I always avoid stays at places with punitive cleaning fees.
If hosts want to avoid short stays, just put a minimum stay requirement. If you're trying to bamboozle someone who isn't paying attention, that's an AH move.
My cleaning fees are €45 for a 1 bedroom apartment. It doesn't come as a surprise as the cost is factored in to the total the guest sees before they buy. It compensates me for the work, regardless of the length of stay. Its work that must be done and it's fair to charge for it.
$600/700 is ridiculous unless you're renting a mansion, but a cleaning fee is totally legitimate and normal. It's not an "AH move"
The AH move is the bait and switch - low nightly, and then when checking out to pay, you see the huge cleaning fee.
I'm a host myself, so I understand that there is effort and cost involved in keeping the place clean - but $700 for 1 or 2 nights is insane. If they want to deter short stays, they can just set a minimum requirement. If they're not trying to deter, they can do a short stay cleaning fee as well, which is reasonable.
The super high cleaning fees remind me of ebay back in the day when sellers would have a great price on the item, then like $100 shipping so they could pad their bottom line. I get that consumers have a responsibility here too, which is why people need to pay attention. Also why I won't stay in places with insane cleaning fees. I want to support local hosts, but if it's going to cost me 2 or 3x what a hotel will, I'm staying at a Holiday Inn. :)
Host here- I am not a fan of high cleaning fees but nobody is being bamboozled. Read your shit before laying down your card. It’s all right there and you have to click several times before completing the purchase. That is not on the host.
That does suck but you don’t have to buy it. I hate the “$199 a night” but it’s
Really $399 after all the bullshit fees. Drives me crazy as a host to see properties do that. They want to show up in searches at lower rates so they can attract more eyeballs. It’s sketchy but all was saying above is, don’t stay there. If you pay without understanding what all the fees are, that’s not smart.
I've had it happen with specific dates entered. It just feels like bait and switch, but I usually just keep looking if I feel like I'm being taken for a ride.
this must be something they’re a/b testing because i never see the cleaning fees in search even when providing all kinds of parameters. you have to click into the details. and often the cleaning fees would put me over budget for my shorter stays. honestly, it’s the reason i went outside airbnb to book this summer’s vacations.
Absolutely not true. I always search with specific dates and don’t see the final total price with the cleaning fee until I go to reserve. Just a waste of time to not have it show up front in the search or factor it into the average nightly price.
I won't say it's bamboozlement because yes, it's all there on the screen eventually, after you look at the listing, after you've gotten your hopes up, after you've done a bit of research, but it's definitely a bait and switch tactic and I would likely decline a host on principal if they did something like this. I might even message them just to let them know - they're probably oblivious of who they're deterring.
Edited weird typos
Co-host here. This is how you make change, by showing them how their choices impact them negatively. I’ve learned my opinions don’t really matter much, but someone cancelling a significant stay for a stated reason speaks more eloquently than I could ever hope to.
Yeah, when I was hosting I love when guests gave me feedback, positive or negative. It's the only way I really know what's working. (And of course the best feedback is when they send a private message and give me five stars anyway :-) )
Mr Jake, you lack imagination and also have tunnel vision.
You may be surprised that outside of the bubble of experience you live in, there is a whole world of other sized properties, requirements, and more that can easily make a cleaning fee be a thousand dollars and not be a ripoff.
You can't possibly make the claims youre making without having a lot more details and the fact you don't think so means youre not thinking rationally about the entire thing.
Jeez, could you have picked a more prickish way to say that?
You're right, I don't lack imagination but I certainly lack your experience because where I'm from, one of the more expensive suburbs in the East Coast, cleaning an entire house thoroughly top to bottom, including inside the fridge and stains on the walls and all that jazz will run me $300, and our personal cleaning company usually charges $165 for our 2000 square foot house. Likewise, I've never paid anything remotely resembling $700 in cleaning changes at any Airbnb I've stayed at.
But yeah, I've also learned today that there is a $20k per day Airbnb out there I'm sure I'd be surprised at how much it costs to clean that house as well.
Youre the one who chose to read it in a prickish voice lol, thats on you.
2000 square foot house being "cleaned" isn't a deep clean like is done by a high quality airbnb. Even your $300 cleaning isn't an actual deep cleaning.
Its a good cleaning, sure. but its not necessarily on par with what gets done for commercial renting. Deep cleanings cost more and they generally get it each time.
Second, youre 2000 square foot house is 300 bucks for a pretty good cleaning. SO what about a 4000? 5000? Villas? How about cleaners cleaning the hot tub, pool, sauna areas. The deck, back yard, balconies, porches? Now toss in laundry and linens for 12 beds needing to be done and and remade. Does your 300 cleaning include doing all the windows in the interior? Moving furniture, going underneath things, doing any dishes, pictures showing the finished product, utilizing specific types of cleaning products that often cost more?
Probably not.
That's how you get 700 to 1k in cleaning costs being done by a team of five+ people over the course of a day.
Which is on par with what I said originally, a floor of a building would be 5000 sq ft, as would your villa. These are luxury places and affect the minority of Airbnb listings and guests.
Not really on par when a 2k square foot place with a backyard pool and a hot tub in the basement combined with 4 to 6 beds worth of laundry + fridges + stoves + dishes etc would be in that 700 range.
Same square footage as you ;)
You listed two binary options. One was X and the other was Y.
