14 ms·

Tell HN: Airbnb’s transparent pricing is a lie

250 points by figassis 3y ago

I made a booking at Crowne Plaza Times Square on July 22, 2023. Set the option to show all prices and paid $1500 for it. At checking, in presented with a bill for city and state taxes and “resort fees” totaling $552 and a $500 security deposit. Doesn’t seem very transparent since they specially state that you’d see all taxes when you pay on Airbnb. I called support when I was doing checkin, and they just said it was on the hotels terms/fine print in the listing and I should have read more carefully. Well, I assumed the value of Airbnb was to protect users from this, otherwise they’re just a middle man collecting a tax. This is the listing btw. You’ll pay 30% more than advertised, so factor that in when comparing to other places. Also, weren’t security deposits unnecessary with Airbnb because they handle charging customers for things like damage, and aren’t listings insured? Finally I use Airbnb a lot, so trust wise there should not be any red flags what’s justify security deposits.

blitzar 3y ago
> I use Airbnb a lot And yet somehow you failed to notice this ... > otherwise they’re just a middle man collecting a tax. Booking fee, cleaning fee, fee, fee, fee, fee.
- senttoschool 3y ago
  I think OP is saying that the fee wasn't presented in the check out. It's reasonable for customers to assume that there are no other costs except for whatever was at the Airbnb checkout screen process.
  - Liquidor 3y ago
    I've only used Airbnb twice but even I read the "fine print" (aka the entire description written by the host) as I quickly learned that they mention additional fees, city/country taxes and such in the text, which isn't in the Airbnb pricing/checkout. I'm surprised OP has used Airbnb a lot and not noticed this. It's in almost every posting lol.
    - senttoschool 3y ago
      I've used Airbnb probably 50 times. I've never been charged extra fees that aren't in the checkout process.
    - dspillett 3y ago
      > It's in almost every posting lol. I've certainly seen that sort of thing¹, but not nearly on “almost every posting”. It is likely to vary between locations, so perhaps OP has been lucky and only used the service for places where it is rare. -- [1] I've never booked somewhere with extras like that though, I too read the details before booking and that² is a red flag for me. [2] disingenuously deflating the headline price
  - blitzar 3y ago
    The long list of fees that are charge on top of the listed price are a pretty clear indicator that they’re just a middle man collecting a tax. Its also in their pitch deck so its not like they are trying to fool anyone.
- electrondood 3y ago
  Cleaning fee, and you have to take out the trash and recycling, strip the sheets, start a load of laundry, and load and run the dishwasher.
tehwebguy 3y ago
I didn’t know AirBnB could be used to book hotels, but yes resort fees are a scam. The recent AG settlement with Marriott is a complete joke and accomplished nothing of value. Ideally banks would identify it as fraud and charge them all back automatically but they rely on co-branded credit cards (especially Chase and AMEX). Perhaps Discover and Citibank would like to start a hilarious proxy war using Marriott, Hilton and IHG as pawns?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I think the resort fee is a way to get around either lodging taxes or franchise royalties, as they might specifically apply to lodging portion of a hotel room’s price. Hotel room night tax rates are almost always much higher than general sales tax rates. The hotel might pocket more if they sell a room for $200 + hotel tax + $50 resort fee + sales tax rather than $250 + hotel tax.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    So they’re not just scamming consumers, they’re scamming the franchisor and the tax collecting agencies they are subject to as well.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      The consumer would be paying less tax. For example, if lodging taxes are 18% and sales tax is 7%, then you would avoid paying an extra 11% on the room rate. Of course, the calculation is not that clean, since maybe the resort fee is also used to obfuscate prices which results in people paying more. As for the tax collector, resort fees and whatnot have been commonplace for the 20+ years of my adult life, so either the tax collector is a corrupt idiot, or the hotels have a legitimate claim that the entire cost of staying at a hotel is not subject to lodging taxes.
  - i_am_jl 3y ago
    You could be right, but I think you're missing the point. The complaint is not that the fee is problematic in and of itself, it's that the fee isn't revealed until after your booking is made, usually not until check-in.
CharlesW 3y ago
Airbnb users: Is there ever a scenario where it makes sense to book a hotel room using Airbnb? (Not blaming the customer, and I completely agree that a "total price display" that leaves out fees that Airbnb knows about is predatory.)
- makingstuffs 3y ago
  Not from my experience. I’ve found the inverse to be true with the likes of booking.com now having some apartments. Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations. Their customer service is always helpful and easy to get in contact with from anywhere I have traveled to.
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Agoda usually has better coupons and sometimes mobile specific ones, better than Booking if they have the same listing. But the prices will also vary. Same parent company.
  - dheera 3y ago
    > Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations. Definitely keep an eye on your transactions, I had an additional fraud $1500 transaction from Booking.com Netherlands shortly after I booked a stay in Norway. I reported it to my credit card and all was fine but there are probably some bad apples working at Booking.com.
    - makingstuffs 3y ago
      That’s crazy, glad you got your money back. Was it a booking which asked you to pay directly by any chance? I recently had an apartment (in the Netherlands also) request that I pay them directly with a bank transfer before I arrived but it seemed dodge to me so I booked with another
      - dheera 3y ago
        No, I paid for the (intended) Norway booking via Booking.com in full. I then got a fraud charge a couple days later. I never gave my credit card info directly to the Norway property (not sure if Booking shares it with them?) but I'm more inclined to suspect someone at Booking who had access to their saved credit card database OR superuser access to book some other resort using my saved payment info.
t3rabytes 3y ago
The "Display total price" toggle should just be deemed misleading all together. It's explicit that it includes fees and not taxes, but is withholding tax info really the total price? No.
- brookst 3y ago
  Presumably they’ll add a second toggle for “show total cost including all fees and taxes”, which will give every cent you’re going to pay, except special surcharges.
  - t3rabytes 3y ago
    "Display total price" "Display total price for real"
    - _huayra_ 3y ago
      "Display Total Price (tm)" ...much further down the page in small font... Total Price (tm) is our proprietary number we just make up because we actually hate you, our customer, and want to bamboozle you into spending far more than expected.
