll have to separately pull out cleaning fees and co-host percentages on NEW bookings going forward?

That won't be confusing at all...

[Mariam19]

@Airbnb I am unable to get to code for my earning money in refering a host. I got an approval email, but there is no western union code in transaction history. Can you please help me to solve this issue?

[Susan--HostyMosty-0]

I cannot tell you how annoyed and angry I am at this disasterous decision. I must have called them a dozen times to get the routing rule resolved and apparently it will take up to 5 busines days to verify so all my reservations starting today I wont get paid on...ridiculous what they have done!!!