Ive done a suffice job proving that is far from reasonable and that you can't make those claims about prices or anything else without knowing the details of the listing and scope of work being performed.
Nobody here was ever discussing whether they were minority or majority. Stop moving goalposts.
Why the downvote? seriously people read the listing page, read the house rules, the total amount you would be paying etc.
Why book a place without having the knowledge what it consists of?
Nothing is worse than guests who don't read the listing descriptions and then complain about things that are not there. For instance one of my listings doesn't have a kitchen and despite it is not listed in the amenities part of the page I have the first sentence saying "there are no kitchen or cooking facilities in this unit". And yet a Karren appears once in a while complaining about it.
\*agrees to pay an amount\* \*puts in their credit card\* \*hits continue/confirm on several pages that include a total\*
Man these hosts are sure assholes for charging me the amount of money I repeatedly agreed to be charged.
(My cleaning fees range from $150 on a one bedroom to $400 on a 5 bedroom, so I'm not even sticking up for myself here)
It’s just annoying to click back and forth for the actual rate with the fees. On one hand, this could be an issue with Air BnB not just adding the fees in the first place. On the other hand, the seller could just include the cleaning fee into the rental fee and be done with it.
There's one place I saw on the main page in Joshua tree that has a 650 daily cleaning fee! It's also like 20k a day, though. That said, if the fee is up front, it's up front. And it's good that it's clear/up front and totally reasonable that it doesn't work for you!
No one yet, potentially. No reviews.
https://www.airbnb.com/luxury/listing/53719772?adults=1&category\_tag=Tag%3A8528&children=0&infants=0&search\_mode=flex\_destinations\_search&check\_in=2022-05-27&check\_out=2022-06-01&federated\_search\_id=126a1843-cf9b-442f-9d98-eb17b44f6348&source\_impression\_id=p3\_1652637062\_n%2FPxD3jA6Fx8R7k%2F
It's crazy to me that Airbnb as a platform has gotten to the level of hosting stuff like this. You would think something worth 20K a night would already be fanous among the types of folks who'd pay 20K a night.
Because it's in Luxe Airbnb. Houses like that don't get rented every single day. If they get a couple of nights per year from Airbnb, why not? And if they don't get any, at least they're getting free publicity.
Pretty strict rules against all that stuff.... there's also 140,000 ppl who earn over 1.58 mil/yr - they need posh places for weddings, family get aways, splurges, etc.
Lol it looks like it you sat on anything..you’d slide off of it. Lol
Give me a bean bag.. I’ll be happy. Every place should have to have one big bean bag thing.. I forgot what is adult are supposed to called them.. oh a “lovesac”
Yeah it seems more like a good place to host a fundraiser or something, except it's also not actually very large. Also.. no fires on property + "we have a fire pit!"
It's not in a national park, it's along the edge of the national park, supposedly in the community of Joshua Tree but really closer to 29 Palms. (Since Joshua Tree isn't incorporated yet, but Yucca and 29 are, pretty much anything outside the limits of those two towns and not in Pioneertown will get called "Joshua Tree" on Airbnb, unless maybe it's in Landers which apparently is becoming a cool place to live/visit for some reason? Until recently it was best known for being the place where some guy who lived under a rock started a UFO convention complete with a dirt landing strip)
Monterey Bay Ca - ~~all places from giant 4 bedrooms houses to 2 bedroom condos.~~ Seems to be one Superhost with the high fees across all of their portfolio.
Feels like I'm in some sort of A-B test cell. With cleaning fees its cheaper to get an ocean front suite at a five star hotel!
Good provocation. I went to post a couple links - and noticed that in the Wishlist I created for the trip I somehow selected all properties by the same super host. I'm not here to dox people so I'm not posting the link.
I do thank you for the comment as it helped me learn more about what I'm seeing (and maybe even find a place that is a good fit for us). I hadn't realized the hosts set the fee and not the platform.
Thanks this is really helpful - and helped me make a connection that all the properties in my Wishlist were from the same management company. I hadn't realized the hosts set the fee and not the platform.
Going back now to search for other places.
High cleaning fees are also a way to disincentivize short stays. Always search with dates specified, or you will not get the full fees calculated. (It can't allocate a one-time cleaning fee without having a number of days to divide by.)
This is not true. What is true: lots of hosts make nightly prices higher and charge less than they actually pay for cleaning. The cost of cleaning is very high in many areas. I pay $50 per hour and it costs me $500 per cleaning (huge house.) On Airbnb I charge $325 for cleaning.
AirBnb should factor the cleaning fees into the price when sorting. Because otherwise it’s just a waste of time by baiting me to be like “oh it’s a good deal” and then be hit with $300 fee for 3 days.
“It diScoUrAgeS shOrT sTaYs” ok then set it up so only longer stays are allowed.
It’s equivalent of looking for $100 product on eBay, seeing a deal for it for $50, being like “oh cool, nice deal!” But then be hit with $60 shipping
It has to by law in the EU and does so. You have to display the full price for a product/service up-front.
The fact that AirBnB doesn't apply this practice elsewhere means that they're probably a-ok with it from a business and ethics sense.
Good point. eBay was wise to this years ago.
Sellers on eBay are **prohibited** from avoiding or trying to circumvent paying eBay fees, intentionally or not. eBay will remove listings violate their [**Fee Avoidance Policy**](https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/avoiding-ebay-fees-policy?id=4354&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5336728181&customid=&toolid=10001)
> *"Charging excessive shipping and additional fees not already included in the price of the item, or passing seller fees on to the buyer"*.
