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.

[Molly129]

As a host of over a dozen properties all of which I utilize the co-host feature this greatly impacts how I play ball with Airbnb. I created an LLC to be the umbrella for all of the income, then pass out W/9 1099 forms to the owners of the houses and my cleaning assistants. I had to hire an accountant, buy a pc laptop, buy quickbooks, lost my years of reviews to get all the properties under the new business LLC account on Airbnb, I will now have to pay to have my taxes done, pay for business insurance  and I file county taxes for all the properties now. Needless to say I am slightly discouraged because until now I truly felt Airbnb was the most user friendly platform that had a system for handeling all of our needs. My hope is that the new development will help hosts with an easier way to pay our county occupancy taxes, pay our team members, and support the folks that make the community a possibility. What are other solutions y’all have come up with? 

[Non1]

What a mess When we started Airbnb we ren't here so we got a friend to host our house. Now as we have worked very hard to get good reviews Airbnb refused to change the host name so we were always co-hosts to our own property. Airbnb told us the only way we could be the main host is to relist the property so we would loose all our 71 good reviews. So now we don't even get direct payments anymore. Our friend who is the listed host is a busy lady and this is going to make it very hard on everyone. What the hell are you up too ????

[Leah147]

"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." I'm curious when you say "certain hosts" what percentage of co-hosted listings use this co-hosting split payout feature? I definitely use it and see it as a major perk. It's 2018, everyone in the Airbnb transaction should be getting secure payouts, in a timely and automated fashion.

[Ingrid273]

Agree with request of seperate cleaning fee routing.

thanks

[Kimberly240]

I just became a co-host and Airbnb allowed me to set up payment for my cleaning fee, but now I'm seeing this letter saying they are changing the payout process. Then why would I be able to set up an account for payout. If this is true I should of be notified during co-host set up.

[Nicole271]

FOLLOW THE MONEY. TPG INVESTS IN AIRBNB. GOOGLE IT. when companies like this invest in companies like airbnb decisions get made, costs cut, etc. I am personally and professionally affected by this change and I'm furious as well. They got a 450 million $ investment, ..There's one answer. Also they need big bucks to fight legislation against the hospitality giants, and cutting out the hosts and cohosts might legally help with that. Pure hypothesis. A primary homeowner can do a lot more legally than a third party  can in the world of real estate. Check into it... 

[Isabelle730]

The CLEANING FEE system was an amazing help, please put it back as an option of payment form from the primary guest payments options.

[Isabelle730]

In the  AIRBNB communication about "News about the co-hosting split payout feature"

 they stipulated, I quote :

"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 the primary host can split with the co-host How do we do this with cleaning fees? If I split the payment in payment preferences it will take a percentage of the TOTAL including cleaning fees and that is not right.

Therefore the cleaning fee should remain an option in itself that can be reversed to a third part CHOSEN BY THE PRIMARY HOST.

[Ruth373]

Has anyone else figured our how to adjust these fees as they suggest?  All I get is a link that takes me in circles.  Very frustrating.  I'd appreciate ANY help. Thanks.

Ruth

[Robert1140]

Please fix this ASAP, It will be a huge inconviance to have to pay the cleaning fees outside of Airbnb,  We have 5 renatls and increasing.  I'd hate to see airbnb fail becouse of such a shortsited policy. 

[Linda1082]

Does anyone know how to work it if the owner is in Canada, I am the Co Host and live in the USA, should I just send them an invoice or use the split payment, I tried this option, but as they do not have to put tax details in it is showing me as 100% tax liability, which I can't have. doesn't show an option for Canadian taxes?? thanks

[Rhiannon16]

My co-host does the same amount of cleaning whether a guest stays one day or ten days, and it's not right for her to get a lower percentage for shorter stays. It was so simple when Airbnb could just pay her the cleaning fee every time, and everything was taken care of.  Please restore this feature!

[Kristen154]

Today is August 4th. I was notified today by the app of this change. I’m a cohost with a full calendar of bookings for this month and next and now I find I’m not getting paid. Come on Airbnb! 

[Stephen481]

Airbnb does a lot of things brilliantly which is the main reason I joined. There are good reasons you are in your second year of profitability, considering an IPO, gross bookings have increased 150% and revenues are more than $3.5bn. So it seems a peculiar time to remove co-host functionality for Airbnb hosts who rely on it.

If you are going to improve it, why eliminate this first?

The email of July 25 provided inadequate explanations:

- "[T]he feature was no longer addressing all the needs of hosts and co-hosts or meeting our internal standards"

- What 'needs' were not being addressed?

- How does removing this functionality fill these needs?

- What 'internal standards' were not being met?

- Please send all of us a copy of your 'internal standards' so we'll have some idea of future surprises.

Your language stinks of the kind of corporate garbage a forward-looking company like Airbnb should be above.

And why roll this out in August and not during a less busy time? Consider, what, February perhaps?

This is a disincentive for hosting and a huge disincentive for Co-Hosts who have to add extra bookkeeping to already busy schedules while running around. Why make Airbnb more difficult? This is a tax nightmare for both of us.

Without the Co-Host functionality, the following issues need to be addressed:

- Why does the flat cleaning fee get lumped in and split by percentage? Nothing about that makes sense. We don't clean by percentages.

- If I split payments, you would 1099 my co-host, however, Airbnb provides inadequate payout documentation.

- So we have no choice but to incur the extra expense and time of generating 1099s and additional fees for 'alternative payment methods'. Are you reducing your service fee to account for these additional expenses?

- Provide your excellent phone reps with adequate information which they consistently lack.

For all of the extra work we now have to do as Hosts, there is extra work you should do:

- Provide a detailed display of all Guest charges, Service fees, Cleaning fees, Extra guest fees, Co-host payments, Host payments, Sales taxes in one place. We can't document the expenses to our accountants.

- Provide documentation of state sales taxes paid. That was a whole bunch of hours out of my winter months.

- You have all this information. Please make it accessible.

- Make the above downloadable. The current CSV is inadequately detailed.

- REDUCE YOUR SERVICE FEE since you are putting these extra burdens on Hosts and Co-Hosts.

The alternative? RESTORE the Co-Host functionality and improve it!

I would appreciate the opportunity to talk to someone at Airbnb with the authority to discuss the implementation of this policy.

Stephen [surname hidden] - Airbnb Superhost

[Amanda629]

With out my co-host James I would never have become a host, I'd never heard of Airbnb. I live in the the New Forest, Hampshire, UK

it was James that encouraged me to do up my old shepherds hut and put it on Airbnb. And to my surprise! People have come to stay from all over the world! 

It has now become a huge part of my life. 

I love Airbnb, and I very much appreciate James's help and to be able to automatically send him a percentage of my earnings is a perfect way to say, thank you x

 I am 60 years old (not very good on a computer) and James is 17 years old (and is an absolute wizard on the computer) so you can see how this is important to me.

my kindest regards 

Amanda [surname hidden] ... super host!! Yeah!