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.

[Lisa1411]

I liked the group payment. My space will accommodate three adults, and this allowed each to pay. I hate to see this option removed. The biggest complain was simply the 72 hours which many people had an issue with, not the option.  Possibly shorten the time to 24 or 48 hours and bring back the feature. 

[Gabriel305]

Honesty, I really don’t care to be involved in the whole splitting of the reservation. Airbnb does not need to mitigate that. When I travel with a group, we sort that out amongst ourselves like adults. I don’t care to know that it is being split three/four ways. It’s none of my business. PayPal and other money transfer platforms are available for these types of things I personally don’t care to be involved in that. 

[Colleen164]

I have had guest groups and it would have been really nice to see all the guest profiles and have all of them see my House Rules.   

I agree that it would be nice for hosts to have the option to accept group payments and choose how long the guests have to get it together.  

It would be great if Corporate would reconsider this option based on current feedback on WHY hosts didn’t like the initial group payment format.  

[Karen896]

I agree with Rebecca that the Q and A event are very unsatisfying--never really thought corporate was listening to hosts.  An Advisory Board or Committee representing the various types of hosts would be great.  Anyone with an idea or concern could approach the AB directly.  Then, depending on the issue, the AB could solicit input from hosts, guests, etc..  Following a discussion of the input, the AB could ask for a sit-down/face to face with the relevant Airbnb department to discuss whatever recommendation resulted from the relevant audience, e.g. hosts, guests.  

[Maya87]

As a host and a traveller, the feature was useful.  I think the big feedback from hosts was the 72-hour period.  Could it not have been reduced to 12-24hours?

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

I'm having a hard time understang some of the comments. When this was implemented, hosts made it overwhelmingly clear that it was inconvenient and unfair to hosts, for many reasons, including the time frame was too long and blocking the calendar at all was unfair because if the payment failed, the host got nothing and had their calendar blcoked, preventing other paying guests from booking. Another very valid concern was that some hosts set their rates at a level that weeded out problem guests. This "feature" took that right away. 
Now that it's been done away with, we are hearing complaints that it was removed. I don;t get it. I'm relieved it's gone, for all the reasons above.
I had a split payment booking that dragged on for days, only to have it fail because someone didn't pay. My calendar was blocked and in the end, I got zero $. It also gives the "cancel penalty free within 48 hours" a bit of an extension, doesn't it? 
It was not right and I'm glad to see it gone.

[Sarah977]

@Michelle-and-Ray0  I suspect the hosts who are bemoaning the elimination of group payment never experienced having their calendars held hostage for 72 hours, only to have the reservation cancelled due to guests changing their minds, or failure to come up with the payment. They were probably lucky enough to have it all go smoothly and made good $ from these groups.

[Jennifer743]

This was a great move, well done for removing this method of payment. This is how it played out in my case: not only did it tie up the dates during a very busy time of year, the second guest never paid. And I was the one left explaining why to the  paid guest as she assumed she had secured the property. 

Best leave the guests to sort out their travel arrangements amongst themselves prior to booking without Airbnb being the intermediary.

[Michelle-and-Ray0]

@Sarah977 Must be. It the only thing I can figure, because it was terrible for me. they held my place hostage for 3 days for a busy time and then ended up failing  for non payment and I got nothing for it. Luckily, I was able to get it booked on another platform to make up for it, but that's not always the case.
Meanwhile, the guests have no penalty at all for holding your place and are free to go do it again to you or someone else.

[Lisa1414]

As a guest, I recently used the group payment and everyone (in my group) loved being able to pay this way, plus it was easy.

As a host, I can understand that 72hrs might be too long but I think 24hrs could work. 

I agree with Jim, the host could decide which group payment window they want, or if they will accept group payments at all.

[Kathy424]

I agree with what seems to be the majority of these posts. The group payment option is excellent, to do away with it just because it requires 72 hours feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Why not drop the time down to 24 and 36 hours?

Kathy

[Carole124]

I’m currently “snoozed,” but so happy this host-unfriendly feature is being discontinued.  It held hosts hostage to disorganized or unwilling travelers.  With the presence of payment apps like Venmo, this change puts the responsibility of collecting traveling companions’ contributions back on whoever is organizing the trip.  Instead of holding up our calendars for days and days.

[Dawn33]

Thank you for listening.

i had to deal with the group payment twice this summer.

Banks make it so easy to send others money to split dinner bills and weekend trips. I never understood why it was an option on Airbnb in the first place.

@Lizzie thank you for your help in this! 

[Susan17]

Group payments was never about facilitating easier payment for guests - it was all about calendar blocking and ratcheting up figures/valuation ahead of an (eventual) IPO.

Each and every Airbnb member has a nominal valuation figure on their head, so obviously, the more members that join, the higher the company valuation.

With group booking, each person in the group had to sign up to become an Airbnb member. In my case, for example, my max guest count is 12, so instead of 1 Airbnb guest being able to book for their group of 12, all 12 were forced to sign up for their own Airbnb accounts - a cumbersome, time-consuming chore at the best of times, particularly when Verified ID, with all its glitches, is required too. This was why the guests were given 4 days to complete  as opposed to a much more reasonable 12/24 hrs. (It was technically 72 hrs... but then, when one or more than one of the party failed to pay, Airbnb generously gave the other guests on the booking a further 24 hours grace to either pay the balance between them, or to contact the host and ask them to drop the price to the amount already paid. So 96hrs, or 4 days, in total)

Needless to say, this resulted in the ludicrous facility becoming waaay too much trouble for both Airbnb *and* booking guests (who very often bailed out, and buggered off to other platforms where they didn't have to jump through laborious hoops to simply book a place to stay for a couple of nights) And yet another farcical Airbnb initiative bites the dust.. *not* because Airbnb "listened to hosts", but because it was utterly unworkable, and became much more hassle than it was worth. 

[Yaz2]

In my opinion 12 to 24 hours would have been better than removing the whole good idea of spliting the payment for groups.