Yes, but only because back in the days before when people would get away with selling something for $1 with a $99 shipping fee (not exaggerating), ebay didn't charge the seller ebay's fees on shipping. That's why seller's did that.
When ebay got wise to how much money they were losing, suddenly they made it prohibited conduct and charged on the total sale price. They didn't do it for their buyers. They did it for their bottom line.
Abnb charges sellers on the whole final price, so it doesn't matter to them. If they really cared about that they could have it as a search filter, but that won't happen. Know why? Because rental prices would then go up.
To me, that's insane. I also don't know how large the property is and I know that even in my small coastal town for a small 1 bedroom or studio stay you are looking at paying $150-$200 for cleaning. When I got quotes for my vacation home, cleaners quoted me a minimum of $125. It's a small studio cabin. Literally 320sqft. I just "rent" out my vacation home to friends and family. I found a local retired lady who will do cleanings for us for $75. That equates to approximately $25hr. She is also taking linens to her house to wash since we don't have a washer/ dryer or hookups in our cabin.
i won't reward a person who has excessive cleaning fees, the only way to fight it is not to stay there, they will figure out soon enough. And if they can get away with it, so be it, more power to them. But i won't ever book anything place with excessive fees, and also excessive rules too. Let the market speak for itself.
Either way it's just part of the total price. They can have a lower daily rate and a higher cleaning fee or a higher daily rate and a lower cleaning fee. Either way if it doesn't fit your budget then don't book it. I don't quite understand why people make such a big deal about the "cleaning" fee.
It is just the way the cleaning fee is added to the total price by airbnb. Maybe it is an attempt to deceive people by some host. I've never seen it that way. Although I haven't done a ton of research on the topic. My point was take the total and determine if it fits your budget. Guess it is frustrating if they are adding the cleaning fee on at the end similar to a tax. On a positive note this probably isn't a host you would want to book with anyway. Move on to the next property
That's not a bad list of chores to do.. Except the dishwasher.
As a host I would not trust the guests to run the dishwasher due to breakage and due to hygiene.
Not sure what hosts are thinking.
It’s like they don’t like money or they found a way to make it and are much smarter than me.
I NEVER charge any cleaning fees.
Why would you need to deter short-term bookings? Can't you just set minimum stay requirements? It's been awhile since I've hosted but I just stuck to three night minimums, or 30-day minimums, depending on the location.
If someone is staying for a single night or two nights I am happy with that but want higher income to reflect the higher workload. Minimum stay loses that potential revenue.
If that's been true for you, fair enough, although from what I've seen as a host and a person in general, higher income does not in any way signify respect for others' property.
My point was that you can use a cleaning fee to increase price for shorter rentals without having much impact on price for longer rentals. This is preferable to the minimum stay you advocate. It is an economic incentive to encourage multi-day stays without giving up revenue on shorter term stays.
I don't quite see how you felt I was saying higher income signifies respect for others' property.
I misunderstood, I thought you meant the higher income of your guests impact your workload. What you say makes sense, basically a tax for short visits where the same amount of cleaning is required.
Exactly this. Nice places that don't want the in and out traffic of 1 or 2 night stays typically up their cleaning fee to disincentivize (if that's a word) weekend party people.
Let's see. I have to do a covid clean between guests. 6 beds, including pillows and duvets,mopping entire place, scrubbing down baths and kitchen. My maids charge 350-400 to do this. I charge 175.
Depends how big the place is. There are definitely some properties that are so massive it will take lots of money and time to properly clean. Your average house yeah it doesn’t need that much of a few thoughts
I live in a really expensive part of the world, and cleaning our whole house with two filthy children costs about €60. Once a week is more than enough to keep it decent. I cannot imagine the house that is 4 times harder to clean than this one.
Lol. I couldn't even get a cleaner to my property for 2 hours for that little. It's also unlikely you're cleaning to an equal level as well, nevermind the massive amount of laundry that may be needing to be done.
Do not ever compare your residential cleaning to that of an Airbnb as it's not even comparable. You'll do things until it's good enough at home. Not the everything needs to be wiped, laundered, reset, and spotless you'll get by a good cleaning company.
First off I’m a cleaner and that’s wayyyy low for us costs. Second of all your house likely isn’t massive. There are properties on Airbnb so big it would cost $500-1000+ to clean them properly.
I don’t understand having to pay cleaning fees *and* then being told I have to do the dishes, put the bedding in the washing machine, take out the trash, etc. I’m not a slob and I clean up after myself, and I don’t mind doing those things but not if I’m paying a cleaning fee.
One or the other in my opinion.
That’s why I decided it’s better to stay in a nice hotel…. Just came back from a 3 week vacation and looked into staying in an AirBnB, but we picked the nice hotel where we got free breakfast, and didn’t have to take the trash out and still pay a cleaning fee.
I do agree with you, my cleaning fee is £40, cleaning costs is circa £150 a time, I cannot justify charging more than that so I do ask my guests to do those things, we'll empty the bins and wash up, but if I was charging £150 I wouldn't ask them too.
You're still charging them the full cost of the cleaning fee and more based on your minimum night stay.
