Are Direct Payments Ever Allowed???

[Sean433]

Ok, so I am about to host a guest who is also a host. She booked for 1 month and is asking to extend. She is asking what the price would be to extend it by 3 weeks. She then asked if I could waive the airbnb fees. I explained that this is not possible. She should know this already being a host. I asked her if she has the ability to do this as a host because that does not seem possible. This is how airbnb makes their money after all. She replied saying that yes, she can by taking payment directly from her guests.

I reminded her that this is against the terms and conditions of airbnb and we do not take such risks. She then replied saying "that's on the initial reservation since we can not share our contact information until after the guest has reserved. After that it's ok",

I really think she is wrong and that is against airbnb policy but maybe I am wrong. Can some other hosts clarify??? Are guests ever allowed to pay hosts directly? I would imagine only if they are returning guests but not when they are extending a current existing reservation. Need clarification

[Alon1]

@Sean433 

Thanks for reply.

However, in my experience, Guests very rarely make such a conscious request.

It's rather that in my environment of London, quite a few guests are not certain how long they would wish to stay. This is mostly of course relates to locals, and I don't have an aversion to 'locals' as many other Hosts, due to the circumstances in London. -- I term these 'inbetweeners', eg. those searching for accommodation, or waiting to move into longer term accommodation, or whose leases are up and soon to depart UK; Renovations, Relationship issues, and so on. In sum, extensions can grow organically, i.e. are not deliberately planned. 

Finally, I would summarily underline my belief the experience of live-in-hosts is vastly different to any other. We can have a far more tactile relationship with 'Guests' with whom we interact on a daily basis.

[Sarah977]

@Sean433  I would echo what @Alon1 said- as a home-share host myself, I interact a lot with the majority of my guests during their stay. It's quite easy to tell, after a guest has stayed a week or two, whether they are someone I have to be concerned about causing damages, breaking house rules, or for some vindictive reason, try to get a host in trouble by reporting them for taking an off-site payment.

As far as any advantage to the host re taking cash payment for an extension, it means neither the guest nor I have to spend time extending the reservation through the Airbnb site. I'm all for simple and easy.

It's gone the other direction, too. I've refunded nice guests who had to cut their stay short without going through Airbnb. Home-share hosting is quite different, in many ways, from hosting entire homes.

[Patrick568]

This has been a good read, thanks everyone for your input!!! 

[Ronaldo118 · Accepted solution]

The only consideration is where a guest stays for 1 week and extends for 2 and 3. Now if they extend again and you have a discount for a monthly stay this will kick it. So it maybe better you go direct if they want to extend past 28 days.  (or you will get a very much reduced income - and so do AirBnB re their fees)

If a guest looks likely to keep extending you should change your setting for any monthly discount which in my opinion should only apply for monthly bookings at the outset.

Has anyone asked AirBnB to respond - it appears we are all guessing about when a guest can book directly although it should be simple. 

For holiday lets they are fine - for other types of letting maybe direct works better.