    - danaris 3y ago
      "Display Total Price FINAL REVISED FOR SUBMISSION(1)(1)(1)"
- tehwebguy 3y ago
  Something I haven’t considered until today is that the resort fee is probably a tax avoidance scam as well.
  - CPLX 3y ago
    Maybe it was, or in some jurisdictions, but I think for the most part it's required to be taxed at the same rate. I had assumed that it was a way to avoid paying the parent/franchising company, or paying commission on it to booking sites, which I think might be the case, especially the latter since they generally collect it on premises not through the booking engine.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
I am surprised IHG allows their franchisees to sell on Airbnb.com. But also, if you were to have gone to IHG.com, the total price shows everything included, super easy. Always cut out unnecessary middlemen.
- bragr 3y ago
  Why not? In this case they successfully diverted a customer from booking an Airbnb at the cost of whatever fee they paid to Airbnb. Hotels being directly bookable or bookable through other travel systems is a core feature of the hotel business model.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I had assumed Airbnb is not integrated with hotel central reservation systems, but I did not know they bought HotelTonight in 2019. In which case, you are correct, why not sell in more places.
  - dspillett 3y ago
    > Why not? There are likely several reasons for why and not. One for why not might be that it could be seen as legitimising a competitor, one which various interests from within & without the industry are actively lobbying against. Another at a more local level could be that AirBnB is garnering negative press in many areas due to further marginalising local residents¹ and some companies might not want to associate with that if it goes against an image they try to portray. -- [1] or potential local residents who are more priced out of an area by AirBnB² on top of more traditional holiday lets and second homes. [2] I'm thinking twice about using the service after seeing a recent increase in AirBnB & similar activity locally (often standing idle a significant amount of the time) while friends are struggling to find affordable places to rent or buy.
  - reaperducer 3y ago
    Hotels being directly bookable or bookable through other travel systems is a core feature of the hotel business model. Many industries go through this, especially retail. It's cyclical. - The business establishes its brand and develops a loyal following. - Some consultant or middle manager or other rocket surgeon decides "We should be everywhere! Then we'll sell more!" - Increases sales for a little bit, then it doesn't because the product becomes a commodity that people can get anywhere, and so people start buying the competitors because the they're all viewed as being the same, since they're everywhere and right next to one another on a web site or store shelf. The company then has to compete on price rather than quality while still paying the middlemen, causing profit margins shrink. - Management realizes it's bought into a bunch of lies, and starts to let the co-marketing agreements expire so that it can get better control of its product. - New generation of managers come in and repeat the same mistake.
acover 3y ago
Airbnb only cares about hosts. Expect nothing from them but a tax and you'll be happier. Keeping hosts happy is the game.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
princevegeta89 3y ago
OP, why did you have to book Crowne Plaza via Airbnb? Didn't you have to end up doing their chores you'd have gotten for free otherwise?
voisin 3y ago
Fruit of the poisonous tree: Companies that started out by thumbing their nose at laws will never be honest with their employees, customers, and shareholders. AirBNB is a good example. They didn’t lose their soul when they made it big - they never had one to begin with.
- ramraj07 3y ago
  Airbnb is arguably something that didn't have any real net benefit to society yes. I am conflicted about uber though. Many, many people I know (mostly women) have had their life completely transformed post uber. It ushered in a mobility revolution that would likely only be smaller than the car or bicycle in terms of liberating some populations and increasing their freedom. It was all built on lies and masquerades though. Perhaps that's not new however? All of history seems to have been built on ideas that robbed Paul to pay Peter anyways.
  - Matheus28 3y ago
    Uber was also amazing for travelers. No need to worry about the taxi driver looping around the city to run up the meter just because you aren’t from there.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      Was that a function of Uber and ride sharing? Or just having a GPS-connected app that you can track? Plenty of cab companies are following suit w/ GPS systems.
      - smsm42 3y ago
        It's not only tracking. It's convenience of ordering, and paying, and knowing in advance how much it's going to cost, etc. Sure, I've seen taxi apps doing that too but it always been hit or miss whether particular app works in particular city and has a good sized fleet there.
    - Shawnj2 3y ago
paxys 3y ago
> Doesn’t seem very transparent since they specially state that you’d see all taxes when you pay on Airbnb. They do not. When you toggle the setting for "total price" when searching it specifically says "Includes all fees, before taxes" right next to it. I also just tried to book the hotel you mentioned (https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/801588170672441756 https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/801588170672441756) and there is no security deposit or resort fee.
- gruez 3y ago
  I think OP was talking about fees that got charged once he arrived at the hotel, not the fees that showed up at airbnb checkout.
  - paxys 3y ago
    Ah, that sucks, but ultimately it is exactly as predatory as booking through the hotel directly. It is crazy that hiding "resort fees" in their booking terms and conditions is legal.
    - quantumwannabe 3y ago
      In the description, they say they charge extra fees: ******* ▶ Mandatory fees You’ll be asked to pay the following charges at check-in or check-out: • A damage deposit of $350 will be collected by credit card. You should be reimbursed within 7 days of check-out. Your deposit will be refunded in full by credit card, subject to an inspection of the property. • A resort fee of $40.16 per night • There will be taxes and fees that need to be paid at the front desk ▶ Optional Extra • This property allows pets however there is a $350 pet deposit per stay. 50 USD is kept for a deep cleaning fee, and the remainder is refunded if there is no pet damage. • Parking $78 for 24 hrs and $93 for oversized. no in and out
      - daft_pink 3y ago
        I think the issue is that Airbnb claimed and advertised they would begin offering true pricing that included all fees displayed upfront so you could compare all the bookings against each other in the search engine and not buried in the terms and conditions: https://mashable.com/article/airbnb-actual-price-listing-fees-change https://mashable.com/article/airbnb-actual-price-listing-fee... It's insanity to have to search through each listing and add random fees to compare the prices of different listings against each other. I don't think the OP disputes that this appears in the terms and conditions.