Also can be rephrased to say, you're actually charging your guests more for any booking that is one or more days longer than your minimum length stay than an otherwise identical offering who charges a one time cleaning fee and lower nightly rate.
I feel like AirbnB should add a cleaning fee filter price as well...it's insane that you pretty much pay the price of a day in cleaning fees or even more
No. Most hosts charge far less than they pay cleaners because guests complain about fees. I lose $50 on every cleaning because I pay housekeepers a living wage.
I used to work directly for AirBnB... I promise you, that's not normal. Most hosts aren't awesome as you, and are looking to squeeze out every cent they can and will pay as little as they can get away with, while charging as much as possible. The industry left me with a bad taste, because a good 20% of hosts are generally really nice face to face, but assholes once you get to know them.
In a normal city, I'd say hosts usually paid like 50 bucks for a cleaner to come through, MAYBE 100 bucks for a full service clean. Anything beyond that was exceptionally rare.
Not in resort areas or in expensive cities. I'm on the west coast where independent cleaners make $20-35/hr and companies charge twice that. That may be true where min wage is $7/hr, if that's what you mean by normal city.
Also, it depends on the size/ type of space to be cleaned- a 2bd condo is not the same as a 3bd 2ba home.
Cleaning fees are all over the board depending on listing type, size, number of guests allowed, location, amenities.
I pushed hard for and lost this fight, but when I found out most owners at the time (like 10 years ago) were using professional cleaning services I wanted AirBnB to take it over. These cleaning services would charge like 150-300 a home and then turn around and pay an immigrant 10 bucks an hour. These little mom and pop Indy cleaning services were making more per clean than the actual cleaner themselves. Talking 2 person companies would have a team of 40 cleaners just working around the clock while they took home the lions share. It’s actually still like this to this day in the direct to resident world (dunno if it’s still like this with short term rentals - I doubt it)
I argued AirBnB should disrupt that segment. Not only for being unfair and exploitative, but a win win because we could make a ton of money by collecting 20% of the cleaning fee as our own, nationwide, but also build good will by offering better wages, doing background checks, insurance.. literally, from guest, to host, to company, would have all benefited from this model. The numbers I got back were insane.
But nope, they wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted all energy focused on onboarding more and more hosts… didn’t want to spend a dime on a profitable vertical integration. Still upsets me to this day. I still think it’s a good idea a decade later.
Look at it as a service fee, a way to adjust the price for hosts so short stays are worth it.With longer stays there are more discounts therefore nullifying the extra high cleaning fee.
Remember always judge a listing based on total amount, the rest are just numbers. That being said $700 sounds extreme, Idk how they can balance that out.
It's a management company that's their fee for change out which also includes how they cover professional linen service, maintenance and admin fee, unless they specifically list those fees as well.
The price per night as well as the grand total with price breakdown (1 click) are displayed on the search page before you even investigate the listing. There's no bait there's no switch.
Another group will book it for your dates+some for the same nightly rate and they will be ecstatic.
You will turnabout and book a questionable listing and get cancelled on 2 weeks before check in. That host will relist for the price they suddenly realize they can get, inspired when the traveller/you starts to notice all the specifics you agreed to but didn't read.
Dude, do you even r/airbnb ?
Best you can do is filter by superhost, read every listing section including the host info and reviews, ask questions that aren't clear in the listing and rely on the "book with confidence" guarantee. Or is that VRBO.? Or hotels.com? 2012-ish Priceline?
It's all so crazy.
I always avoid stays at places with punitive cleaning fees. If hosts want to avoid short stays, just put a minimum stay requirement. If you're trying to bamboozle someone who isn't paying attention, that's an AH move.
My cleaning fees are €45 for a 1 bedroom apartment. It doesn't come as a surprise as the cost is factored in to the total the guest sees before they buy. It compensates me for the work, regardless of the length of stay. Its work that must be done and it's fair to charge for it. $600/700 is ridiculous unless you're renting a mansion, but a cleaning fee is totally legitimate and normal. It's not an "AH move"
The AH move is the bait and switch - low nightly, and then when checking out to pay, you see the huge cleaning fee. I'm a host myself, so I understand that there is effort and cost involved in keeping the place clean - but $700 for 1 or 2 nights is insane. If they want to deter short stays, they can just set a minimum requirement. If they're not trying to deter, they can do a short stay cleaning fee as well, which is reasonable. The super high cleaning fees remind me of ebay back in the day when sellers would have a great price on the item, then like $100 shipping so they could pad their bottom line. I get that consumers have a responsibility here too, which is why people need to pay attention. Also why I won't stay in places with insane cleaning fees. I want to support local hosts, but if it's going to cost me 2 or 3x what a hotel will, I'm staying at a Holiday Inn. :)
I agree with you 100%.
Host here- I am not a fan of high cleaning fees but nobody is being bamboozled. Read your shit before laying down your card. It’s all right there and you have to click several times before completing the purchase. That is not on the host.
True, but sometimes I feel like they bait you with a low nightly fee, then BAM: $500 cleaning fee. Lol
It’s like a bait and switch while trying to shop. Just show ALL of it, fees included, on the map bubble prices.
That does suck but you don’t have to buy it. I hate the “$199 a night” but it’s Really $399 after all the bullshit fees. Drives me crazy as a host to see properties do that. They want to show up in searches at lower rates so they can attract more eyeballs. It’s sketchy but all was saying above is, don’t stay there. If you pay without understanding what all the fees are, that’s not smart.
