Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

sfgate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 195 posts

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#151

Post by fredophile »

yardie wrote: post #136
koolba wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hotels do this all the time. Resort fees. Taxes. Surcharges. Amenities. Only airlines publish full fares and that’s because of a federal law. I remember back in the day when it wasn’t the case and you had to click through to the final pricing page to do any serious fare comparison.

No hotel I've ever stayed at has done this. At least not the big names. At most you'll get a different price for halfboard/fullboard. And a price bump for an extra bed. Also, in my encounters, resort fees are in lieu of being a boarder. The resorts by me, Miami Beach, charge visitors for access to the pools and spas, not their guests.

Go to hotels.com or any other hotel aggregator. Look at any hotel in New York City or Hawaii. Almost every hotel does this and all of the major chains do this.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#152

Post by randomsearch »

dwater wrote: post #140
randomsearch wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts too. But why does Airbnb care? Presumably the landlords will just come back or be replaced, and it’s not like they have shown concern for ethics in a long time.

AirBNB are hoping for quick reopening and a "V-shaped recovery". They want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible, because the longer the current situation drags on for, the more their business and billions of invested money is at risk. They won't be able to do a quick reopening if 1/4 or 1/2 of the properties they list are being foreclosed on. That process can take multiple years for a property to be oc…

Right, so the bit I was missing here is that you're saying the properties won't be quickly re-listed or replaced by other landlords. Thanks.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#154

Post by distances »

solidasparagus wrote: post #71
claudeganon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look at an Airbnb listing, it will be advertised at a lower, per night rate, but when you go to book, it can jump up as much as 50% with tacked on fees. Hotels don’t do this. I just went on the site and looked at an advertised $80 per night listing. On booking it became $137, with the $40 cleaning and $17 service fees. That’s a $137 room not an $80 one and I doubt it costs $40 to clean it.

Hotels absolutely do this. Most egregiously in Las Vegas with 'resort fees', but try to book any hotel and you will get charged more than the advertised price due to 'taxes and fees'.

This doesn't happen in Europe. I assume we have consumer protections against this the same way as with flight prices.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#156

Post by mattmanser »

cowllin wrote: post #119
mattmanser wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really understand how you see yourself as 'good' in these circumstances? Look at it from another perspective. You've got a property sitting empty for most of the year, driving up property values, so you can have a holiday on e a year. You're making poor use of that property, and you want people to give you money, even though you could sell it? You need Zero help, you are not in a position of needing food, you…

Mostly fair points, but figured I'd clarify a bit. "You've got a property sitting empty for most of the year, driving up property values, so you can have a jolly holiday." My grandmother (the homeowner) lives there more than 6 months each year. She spends the rest of her time in a retirement community. It's a town with We have two maintenance people and one cleaner from the local community that we partner with; it is…

Yeah, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, although here in the UK those sort of holiday homes have become a real blight on our rural communities.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#157

Post by dwild »

sleavey wrote: post #14

This was really short sighted given Airbnb have claimed since the beginning to regulators, local authorities and the public that they exist only to provide a platform for people to rent out their spare rooms when it's convenient for them. Their core claim is that they are not a hotel company, which is how they manage to skirt so many hotel regulations. Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the…

> Built into these claims is the assumption that the owners of the properties offered on the platform can afford to keep them without renting then out full time, since it's supposed to be their primary home.

It's not because they are supposed to be able to afford it that you didn't assumed you would get that revenue.

We do pet sitting, we don't need that revenue, in fact, we would nearly do it for the cost (food and cat litter) if the platform allowed it, simply because we like having pets, but can't afford the long-term responsibility of owning one right now (it's also incredibly rewarding to allow people to know their cats are well taken care of during their travel). For obvious reason, that revenue wen't down to nearly 0 during the pandemic. We don't need that cash, but it did change our plans quite a bit, because we expected that revenue. In our case it wasn't too bad, but I have no doubt it can be worst for others (I can easily see people that paid for renovations expecting to keep getting that revenue).

That's also completely ignoring the fact that it's not only the loss of revenue from Airbnb that can be the issue. The pandemic had impact much greater than Airbnb. It's not because someone didn't even expected any revenue from Airbnb, that they aren't in need right now.

You don't want to help someone? Don't, I'm not either right now, can't afford that, but that doesn't means there isn't people in needs and that you will never want to help them. Airbnb added that feature on their platform... that's all...

> (how have hotels managed to get by since time immemorial without charging one!?)

Hotel staff aren't paid? You pay the fee, it's just not itemized...

Would it be better if it weren't itemized? The total cost is shown before clicking on any offer... it wouldn't change a thing to hide it better.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#158

Post by bradly »

3pt14159 wrote: post #126
bradly wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually doesn’t always. If Airbnb doesn’t support your local taxes system, you will have to submit a request for payment to your guest for more money. For instance in Hawaii until a few months ago, there was no way to add the 14% hotel tax to the listing. We had to put a note in the description that said they would be charged an extra 14% after booking. I think many hosts simple don’t charge/pay the hotel tax bec…

Oh please. That's a complete excuse. One is more than capable of rending out the room then keeping price/1.14 for themselves. These fine print notes for taxes were such malarky.

That’s a pretty harsh response given that we went through lots of work to inform our Airbnb guests about the tax and provide local municipalities their hotel tax. It’s hurtful to here that called an excuse. Do you have rentals? Are you familiar with what the hotel tax can and cannot be applied to? We’ve been asking Airbnb for to natively support hotel tax in HI for years. Vrbo supported hotel tax from the beginning. You can’t just add 1.14 to the total and call it good. The taxes isn’t on the cleaning fee or service fee from Airbnb. They need to be separate. Are you implying that we preferred something unethical, but we had no choice for HI taxes. Most states had been supported for a while, but not all.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#159

Post by thrwn_frthr_awy »

3pt14159 wrote: post #126
bradly wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually doesn’t always. If Airbnb doesn’t support your local taxes system, you will have to submit a request for payment to your guest for more money. For instance in Hawaii until a few months ago, there was no way to add the 14% hotel tax to the listing. We had to put a note in the description that said they would be charged an extra 14% after booking. I think many hosts simple don’t charge/pay the hotel tax bec…

Oh please. That's a complete excuse. One is more than capable of rending out the room then keeping price/1.14 for themselves. These fine print notes for taxes were such malarky.

you actually can’t just multiply the total by the tax rate. typically only non-negotiatable items can have the hotel tax, so mid-stay cleanings, early/late check ins, and other charges cannot be taxed.

Re: Airbnb asks people to donate money to landlords, backlash ensues

#160

Post by ballenf »

ponyous wrote: post #28
Raed667 wrote: post #10

I got prompted to donate to a host I stayed with for a few days and only saw once many-many months ago. Heck NO! What is their reasoning here!? I have zero emotional connection with that person. Nor do I think they are entitled to my charity.

So don't donate? I've been in AirBnB hosts where the landlady would make deserts for us and all kinds of stuff, just because she was nice and bored. We enjoyed it very much and I would tip her via AirBnb - she didn't want cash, except once - pre-agreed for multi course meal where she fed a group of 4, and it was pretty much just for the resources. There was a guy in SF that took me around shown me the city, etc... I…

Adding the ability to donate is not a neutral decision and affects everyone using the platform whether they "donate" or not. I use quotes because we usually reserve the word "donate" for non-profits and charities.

Not donating is saying just as much to the host as donating.

And maybe that's a good change, but I think it's wrong to say that offering the option only affects those who choose to pay extra.

Post reply on HN