Payments update: Retiring the Group Payments feature

[Airbnb]

When we introduced Group Payments, we were trying to create a simple way for guests to split booking costs when traveling in a group. This arrangement meant the person organizing the trip wouldn’t have to pay all of the money up front, and hosts would have more visibility into who’s staying in their home since they’d be able to see profiles of everyone who contributed.

But we heard from you that holding your listing for 72 hours while waiting for all of the guests to pay was inconvenient. We considered the overall usefulness of this feature and its impact on the whole community and have decided to remove it in mid-September 2018. Any existing reservation that was paid for with Group Payments will be honored; we’re simply preventing new reservations from being made with Group Payments. We appreciate your feedback and will continue to work to build the simplest, most beneficial tools to support your hosting success.

[Christine615]

24 hours would be nice. Or even 48 hours. 3 days is not reasonable. But the group payment is fabulous because I'm thinking about renting a vacation house for a reunion/women's weekend with the cousins paying their share.

That takes the onus off of the person booking (because the cost is too huge for one person to pay - unless it's in installments).

[JB6]

I've only had two reservations in the past year and a half that used the group payments option.  Both were nightmares.   With one, one group cancelled out but the other wanted to stay; there was no way to adjust the refund to go to the canceling party.  The other one was where it was split between a couple, and one payment went through and the other payment disappeared into the AirBnB system.  I had to hold those dates for a week, and had numerous emails back and forth, until we just cancelled the reservation and the guests re-booked under one name and payment.  I've never had a hotel offer group payments - there is probably a reason why.

[Caliope1]

I thought group payments was going to be a thing of the past?

Yesterday, 17 September 2018,  I got a group payment new booking and my calendar has been blocked for 4 days until guests pay.  

I don't see that guest was prevented booking using the group payment function, when will this take effect?

[Duane4]

I've thought about this for a while now and I think the real reason for this is that it probably hurt earnings at AirBNB prior to the IPO which is most likely the reason that a lot of good things have gone away.

Here is an example of why I think this is the real reason. You can get travel credit on AirBNB if you refer someone of $20. The person you refer gets a credit of $40. You refer 10 people so they have $400 in travel credit and you have $200 after the first time they travel. You book a house for 11 and all of you stay there, split the payment using group payments and everyone uses their $40 in travel credit first.

In this case most of the people that were in the group probably aren't going to book again.

[Ethan43]

Let me make it real simple folks. Airbnb has limited resources, and has to invest it where it brings the the most $$. The fact that they killed this feature means that it was not used that much, and it was creating a lot of tensions and possibly fraud. So they decided not to invest in maintaining this feature (keep fixing bugs), or improving it (giving hosts option to opt out, making the hold period flexible etc) it probably was not worth the trouble to them. Their resources could be spent better elsewhere. So they killed it. End of story!

[Niraj6]

someone came here still not pay

[Marcolina0]

I personally think removing this option sucks.  When you are arranging a group booking it is easier to have each party responsible for his or her own portion of the rental.  Leaving the entire charge on main guest is a hassale.  I agree maybe 3 days is a long time but to remove the entire option is not good.  You are now left with paying the rental in full or doing partial payment now and the remainder later.  It has nothing to do with people being responsible but it is easier when all parties pay at once and split the cost.  I have never had issues with this.  Bad move Airbnb

[Līga0]

Never noticed this option in my Airbnb experience.

My guests allways did it fast and simple.

Best wishes from Riga, Latvia

Līga Eglīte

EGLITE real.

[Karena9]

Agreed that the feature to split the payment was GREAT - whiles it’s important that hosts needs are met, it’s also equally important that guests needs are met as well. Guests are PAYING to use their home, and it would be helpful if one person didn’t have to front the entire costs on their credit card/PayPal. Agreed that reducing the hold times would be a nice alternative, but getting rid of the feature all together is not OK. Especially when you have friends coming from all parts of the country. Just my two cents, and I coming from both a hosts and guest perspective. 

[Carol757]

Agreed. And when traveling on business, each traveler having their own invoice was important.

[Andre307]

How about no hold on the property.  You can still have group payment, but the property isn't reserved until everyone in the group has payed.  This way the hosts are out nothing ( and shouldn't care how guests pay, as long as they do) and the guests get the option to split the payment which is convienient and believe it or not increases the likelyhood of bookings.  Airbnb doesn't listen.  The only problem people had with this option was the 72 hour hold.  Hosts do not care how guests pay otherwise.  Eliminate the hold all together. If everyone in the group pays before someone else books then you get the place.  Also you can give the hosts the option to decide if they will accept a 1 hour hold, 12 hour hold, 24 hour hold, or 72 hour hold, or no hold at all.  Eliminating the feature all together was not necessary when you could of easily satisfied the hosts concerns while at the same time gave guests a convienient option.  You have to wonder who makes the decisions at airbnb...

[Diana108]

A sensible response...............maybe you could get a job with Airbnb and help them "think outside the box." 🙂

[Lana113]

This is unfortunate, becuase this was a useful feature for those of us traveling in groups ... especially since people from different countries travel together and meet at their AirBnB -- and now have to go back to calculate the conversions (euros, USD, etc) and collecting from others in the party. THUMBS DOWN

[Jack369]

How about giving us the option when we list the attendees allow us to enter credit card information for each.  I'm booking for our group and i have their credit cards but i can't even do that.  this is very inconvenient to the consumer.  I appreciate the issue for the hosts and I don't need days to do this I just need the option to enter multiple credit cards in Airbnb so I can designate the cost to each card.  

[Udit4]

I would recommend to start this facility back again.

This will help in reducing the Pocket cost of an indivisual and we can get seperate bills on indivisual names which would be easier to get them re-imbursed if travelling for Business purpose.