Delayed payouts - anyone else having this issue?

Delayed payouts - anyone else having this issue?

This seems to happen to me every 3-6 months, but my latest payout for a check-in on 5/24 did not process.  I received an email on 5/25 saying the payout process (as it normally does 24 hours after check-in), but the payment still shows in my upcoming payments.

 

I reached out to support, and they won't respond other than to say give it a few more days.  Are others experiencing this?  Like I said, it happens every 3-6 months with my account, and the support people always blame it on "backend upgrades" but I can't find any evidence that others have the same issue.  I just don't think it's reasonable that I should have to wait a week for my payout when Airbnb collects this money upfront and earns interest on it until they pay the hosts.

 

Does anyone have a better way to get support to process these delayed payments?  It has now been 72 hours since check in, and I have no idea when I'm going to get paid for this stay.

37 Replies 37

@Kia272   This is what the resource center has to say :-

 

"As a host, you can choose from many ways to get paid on Airbnb. Some options Airbnb offers include bank transfers or ACH, PayPal, Payoneer Prepaid Debit Cards, and Western Union."

 

I highlighted "bank transfers or ACH" since that is my selected payment method. 

 

"The money you earn by hosting will typically be sent to you 24 hours after your guest checks in."

 

While they carefully insert the word "typically"  to cover situations where they have a glitch and are, apparently, unable to manage it, clearly it is well within their standard capability to send payments 24 hours after the guest checks in, and indicates that is the norm, not just my wishful thinking. 

 

https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/how-you-get-paid-for-hosting-20

 

Modern payment processing systems include : Paypal, Stripe, Venmo, Zelle, Heartland, Braintree, Square, even Intuit has 2-business-day merchant processing through its Quickbooks merchant service, and next-day direct deposits for payroll through Quickbooks Online.  Many are able to do same-day processing or next-day processing.

 

How many people would still be using Paypal if the money showed up some time after 3 - 4 days, and they made a bunch of excuses that it was your bank's fault ? They'd be out of business in a heartbeat. 

 

It's the competitive landscape to be able to get payments out fast.  That's why banks support Zelle. 

 

My research indicates that Airbnb still uses  Braintree (owned by Paypal, and now apparently called Paypal Enterprise)  for payment processing. 

 

https://www.braintreepayments.com/learn/braintree-merchants

 

I work with pretty much every online payment system there is, in the US.   I don't deal with a single one that can't process a payment or a direct deposit within 1 - 2 business days. It's an industry standard.

 

You can pay a fee on Paypal and get your money transferred immediately. Next-day is free. Let's not forget that we are paying Airbnb a host fee for processing our payments. The very least they can do is get them out on time. 

In my promised update from yesterday - my payment from May 31st hit my bank this morning, June 4th.

 

The trigger appears to be when the website moves the transaction from "upcoming payouts" in "pending" status to "completed payouts" with a status of "processing".    That was sometime overnight June 2nd/June 3rd in my case.     

@Lee353 

 

 

Well that's always been the case. That's how the system works. The question is why the delay between upcoming to pending, and this morning I was told they have no time frame for when it will be fixed.

@Jennie44  I've never tracked payments before since they always showed up like clockwork. I  agree. That delay is the question. 

@Michelle53  all of my outstanding payments came through this morning.  I had two more check-ins yesterday, so we shall see if it's actually fixed...

Maria730
Level 3
Ashland, OR

I just found out that AirBnB has a new policy where stays over 30 days are only partially paid, disbursed at later dates. 3 hours and 20 minutes on the phone with those who identify as "customer service representatives". I was told "you must have changed you payment method", "System automatically holds part of the payment until a later date".  In the past, we were always paid 24 hours after check in for the full amount. Really frustrating!

@Maria730  This isn't a new policy. Bookings of 30 days or more have always, as far as I'm aware, paid out the first month to hosts after the guest checks in, then each month you get another payment.

 

What you need to be aware of, though, is that Airbnb only guarantees the first month's payment. If the guest reneges on future payments, you could have a squatter on your hands, who has at that point been there long enough to fall under landlord/ tenant laws and you could have a lengthy process to evict them.

 

You will simply get a message from Airbnb saying sorry, the guest didn't pay, so their booking is now officially over. They won't help you in any way to get the guest to leave. You'll be on your own at that point.

 

Whatever information you get from CS these days is questionable. They use outsourced workers who are ill-trained, usually know less about Airbnb policy than hosts do, and often give out incorrect info and advice.

 

Great information Sarah! 

We had long term guests through AirBnB in 2018 & 2019, and were paid upfront. I think, given the current state, we will limit our stays to 30 days. The ENTIRE reason we moved to AirBnB on some of our properties, was to avoid the "squatter" situation. In Oregon, our governor is very tenant biased, so property owners are struggling with no rental income for over a year. The state has a program where you can get reimbursed for some of the unpaid rent, but you have to agree to forgive the rest. Ugh.

I agree with your assessment of the CS workers...not much support at all for the platform, and certainly, no accountability.

Thank you for the response to my post!

Maria