New fee structure

[Carolyn-And-Stephen0]

This is absolutely a horrible decision on AirBnN’s part. It completely penalizes the host.  We have been hosting for over 10 years and a Superhost for the entire time.  I will be thinking hard about staying on with AirBnB bead on this policy change. It adversely affects the host too much.  Especially on the Income tax and Rooms& Meal Tax

[Vanessa2864]

There's another interesting consequence of this new "simplified" fee structure. Guests will no longer see an "Airbnb service fee" on their booking breakdown. Not because the fee has disappeared - it hasn't - but because it's now charged entirely to the host.

That's why some italian hosts have decided to do something rather unusual: they're now stating directly in their listings and rental agreements that Airbnb keeps 18.91% of the rental price as its commission.

It's their way of restoring a bit of transparency and helping guests understand why accommodation suddenly costs more, even though the host isn't making a single extra euro.

[Elaine701]

@Vanessa2864 @Vincent236 

Ok, so when your electricity or telephone internet or water  supplier or laundry service or property taxes  decide to change their fees, will you also inform your guests of this? 

Do you ask your local supermarket how much they pay for that loaf of bread you're about to buy? the transport costs and the electric bills of the bakery that makes it?

You know, transparency and all. 

If so, I'll try to keep an eye out for guests like this. I sense they're likely to be problematic. 

Oh, and by the way... If you choose to charge more than you need to match the previous price, and then explain it away to your guests by claiming Airbnb made you do it, then that's not very "transparent" is it? And frankly, I doubt most guests would care. They either are willing to pay the price you set or not.

And explaining it to someone who really couldn't care less does sound a bit guilty. 

[Shelley159]

Hi @Vincent236 

Write down or screenshot some prices in guest view before you run the update tool, then you can compare those same prices afterwards.

You'll see that the prices don't stay 100% identical, but they are very close to the same. The difference (up or down) won't be big enough to need an explanation - if you write one, you may just confuse your guests and give them the impression that there's been some increase that they should worry about.

[Amy2949]

I agree!  We were thinking of selling our property and this outrageous raise in percentage to hosts has practically made our decision!  

The fake thing about raising your nightly or prices to accommodate for this phenomenal host hike is ludicrous because the market remains the same in pricing and won’t tolerate that kind of hike. 

We also do a lot of Airbnb travel and I don’t understand why they couldn’t just reduce the renters service fees by 5% and added that to hosts - still wouldn’t be happy but much more liveable for hosts and happier renters. Poor business decision at best.