Airbnb has different service charges

[Michael7114]

I discovered today that you can have different prices on airbnb for the same accommodation on different devices/accounts. 

The service charge is different on another device/account. Booth android devices but with different accounts.

Is there any official statement how these prices are made? 

I'm a long term airbnb user. I would love to have some transparency.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Michael7114 the differences reported are usually not material. Is it really worth stressing over the odd fraction of a percent?

[Bhumika]

Hello @Michael7114 ,

Hope you are having a great start to the New Year! Here are a few resources that I thought would help you gather more information on your ask :

👉 How much does Airbnb charge Hosts? 

👉 What do service fees pay for? 

I hope going through these articles, you can get more idea regarding service fee.

Can’t find what you’re searching for? start a conversation

[Huma0 · Accepted solution]

@Bhumika I think that @Michael7114 is a guest, not a host, so is referring to the guest service fees.

@Michael7114 , if I am correct, then we're not necessarily talking about the odd fraction of a percent. I am afraid you won't get any transparency about this. When I first started hosting, Airbnb said it's guest fee was 'typically' between 6-12%, although I noticed that it tended to be towards the higher end of that range. Lately, I heard that guests are being charged close to 20% in some cases.

I always found this odd. Why did Airbnb not have a set percentage for guest fees, as it does for host fees? Well, I think the answer is in your question. Because it allows them to charge guests based on their habits/profile.

A few years ago, there was a thread here on the CC where a bunch of hosts tried to book listings using different accounts, e.g. a couple would each go to book the same listing for the same dates, or from different devices, e.g. one device associated with that person's account and one that was not.

The conclusion was that new or newer guests were charged a lower percentage to reel them in, whereas regular or frequent guests were charged a higher percentage. It happened in every case with the hosts conducting this experiment.

Some might call this price gouging, which is actually illegal in some countries...

[Michael7114]

I have experienced the same. (new accounts, less price). Thanks for your answer!

I think it's really sad to be not transparent there.