metacritic12 3y ago
Hotels need to have flight-style pricing. Remember back in the 2000s when Spirit Airlines would advertise $9 flights, that only at the very last moment of the checkout stage would have a government compliance fee, all taxes, gas costs, flight attendant costs, etc added on to make a $120 flight? That's what hotel pricing feels like today. The FTC needs to step in and make advertised pricing equal the all-in fee for everything mandatory at a hotel.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  If you search for a hotel room on Hilton/Marriott/Hyatt/IHG/etc website, that is how it is. After you select room type, it always shows you the total cost prominently. It is only travel agent/third party websites that try to hide total cost.
  - wintogreen74 3y ago
    I think VRBO shows you the full cost for your visit (not in the nightly rate though!) while AirBnB shows you some subtotal presented as as the total cost, then when you start clicking through you get the "real" total cost. By that point you're already engaged though, so mission accomplished? I don't think I'd ever book a hotel through Airbnb - what's the benefit?
    - brewdad 3y ago
      > I don't think I'd ever book a hotel through Airbnb - what's the benefit? Agreed. My usual mode of search is to go to hotels.com or booking.com depending on the destination and find out what's available and to price compare. Then I go to the actual hotel's site to book the reservation. I'll end up paying the same rate either way but having a direct booking reduces the chances of there being a problem down the line since there's no third party to shift blame or act as the middleman in resolving the issue.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    That's because people want it sorted by price ascending, and you must be near the top of that list for the customer to even see the offering. So they show an artificially low price. At the hotel's own site, there is no such competition.
atlasunshrugged 3y ago
I also noticed that in certain locales there are tricky things on Airbnb postings. I'm headed to Berlin in September and a few postings within the overview of the listing would talk about how you needed to pay a 5% cash fee (the "city tax" for the first 21 nights) but this is not included in the Airbnb listing. I don't know if this is because it's a local rule and Airbnb hasn't updated the product to allow for city level taxes, but it seems like a pretty major oversight that could trip someone up if they didn't see this in the fine print.
dangus 3y ago
Is this the right venue for Karen-style customer complaints that have nothing to do with technology? Maybe try Yelp or Google Reviews. OP is not going to get my sympathy for booking a chain hotel via Airbnb of all places. Next time book direct with IHG if you want to stay at a Crown Plaza.
- twelve40 3y ago
  it's calling attention to douchey pricing patterns. Given that a lot of people here doing their startups/projects and thinking about pricing, seems like worth mentioning.
- figassis 3y ago
  Not sure sympathy is what I’m looking for. More like holding startups (especially YC startups that benefit a lot from this forum) responsible for making promises for advertising sake. I’m sure I’m not the only one affected by this and if there isn’t a cost to this type of dishonesty, it will become standard business practice, which I think were already there.
reaperman 3y ago
Australia has a law that says you have to show the actual real price inclusive of all taxes and fees. So I use https://www.airbnb.com.au/ https://www.airbnb.com.au/ AirBnB's hidden fee situation has completely and utterly jumped the shark / taken the piss. It's unfathomably bad.
- Maxion 3y ago
  I’ve used this trick for a few years. The fact it exists show that the pricing for other countries is an intentional dark pattern.
- eatbitseveryday 3y ago
  Excellent, thank you. I did a quick search for something, and the AirBNB fee was slightly higher ($20) than the US website for the same listing (dates, people, etc.)
  - biomcgary 3y ago
    Search on the Aussie version, buy on the US version. Too bad the US doesn't have an FTC with teeth (and one in favor of consumers).
- matsemann 3y ago
  Same in (most of at least) Europe. Which is nice. Avoid the weird incentives hosts have to set a low night price and then jack up all sort of fees instead.
- sanderjd 3y ago
  Yep, we're planning a trip right now and have completely foresworn AirBnB because of this. I suspect they're less than five years or so from the trash heap of history. Which is really a bummer because they made travel so much more fun for me a decade ago. But I guess I was just being subsidized by VCs.
- 4O4 3y ago
  Interesting. Is it really the universal rule or does it only apply to some countries? I compared the same listing at the same dates on both .com.au and on airbnb domain for my country (in EU) and there is only a negligible difference that comes from currency conversion I believe. I did the comparison in the same browser, so I'm wondering if there might have been some fingerprinting involved and prices were artificially bumped on the AU site?
drstewart 3y ago
Use airbnb.com.au and you'll see the real total price
baking 3y ago
Always book with the hotel directly. If you don't, and you have any changes, arriving late etc., you will lose your reservation and your money. It is not worth the $10 you might save.
- jusonchan81 3y ago
  A lot of times I’ve also found it to be cheaper. So that has left me wondering if these web agencies are just selling the same rooms for a small premium on top of the actual price. The other arbitrage opportunities include breakfast and other facilities. Either way check direct before ever choosing another option like Airbnb.
apisandapisand 3y ago
I'm fed up with Airbnb tbh. From pricing, to booking places in shitty neighborhoods, to finding out a place doesn't have a/c, it's always something... I still love the concept and idea, but it's just too expensive to get rugged in some way, shape, or form every time you book an Airbnb.
theGnuMe 3y ago
Write a letter detailing what happened to the NYC attorney general, the California attorney general and your state attorney general if you live in a different state. They may recommend you file a complaint with a Federal office as well. Include screenshots of your AirBnB booking/receipts + what you were charged by the hotel.
denton-scratch 3y ago
Booking a hotel room isn't what I thought AirBnB was for. In fact I'm astonished that any hotel chain uses AirBnB as a sales outlet.
coding123 3y ago
I stopped booking hotels years ago after this happened: I booked on a website advertising a room weeks in advance for $130 a night (only one night). Arrived at the hotel, and sure enough, I had a reservation - that was not paid for. The company I booked through was charging $130 for them to call the hotel and put my name down on the books. At that point, I checked out and moved to the mountains.
nomilk 3y ago
Airbnb is supposed to have a $1m host guarantee, so a security deposit cannot be justified by the host.
throwaway290 3y ago
