Airbnb’s Hidden Fees Are About to Leave — Forever

Airbnb will finally start displaying the total rental listing price in an effort to be more transparent.

The travel service update comes on the cusp of the holiday travel season as the company aims to make it easier to shop for more budget-friendly deals. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving travelers will be lost because the update won’t be rolling out until next month. To better explain the new feature, Company CEO Brian Chesky has taken to Twitter (Opens in a new tab) And everything is broken.

Show total price

Users will soon see the site’s total price in search results, map, price filters, and the listing page. However, it will not show the taxes that you will have to pay. To know the taxes, Official Announcement (Opens in a new tab) It states that customers will have to go to the last step before booking to see “full price details,” which includes any discounts and service fees. The feature will not default as you should Toggle “total bid” (Opens in a new tab) To see the full price.

When asked why Airbnb didn’t make this the default, a company representative told us that they wanted to lighten up dealing with people accustomed to the old-fashioned way and give them a choice between the two.

A Twitter user also asked Chesky why taxes were not included (Opens in a new tab) In the price from the start, he replied that because of “tradition.” He stated that prices in the United States usually appear before taxes are applied. Chesky then asked users if the price should include tax. Several people in the thread said they’d like to see this, so an after-tax update could come later.

Back in 2021, The company has admitted that its platform has a pricing issue (Opens in a new tab) After years of customers complaining about hidden fees. back in June, Nerdwallet analyzed 1,000 listings on Airbnb (Opens in a new tab) It found that more than a third had a cleaning fee that made up 20 to 29 percent of the site’s price. Eight percent had fees that were 40 percent or more of the original price. Add that plus taxes or surcharges, and suddenly that quick weekend escape has become a financial sink.

Airbnb hopes these changes will help people find accommodation more suited to their budgets.

Educating the hosts

In addition to the total bid, Airbnb will be making three other changes, two of which are intended to educate hosts. The company will tweak its search engine algorithm to prioritize the total price of a listing rather than the nightly price. High-quality sites at the best prices “will rank higher in search results,” according to the company.

Starting early next year, hosts will get new “pricing and discount tools” to teach them how to set more competitive rates. Airbnb states that it wants to “help them understand the final price that guests pay”. There will also be new guidelines for hosts with checkout requests. The company wants to make sure these requests are “reasonable and on display to guests” before booking. Not much is known after this announcement, but Airbnb said it will share more information at a later time.

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