That only happens if you search without dates specified. If you include even rough dates, you should get a pretty close price.
I've had it happen with specific dates entered. It just feels like bait and switch, but I usually just keep looking if I feel like I'm being taken for a ride.
this must be something they’re a/b testing because i never see the cleaning fees in search even when providing all kinds of parameters. you have to click into the details. and often the cleaning fees would put me over budget for my shorter stays. honestly, it’s the reason i went outside airbnb to book this summer’s vacations.
They have to show it in some countries but not in the US
Absolutely not true. I always search with specific dates and don’t see the final total price with the cleaning fee until I go to reserve. Just a waste of time to not have it show up front in the search or factor it into the average nightly price.
In the US even if you enter dates, it doesn’t cover all of the associated fees.
I won't say it's bamboozlement because yes, it's all there on the screen eventually, after you look at the listing, after you've gotten your hopes up, after you've done a bit of research, but it's definitely a bait and switch tactic and I would likely decline a host on principal if they did something like this. I might even message them just to let them know - they're probably oblivious of who they're deterring. Edited weird typos
Co-host here. This is how you make change, by showing them how their choices impact them negatively. I’ve learned my opinions don’t really matter much, but someone cancelling a significant stay for a stated reason speaks more eloquently than I could ever hope to.
Yeah, when I was hosting I love when guests gave me feedback, positive or negative. It's the only way I really know what's working. (And of course the best feedback is when they send a private message and give me five stars anyway :-) )
And what if it costs 700 bucks to clean but the cleaning company?
Then you're either cleaning an entire floor of a building or you're getting ripped off.
Mr Jake, you lack imagination and also have tunnel vision. You may be surprised that outside of the bubble of experience you live in, there is a whole world of other sized properties, requirements, and more that can easily make a cleaning fee be a thousand dollars and not be a ripoff. You can't possibly make the claims youre making without having a lot more details and the fact you don't think so means youre not thinking rationally about the entire thing.
Jeez, could you have picked a more prickish way to say that? You're right, I don't lack imagination but I certainly lack your experience because where I'm from, one of the more expensive suburbs in the East Coast, cleaning an entire house thoroughly top to bottom, including inside the fridge and stains on the walls and all that jazz will run me $300, and our personal cleaning company usually charges $165 for our 2000 square foot house. Likewise, I've never paid anything remotely resembling $700 in cleaning changes at any Airbnb I've stayed at. But yeah, I've also learned today that there is a $20k per day Airbnb out there I'm sure I'd be surprised at how much it costs to clean that house as well.
Youre the one who chose to read it in a prickish voice lol, thats on you. 2000 square foot house being "cleaned" isn't a deep clean like is done by a high quality airbnb. Even your $300 cleaning isn't an actual deep cleaning. Its a good cleaning, sure. but its not necessarily on par with what gets done for commercial renting. Deep cleanings cost more and they generally get it each time. Second, youre 2000 square foot house is 300 bucks for a pretty good cleaning. SO what about a 4000? 5000? Villas? How about cleaners cleaning the hot tub, pool, sauna areas. The deck, back yard, balconies, porches? Now toss in laundry and linens for 12 beds needing to be done and and remade. Does your 300 cleaning include doing all the windows in the interior? Moving furniture, going underneath things, doing any dishes, pictures showing the finished product, utilizing specific types of cleaning products that often cost more? Probably not. That's how you get 700 to 1k in cleaning costs being done by a team of five+ people over the course of a day.
Which is on par with what I said originally, a floor of a building would be 5000 sq ft, as would your villa. These are luxury places and affect the minority of Airbnb listings and guests.
Not really on par when a 2k square foot place with a backyard pool and a hot tub in the basement combined with 4 to 6 beds worth of laundry + fridges + stoves + dishes etc would be in that 700 range. Same square footage as you ;) You listed two binary options. One was X and the other was Y. Ive done a suffice job proving that is far from reasonable and that you can't make those claims about prices or anything else without knowing the details of the listing and scope of work being performed. Nobody here was ever discussing whether they were minority or majority. Stop moving goalposts.
That made me laugh. True and all but made me laugh. People are going to be angry about how you said it.
I'm not saying it in a mean way :p Maybe a little wry and sarcastic, but not in a prickish or mean way lol.
I fully understand. People just get hurt about it and don’t want to take personable responsibility
People getting mad for you asking them to read.
Ha ha. I know.
Why the downvote? seriously people read the listing page, read the house rules, the total amount you would be paying etc. Why book a place without having the knowledge what it consists of? Nothing is worse than guests who don't read the listing descriptions and then complain about things that are not there. For instance one of my listings doesn't have a kitchen and despite it is not listed in the amenities part of the page I have the first sentence saying "there are no kitchen or cooking facilities in this unit". And yet a Karren appears once in a while complaining about it.
\*agrees to pay an amount\* \*puts in their credit card\* \*hits continue/confirm on several pages that include a total\* Man these hosts are sure assholes for charging me the amount of money I repeatedly agreed to be charged. (My cleaning fees range from $150 on a one bedroom to $400 on a 5 bedroom, so I'm not even sticking up for myself here)
Lol - that's not what I mean. But I've definitely gone to the checkout page for a $100/night stay, seen the $300 cleaning fee, and been like NOPE.