I simply switched to Booking.com, for this and other reasons. Booking usually lists deposit in small print. If booking doesn't have deposit disclosure I usually just tell the staff I can deposit this little cash, take it or leave it, should've declared deposit amount and I will find another hotel + complain to booking customer support. (Not in USA)
daft_pink 3y ago
I've had very similar experiences with Airbnb. Other deceitful line items: * Paying for a cleaning fee and then in the terms and conditions they charge additional fees if you don't clean the listing * Terms and conditions that add additional liability, binding arbitration, and all kinds of additional items that were never disclosed in the listing * The above items were never disclosed and vaguely referenced in some random fine print that was not provided before you booked and then airbnb will not issue a refund if you cancel. Honestly, the problem with airbnb is that they are a middleman that sits between the host and you. They really won't do much to help you when you call customer service, and they won't help you in ways most hotels would help you if you called and had a problem. It's really not a great experience as soon as you need customer service from them. The hosts add all kinds of nonsense rules when you show up or after you book that are never disclosed and they do nothing about it. There is even a news article where the CEO spent a bunch of time living in airbnbs and said he experienced all this nonsense, but still nothing is done about it. I really enjoy the authentic experiences at airbnb, but I've been burned too many times and think it's outrageous to spend thousands of dollars on high end airbnbs and pay fees for things like cleaning and then be expected to clean on my vacation or be subject to some nonsensical rule and worry my whole vacation. I'm really torn about whether it's a good service or whether it sucks but you should know what you're getting into.
rubyn00bie 3y ago
I’d just like to point out, because this isn’t obvious to some folks but all “fees” are bullshit charges. Fees are charges made up by the organizations writing the bill. I personally believe all fees should be illegal or included in the price. I don’t get to write -$5 on my bill because I feel like it; so, why can an organization do that in reverse?
jasfi 3y ago
I don't use AirBnB much, but one place I booked didn't exist when I got there. It was in a different country. I was lucky to find a place to stay that evening.
happytiger 3y ago
Startups that build their business on mere financialization of market arbitrage have a tendency become like the industry they sought to disrupt. I think it’s because ultimately it produces no value and simply brokers, and brokers tend to end up representing the financial interest of the more powerful or financially enriching party to the brokering equation. So, they have come to serve the landholder’s interests and no longer provide reliability to the consumer, and that is ultimately because the consumer is not the actual customer, merely the input to the product — nights booked per host. I think it's part of a larger trend. They say the U.S economy is going through a crazy tech makeover that is totally messing up how people work, hustle, munch, splurge, swipe, binge, and sleep, right? It's disruption and innvation of everything! Right? Sometimes I wonder if this tall tech tale we have been telling ourselves is more of a big scam — that maybe the last 30 years have been more of a waste of time than we realize and not many things that are huge have really changed in daily life in ways that deeply matter. People dreamed of jetpacks and got cat videos instead. We disrupted the hotel industry to have the hotel industry recreated. We disrupted taxis and got Uber taxis. Restaurants got disrupted to create virtual restaurants with delivery. We disrupted television to create Google TV, which is basically television + the Internet but not really that different. We disrupted retail so we could have Internet retail where the primary innovation is again just delivery, and everything is a race to the bottom -- side effects be damned. We’ve made efficiencies, massively, but sometimes I wonder why the real impact of all this "innovation and disruption" seems actually quite mild, and substantive disruption is so few and far between. In the end I wonder if we have made technological advancements, but we haven’t made much actual progress. We have such a bias for the new, it tends not to be a popular opinion. But so much of this technology innovation just leads us to create new versions of the same old, because the incentives are to financialize and exploit financial advantage and to reconcentrate wealth and fortune, not actually innovate. It's perhaps not the most thought out thesis, but I wonder about it, and whenever Airbnb comes up it brings this question up for me. I mean landing rockets changes the economics of space… we have innovation. It’s just that most of it just seems to be merely a greater efficiency of delivery masquerading as “disruption.”
- tansan 3y ago
  This is a loose thread, but your post reminded me of this article: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/silicon-valley-civil-war https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/silicon-val... It's an interesting read and really made about think about how big of a game they are all playing.
listenallyall 3y ago
The entire business model of "resort fees" is to be able to advertise a low price on aggregation sites by hiding/obfuscating a significant portion of the total price. Of course it is deceptive and annoying, but companies have realized the additional revenue far outweighs the complaints and possible lost reservations. It's a shitty situation that nobody likes, but honestly in 2023 if you are booking any type of reservation online -- including the hotel's own site -- you need to read some of the small print. Complaining online on forums like this is meaningless. The only way to "fight back" is not to book, which may mean skipping the vacation, as much as that sucks. Hotels and travel sites have had record revenues and resort fees and have only increased and become more widespread in the past decade. The trend isn't going to reverse on its own while people continue to book at record rates.
emadda 3y ago
Side note: I released https://stay100.app https://stay100.app recently. It lets you view all stays in a grid with the final price you'll pay.
codegeek 3y ago
Booking a Hotel using AirBnB ? We have come full circle. Is AirBnB even worth considering these days other than the fact that you may want a kitchen/more space ?
- fumar 3y ago
  I typically see AirBnB's as the more expensive option. I travel frequently and have shifted back towards hotels. They are easier to book, peace of mind, points or rewards, concierge services, the list goes on. The main reason for an AirBnB is larger spaces, unique designs, and areas with low hotel density.
SergeAx 3y ago
But... Crowne Plaza is a hotel, and AirBnB is an aggregator of inexpensive apartments where hosts want make small buck now and then when the property is vacant, like a direct opposite of hotels?
andrei_says_ 3y ago
For me the question is: How do we out-legalize dark patterns and fraud? And legislate a competitive market? If that’s the FTC - what are next steps with the FTC? HN popularity is enough to cause traffic spikes that bring servers down. Can we have a “HN hug of life” instead - a collective nudge toward constructive legislation?

