Foreign Currency

[Stan0]

Hey folks,

I have been looking at overseas destinations and am wondering how the foreign currency is calculated? Thanks for your tips and input!

[Helga0]

The host chooses the currency he wants to be paid in - probably his own country's. Prices are constantly calculated into your currency, you choose that in your account. Nothing mysterious about that, you can calculate prices on many sites on the Internet or download an app for it. When you pay, the price is calculated at that moment and taken from your card. When you arrive, the host is paid based on that day. There may be a light difference: sometimes I saw an announcement XY booked and you will get 500 for that. And on payout it's actually 502 or 498 because the currencies fluctuate.

[Serafina0]

Airbnb also charges (but doesn't itemize) a 3% currency exchange fee on top of the daily exchange rate. That's the rate you'll see if you are browsing in your native currency but the host uses a different currency. For example, we (in the US) were looking at a monthly rental in Germany, which the host priced at 1600 Euros ($1765). The price we were offered by Airbnb was $1818 plus the usual Airbnb fees. Note you also pay Airbnb fees on that extra 3%.

I'm somewhat frustrated by this because even though we have German and US bank accounts and credit cards, and credit cards with no exchange fee, we still end up having to pay that extra fee to Airbnb because all our credit cards are associated with a US address. 

Here's Airbnb's help on the issue: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/502/how-is-the-currency-exchange-rate-calculated

[Helen-And-Ed0]

Yes, Serafina, I too find that frustrating that AirBnB charge an extra 3% when they should be encouraging international travel.  Why do they charge a fee but my credit card doesn't?