AirBnB also taking a chunk for the pet fee, is this just greedy?

[Natalie102]

I cannot believe that AirBnB also take a significant chunk from the pet fee, on top of the booking fee. This seems to me to be wholly unnecessary, given that revenue generated by booking fees alone. It seems just greedy to me, as well as being penalised for offering this value-added service to guests that not all hosts can provided.

[Frances3408]

@Natalie102. Yes. Its a bit fee for no service imo 😉

[Natalie102]

Ha, agreed! Glad I'm not the only one who thinks this.

[John6843]

Ya, I am agreed.

[Pat271]

@Natalie102  I think Airbnb simply takes a percentage of all host fees, regardless of the purpose of the fee. That way, they don’t have to worry about whether a fee is a cleaning fee, towel fee, pet fee, resort fee, just because fee, etc. They consider the rent and any fees as part of the revenue that they have helped you process and receive.

I do sympathize with your thinking, though. I remember being annoyed when I first discovered that Airbnb was taking a percentage of the cleaning fee, even though my cleaning fee was being passed directly to my cleaner. However, Airbnb doesn’t know what’s being passed directly and what isn’t.

That’s the way they do it, and I can see where it could get very complicated if they started picking and choosing which fees are counted in the percentage and which are not. They could just take a percentage of the rent, which is what most property management companies do, but I suppose that’s asking too much, as Airbnb do help us with the collection of the fees as well.

[Natalie102]

Yes I understand a service fee to facilitate bookings, as that is a valuable service provided by Airbnb, but to charge additional fees for services provided direct from host to guest, seems to me a little greedy and even somewhat unethical.

[Fred13]

Isn't just 3%?

[Natalie102]

Yes, but let's face it, we have to factor in the fees being charged to guests, which is therefore 17.2% all up. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Natalie102 if Airbnb didn't take their cut of each and every charge then guests/hosts would game the system and end up paying too low a service fee.

[Suzanne302]

Maybe this is why Airbnb finally added all the extra services as options...they realized they could make more money. We had been asking for the option of a pet fee for YEARS to no avail.

The only thing they don't take a cut of is anything that goes through the Resolution Center. That's how I used to collect my pet fee.