This upcharge didn’t get up-voted.
On the wildly popular Airbnb Reddit page, a poster who identified themselves as an Airbnb host garnered online attention after sharing a “crazy” experience working with the hospitality platform — involving a shocking and unexpected extra fee.
The poster explained that they currently have five guests staying at their home, which was initially rented for a week. The visitors wanted to extend their stay for 90 days — a decision that made the host “happy,” as they were excellent guests.
In do-gooder hopes of saving the group money, the host advised their guests to wait a few days before re-booking their place, as they would soon be lowering their price to the “winter rate.”
“I offer a 20% discount for monthly stays bringing their rate (to me) down to $3100/month,” the host explained.
But the poster ran into an unexpected snafu with his thrifty plan:
They claim fees from Airbnb and Evolve (which they describe as their property management contract) had charged a whopping “50% surcharge on the monthly rate.”
The revelation shocked and baffled the accommodating Airbnb host.
“Who can possibly afford to pay near 5k a month?” the post questioned, addressing the virtual void.
They went on to share their opinion that the companies’ sneaky fees were going to “kill their own business.”
Faced with the guests leaving their accommodation — or worse, leaving a bad review — the host realized he could “cut out” Airbnb and Evolve as the middlemen, and offer the guests a short-term lease himself.
“Crazy, right?” reads the poster’s last sentence, appearing to expect Redditors to agree with his real-estate hack.
Turns out, most did.
“Wtf that’s an insane markup, basically doubling their cut for no extra work on a long stay,” one commenter said. “Smart move just doing the short term lease though, you kept good guests and they probably appreciate not getting gouged.”
“I’ve seen larger [propery managers] do some really shady stuff,” added another. “Mark up the rates, mark up the cleaning fee, everything you can think of to make more money. And then they don’t even do a good job of managing the rates and keeping the property booked. It’s impossible for the owner to make any profit.”
“You gotta go under the table if you’re renting that long,” said one more. “As long as you trust them.”
However, one doubted the poster’s experience was actually true.
“I doubt this is happening,” said one skeptic. “If it is, it’s Evolve (a nightmare choice) not Air B&B.”
This month, Airbnb debuted a surge in new offerings, including 3D floor plans to better show a space, grocery delivery services in Europe and even easy boat rental in South Florida.
It also maintains an online help center to assist hosts with their fees.
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