Airbnb introduces fee for properties booked in a different currency
Airbnb introduces fee for properties booked in a different currency
Airbnb will report quarterly and full-year results after markets close on Tuesday. The short-term rental platform boomed with the rise of remote work, but hosts and travelers have increasingly complained about rising costs in recent years.
Now, the company is making a push to expand internationally and adding an additional 2% fee for properties booked in a different currency.
It’s getting harder to compare Airbnb and hotel rates, according to Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst.
“It’s apples to zucchini,” he said. “I mean, they’re just so very different.”
Hotels have those “resort fees” for everything from wifi access to coffee makers. Airbnb, with the new cross-currency fee, charges up to 16.5% for “guest services.” The company said in an emailed statement the update to terms and services, which will only apply to a minority of transactions, brought the policy in line with industry practices.
Harteveldt noted it’s common for credit and bank cards to add a surcharge for transactions in a different currency, but hotels seldom do.
And then there’s the cleaning fee. “And that can vary based on the size of the unit, the number of nights you’ve rented it for, whether there are any kids or pets,” said Harteveldt.
Airbnb said that about 3 million of the site’s approximately 7 million listings have no cleaning fee and the site has changed how prices are displayed to offer greater transparency and incentivize hosts to be judicious with cleaning fees. Last year the company added the option to toggle to a view showing the total cost before taxes when searching properties, which will include the new cross-currency fee.
That kind of transparency could become mandatory under a proposed rule from the Federal Trade Commission.
Chuck Bell at Consumer Reports, which submitted written comments supporting the new rule, has surveyed consumers about extra fees.
“Basically, everyone is really irritated at this,” he said. “People said, ‘The cumulative and additive effect of this is really hurting my budget.'”
So much so, he said, that many didn’t know if they could afford to take another vacation this year.
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