Airbnb tackles pesky add-on fees that have long annoyed travelers
When Amy Smith and her husband, Matt, were scouring the internet looking for the perfect vacation rental last summer, they came across a charming Airbnb cottage nestled in the woods of Vermont.
"It was an idyllic setting for a family vacation," said the 37-year old co-founder of AmyandRose.com, a fashion accessory brand. "The pictures were stunning, and the price seemed too good to be true."
As it turns out, it was.
Not included in the price: a hefty $150 cleaning fee (which Smith didn’t see prior to booking), and chores that needed to be completed prior to check out.
"This included things like stripping the beds and taking out the trash," said Smith. "It felt like the host was double dipping, since we not only had to pay the cleaning fee, but we were still required to do a significant portion of the cleaning ourselves."
"It definitely left us feeling frustrated and, quite frankly, duped."
Smith’s situation is hardly unique.
Airbnb (ABNB) users have long been complaining about hidden fees that pop up and surprise them upon check-out, pricey cleaning fees and tedious chores that eat into their vacation time, said Jamie Lane, chief economist, AirDNA, the leading provider of short-term rental data and analytics. "In different markets, there might be additional fees for sheets and towels, heating a pool. No one wants surprises."
In a move to improve affordability and boost price transparency, Airbnb in December rolled out a "display total price" button, so users don’t have to obsess over what seems like a moderately priced property only to later discover that fees put the property out of their budget. This is the first summer travelers can enjoy that added transparency.
"Now you can find out what the total price is at the beginning of the search process, so it’s a big step up," Lane said. Airbnb also made check-out instructions and requirements more visible. “They are pushing hosts to keep requests reasonable," Lane added.
"We spent the last six months reading millions of customer service tickets, thousands of social media posts, and spoken with hundreds of thousands of guests and hosts to create the most extensive set of improvements to Airbnb ever that addresses top feedback from our community," said Samuel Randall, an Airbnb spokesperson. "This is now our long-term approach to ensure every policy and process in the Airbnb experience is simple, straightforward, and consumer friendly."
That’s not to say that traveling this summer is going to be cheap. A new Forbes Advisor report shows that travelers staying at an Airbnb this summer face an average of 36% in extra fees in addition to the nightly rates. That means a $250-a-night beach house plus 36% in added fees would boost the rate to $340 per night. Stay a week and you’re looking at spending almost $2,400.
"It’s still going to be less expensive than staying in a hotel," Lane said, "especially for longer-term stays" where demand, which escalated during the pandemic, continues to skyrocket.
"International travel and guests taking advantage of off-season travel to get better rates and avoid the crowds are two factors that will have a positive impact on the short-term rental industry," she added, "pushing revenue up to $71 billion in 2023, from $39 billion in 2019."
Personal finance journalist Vera Gibbons is a former staff writer for SmartMoney magazine and a former correspondent for Kiplinger's Personal Finance. Vera, who spent over a decade as an on-air financial analyst for MSNBC, currently serves as co-host of the weekly nonpolitical news podcast she founded, NoPo.
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