AirBnb & VRBO question…

[LabattBlue]

I’ve used both AirBnb and VRBO before, and have often wondered…do both the owner and renter get hit with service fees?   I am renting a place in Florida next winter for 7 weeks through AirBnb, and got hit with a $600 “service fee”…not counting cleaning fee or sales taxes. 

 

PS I quit using VRBO as their fees are even more ridiculous than AirBnb. 

[JoeSchmoe]

5 hours ago, LabattBlue said:

I quit using VRBO as their fees are even more ridiculous than AirBnb. 

I quit using both due to fees. I used to love the early days of VRBO before Expedia took them over.

[Weave]

I use airbnb a few times every year.  I guess I never paid attention to the fees.  Is there a lower fee option to airbnb?

Edited May 16, 2022 by Weave

[Wyldnwoody44]

I've used air bnb in over 60 countries at least. I always like to book the morning of, or at least within a day or so; as I'm not a big fan of being constrained by schedules 😁

I'll say, since the pandemic the "service fees and especially the" cleaning fres" have increased exponentially. I am unsure if the host gets to keep these instead of just increasing the actual listing price, but it will be listed as say 45/night and then it'll end up being 125/night + after all the fees are added in. 

My guess is that it's a way to gain the system a little, but since I've never hosted I could be wrong. 

[JoeSchmoe]

25 minutes ago, Weave said:

I use airbnb a few times every year.  I guess I never paid attention to the fees.  Is there a lower fee option to airbnb?

Hotels are one option.

The other is booking through private property management agencies. In the early days, private owners on VRBO undercut the property managers by quite a bit. Not any more, but I find both options to usually be more than hotels these days.

[chileanseabass]

My co-worker and her husband move all over the world, living in Airbnb's for 1-3 months at a time.  They use Airbnb to find the property, then contact the owner directly, proposing alternate terms (no service fees), and usually get it cheaper than the listed price, as Airbnb isn't taking a cut.  This has worked well for them for almost two years now.

 

[matter2003]

I've only stayed in Air BNB places for a few days at a time so never payed much attention to the fees to be honest...

 

VRBO was super expensive...rented a house in Ocean City Maryland for like 5 days and it was almost $1400. Never again.

[North Buffalo]

Have done both pre pandemic... now mostly hotel suits when We need more room... most of the time cheaper...especially thru Chase

[MattPie]

While we do a bunch of AirBNB, never really paid attention to the fees. It's interesting to see people getting back to hotels, hopefully that'll burst some of the housing bubble with people/corporations buying up houses to rent out.

[nfreeman]

3 hours ago, chileanseabass said:

My co-worker and her husband move all over the world, living in Airbnb's for 1-3 months at a time.  They use Airbnb to find the property, then contact the owner directly, proposing alternate terms (no service fees), and usually get it cheaper than the listed price, as Airbnb isn't taking a cut.  This has worked well for them for almost two years now.

 

I wouldn't do this, as the owners are essentially defrauding Airbnb -- and if they are unscrupulous with Airbnb, they will conduct themselves similarly with others.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

8 hours ago, chileanseabass said:

My co-worker and her husband move all over the world, living in Airbnb's for 1-3 months at a time.  They use Airbnb to find the property, then contact the owner directly, proposing alternate terms (no service fees), and usually get it cheaper than the listed price, as Airbnb isn't taking a cut.  This has worked well for them for almost two years now.

 

Hey CSB,

How you doing?  Don't be stranger.

I think what you are describing above is a bad idea.

In most of Europe one can find good and cheap accomodations by heading into the centre of town and talking with locals with apartments for rent.  Often one night at a time, but if you plan on going longer you can negotiate a good deal.  We found the apartments we had in Sarajevo this way, but we would go for 2 months at a time.  Same on the Adriatic Coast in Croatia.  Maybe things have changed in the 10 or so years since we have been over there.

Edited May 16, 2022 by Sabres Fan in NS

[Wyldnwoody44]

5 hours ago, nfreeman said:

I wouldn't do this, as the owners are essentially defrauding Airbnb -- and if they are unscrupulous with Airbnb, they will conduct themselves similarly with others.

This isn't necessarily true, I now consider her a friend, but I stay with a Hispanic woman in NYC by central park, I originally rented a room through Bnb, but now I just talk with her directly and we negotiate, it's cheaper and she doesn't pay fees. Especially since she knows I fly into NYC to get cheaper flights from the city. And if she's rented out, she has a few friends near that allow me to stay. Some of the fees that these websites charge to list homes is absurd. 

[Zamboni]

I’m going to do a poor job describing this but bare with me…

I attempted to look into doing an Airbnb once … and when looking into it… The person that was offering the location, wanted all kinds of personal information that I was not comfortable giving. and I thought to myself… If this is normally how Airbnb or VRbo works… I don’t ever want to use it… I’ll stay with hotels/motels. I mean, is it normal for them to require Social Security number, and your home address? I just think those two pieces of information is unnecessary to give out.
Want my email address? fine

Want my phone number? fine

Need a credit card number? fine 

Need my full name? fine

 

but that’s as far as I’m comfortable going.

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Zamboni

[JohnC]

9 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

I’m going to do a poor job describing this but bare with me…

I attempted to look into doing an Airbnb once … and when looking into it… The person that was offering the location, wanted all kinds of personal information that I was not comfortable giving. and I thought to myself… If this is normally how Airbnb or VRbo works… I don’t ever want to use it… I’ll stay with hotels/motels. I mean, is it normal for them to require Social Security number, and your home address? I just think those two pieces of information is unnecessary to give out.
Want my email address? fine

Want my phone number? fine

Need a credit card number? fine 

Need my full name? fine

 

but that’s as far as I’m comfortable going.

 

Simply stated don't give out your SS# and address. With those two pieces of information you can end up in the morass of being a victim to identity theft. 

[Weave]

20 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

I’m going to do a poor job describing this but bare with me…

I attempted to look into doing an Airbnb once … and when looking into it… The person that was offering the location, wanted all kinds of personal information that I was not comfortable giving. and I thought to myself… If this is normally how Airbnb or VRbo works… I don’t ever want to use it… I’ll stay with hotels/motels. I mean, is it normal for them to require Social Security number, and your home address? I just think those two pieces of information is unnecessary to give out.
Want my email address? fine

Want my phone number? fine

Need a credit card number? fine 

Need my full name? fine

 

but that’s as far as I’m comfortable going.

 

Yeah that isn’t normal.  I didn’t have to give that info out to sign up with the airbnb app.  I do everything through the app and let airbnb handle the actual transaction.

[Zamboni]

12 minutes ago, Weave said:

Yeah that isn’t normal.  I didn’t have to give that info out to sign up with the airbnb app.  I do everything through the app and let airbnb handle the actual transaction.

Yeah… That’s what I figured and that’s why I didn’t do any kind of transaction with that.

 

so is it semi-normal that Airbnb lets certain people… Creeps… Slip thru the cracks and allow them to do transactions on their website? And then allow people to ask that kind of personal information? Because that’s very sketchy to me as a company to allow that garbage

[Weave]

I have no idea how common or uncommon your experience was.  I’ve had nothing but good experiences to date.

And if you were suspicious at all you probably should have reached out to airbnb about it.

[Doohicksie]

On 5/15/2022 at 8:22 PM, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I am unsure if the host gets to keep these instead of just increasing the actual listing price

Most people book based on the listing price and don't look at the fees.  It's a way to raise the price without increasing the listing price.  Yes, cleaning fees go to the host.