2y ago

Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

www.businessinsider.com Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

Airbnb's CEO said that he's heard guests "loud and clear" that pricing on the platform isn't transparent and "checkout tasks are a pain."

Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading::Airbnb's CEO said that he's heard guests "loud and clear" that pricing on the platform isn't transparent and "checkout tasks are a pain."

News @lemmy.world

Airbnb is adding cleaning fees to a new 'total price' of bookings in search results after people complained listings were misleading

www.businessinsider.com /airbnb-cleaning-fees-added-total-price-search-results-after-complaints-2022-11

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112 comments

Can't scroll past an air bnb post without stopping in to say fuck air bnb for its role in the housing crisis. It should be banned unless it's owner occupied.
- As many other things on the internet, the original idea was great (renting your couch or a room in your house for tourists to accommodate and feel a local experience, but once it reached the masses, and speculative companies bought properties just to rent them and pay cheap labor to maintain the rooms, it became BS one more time.
  No matter what those whose drive is pure economical touch, they always ruin it.
  
  Almost as if money is the root of all evil or something.
  
  It's also obvious that most of the savings in the US anyway go away when you're running it as a business. AirBnB has basically turned into VRBO, but apparently sketchier.
- 100%
- In my city it is banned unless owner-occupied, but it's not enforced (along with other small crimes like bike theft). Since its not enforced, and everyone knows it, nobody adheres to the rule! Whole condo blocks, townhouses etc, all bought up for vacation rental now.
  I guess it's much like everywhere else, but hey, at least we have a rule!

I've been using hotels instead of Airbnb for a while now, and it's most often cheaper or similar price, and better service.
- Here AirBnB just isn't really comparable to a hotel.
  In a hotel you get a bed, bathroom, a tiny desk, tv chair, and microwave. When you pay more the room is functionally the same, just maybe in a better location or nicer lobby.
  With short stay accommodation you get an actual dwelling. Even in a tiny studio apartment you have a full kitchen and an actual table.
  Obviously if hotels & short stay were like for like then you would stay in a hotel if that were cheaper - but that's just not the reality here. Short stay accom is dramatically more comfortable.
  
  True, but if you wanted those things before AirBnB, they existed, they're called aparthotels e.g.: https://www.booking.com/hotel/es/art-las-palmas.es.html?label=gen173bo-1DCAMYsQIoggJCGmxhcy1wYWxtYXMtZGUtZ3Jhbi1jYW5hcmlhSApYA2i7AYgBAZgBCrgBF8gBD9gBA-gBAfgBAogCAZgCAqgCA7gCp7PVpQbAAgHSAiRkYWQxZjI5NS1hMDBhLTQxMzYtOTI3OS1jNWM1OTczYjAxYWTYAgTgAgE
  with a kitchen, washing machine, etc. Very common in touristy areas for decades.
  The main difference between an AirBnB and a generalized hotel is that the former is supposed to be inhabited by the owner most of the year. The others are hotels pretending to be something else.
  
  With short stay accommodation you get an actual dwelling. Even in a tiny studio apartment you have a full kitchen and an actual table.
  That's not always the case. In many places short stay accommodations have become like hotels. Many also have what's more like half-kitchens - a small electric stove, a sink, microwave and kettle. That's better than no kitchen at all, but it's not like you can cook anything you want there.
  
  I think the only thing keeping me to Air BnBs is the kitchen honestly
- Same here. I've almost completely given up on Airbnb. The convenience of a hotel is also much higher than being either in someone's home, or an ugly "cheapest stuff at Ikea" Airbnb.
- Yep, it’s nice to be a customer and not be rated and reviewed based on how well you cleaned up after yourself. Also dislike how Airbnb is a different interaction with the host every time. Some hosts are nosey or overbearing. I prefer the hotel front desk and then to be an anonymous customer after that.
- That is wildly different depending on location and number of guests
- I have seen this too. From my experience mainly USA. For example 1 night in Destin FL $150, with $100 or $150 cleaning fee. Colorado is the highest I have seen with $200 cleaning fee.
  Canada and Mexico $30 cleaning fee lol. It really depends on the location errrr country.
- I see this on Reddit all the time and I chalked it up to a marketing campaign by hotels because it's just so wrong, at least where I am.

