Airbnb guests will soon be able to see the total cost of their stay, including cleaning and service fees, before taxes in a step towards better pricing transparency on the platform.
Been using airbnb for years- never ran into what you guys are complaining about. Nobody required any extra steps/chores… I do agree that the prices can be wonky- but you see it before you pay…
I’m not sure the prices even are that wonky. The cost to have someone drive to a property, clean it, and wash/dry all the bedding is by far the highest cost of anything related to running a property rental (at least in the US). That’s naturally going to make it abnormally expensive for short stays (compared to a hotel) and much cheaper for longer ones.
The problem really is that AirBnB is trying to position itself as an expedia competitor and not a vrbo competitor, and changing that will change how they are valued.
Edit: I think tiering pricing makes more sense here too. A host could easily say that the first night is $350 and subsequent nights are $150 (or something like that) and then it’d represent their cost structure better without explicitly calling out a high cleaning fee.
I think AirBnb screwed up in the same way that eBay did, where they let the price not be the price. In my opinion eBay should have made sellers enter their location and the weight/dims of the item and it’d work out a fair shipping price and not let that be changed.