250 points by figassis 3y ago

blitzar 3y ago

> I use Airbnb a lot And yet somehow you failed to notice this ... > otherwise they’re just a middle man collecting a tax. Booking fee, cleaning fee, fee, fee, fee, fee.

senttoschool 3y ago
I think OP is saying that the fee wasn't presented in the check out. It's reasonable for customers to assume that there are no other costs except for whatever was at the Airbnb checkout screen process.
- Liquidor 3y ago
  I've only used Airbnb twice but even I read the "fine print" (aka the entire description written by the host) as I quickly learned that they mention additional fees, city/country taxes and such in the text, which isn't in the Airbnb pricing/checkout. I'm surprised OP has used Airbnb a lot and not noticed this. It's in almost every posting lol.
  - senttoschool 3y ago
    I've used Airbnb probably 50 times. I've never been charged extra fees that aren't in the checkout process.
  - dspillett 3y ago
    > It's in almost every posting lol. I've certainly seen that sort of thing¹, but not nearly on “almost every posting”. It is likely to vary between locations, so perhaps OP has been lucky and only used the service for places where it is rare. -- [1] I've never booked somewhere with extras like that though, I too read the details before booking and that² is a red flag for me. [2] disingenuously deflating the headline price
- blitzar 3y ago
  The long list of fees that are charge on top of the listed price are a pretty clear indicator that they’re just a middle man collecting a tax. Its also in their pitch deck so its not like they are trying to fool anyone.
electrondood 3y ago
Cleaning fee, and you have to take out the trash and recycling, strip the sheets, start a load of laundry, and load and run the dishwasher.

tehwebguy 3y ago

I didn’t know AirBnB could be used to book hotels, but yes resort fees are a scam. The recent AG settlement with Marriott is a complete joke and accomplished nothing of value. Ideally banks would identify it as fraud and charge them all back automatically but they rely on co-branded credit cards (especially Chase and AMEX). Perhaps Discover and Citibank would like to start a hilarious proxy war using Marriott, Hilton and IHG as pawns?

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I think the resort fee is a way to get around either lodging taxes or franchise royalties, as they might specifically apply to lodging portion of a hotel room’s price. Hotel room night tax rates are almost always much higher than general sales tax rates. The hotel might pocket more if they sell a room for $200 + hotel tax + $50 resort fee + sales tax rather than $250 + hotel tax.
- tehwebguy 3y ago
  So they’re not just scamming consumers, they’re scamming the franchisor and the tax collecting agencies they are subject to as well.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The consumer would be paying less tax. For example, if lodging taxes are 18% and sales tax is 7%, then you would avoid paying an extra 11% on the room rate. Of course, the calculation is not that clean, since maybe the resort fee is also used to obfuscate prices which results in people paying more. As for the tax collector, resort fees and whatnot have been commonplace for the 20+ years of my adult life, so either the tax collector is a corrupt idiot, or the hotels have a legitimate claim that the entire cost of staying at a hotel is not subject to lodging taxes.
- i_am_jl 3y ago
  You could be right, but I think you're missing the point. The complaint is not that the fee is problematic in and of itself, it's that the fee isn't revealed until after your booking is made, usually not until check-in.

CharlesW 3y ago

Airbnb users: Is there ever a scenario where it makes sense to book a hotel room using Airbnb? (Not blaming the customer, and I completely agree that a "total price display" that leaves out fees that Airbnb knows about is predatory.)

makingstuffs 3y ago
Not from my experience. I’ve found the inverse to be true with the likes of booking.com now having some apartments. Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations. Their customer service is always helpful and easy to get in contact with from anywhere I have traveled to.
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  Agoda usually has better coupons and sometimes mobile specific ones, better than Booking if they have the same listing. But the prices will also vary. Same parent company.
- dheera 3y ago
  > Booking isn’t perfect but it is definitely my go to for travel accommodations. Definitely keep an eye on your transactions, I had an additional fraud $1500 transaction from Booking.com Netherlands shortly after I booked a stay in Norway. I reported it to my credit card and all was fine but there are probably some bad apples working at Booking.com.
  - makingstuffs 3y ago
    That’s crazy, glad you got your money back. Was it a booking which asked you to pay directly by any chance? I recently had an apartment (in the Netherlands also) request that I pay them directly with a bank transfer before I arrived but it seemed dodge to me so I booked with another
    - dheera 3y ago
      No, I paid for the (intended) Norway booking via Booking.com in full. I then got a fraud charge a couple days later. I never gave my credit card info directly to the Norway property (not sure if Booking shares it with them?) but I'm more inclined to suspect someone at Booking who had access to their saved credit card database OR superuser access to book some other resort using my saved payment info.

t3rabytes 3y ago

The "Display total price" toggle should just be deemed misleading all together. It's explicit that it includes fees and not taxes, but is withholding tax info really the total price? No.

brookst 3y ago
Presumably they’ll add a second toggle for “show total cost including all fees and taxes”, which will give every cent you’re going to pay, except special surcharges.
- t3rabytes 3y ago
  "Display total price" "Display total price for real"
  - _huayra_ 3y ago
    "Display Total Price (tm)" ...much further down the page in small font... Total Price (tm) is our proprietary number we just make up because we actually hate you, our customer, and want to bamboozle you into spending far more than expected.
  - danaris 3y ago
    "Display Total Price FINAL REVISED FOR SUBMISSION(1)(1)(1)"
tehwebguy 3y ago
Something I haven’t considered until today is that the resort fee is probably a tax avoidance scam as well.
- CPLX 3y ago
  Maybe it was, or in some jurisdictions, but I think for the most part it's required to be taxed at the same rate. I had assumed that it was a way to avoid paying the parent/franchising company, or paying commission on it to booking sites, which I think might be the case, especially the latter since they generally collect it on premises not through the booking engine.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