Tell me again why I would ever choose to get a room through AirBnB? Or travel across a city using Uber? Or have my food delivered by GrubHub?
Everyone wants to claim they have no money, and yet all these services needlessly add cost and complexity to what used to be a far more simple and cheaper purchase just a few years ago. I'll take a taxi to my hotel room and pick up my own food thankyouverymuch.
- Where I am Uber is the only option for an on call taxi.
- When I used to use it, over 10 years ago, it was great for couch surfing for a six pack and staying in peoples spare rooms for like $20. Did it all over Australia and Europe in college.
  Now I think they’ve positioned themselves as being high-end hotel alternatives, because there’s more margin there. It was never good for that.
  
  Today they've positioned themselves as a means for landlords to make a large amount of money from short stay holiday rentals instead of residential rental.
- It allowed me and my friends to sleep in London for pennies compared to a hotel room.
  
  And yet when I looked at places in Vegas, they were all shittier and more expensive than actual hotels. I really wanted to save money, so I really tried to give it a chance, but nothing that came up was worth it when I could just get an actual hotel. And the more I thought about it, I'm also just not comfortable using AirBnB as a single woman. Maybe other people have felt totally safe and had nothing happen and that's great. But I know I would never feel one hundred percent certain there's no cameras, and that whoever's renting it wouldn't just walk right in.
  I've also seen those AirBnB management companies renting out rooms in the larger LV casinos for the same price, with the same amenities, and with the same resort fees. That one's a total mystery to me.
  And now they're advertising AirBnB "rooms" or whatever it's called where you sleep in a bedroom in the same house as the owner? While the owner is just...there?! That would just be so uncomfortable and awkward to begin with, but it also just kind of seems like a matchmaking app for serial killers.
  
  Doubt.
  Quick google search shows quite a few hotel rooms under $100/night. Divide that with 1 or 2 other people and you're talking about having a clean, safe place to stay with no other headaches for the night for roughly the cost of a reasonable meal.
- In cities yes. It still is unparalleled for renting small holiday homes in "rural" areas. E.g. Scottish Highlands, French Brittany.
  That is the proper use case, where you would otherwise book an other B&B.
  
  Indeed, I've used airbnb several times now to rent a vacation home in the French/Belgian/German countryside. For that it's great. Cheaper than renting a bungalow somewhere and you have more space.
- I get food through doordash because I can't be arsed to pick up my own food on a lazy weekend. I'm also on the edge of nowhere, so I tip well. (This is a rare treat, not my primary means of feeding myself.)
  Airbnb has never had appeal for me. I like the clear expectations of a standard hotel room.
  
  I rather not have my food messed with by some random delivery person thankyouverymuch

Finally. I've seen listings where the cleaning fees double the full cost
- Just checked and I was shocked to see how much any place was for a weekend... but I guess it is a weekend and I was looking at August... so there is that. Idk, I just assumed it wouldn't cost $380 to rent someone's RV that is across a street (not even abutting) from a lake for 2 nights...
  
  Yeah... Unfortunately it's the only decent website/app I know that let's you rent nice secluded cabins to vacation in so I'm stuck using it

Airbnb is a bane on our society and massive contributer to the housing shortage.
This company needs to get sued into oblivion with their shitty practices and non transparent charges.

Honestly AirBnB used to be cool but now it kinda sucks.
Even though there's now a 'total price' option, booking a basic hotel is still less painful. There's cleaning fees and a lot of hosts have stupid requirements like you have to do the laundry or take out the trash or whatever. If I'm paying hotel level fees I want hotel level service. Plus every now and then you hear about one of these places having cameras in the unit. Fuck that.

"Yup yup, we hear you loud and clear, everyone, it's all good bro"
[Doesn't turn full price on by default]
Incoming follow-up, if challenged...
"So we actually paid an expert consultant to tell us that a percentage of our user population actually wants to be actively deceived whenever they use our service. So by default we will still obscure these non-negotiable fees that you will definitely pay in the final pricing."

