excessive fees

[Dominique32]

I have a potential guest who messaged me that on a $415 amount which was fine with her (rent & cleaning fee) airbnb added a $63 service fee and $29 tax for a total of $507 .Now this person will probably not book because she thinks it's really too much. I never realized airbnb was collecting taxes and the service fee of $63 seems really excessive. How can that fee be so high?

What do you think? 

[David409]

This sounds like a guest that wasn't paying complete attention during the booking process. I wouldn't view it as a lost booking - it's someone who was booking out of their price point.

Taxes aren't excessive - it's just a nature of doing business. The airbnb service fee is more subjective but their platform, their rules!

I actually think airbnb does a nice job of controlling the optics on the guest and host sides separately - by not giving insight into taxes/guest fees, we get a clearer picture of the actual income instead of an inflated number. There are financial reports you can access through the dashboard that show you the total amount being paid, however.

[EcoBuilt0]

As far as I can tell your response is that of a REPUTATION MANAGEMENT firm that works on websites to control legitimate comments made by disgruntled consumers.  

When Airbnb raised their service fee to a whopping 12.5% and gets an additional 3% from hosts and has the audacity to try to force hosts to reduce their rates to make the booking rates reasonable to the consumer base frequenting the site then greed has taken over!

[Helen3]

It doesn't sound excessive to me.

When I guest wants to book they can see the total cost, so not sure why she is suprised at the cost.

It sounds as if she would be better finding a cheaper place within her budget.

[Avaya0]

Maybe if the fees weren't so mysterious.  The rates, with the cleaning fee, service fee, taxes, have become obnoxious.  Why not charge an all inclusive rate and keep all the "business" costs to themselves?

[EcoBuilt0]

As far as I can tell your response is that of a REPUTATION MANAGEMENT firm that works on websites to control legitimate comments made by disgruntled consumers.  

When Airbnb raised their service fee to a whopping 12.5% and gets an additional 3% from hosts and has the audacity to try to force hosts to reduce their rates to make the booking rates reasonable to the consumer base frequenting the site then greed has taken over!

[Linda108]

@Dominique32  I understand that guest fees vary from location to location.  I don't have insight as to what drives it, but when there are problems and Air BNB is able to assist the guest resolve a problem, the fee is worth it.  Also, I lowered my rate to the guest when Air BNB began to collect the occupancy tax because before I just included the tax in my rate.  Helps keep the overall rate down.  Even in hotels I am always surprised by the various fees and taxes that get tagged onto my bill.

[David126]

I had a look at @Dominique32 listings and obviously things change but this was a sample:

$92 x 6 nights

$554

Cleaning fee

$40

Service fee

$60

Occupancy Taxes

$77

Total

$731

So about 10% service fees, which is a bit lower than my normal transaction of around 12%. But then the amount is higher.

People have mentioned it used to be much lower, when did they increase their take, not been able to find that out.