I am surprised IHG allows their franchisees to sell on Airbnb.com. But also, if you were to have gone to IHG.com, the total price shows everything included, super easy. Always cut out unnecessary middlemen.

bragr 3y ago
Why not? In this case they successfully diverted a customer from booking an Airbnb at the cost of whatever fee they paid to Airbnb. Hotels being directly bookable or bookable through other travel systems is a core feature of the hotel business model.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I had assumed Airbnb is not integrated with hotel central reservation systems, but I did not know they bought HotelTonight in 2019. In which case, you are correct, why not sell in more places.
- dspillett 3y ago
  > Why not? There are likely several reasons for why and not. One for why not might be that it could be seen as legitimising a competitor, one which various interests from within & without the industry are actively lobbying against. Another at a more local level could be that AirBnB is garnering negative press in many areas due to further marginalising local residents¹ and some companies might not want to associate with that if it goes against an image they try to portray. -- [1] or potential local residents who are more priced out of an area by AirBnB² on top of more traditional holiday lets and second homes. [2] I'm thinking twice about using the service after seeing a recent increase in AirBnB & similar activity locally (often standing idle a significant amount of the time) while friends are struggling to find affordable places to rent or buy.
- reaperducer 3y ago
  Hotels being directly bookable or bookable through other travel systems is a core feature of the hotel business model. Many industries go through this, especially retail. It's cyclical. - The business establishes its brand and develops a loyal following. - Some consultant or middle manager or other rocket surgeon decides "We should be everywhere! Then we'll sell more!" - Increases sales for a little bit, then it doesn't because the product becomes a commodity that people can get anywhere, and so people start buying the competitors because the they're all viewed as being the same, since they're everywhere and right next to one another on a web site or store shelf. The company then has to compete on price rather than quality while still paying the middlemen, causing profit margins shrink. - Management realizes it's bought into a bunch of lies, and starts to let the co-marketing agreements expire so that it can get better control of its product. - New generation of managers come in and repeat the same mistake.

acover 3y ago

Airbnb only cares about hosts. Expect nothing from them but a tax and you'll be happier. Keeping hosts happy is the game.

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princevegeta89 3y ago

OP, why did you have to book Crowne Plaza via Airbnb? Didn't you have to end up doing their chores you'd have gotten for free otherwise?

voisin 3y ago

Fruit of the poisonous tree: Companies that started out by thumbing their nose at laws will never be honest with their employees, customers, and shareholders. AirBNB is a good example. They didn’t lose their soul when they made it big - they never had one to begin with.

ramraj07 3y ago
Airbnb is arguably something that didn't have any real net benefit to society yes. I am conflicted about uber though. Many, many people I know (mostly women) have had their life completely transformed post uber. It ushered in a mobility revolution that would likely only be smaller than the car or bicycle in terms of liberating some populations and increasing their freedom. It was all built on lies and masquerades though. Perhaps that's not new however? All of history seems to have been built on ideas that robbed Paul to pay Peter anyways.
- Matheus28 3y ago
  Uber was also amazing for travelers. No need to worry about the taxi driver looping around the city to run up the meter just because you aren’t from there.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Was that a function of Uber and ride sharing? Or just having a GPS-connected app that you can track? Plenty of cab companies are following suit w/ GPS systems.
    - smsm42 3y ago
      It's not only tracking. It's convenience of ordering, and paying, and knowing in advance how much it's going to cost, etc. Sure, I've seen taxi apps doing that too but it always been hit or miss whether particular app works in particular city and has a good sized fleet there.
  - Shawnj2 3y ago

paxys 3y ago

> Doesn’t seem very transparent since they specially state that you’d see all taxes when you pay on Airbnb. They do not. When you toggle the setting for "total price" when searching it specifically says "Includes all fees, before taxes" right next to it. I also just tried to book the hotel you mentioned (https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/801588170672441756 https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/801588170672441756) and there is no security deposit or resort fee.

gruez 3y ago
I think OP was talking about fees that got charged once he arrived at the hotel, not the fees that showed up at airbnb checkout.
- paxys 3y ago
  Ah, that sucks, but ultimately it is exactly as predatory as booking through the hotel directly. It is crazy that hiding "resort fees" in their booking terms and conditions is legal.
  - quantumwannabe 3y ago
    In the description, they say they charge extra fees: ******* ▶ Mandatory fees You’ll be asked to pay the following charges at check-in or check-out: • A damage deposit of $350 will be collected by credit card. You should be reimbursed within 7 days of check-out. Your deposit will be refunded in full by credit card, subject to an inspection of the property. • A resort fee of $40.16 per night • There will be taxes and fees that need to be paid at the front desk ▶ Optional Extra • This property allows pets however there is a $350 pet deposit per stay. 50 USD is kept for a deep cleaning fee, and the remainder is refunded if there is no pet damage. • Parking $78 for 24 hrs and $93 for oversized. no in and out
    - daft_pink 3y ago
      I think the issue is that Airbnb claimed and advertised they would begin offering true pricing that included all fees displayed upfront so you could compare all the bookings against each other in the search engine and not buried in the terms and conditions: https://mashable.com/article/airbnb-actual-price-listing-fees-change https://mashable.com/article/airbnb-actual-price-listing-fee... It's insanity to have to search through each listing and add random fees to compare the prices of different listings against each other. I don't think the OP disputes that this appears in the terms and conditions.

