Cleaning fees exist to charge a fixed fee for a reservation, regardless of the number of days. There's more overhead for a reservation beyond just "cleaning".
The most consumer friendly thing would be for AirBnB to just explicitly have a fixed "stay" fee and a per-day fee.
That said, AirBnB's site shows the total cost for a stay when browsing, so I don't really see this as particularly deceptive. I don't care how the host itemizes the bill as long as I know what I'm paying when selecting a place.
It only shows total price in markets where it is legally required to. Meaning they took the time to implement the feature and actively decided to be shitty to their customers when they are given the choice.
> While it is certainly true that a central objective of for-profit corporations is to make money, modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not do so. For-profit corporations, with ownership approval, support a wide variety of charitable causes, and it is not at all uncommon for such corporations to further humanitarian and other altruistic objectives. Many examples come readily to mind. So long as its owners agree, a for-profit corporation may take costly pollution-control and energy-conservation measures that go beyond what the law requires. A for-profit corporation that operates facilities in other countries may exceed the requirements of local law regarding working conditions and benefits. If for-profit corporations may pursue such worthy objectives, there is no apparent reason why they may not further religious objectives as well.
It would be nice for me as customer to see what sorts of objectives any given company values: a sort of barcode scanner / brand scanner that travels up the tree of parent companies and returns the objectives for each one.
Such companies would fire all employees directly unless they are required to complete the current quarter. I haven't seen many sustainable businesses completely giving up all revenue for all future quarters just to improve the current quarter. It would be a very poor business decision. It sounds like a meme and I'll name it Enterprise Kamikaze.
Companies obviously do care (a lot) about their current quarterly results. But if they literally did not care about what happens in the future, they could cut a ton of costs. They probably have a ton of engineering and marketing that isn't essential to the next quarterly earnings.
> That said, AirBnB's site shows the total cost for a stay when browsing
This depends on which site you’re browsing on. I don’t think US does this, but you can browse the AU or Canada version and set your price in $USD because those geographic “editions” have to post the all-in cost up-front.
Yes, and I think the only exception might be California where it is now required that prices include previously hidden fees such as "resort fees" (and "landing fees", etc for airlines).
I haven't checked the platform lately but from what I remember the first search view did not show the total (plus cleaning) fee and only when you advance to book you would see the final cost.
While not a scam, it definitely feels like a dark pattern.
AFAIK everyone in e-commerce tries to have consistent pricing throughout the whole flow - otherwise people notice difference between pages and drop off.
Stuff that you explained can happen because initially IP-to-Country isn't 100% precise (later in booking/checkout stage you provide country and then it knows for sure).
Other case I've seen is that meta (comparison) website you came from showed you prices without including everything even though they should've.
And then booking platform tries to transition you into correct pricing in between their pages.
Agreed. That said, not that I stay at AirBnbs more than rarely but there's definitely been an ooching in both the per-stay fees and the expectations for cleaning. I suspect some of this is that housekeeping services have probably gone up in cost a lot. I thought my housekeeper was sort of an expensive luxury. It is but after talking to some people, the rates I pay are actually pretty modest.
But to many other comments, there's probably at least some element of advertising a relatively low nightly price and tacking on a stay fee that may not be as immediately obvious.
Airbnb sellers can charge a fixed fee directly by setting minimum stay lengths or by charging different nightly rates based on the length of stay (e.g., weekly and monthly stay discounts).
What if I just want to stay 3 days and I’m willing to pay the fixed fee anyway?
What I do see is some booking automation that will dynamically set minimum stay lengths to avoid filling, say, a 3 day gap with a 1 or 2 day booking if it’s far enough out and set minimum stays to the duration of the gap.
I rent out our cabin. If you stay 1 day or 7 days, it's the same amount of work for me and same costs in cleaning. That's impossible to price fairly without having a flat fee.
In my market the customer sees the total price up front. I think this is the best solution for all parties.
The most consumer friendly thing would be for AirBnB to just explicitly have a fixed "stay" fee and a per-day fee.
That said, AirBnB's site shows the total cost for a stay when browsing, so I don't really see this as particularly deceptive. I don't care how the host itemizes the bill as long as I know what I'm paying when selecting a place.