Feature Request: Filter and sort by TOTAL price—including fees

Cassandra176
Level 10
Richmond, VA

Feature Request: Filter and sort by TOTAL price—including fees

Feature request: please allow users to filter by TOTAL price —and— sort by TOTAL price. Also, you need to display the total price in the app as well as on the desktop searches. With fees varying so much, the listed price ends up meaning NOTHING anyway.

 

Recent True Life Example: I filter for a rate under $100 a night but many listings have fees that double or triple the total price. By using the price range feature I've unknowingly filtered out a stay with a nightly rate higher than $100 but no fees that would end up costing much less overall than others that are listed within my "price range." 

 

Obviously, this feature would be N/A if a person had not yet selected a number of nights. An alternative solution would be to have the fees added to the nightly rate by default, then those fees would be divided up by the number of nights chosen. Because, either way, it would be a much more honest reflection of the cost. 

 

 

AIRBNB—If you care about user experience at all, as I've heard from colleagues you do, please make this feature work more FOR users instead of AGAINST them. Also, you're rewarding hosts who try to game the system by setting artificially low rates with high fees and punishing those that are being straightforward with their prices.

 

Please upvote if you agree.

 

78 Replies 78
Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Cassandra176  I agree, and I feel like there was a minute last year when they did that.  @Emilia42 do you remember that?

 

I don't know what their reasoning is for not doing it.  Do hotels and airlines factor the fees into the price when you search?

There are times when a company can't control certain fees, one example would be taxes, or fluctuating cost of materials or fuel. However, that doesn't apply here. I'm talking about the fees that the hosts add themselves, such as cleaning fees, etc. Airbnb's Service fee should be added as well.

 

My solution would remedy folks acting in bad faith, otherwise, there's no other real recourse since these are individuals and not companies, who are profiting from the hidden fees. Meanwhile, the site is nearly unusable for a person on a budget (and who isn't in this crisis!?) without putting in much more work/time to find the information needed to make a decision. Consumer reports has started a "What the Fee!?" campaign for problems like this, but again, you can't report individual people.

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

@Ann72 They were doing this a little while back. When you searched with dates, the cleaning fees (and possibly service fee) was bundled into the nightly rate. For example, a two-night stay in a place with a nightly rate of $100 and a cleaning fee of $50 would show up as a nightly rate of $125 per night. That doesn't seem to be happening anymore in my area's search results. It is a great idea though @Cassandra176. I don't know why they dropped it or won't roll it out permanently. Who knows where Airbnb gets their ideas for a user-friendly interface but it certainly isn't from guests or hosts!

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Cassandra176  I agree with what you are saying- I've never used Airbnb as a guest, but I would find it annoying and time wasting to have to call up each listing I was interested in to get the total price.

 

However, many businesses do this, not just Airbnb (which doesn't make it okay- making costs non-transparent upsets consumers) . You know those ads like "Only $99/month* " ? Then when you look at the infinitesimally small print at the bottom under the *, it says "Subject to fees and taxes" or something along those lines.

 

And slight explanation- "these are individuals and not companies, who are profiting from the hidden fees." If it's something like the cleaning fee, it's unlikely that results in "profit" for the host- it is usually exactly what they pay their cleaner and in some cases even less than they pay for cleaning. But I know there are hosts who show a low nightly rate to attract views, then some really high cleaning fee to offset it, which certainly is misleading and wrong.

Exactly @Sarah977 - @Cassandra176 , here's what it looks like when you go to book some nights in my place - about 20% of the total goes to Airbnb and the State of Maine.  Actually, when I get my payout, Airbnb also takes a portion of the cleaning fee.  I pay my cleaner $105 but charge $110 to try to make up for what Airbnb gets of that.

 

Screenshot 2020-07-10 17.54.31.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is what my payout looks like for virtually the same booking:

 

Screenshot 2020-07-10 18.05.24.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the guest pays $1,028 and I receive $803.16.  Airbnb's service fee to the guest plus the state occupancy tax amounted to $202, and then they charged me a service fee of $24.84, for a total of $226.84.  (There might be a couple of dollars difference between the test booking and the actual booking because in the actual booking, one night was $2 higher since I use Airbnb's dynamic pricing system.)

 

There are definitely hosts who try to game the system, but not in exactly the way you describe.  What they do is to put a very low price on 5 or 6 individual nights throughout the year.  Their real price is much higher, and you can never get the low nightly price because they have a 3-night minimum.  That's truly cynical.  

It's a shame really, because it's those few bad apples that prompt so many of us travelers to become suspicious in general of the whole process. What I'm sure are the vast majority...legitimate/honest hosts...have to pay the price.

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Cassandra176 @Sarah977 @Emilia42  Looking at the above, it occurred to me that another reason a total price that included all fees might not be the perfect answer is because state lodging tax varies widely - from 0% (Virginia) to 15% (Connecticut).  See this table:  https://www.ncsl.org/research/fiscal-policy/state-lodging-taxes.aspx

@Ann72 This table isn't updated...a lot of states added taxes now for Airbnb since.

 

I think it's because they are competing with hotels and hotels don't show the fees and everything.  Hotels only show the nightly rate.  That said, I think cleaning fee & other miscellaneous fee should be included since it's part of the stay.  Taxes or Airbnb fees shouldn't have to show up.

@Yiwei3  Agree about the cleaning fee.  But as noted earlier the total nightly rate with cleaning fee will change with the number of nights in the booking.  A $50 cleaning fee for a 2-night stay would be $25 a day, a $50 cleaning fee for a 5-night stay would be $10 a day.

Yes, but that shouldn't be considered a problem. If all fees other than taxes were included it would still be a remarkable difference and simplify the process greatly. Taxes could be added at the last minute but are something we should all be aware of. At least the pretax total would be much more realistic than what we are dealing with right now. 

If Airbnb knows what to charge you when you check out, they are perfectly aware of what your stay will ACTUALLY cost you BEFORE you book it! 😉 

Sally221
Level 10
Berkeley, CA

And don't forget the nudges we get about how other nearby listings are charging less, it can set up a domino effect of pressure among hosts to lower prices below any hope of making a profit, this means. hosts sometimes use cleaning fees to make up for lowering those  prices beyond sustainability. A more transparent system would be beneficial for hosts & guests.alike.

@Sally221  I never give in to those and have turned off all suggestion emails.  We each offer something unique - it's not like Motel 6 and Best Western across the road from each other!

If I were a host, I would advise guests in my listing. Just because the platform company does not want to provide transparency, does not mean hosts can’t include all the pertinent details. They can easily advertise their cleaning fee and inform about the additional fees which they don’t set, but of which they are fully aware. 

… I am equally disappointed in hosts for not disclosing these fee —upfront—in their lengthy, verbose listings.