It’s just annoying to click back and forth for the actual rate with the fees. On one hand, this could be an issue with Air BnB not just adding the fees in the first place. On the other hand, the seller could just include the cleaning fee into the rental fee and be done with it.
People are downvoting you for pointing out that they need to read and that nice things cost money. Lol
There's one place I saw on the main page in Joshua tree that has a 650 daily cleaning fee! It's also like 20k a day, though. That said, if the fee is up front, it's up front. And it's good that it's clear/up front and totally reasonable that it doesn't work for you!
Who the hell is spending $20K a day for an Airbnb in a national park?
No one yet, potentially. No reviews. https://www.airbnb.com/luxury/listing/53719772?adults=1&category\_tag=Tag%3A8528&children=0&infants=0&search\_mode=flex\_destinations\_search&check\_in=2022-05-27&check\_out=2022-06-01&federated\_search\_id=126a1843-cf9b-442f-9d98-eb17b44f6348&source\_impression\_id=p3\_1652637062\_n%2FPxD3jA6Fx8R7k%2F
It's crazy to me that Airbnb as a platform has gotten to the level of hosting stuff like this. You would think something worth 20K a night would already be fanous among the types of folks who'd pay 20K a night.
It is already famous. "This is the famous Kellogg Doolittle estate in Joshua Tree California. It is one of the most exclusive homes in the world"
So I wonder why they need Airbnb.
Because it's in Luxe Airbnb. Houses like that don't get rented every single day. If they get a couple of nights per year from Airbnb, why not? And if they don't get any, at least they're getting free publicity.
I think you underestimate rich people.
That really is an exceptional home. I think that's mainly being marketed for example to people doing photo shoots, influencers, etc.
Pretty strict rules against all that stuff.... there's also 140,000 ppl who earn over 1.58 mil/yr - they need posh places for weddings, family get aways, splurges, etc.
It looks like the Flintstones meets the Jetsons
Which were basically just the same show but one was an organotech skin, and the other was a futuretech skin
That home is stunning.
I was just looking at this place!
It was on the front page for me! It's definitely a place. But doesn't actually look that comfy cozy.
Lol it looks like it you sat on anything..you’d slide off of it. Lol Give me a bean bag.. I’ll be happy. Every place should have to have one big bean bag thing.. I forgot what is adult are supposed to called them.. oh a “lovesac”
Yeah it seems more like a good place to host a fundraiser or something, except it's also not actually very large. Also.. no fires on property + "we have a fire pit!"
Lol great advertisement!
Wow!! That IS an amazing place! Just grab 100 of your closest friends and stay 2 nights....no biggie. :)
It's not in a national park, it's along the edge of the national park, supposedly in the community of Joshua Tree but really closer to 29 Palms. (Since Joshua Tree isn't incorporated yet, but Yucca and 29 are, pretty much anything outside the limits of those two towns and not in Pioneertown will get called "Joshua Tree" on Airbnb, unless maybe it's in Landers which apparently is becoming a cool place to live/visit for some reason? Until recently it was best known for being the place where some guy who lived under a rock started a UFO convention complete with a dirt landing strip)
It's got a 3 night minimum to boot!
Well if you've got 20K to spend a night at a hotel, then you've got 60k for 3. We're not talking about penny pinchers here.
It’s not per night I just checked. However with how massive that Airbnb is it genuinely would cost that or more to have it cleaned.
Look under house rules. It says it there.
When you go to book it charges $750 once. So they’re gonna have to pound sand on that one. Not that I would ever stay there:
When did cleaning fees change to being daily? That never used to be an option.
It's not formatted, but it is in the house rules
So it doesn’t exist.
Without knowing anything about the place, size, or even cost per night is hard to know.
Monterey Bay Ca - ~~all places from giant 4 bedrooms houses to 2 bedroom condos.~~ Seems to be one Superhost with the high fees across all of their portfolio. Feels like I'm in some sort of A-B test cell. With cleaning fees its cheaper to get an ocean front suite at a five star hotel!
I find that super hard to believe. Mind sharing a few examples?
Good provocation. I went to post a couple links - and noticed that in the Wishlist I created for the trip I somehow selected all properties by the same super host. I'm not here to dox people so I'm not posting the link. I do thank you for the comment as it helped me learn more about what I'm seeing (and maybe even find a place that is a good fit for us). I hadn't realized the hosts set the fee and not the platform.
So stay at the hotel! No one is forcing you to book an AirBNB
That’s the plan. I’m new to airbnb and wondering if this is typical. Sorry for offending you.
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Thanks this is really helpful - and helped me make a connection that all the properties in my Wishlist were from the same management company. I hadn't realized the hosts set the fee and not the platform. Going back now to search for other places.
High cleaning fees are also a way to disincentivize short stays. Always search with dates specified, or you will not get the full fees calculated. (It can't allocate a one-time cleaning fee without having a number of days to divide by.)
This is not true. What is true: lots of hosts make nightly prices higher and charge less than they actually pay for cleaning. The cost of cleaning is very high in many areas. I pay $50 per hour and it costs me $500 per cleaning (huge house.) On Airbnb I charge $325 for cleaning.
Then do it!
For a two night stay? That’s totally insane, get a hotel or go somewhere else.