metacritic12 3y ago

Hotels need to have flight-style pricing. Remember back in the 2000s when Spirit Airlines would advertise $9 flights, that only at the very last moment of the checkout stage would have a government compliance fee, all taxes, gas costs, flight attendant costs, etc added on to make a $120 flight? That's what hotel pricing feels like today. The FTC needs to step in and make advertised pricing equal the all-in fee for everything mandatory at a hotel.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
If you search for a hotel room on Hilton/Marriott/Hyatt/IHG/etc website, that is how it is. After you select room type, it always shows you the total cost prominently. It is only travel agent/third party websites that try to hide total cost.
- wintogreen74 3y ago
  I think VRBO shows you the full cost for your visit (not in the nightly rate though!) while AirBnB shows you some subtotal presented as as the total cost, then when you start clicking through you get the "real" total cost. By that point you're already engaged though, so mission accomplished? I don't think I'd ever book a hotel through Airbnb - what's the benefit?
  - brewdad 3y ago
    > I don't think I'd ever book a hotel through Airbnb - what's the benefit? Agreed. My usual mode of search is to go to hotels.com or booking.com depending on the destination and find out what's available and to price compare. Then I go to the actual hotel's site to book the reservation. I'll end up paying the same rate either way but having a direct booking reduces the chances of there being a problem down the line since there's no third party to shift blame or act as the middleman in resolving the issue.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  That's because people want it sorted by price ascending, and you must be near the top of that list for the customer to even see the offering. So they show an artificially low price. At the hotel's own site, there is no such competition.

atlasunshrugged 3y ago

I also noticed that in certain locales there are tricky things on Airbnb postings. I'm headed to Berlin in September and a few postings within the overview of the listing would talk about how you needed to pay a 5% cash fee (the "city tax" for the first 21 nights) but this is not included in the Airbnb listing. I don't know if this is because it's a local rule and Airbnb hasn't updated the product to allow for city level taxes, but it seems like a pretty major oversight that could trip someone up if they didn't see this in the fine print.

dangus 3y ago

Is this the right venue for Karen-style customer complaints that have nothing to do with technology? Maybe try Yelp or Google Reviews. OP is not going to get my sympathy for booking a chain hotel via Airbnb of all places. Next time book direct with IHG if you want to stay at a Crown Plaza.

twelve40 3y ago
it's calling attention to douchey pricing patterns. Given that a lot of people here doing their startups/projects and thinking about pricing, seems like worth mentioning.
figassis 3y ago
Not sure sympathy is what I’m looking for. More like holding startups (especially YC startups that benefit a lot from this forum) responsible for making promises for advertising sake. I’m sure I’m not the only one affected by this and if there isn’t a cost to this type of dishonesty, it will become standard business practice, which I think were already there.

reaperman 3y ago

Australia has a law that says you have to show the actual real price inclusive of all taxes and fees. So I use https://www.airbnb.com.au/ https://www.airbnb.com.au/ AirBnB's hidden fee situation has completely and utterly jumped the shark / taken the piss. It's unfathomably bad.

Maxion 3y ago
I’ve used this trick for a few years. The fact it exists show that the pricing for other countries is an intentional dark pattern.
eatbitseveryday 3y ago
Excellent, thank you. I did a quick search for something, and the AirBNB fee was slightly higher ($20) than the US website for the same listing (dates, people, etc.)
- biomcgary 3y ago
  Search on the Aussie version, buy on the US version. Too bad the US doesn't have an FTC with teeth (and one in favor of consumers).
matsemann 3y ago
Same in (most of at least) Europe. Which is nice. Avoid the weird incentives hosts have to set a low night price and then jack up all sort of fees instead.
sanderjd 3y ago
Yep, we're planning a trip right now and have completely foresworn AirBnB because of this. I suspect they're less than five years or so from the trash heap of history. Which is really a bummer because they made travel so much more fun for me a decade ago. But I guess I was just being subsidized by VCs.
4O4 3y ago
Interesting. Is it really the universal rule or does it only apply to some countries? I compared the same listing at the same dates on both .com.au and on airbnb domain for my country (in EU) and there is only a negligible difference that comes from currency conversion I believe. I did the comparison in the same browser, so I'm wondering if there might have been some fingerprinting involved and prices were artificially bumped on the AU site?

drstewart 3y ago

Use airbnb.com.au and you'll see the real total price

baking 3y ago

Always book with the hotel directly. If you don't, and you have any changes, arriving late etc., you will lose your reservation and your money. It is not worth the $10 you might save.

jusonchan81 3y ago
A lot of times I’ve also found it to be cheaper. So that has left me wondering if these web agencies are just selling the same rooms for a small premium on top of the actual price. The other arbitrage opportunities include breakfast and other facilities. Either way check direct before ever choosing another option like Airbnb.

apisandapisand 3y ago

I'm fed up with Airbnb tbh. From pricing, to booking places in shitty neighborhoods, to finding out a place doesn't have a/c, it's always something... I still love the concept and idea, but it's just too expensive to get rugged in some way, shape, or form every time you book an Airbnb.

theGnuMe 3y ago

Write a letter detailing what happened to the NYC attorney general, the California attorney general and your state attorney general if you live in a different state. They may recommend you file a complaint with a Federal office as well. Include screenshots of your AirBnB booking/receipts + what you were charged by the hotel.

denton-scratch 3y ago

Booking a hotel room isn't what I thought AirBnB was for. In fact I'm astonished that any hotel chain uses AirBnB as a sales outlet.

coding123 3y ago

I stopped booking hotels years ago after this happened: I booked on a website advertising a room weeks in advance for $130 a night (only one night). Arrived at the hotel, and sure enough, I had a reservation - that was not paid for. The company I booked through was charging $130 for them to call the hotel and put my name down on the books. At that point, I checked out and moved to the mountains.

nomilk 3y ago

Airbnb is supposed to have a $1m host guarantee, so a security deposit cannot be justified by the host.

