I have a suggestion for Airbnb. Currently, they have a very inefficient policy that they pass off onto the traveler.
I have a credit card that doesn't charge foreign transaction fees (like many other avid travelers) - my bank covers these fees for me. Airbnb charges foreign transaction fees to book based on location - in fact, if you are booking and you switch the currency to the local currency of the listing, you will see a 3% lower cost (the foreign transaction fee cost) than if you look at it in another currency. For my last 2 trips I have attempted to pay in the local currency (for example, if I am travelling to France, I will try to pay in Euros), but Airbnb will not let me do this. Instead, they force me to pay in US dollars because I live in the US (even though I want to and have tried to pay in Euros), then they take my US dollars, convert them to Euros themselves, charge me a 3% fee (which my bank would have done for me for free!), and then pay the host in Euros. This is dumb and inefficient - even worse, they pass this inefficiency off on me. Give customers the option to pay in the currency of their choosing.