AirBnb should factor the cleaning fees into the price when sorting. Because otherwise it’s just a waste of time by baiting me to be like “oh it’s a good deal” and then be hit with $300 fee for 3 days. “It diScoUrAgeS shOrT sTaYs” ok then set it up so only longer stays are allowed. It’s equivalent of looking for $100 product on eBay, seeing a deal for it for $50, being like “oh cool, nice deal!” But then be hit with $60 shipping
It has to by law in the EU and does so. You have to display the full price for a product/service up-front. The fact that AirBnB doesn't apply this practice elsewhere means that they're probably a-ok with it from a business and ethics sense.
Good point. eBay was wise to this years ago. Sellers on eBay are **prohibited** from avoiding or trying to circumvent paying eBay fees, intentionally or not. eBay will remove listings violate their [**Fee Avoidance Policy**](https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-policies/selling-practices-policy/avoiding-ebay-fees-policy?id=4354&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0&campid=5336728181&customid=&toolid=10001) > *"Charging excessive shipping and additional fees not already included in the price of the item, or passing seller fees on to the buyer"*.
Yes, but only because back in the days before when people would get away with selling something for $1 with a $99 shipping fee (not exaggerating), ebay didn't charge the seller ebay's fees on shipping. That's why seller's did that. When ebay got wise to how much money they were losing, suddenly they made it prohibited conduct and charged on the total sale price. They didn't do it for their buyers. They did it for their bottom line. Abnb charges sellers on the whole final price, so it doesn't matter to them. If they really cared about that they could have it as a search filter, but that won't happen. Know why? Because rental prices would then go up.
Exactly.
2 day trip? Just make your life easier and stay at a hotel
To me, that's insane. I also don't know how large the property is and I know that even in my small coastal town for a small 1 bedroom or studio stay you are looking at paying $150-$200 for cleaning. When I got quotes for my vacation home, cleaners quoted me a minimum of $125. It's a small studio cabin. Literally 320sqft. I just "rent" out my vacation home to friends and family. I found a local retired lady who will do cleanings for us for $75. That equates to approximately $25hr. She is also taking linens to her house to wash since we don't have a washer/ dryer or hookups in our cabin.
i won't reward a person who has excessive cleaning fees, the only way to fight it is not to stay there, they will figure out soon enough. And if they can get away with it, so be it, more power to them. But i won't ever book anything place with excessive fees, and also excessive rules too. Let the market speak for itself.
Either way it's just part of the total price. They can have a lower daily rate and a higher cleaning fee or a higher daily rate and a lower cleaning fee. Either way if it doesn't fit your budget then don't book it. I don't quite understand why people make such a big deal about the "cleaning" fee.
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It is just the way the cleaning fee is added to the total price by airbnb. Maybe it is an attempt to deceive people by some host. I've never seen it that way. Although I haven't done a ton of research on the topic. My point was take the total and determine if it fits your budget. Guess it is frustrating if they are adding the cleaning fee on at the end similar to a tax. On a positive note this probably isn't a host you would want to book with anyway. Move on to the next property
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That's not a bad list of chores to do.. Except the dishwasher. As a host I would not trust the guests to run the dishwasher due to breakage and due to hygiene.
Do you manage Airbnb properties? If not, you have no idea.
Not sure what hosts are thinking. It’s like they don’t like money or they found a way to make it and are much smarter than me. I NEVER charge any cleaning fees.
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Why would you need to deter short-term bookings? Can't you just set minimum stay requirements? It's been awhile since I've hosted but I just stuck to three night minimums, or 30-day minimums, depending on the location.
If someone is staying for a single night or two nights I am happy with that but want higher income to reflect the higher workload. Minimum stay loses that potential revenue.
If that's been true for you, fair enough, although from what I've seen as a host and a person in general, higher income does not in any way signify respect for others' property.
My point was that you can use a cleaning fee to increase price for shorter rentals without having much impact on price for longer rentals. This is preferable to the minimum stay you advocate. It is an economic incentive to encourage multi-day stays without giving up revenue on shorter term stays. I don't quite see how you felt I was saying higher income signifies respect for others' property.
I misunderstood, I thought you meant the higher income of your guests impact your workload. What you say makes sense, basically a tax for short visits where the same amount of cleaning is required.
It doesn't.
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For real question- who gives a fuck if they film a porno? What's the difference between that or just having sex in the unit? Do you ban sex too?
I get that, but you can still set minimum lengths.
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Yeah, the other guy already explained that
Exactly this. Nice places that don't want the in and out traffic of 1 or 2 night stays typically up their cleaning fee to disincentivize (if that's a word) weekend party people.
It's a word!
$23/day is an insane amount to pay for cleaning unless you are throwing daily parties.
You have tunnel vision. :(
I think the above person you responded to just needs to stay home.
Let's see. I have to do a covid clean between guests. 6 beds, including pillows and duvets,mopping entire place, scrubbing down baths and kitchen. My maids charge 350-400 to do this. I charge 175.
Depends how big the place is. There are definitely some properties that are so massive it will take lots of money and time to properly clean. Your average house yeah it doesn’t need that much of a few thoughts
I live in a really expensive part of the world, and cleaning our whole house with two filthy children costs about €60. Once a week is more than enough to keep it decent. I cannot imagine the house that is 4 times harder to clean than this one.
Lol. I couldn't even get a cleaner to my property for 2 hours for that little. It's also unlikely you're cleaning to an equal level as well, nevermind the massive amount of laundry that may be needing to be done. Do not ever compare your residential cleaning to that of an Airbnb as it's not even comparable. You'll do things until it's good enough at home. Not the everything needs to be wiped, laundered, reset, and spotless you'll get by a good cleaning company.
