"Airbnb’s fee structure: The Advisory Board has been discussing how Airbnb can help Hosts set a fair, competitive rate that’s more transparent to guests."

[Michele511]

I received this announcement today for superheats in via email:  "Airbnb’s fee structure: The Advisory Board has been discussing how Airbnb can help Hosts set a fair, competitive rate that’s more transparent to guests."

Is there a problem? I've never had a problem setting rates.  And, What is the transparency problem?

Thank you.

[Anonymous]

@Till-and-Jutta0  could you maybe translate this into the host vernacular?

I've never found that hosts need help setting fair base prices before Airbnb piles its fees on top. And there's no transparency problem on the guest's end, where the breakdown of fees is already clearly displayed.  It looks like this is a roundabout way of saying "how do we get hosts to lower their payouts so we can raise our fees without losing ground to competitors?" - is there any reason we should assume otherwise?

[Emilia42]

Great questions. I think this has to do with what we all know is coming ... Airbnb will eventually transfer all service fees from the guest to the host. This transfers the burden of seeing the dreaded line item for  [high] "fees" away from the guest. It is now up to the Host Advisory Board to brainstorm ways to make this change seem like it was done for the host's benefit in the name of transparency. This is all speculation of course.

[Michele511]

I hope not. If so I will have to stop doing this.

[Michele511]

Those fees are huge. It also may be that they are trying to up their stock price which is really taking a hit.

[Sarah977]

@Michele511  It really doesn't matter if the host is charged all the fees or it's divided between host and guest as long as every listing on the platform has that fee structure. Then you just up your nightly price to cover the additional fees. The end price to the guest is the same, they just won't see service fees as an additional line item.

Of course you wouldn't be able to host profitably if you left your nightly price the same and had an additional 13% come out of it. You would have to up it by 13%.

What disturbs me if hosts cover the entire service fee is what happens if a booking gets cancelled. Currently, for a cancellation the host still is docked the service fee, but at 3%, it's not a huge deal. But if we end up having to pay 15% if a booking gets cancelled, that's another ball of wax.

@Till-and-Jutta0  Can you address this?

[Michele511]

@Sarah977  Not sure I’m clear on the last part of your post. If someone cancels i don’t think we get charged the service fee. At least I’ve never seen that. Did I understand that correctly?

[Sarah977]

@Michele511  I guess you're right, we don't get charged. But guests usually forfeit the service fees if they cancel, so I don't know where Airbnb would get that from if hosts cover the whole service fee. They'll give the guest the refund they are due under the pertinent cancellation policy minus the service fee percentage that guest won't see when they booked? 

I just don't understand how it would work.

[Michele511]

Seems fair that if they expect us to accept a cancellation that they do the same. If they asked up to pay it that would be unfair since ultimately we don’t set that policy.

[Paul1255]

I think you’ve hit the nail rather firmly on the head there @Emilia42 !

I created a new listing last week and that was automatically added to the host-only 13% service fee set up. No option to opt out...

[Michele511]

@Paul1255  Is there a local fee in London on the booking that was deleted? There is a 14% transiency tax here that the guest pays for a listing under 31 days. Then, the usual airbnb fee and then the host fee. But it is all right there to be seen by host and guest.

[Ute42]

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@Emilia42 

I think You're a top-notch speculator 😎

How did you develop that talent, by dealing with airbnb for years?

[Elaine701]

This combined with their absurd price suggestions. We routinely price 3-4x Airbnb's "smart" pricing, and have no trouble getting it. In some cases their "smart" price for a luxury 8 bed villa is only 23€ per night. Let's see... 18% from 23€ is umm... 

[Debra300]

I was just looking for a place to stay for my trip back to Oakland, and one of the things that I noticed is the total costs that listed on the search results page doesn't include the 14% Oakland tax.

For example, the first listing in the above graphic displays $468 as the total for the search dates, but when you click to open the listing page, one will see that the total price is actually $545.  I am sure that many people think that they are being deceived by this practice.  One way that Airbnb could be more transparent is to include all fees in the total price on the search results page, and have a price search filter similar to what Vrbo has.  The searcher can choose between selecting nightly price or total overall price.  This way a person can search based upon their total accommodations budget, and not feel mislead by low nightly rates, but find the overall price to be considerably higher with the addition of fees.

@Michele511, @Emilia42, @Anonymous, @Ute42, @Paul1255 

[Emilia42]

@Debra300 I do really wish that the price filter when searching factored in the total price (all fees) instead of just the nightly rate. I usually always have the price filter fixed on a given amount when I search and I'm always disappointed to see that the $95 within-my-budget listing really turns out to really be $172 with all the cleaning fees and service fees. 

Taxes I can understand though because when purchasing things on the internet you usually don't see the tax amount until the shipping page. But hospitality/occupancy taxes are typically much high (sometimes double) than general sales tax so I can understand the sticker shock when it all gets added together.