"Cleaning Fees" listed separately, deceptive AirBnB

[Nu0]

AirBnB is a joke with published rates. Hosts lowball on the nightly rate, then charge $70 for a cleaning?  That's for one night or 5.
Looking at a room in Nassua, $80 for the night, $69 cleaning = $149. Seriously, pathetic excuse for transparent pricing.

This site asks us to be nice to each other, how about being nice to travellers by being honest. Any Host can lowball the rate and rack up the cleaning fee. Anyone else agree this is deceptive?

They need to include all fees in pricing. 

Another host lists a $100 fee and $29 cleaning fee = $129.

It's impossible to compare without going through each listing.

And this is a good service?

[Nu0]

Re-read the comment. No complaint regarding the fee. Deceptive way to market.
An $80 per night fee with a $69 cleaning fee, is a bait and switch.
Ever see car leasing ads? $99 per month with $4999  down. Same thing.

ABB has a lot of work to do on this. One fee, just like a hotel or bed and breakfast.

Can't justify charging a cleaning fee almost equal to the made up 'rate',  deceptive. 

Have a nice day.

[Lisa1480]

It would be nice if the cleaning fee was displayed more prominently with nightly pricing. Some people just don’t take time to read those fantastic descriptions we slave over and would miss the extra fees if they were not experienced to know to do so. I am non smoking and it’s mentioned in several places, but I have had someone check in and didn’t know that... proves they didn’t read anything!  I would like to charge weekly and monthly renters because being here longer, I feel they would make a bigger mess, but you can’t pick and choose. 

[Jessica555]

No, it is not deceptive. It is a way of making sure we can charge just once for cleaning. See, if you stay for one night, the host has to clean the entire place before a new guest arrives. If you stay for a week, we still only have to clean once. This is a way of having a nightly rate that is affordable but charging for cleaning fees only once. Also, it isn't Airbnb's platform that decides on whether to have cleaning fees and how much. It is the hosts who are free to decide this. Many of us charge cleaning fees to indicate that no matter how long you stay, we need to do a thorough cleaning one time per guest. It takes us a lot of time and energy and supplies. Many of us don't like to build this into the price, because we want guests to be able stay our maximum stay length and only pay the cleaning fee once.

[Shane319]

Sounds more like a YOU problem and not the renters problem.

The easy solution, obviously, is to charge these large and egregious cleaning fees to the people who are having long stays.  

But 1 day renters should NOT have to pay these high fees for 1 night.  Its ridiculous and absurd and MOST of us will take our business elsewhere...good luck. You will need it with that outdated Logic

[David126]

There are Hotels and B&B's on AirBnB, they do not charge a cleaning fee, I do not charge a cleaning fee.

You seem to think everybody does.

Like I say you see the prices before you book.

[Al80]

Totally agree David, pricing should bake in any costs associated to the room rental in my opinion. Charging extra for cleaning accomodations seems strange and seen as a cash grab. 

Airbnb team should look at this again and re-think the ability to list a separate fee. It should be part of the price of your stay.  Glad I'm not the only one that feels this way 🙂

[Diane107]

I've been managing several rentals for 14 years and have always charged a seperate cleaning fee.  In our community,  good housekeepers are very hard to find and I pay them well to keep them.  I  have been unable to find a way to build it in to the nightly price and make it fair.    If a guest stays one night or 7,  I still require a full cleaning.  Anything less would be unacceptable to me or my guests.  If I were to build the price into the rental rate, the guest will still be paying the cleaning fee but the nightly rate would have to increase to recoop the fee and that would affect all guests, regardless of their length of stay.  I would be open to new ideas but the fact remains the units need to be cleaned thoroghly after each stay and there is a cost for that.

Diane

Northern Michigan

[Erika-and-John0]

Hi Diane,

I am considering  including the cleaning fee in the nightly rental fee. For example we have a two day minimum and currently charge 275/night and add a 150 cleaning fee (we pay well for our area and have a large home) - I am considering pricing at $350/night for the first two nights and discounting remaining nights so that additional nights are $275 (we offer further discounts for longer stays), thus lessening the likelihood of the shock I have felt myself upon seeing the total when I have been an airbnb guest.  I am concerned that fewer people will click on our link because of the higher initial sticker but I am also wanting to be completely transparent. Do you have any thoughts you would be willing to share?

Thank you,

Erika

[William1238]

When a guest has entered a date range for check in/out, and  is scrolling search results, they see your nightly rate, and right below it is the total for their trip including the nightly total, cleaning fee, and Airbnb service fee all added up for them.  

This  is transparent with regard to the contribution of your cleaning fee to the total cost, with the math done for them,  and an easy/fair way to comparison shop. Hopefully this is the most common mode for guests to search and compare listings.

Only when the guest does a search with no dates specified are they confronted with a list that shows only a nightly rate, and they are forced to click on each listing to look for "hidden fees"  and do the math in their heads. Even then, they could be way off because they might be seeing a generic or composite rate if the actual rate varies significantly.

Perhaps it would improve transparency and overall satisfaction if  Airbnb were to eliminate the ability to search and compare without specific trip dates. That way the "total cost" would always be right up front. 

[Juan3296]

I think that’s more like it ! A cleaning fee of 150 seems  much . We drove from Oslo to loffoten , Finland and Sweden stoping every other night at different Airbnb locations. No one charged that ridiculous fee.. 

[Erik1372]

Just make it a per night cleaning fee. 

[Nate419]

charging a cleaning fee is acceptable if you want But don't be ridiculous either some of the fees some of these people charge is outrageous and when Im looking and I see high cleaning fees I move on 

[Nu0]

You miss the point, but is ok.

Have a nice day.

[Monique276]

I get your point and I totally agree that it is difficult to compare without opening up each listing. Nonetheless, the fee can't be included in the nightly rate since it is only a one time fee. But the cleaning fee should be just that. Cost of cleaning....realistic and genuine. Not a way to camoflage pricing and have people open up the listing to find disappointing over inflated additional costs. 

[Myles30]

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