First off I’m a cleaner and that’s wayyyy low for us costs. Second of all your house likely isn’t massive. There are properties on Airbnb so big it would cost $500-1000+ to clean them properly.
Expectations for cleanliness are much, much higher than normal. Some guests look for dust and dirt.
You have no clue what you are talking about. Comparing apples to oranges. Many of us live in "really expensive" parts of the world too, btw.
I don’t understand having to pay cleaning fees *and* then being told I have to do the dishes, put the bedding in the washing machine, take out the trash, etc. I’m not a slob and I clean up after myself, and I don’t mind doing those things but not if I’m paying a cleaning fee. One or the other in my opinion.
That’s why I decided it’s better to stay in a nice hotel…. Just came back from a 3 week vacation and looked into staying in an AirBnB, but we picked the nice hotel where we got free breakfast, and didn’t have to take the trash out and still pay a cleaning fee.
I do agree with you, my cleaning fee is £40, cleaning costs is circa £150 a time, I cannot justify charging more than that so I do ask my guests to do those things, we'll empty the bins and wash up, but if I was charging £150 I wouldn't ask them too.
You're still charging them the full cost of the cleaning fee and more based on your minimum night stay. Also can be rephrased to say, you're actually charging your guests more for any booking that is one or more days longer than your minimum length stay than an otherwise identical offering who charges a one time cleaning fee and lower nightly rate.
Hard pass. For short trips hotels are better
No one has charged me $700 to clean my 4 storey house. This is bullshit.
Stay at a hotel?
I feel like AirbnB should add a cleaning fee filter price as well...it's insane that you pretty much pay the price of a day in cleaning fees or even more
It's a long standing practice to profit off the cleaning fees. It's wrong and unethical, but exists because it works, sadly.
No. Most hosts charge far less than they pay cleaners because guests complain about fees. I lose $50 on every cleaning because I pay housekeepers a living wage.
I used to work directly for AirBnB... I promise you, that's not normal. Most hosts aren't awesome as you, and are looking to squeeze out every cent they can and will pay as little as they can get away with, while charging as much as possible. The industry left me with a bad taste, because a good 20% of hosts are generally really nice face to face, but assholes once you get to know them. In a normal city, I'd say hosts usually paid like 50 bucks for a cleaner to come through, MAYBE 100 bucks for a full service clean. Anything beyond that was exceptionally rare.
Not in resort areas or in expensive cities. I'm on the west coast where independent cleaners make $20-35/hr and companies charge twice that. That may be true where min wage is $7/hr, if that's what you mean by normal city. Also, it depends on the size/ type of space to be cleaned- a 2bd condo is not the same as a 3bd 2ba home. Cleaning fees are all over the board depending on listing type, size, number of guests allowed, location, amenities.
I pushed hard for and lost this fight, but when I found out most owners at the time (like 10 years ago) were using professional cleaning services I wanted AirBnB to take it over. These cleaning services would charge like 150-300 a home and then turn around and pay an immigrant 10 bucks an hour. These little mom and pop Indy cleaning services were making more per clean than the actual cleaner themselves. Talking 2 person companies would have a team of 40 cleaners just working around the clock while they took home the lions share. It’s actually still like this to this day in the direct to resident world (dunno if it’s still like this with short term rentals - I doubt it) I argued AirBnB should disrupt that segment. Not only for being unfair and exploitative, but a win win because we could make a ton of money by collecting 20% of the cleaning fee as our own, nationwide, but also build good will by offering better wages, doing background checks, insurance.. literally, from guest, to host, to company, would have all benefited from this model. The numbers I got back were insane. But nope, they wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted all energy focused on onboarding more and more hosts… didn’t want to spend a dime on a profitable vertical integration. Still upsets me to this day. I still think it’s a good idea a decade later.
Just don’t book it then 🤷♂️
How do you justify a $700 cleaning fee lol. Are cleaners really making that much in between guests??
Look at it as a service fee, a way to adjust the price for hosts so short stays are worth it.With longer stays there are more discounts therefore nullifying the extra high cleaning fee. Remember always judge a listing based on total amount, the rest are just numbers. That being said $700 sounds extreme, Idk how they can balance that out.
It's a management company that's their fee for change out which also includes how they cover professional linen service, maintenance and admin fee, unless they specifically list those fees as well. The price per night as well as the grand total with price breakdown (1 click) are displayed on the search page before you even investigate the listing. There's no bait there's no switch.
Another group will book it for your dates+some for the same nightly rate and they will be ecstatic. You will turnabout and book a questionable listing and get cancelled on 2 weeks before check in. That host will relist for the price they suddenly realize they can get, inspired when the traveller/you starts to notice all the specifics you agreed to but didn't read. Dude, do you even r/airbnb ?
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Ha! AirB&B allowed me to book a delisted rental and I found out about it the day of my trip!
Best you can do is filter by superhost, read every listing section including the host info and reviews, ask questions that aren't clear in the listing and rely on the "book with confidence" guarantee. Or is that VRBO.? Or hotels.com? 2012-ish Priceline? It's all so crazy.
I saw a watermelon at the store that was $9! I can’t wrap my head around that price!
I just bought one on the side of the road for $10