121–130 of 527 posts
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No, scam is the right word. It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate.
> It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate. No it can't because the hosts are trying to charge a fixed fee per reservation.
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No, scam is the right word. It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate.
> It could pretty easily be rolled into the advertised nightly rate. No it can't because the hosts are trying to charge a fixed fee per reservation.
AirBnb hosts have had their hands on the scale for too long now because the company is terrified of a mass exodus of hosts (many of whom act just as entitled as your average landlord, who will beat every penny out of you). It used to be a much better service for the users.
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At this point the cleaning fees are just a scam to make the listing fee seem artificially lower. People did the same thing on eBay by making the items almost free but the shipping expensive, until they fixed the eBay interface, e.g. by letting you sort by price + shipping and showing shipping fees before you click.
Cleaning fees exist to charge a fixed fee for a reservation, regardless of the number of days. There's more overhead for a reservation beyond just "cleaning". The most consumer friendly thing would be for AirBnB to just explicitly have a fixed "stay" fee and a per-day fee. That said, AirBnB's site shows the total cost for a stay when browsing, so I don't really see this as particularly deceptive. I don't care how the…
While not a scam, it definitely feels like a dark pattern.
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I've stayed at dozens of AirBnBs and I've never had an onerous list of chores or a noticeably high cleaning fee, so these complaints always baffle me a little. Are people reading the listing thoroughly? Are they choosing a place with lots of ratings and reading all of the reviews? I've definitely had some bad AirBnbs over the years despite my careful selection process, but my complains are usually about noise or a la…
I literally lived in airbnbs for three years traveling across the whole of the contiguous United States and never once had this either. I did have them ask to put the trash can outside at some of them and most want you to remove your food from the fridge / freezer but that is about it. Just checked my account, we stayed at 167 places in the last 5 years.
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> like in the airplane to spot mobiles What are you referring to here?
People not turning on the airplane mode on their devices while in a plane. Sometimes they check (never happened to me though, but I avoid flying).
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At this point the cleaning fees are just a scam to make the listing fee seem artificially lower. People did the same thing on eBay by making the items almost free but the shipping expensive, until they fixed the eBay interface, e.g. by letting you sort by price + shipping and showing shipping fees before you click.
Cleaning fees aren't a "scam" - most property owners really do need to pay someone to clean the property at the end of a stay. But, as another commenter said, they can be used as a way to encourage longer stays, as with most places you only pay a single cleaning fee regardless of the length of your stay. But, again, it's just a fact that these rentals are usually just cleaned between guests (as opposed to a hotel whe…
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It's hard to gauge cleaning effort: if a guest uses every dish in the kitchen without doing a wash up, they cleaning crew could be there for hours. But if a guest is tidy, then the cleaning fee should be nothing. The hard part is that you need to reserve and pay for a cleaning crew as if it was always a disaster.
you need to reserve and pay for a cleaning crew as if it was always a disaster. Yet hotels manage this fine - it's just baked into the price. I don't have a problem paying a cleaning fee. I just don't want to pay the fee AND be required to do 90% of the cleaning myself. I'm happy to put the dishes in and then start the dishwasher. I'm not going to wait around for it to finish and then put them away. I'm happy to pile…
Also the cleaning crew is already on site. People are always checking out and checking in. The crew just pushes their cart to the next room instead of driving across town, packing and unpacking all of their stuff, and making sure to hit a precise time window between checkout and checkin.
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I literally lived in airbnbs for three years traveling across the whole of the contiguous United States and never once had this either. I did have them ask to put the trash can outside at some of them and most want you to remove your food from the fridge / freezer but that is about it. Just checked my account, we stayed at 167 places in the last 5 years.
Maybe it's more common in larger group stays? The type you might not be visiting as much as an individual living in Airbnbs?
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I've often felt a bunch of the "love" for AirBNB comes from people who didn't realize that you could do short-term rentals of entire properties before it hit the market (and where you'd go for those).
>> and where you'd go for those Where would that be?
Popular tourist destinations? Travel agents or some snooping around could find them. Ranch rentals? Ski resorts would know where they were, or others.
But nothing for something similar in Bakersfield (where nobody goes willingly).
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It's hard to gauge cleaning effort: if a guest uses every dish in the kitchen without doing a wash up, they cleaning crew could be there for hours. But if a guest is tidy, then the cleaning fee should be nothing. The hard part is that you need to reserve and pay for a cleaning crew as if it was always a disaster.
you need to reserve and pay for a cleaning crew as if it was always a disaster. Yet hotels manage this fine - it's just baked into the price. I don't have a problem paying a cleaning fee. I just don't want to pay the fee AND be required to do 90% of the cleaning myself. I'm happy to put the dishes in and then start the dishwasher. I'm not going to wait around for it to finish and then put them away. I'm happy to pile…
Put dishes in the dishwasher and start. Strip the beds. Pick up trash, quick counter wipe down.
Only difference is the trash which could just be an issue if the host isn't coming for a little while.
These should all be common sense. I don't think I've ever been asked for much more than that. Cleaning fee is for deep clean and general turnover. Maybe it should just be called the "flat-fee" though.
Hotels are literally factories for this. The fixed effort per stay is much different in a home.