throwaway290 3y ago

I simply switched to Booking.com, for this and other reasons. Booking usually lists deposit in small print. If booking doesn't have deposit disclosure I usually just tell the staff I can deposit this little cash, take it or leave it, should've declared deposit amount and I will find another hotel + complain to booking customer support. (Not in USA)

daft_pink 3y ago

I've had very similar experiences with Airbnb. Other deceitful line items: * Paying for a cleaning fee and then in the terms and conditions they charge additional fees if you don't clean the listing * Terms and conditions that add additional liability, binding arbitration, and all kinds of additional items that were never disclosed in the listing * The above items were never disclosed and vaguely referenced in some random fine print that was not provided before you booked and then airbnb will not issue a refund if you cancel. Honestly, the problem with airbnb is that they are a middleman that sits between the host and you. They really won't do much to help you when you call customer service, and they won't help you in ways most hotels would help you if you called and had a problem. It's really not a great experience as soon as you need customer service from them. The hosts add all kinds of nonsense rules when you show up or after you book that are never disclosed and they do nothing about it. There is even a news article where the CEO spent a bunch of time living in airbnbs and said he experienced all this nonsense, but still nothing is done about it. I really enjoy the authentic experiences at airbnb, but I've been burned too many times and think it's outrageous to spend thousands of dollars on high end airbnbs and pay fees for things like cleaning and then be expected to clean on my vacation or be subject to some nonsensical rule and worry my whole vacation. I'm really torn about whether it's a good service or whether it sucks but you should know what you're getting into.

rubyn00bie 3y ago

I’d just like to point out, because this isn’t obvious to some folks but all “fees” are bullshit charges. Fees are charges made up by the organizations writing the bill. I personally believe all fees should be illegal or included in the price. I don’t get to write -$5 on my bill because I feel like it; so, why can an organization do that in reverse?

jasfi 3y ago

I don't use AirBnB much, but one place I booked didn't exist when I got there. It was in a different country. I was lucky to find a place to stay that evening.

happytiger 3y ago

Startups that build their business on mere financialization of market arbitrage have a tendency become like the industry they sought to disrupt. I think it’s because ultimately it produces no value and simply brokers, and brokers tend to end up representing the financial interest of the more powerful or financially enriching party to the brokering equation. So, they have come to serve the landholder’s interests and no longer provide reliability to the consumer, and that is ultimately because the consumer is not the actual customer, merely the input to the product — nights booked per host. I think it's part of a larger trend. They say the U.S economy is going through a crazy tech makeover that is totally messing up how people work, hustle, munch, splurge, swipe, binge, and sleep, right? It's disruption and innvation of everything! Right? Sometimes I wonder if this tall tech tale we have been telling ourselves is more of a big scam — that maybe the last 30 years have been more of a waste of time than we realize and not many things that are huge have really changed in daily life in ways that deeply matter. People dreamed of jetpacks and got cat videos instead. We disrupted the hotel industry to have the hotel industry recreated. We disrupted taxis and got Uber taxis. Restaurants got disrupted to create virtual restaurants with delivery. We disrupted television to create Google TV, which is basically television + the Internet but not really that different. We disrupted retail so we could have Internet retail where the primary innovation is again just delivery, and everything is a race to the bottom -- side effects be damned. We’ve made efficiencies, massively, but sometimes I wonder why the real impact of all this "innovation and disruption" seems actually quite mild, and substantive disruption is so few and far between. In the end I wonder if we have made technological advancements, but we haven’t made much actual progress. We have such a bias for the new, it tends not to be a popular opinion. But so much of this technology innovation just leads us to create new versions of the same old, because the incentives are to financialize and exploit financial advantage and to reconcentrate wealth and fortune, not actually innovate. It's perhaps not the most thought out thesis, but I wonder about it, and whenever Airbnb comes up it brings this question up for me. I mean landing rockets changes the economics of space… we have innovation. It’s just that most of it just seems to be merely a greater efficiency of delivery masquerading as “disruption.”

tansan 3y ago
This is a loose thread, but your post reminded me of this article: https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/silicon-valley-civil-war https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/silicon-val... It's an interesting read and really made about think about how big of a game they are all playing.

listenallyall 3y ago

The entire business model of "resort fees" is to be able to advertise a low price on aggregation sites by hiding/obfuscating a significant portion of the total price. Of course it is deceptive and annoying, but companies have realized the additional revenue far outweighs the complaints and possible lost reservations. It's a shitty situation that nobody likes, but honestly in 2023 if you are booking any type of reservation online -- including the hotel's own site -- you need to read some of the small print. Complaining online on forums like this is meaningless. The only way to "fight back" is not to book, which may mean skipping the vacation, as much as that sucks. Hotels and travel sites have had record revenues and resort fees and have only increased and become more widespread in the past decade. The trend isn't going to reverse on its own while people continue to book at record rates.

emadda 3y ago

Side note: I released https://stay100.app https://stay100.app recently. It lets you view all stays in a grid with the final price you'll pay.

codegeek 3y ago

Booking a Hotel using AirBnB ? We have come full circle. Is AirBnB even worth considering these days other than the fact that you may want a kitchen/more space ?

fumar 3y ago
I typically see AirBnB's as the more expensive option. I travel frequently and have shifted back towards hotels. They are easier to book, peace of mind, points or rewards, concierge services, the list goes on. The main reason for an AirBnB is larger spaces, unique designs, and areas with low hotel density.

SergeAx 3y ago

But... Crowne Plaza is a hotel, and AirBnB is an aggregator of inexpensive apartments where hosts want make small buck now and then when the property is vacant, like a direct opposite of hotels?

andrei_says_ 3y ago

For me the question is: How do we out-legalize dark patterns and fraud? And legislate a competitive market? If that’s the FTC - what are next steps with the FTC? HN popularity is enough to cause traffic spikes that bring servers down. Can we have a “HN hug of life” instead - a collective nudge toward constructive legislation?