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.

[Caleb41]

This bad news. I had to ask my co-host for her SSN #. Had I not known her I would be stuck calculating her fee after each reservation. 

[Brooke104]

I called Airbnb supportlast week on behalf of my brother who is the main host (he’s out of the country) and they informed me I did not need to make any changes to our payouts. I noticed my future payouts were all still split up the same.. do I need to make changes or not? I’m so confused...

[Manolo27]

I add my disbelief of this Airbnb decision. I'm a co host in order to help the host, who happens to be my daughter, travelling for some time, and I'm absolutely lost on where I will receive the funds from the people who started yesterday. Until now the payment was to my account (co host account) and I simply reported to my host the receipt of payment. now I don't have the foggiest idea of where I will receive payment. Will becoming principal host resolve this issue? thanks for a prompt reply.

[Anne112]

This is annoying- part of the appeal of Airbnb is that the platform does much of the work for us and helps us manage it.  I will be checking with booking.com to see if they make it any easier to share hosting and payouts.

[Howey0]

Very disapointiing. I will have to go back to setting up meetings with my cohosts and go over everything which is time consuming and requires effort. I was really a fan of split payments, it made life so easier and now this is quite a hinder! 😞

[Giovanni416]

Very inconvenient and unreasonable timeline / pre-notice period, very unclear reasons, very poor planning and change management overall. We are disappointed. This type of change considering the size of the impacted community would require in our view at least a 12 months or more adjustment period. A few days notice is disquieting, and, in our view, a management mistake. 

[Kika-And-Pete0]

We own a large number of apartments and have been trying out Airbnb as a platform with 5 of our apartments (3 with a co-host and 2 managed by ourselves). After we obtained the super host status, we saw the revenues finally increase. However, a serious drawback are all the changes on very short notice on the co-host program. Whereas a regular renter has to give 3 months notice in Luxembourg, Airbnb changed the system with only a couple of weeks notice and in the mid of the summer period. Secondly, the so called "alternative split payment" that AIRBNB is offering now is not ok.  We need AIRBNB to add the feature of adding a cleaning fee to the payout preferences.  Having just the option for paying a % commission to the co-host is not good enough as it does not take care of the cleaning fee fixed cost. We need AIRBNB urgently to add the feature of adding a fixed cleaning fee to the split payout preferences for our co-host. 

[Chaiya0]

@Airbnb Please add an option to your payout routing routes for the housekeeping fee.

Or some other smart way that Im sure your IT team can come up with, for co-hosts to automatically receive housekeeping fees.

Without that, it means having to create an official invoice just for the cleaning fee for every booking.

Since all Hosts ask for an airbnb tax statement every financial year, I have had to purchase an accounting app, that automatically charges me $US15 (for only 5 clients)/month,  just to create invoices for housekeeping.

Thanks for your consideration and understanding 🙂

[Marissa60]

So in a few words...

[Andres261]

I like the flat rate option it worked fantastic for me . hopefully host whom like this option can use again soon. 

[L--Jay0]

This message should be sent to the Hosts. The co-hosts cannot initiate the changes for split payments based upon your explanation, if I understand what you are saying. My host has not responded to the change and therefore it seems like the upcoming payment for my co-hosting is in limbo. 

[Adriana442]

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!

[Russell99]

This is a complete mess.

The reason I joined AirBnb was it's simplicity and transparancy.

You've just blown both.

[David2737]

This is a massive step backward. Co-hosting was working perfectly fine. Looking to other platforms for my business now. 

[Jason579]

This is a big step backwards. I really appreciate Airbnb as a company, but this would certainly swing me towards a competing service that pays co-hosts directly. It certainly mitigates the convenience of using Airbnb exclusively.