It's great playing a cleaning fee when the host expects you to strip the bed and take it to the laundry, empty the bins and leave the place spotless
- Since they're gonna keep the fee anyway, might as well floss yer ass on the sheets I guess!

AirBnB fucking sucks now. There needs to be a term like "slum lords" for AirBnBs. They outsource so many properties to property managers and the house is disgusting PLUS they charge you the cleaning fee.
Just stick with hotels.

The amount the owner often asks you to do yourself would make you think they should be paying you the fee.

Pretty sure it has absolutely nothing to do with user complaints and everything to do with talk of regulation.

It's almost as if they don't want people to use their service.
- Decent hotels were cheaper than airbnb's last time I went traveling.
  
  If you want more than one room AirBnBs are a viable option. But then you can book them through booking.com just as well.
  However for solo travelling you're generally right, hotels are better.

I will never understand how this is a fucking thing. Let alone so fucking much? Don't want to have to pay to clean up after your guests leave? Then I guess you are in the wrong fucking business assholes.

It was only just recently that the flood of “Airbnbust” articles seemed to abate a little. I can never tell if Airbnb is going great, or it’s terrible.
For my own part, I’m happy for this update. Despite the complaints, Airbnb is usually a great option for families with little kids, where the alternative is usually “book multiple hotel rooms, and split the parents between them.” Price transparency is good, and I won’t book a place that has a task list for me.
- It's gotten to the point where I wonder if the hotel industry is astroturfing posts about Airbnb's.
  For families they're a great option instead of being in a single room and being able to prep meals and save on eating out.
  I don't like what they've done to the housing market however and should be taxed heavily.
  
  Definitely a good fit for families, being able to stay in a house has allowed us to do things we couldn’t have otherwise. We just got back from a trip that would have taken at least 3 hotel rooms (me, the wife, 3 kids, and my parents), and we paid less than the price of 2 rooms for a gorgeous 4BR beach house with 5 beds. We priced it out and it would have cost the same for 2 hotel rooms, which would have meant no grandparents, and my wife and I sleeping in separate rooms, and at least one kid on a couch.
  So, yeah, new use cases enabled that weren’t possible before. That’s cool!
  As for taxes, Airbnbs are taxed same as hotels here (15%), and the property owner also pays $10k/yr in property tax on top of that (per public records), so I’m not sure what else would make sense there. In some markets (esp cities) I get the concern about rent impacts, but this isn’t the kind of place that is ever going to be a long term rental. It seems like a parallel market to me, but I’m open to learning otherwise.

I wonder which other fees won't be rolled into the total price
- Tax

There is a level of hostage taking that makes you question the whole logic of digital economy. If one side (customers) are complaining and the other side is not (house owners), then, the madness is not that bad. But this is insanity. Both sides complain every time yet keep going back to the hostage situation.
- Isn't that the endgame of enshittification?
  
  Aha! What a beautiful concept.
- Enshittification
  
  Indeed. Perfectly described.
- What do the owners complain about?
  
  Money, probably

Great, now fix where listings outside of your price filter keep appearing. And it's not just places where there are so few options in one's price range that it would otherwise be no results.

Last time i stayed with Airbnb, the host complained that I didn't sweep the floor and take out the trash. I paid the cleaning fee!

Why "before tax", doesn't that still confuse things?

I have never encountered hotel rooms that are cheaper than the comparable local Airbnb offerings (at least in Canada and US). Where are these cheaper hotel rooms?
- I have never seen a cheaper AirBnB offering. Where are these cheap offerings you speak of.
  The last time I went to Ottawa, AirBnB was twice as much as the Marriott, plus you had to clean or pay a cleaning fee. Neither of those are things at a hotel.
- Really? When I compare hotel rooms to whole houses on AirBnB, the hotel rooms are always cheaper. Are you comparing rooms on AirBnB to hotel rooms?
  
  How does a room on AirBnB work? I guess I got the impression in media it was all whole apartments or houses.
  Edit: Obviously you would search for a room. I mean for privacy / security, ingress, etc.
- I've only ever found Airbnb prices to be more expensive while traveling in upstate NY and Vermont from Canada.

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