ACCC: Airbnb allegedly misled Australians about accommodation prices
accc.gov.au
accc.gov.au
>>> “Despite thousands of consumers complaining to Airbnb about the way prices were displayed, Airbnb didn’t amend its booking platform until after the ACCC raised the issue.”
I also never encountered this during all of my bookings over the timeframe mentioned (2018-2021) making me think that I had a selection of AUD in the Preferred Currency settings https://www.airbnb.com.au/account-settings/preferences
So I must assume that a default selection of USD or (no default) setting was the one affecting these customers. Strange that Airbnb, with their widely regarded bleeding user experience, still chose to render $ amounts without the default? "USD" qualifier.
Was this really deliberate? Seems likely given their attention to details like this.
> Was this really deliberate? Seems likely given their attention to details like this.
Random guess: maybe some US customers are confused by (or even just dislike) seeing "US$" or "USD" as opposed to just "$"? If enough US customers are like this (or even just if Airbnb believes that they are), that might influence a decision to just display "$" when they think (however wrongly) the customer is from the US.
I've never used Airbnb, so can't comment on their UX specifically, but I've seen before web sites run by US companies which offer their services to non-US customers, but have a UX which starts out by assuming you are in the US, and you sometimes have to go out of your way to tell them that you are not, and it is easy to miss doing so.
If you went to a .ca website, to book accomodation in Canada, you'd expect unadorned $ to mean C$ not US$.
[0] paragraph 10 of https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/ACCC%20v%20Airbnb%20Ire...
The .com.au domain was in AUD by default. I don’t believe there was a modal to redirect Australian visitors to the appropriate domain either.
It is also clearly a company-wide value to mislead, as their subsidiary HotelTonight does the same thing with regard to hiding extra fees in the small print.
This does not seem to be the case in Germany - the average nightly rate, for me, includes "cleaning fees" and "service fees".
Consider lobbying your Government for laws which require companies to state their prices accurately up-front. Stating the facts of how much something costs is not a place where "innovation" should exist.
Airbnbs are now exclusively for the rare trip that lasts longer than a week where I largely intend to stay inside.
In tourist places, I've also found that hotels are much better located
Edit: I was wrong
Have had numerous experiences where hosts have had to 'sneak' me in because their building banned short term rentals. None of this was disclosed in advance, and no doubt it's in Airbnb's best interests to look the other way.
As others have mentioned, there's often not much of a price differential anymore, and hotels typically have their shit together way more than the average Airbnb host.
I have no sympathy for Airbnb.
I just visited the site logged-out, from a non-US IP address, and although the home page claimed to be in the local currency, it actually displayed USD prices. I can't imagine how confusing it would be for countries that actually use the dollar symbol.
So fuck Airbnb.
I could have booked the same place on Agoda for about $200 more and had 100% cancellation as long as I cancel 24 hours before checkin.
I’ll use agoda in the future.
So if the host has a base rate of $45/day, when you go to book it it recalculates it as
base rate + cleaning rate + tax rate + airbnb rate.
Then the dates specific can also have different pricing set by the host, so it becomes
base rate(days) + special rate(days) + cleaning rate + Tax rate (local city/state) + airbnb fee (10-15%)
Meaning when you use the user interface, and select a schedule it does the above - it should try to do the mean average and show it on the map,
e.g. a one week / 7 day stay, base no special rates set by host should be
$45(7)+$20 cleaning rate+5% tax rate+airbnb 10%=
so, 457= 315. Add the cleaning fee of $20, so it's $335. 5% tax, 16.75, total of 351.75 10% of that is 35.17, grand total of 386.92
but it will display $45/day or "$315" a week, while the true price per day is $55.27 or $386.92.
Now that example isn't so egregious, but when you deal with reservations in the thousands, having "15%" added in misc fees make sit feel like "what happened to the original rate displayed"
It's not truly transparent until you go to the listing, set the dates exact, and then see the first number and then continue through the workflow to check out and pay.
If you don't have dates set, then it will always* show the lowest rates on the listing or on the map aggregate, which, sure, I get no dates means it can be the lowest, but the customer path from there to higher fees and prices really makes hotels seem more "honest" in pricing even though they sometimes hide the state/city taxes, and some platforms like booking.com won't even include them at all so you have to pay for them at check in!
tl;dr price shown first is never the price you pay on airbnb. 500+ reviews, yeah.
- You may have to sneak around neighbors or other guests
- Handing over the key can be a hassle
- Cameras (which must be disclosed, but there are umpteen stories, where that's not the case) may be hidden and record whatever you do
- The risk that you run into a scam is much, much bigger than with a hotel. This may take the form of a bait and switch, or a charge for things you allegedly broke
- Good luck resolving any issue. From an extremely noisy party in the apartment above to things breaking down
- The host may cancel like a day before you arrive
- You may find yourself in a strange city at night in front of a locked door and the host can't be contacted
- Good luck with AirBnB support if anything goes wrong. There are so many horror stories of them giving zero shit. That's except when it blows up and there's some bad press
- It's mostly no more the "cool dude" or a person renting out a spare room. Often it's some faceless real estate company managing dozens of bland cookie cutter apartments and not really a private host. So much for neighborly local cachet
Basically, things that won't happen in a hotel or are instantly resolved.
Read up on https://www.airbnbhell.com/ for horror stories about AirBnb. From hosts as well as from guests.
I used them once in 2016 and wouldn't touch them now with a 10 foot pole.
E: Some restructuring
If I agree to a contract to pay 1400 AUD in a month's time (at check-in to my accommodation) I'm not OK with learning that I actually owe 1500 AUD, because my agreement was to pay 1000 USD and the rate has gone up from 1.40 to 1.50.
Platforms like Airbnb don't always get this right, either, but they can at least specify the deal unambiguously in the fine print even when they display something else, and they should be able to accept payment of my 1400 AUD up front and take on (or hedge) any FX risk themselves.
Certainly not in the EU or in Switzerland. I can chose a flight based on certain criteria (i.e. no checked luggage, flexibility) and the price is stated clearly, including all fees, taxes and airport charges.
The costs will be itemized on the ticket, but within the booking process the total is always clearly stated.
What may happen with discount airlines (noticeably Ryan Air) is that the fleece you for a lot of "extras". From charging an arm and a leg because your hand luggage is 200gms too heavy up to charging you for printing a boarding pass at the airport.
Perhaps some OTAs are using pricing shenanigans, but the major airlines seem to not be doing that.
Then came the rise of the discount airlines, where it tells you your ticket is $58, and it is, but if you want luggage you now enter the world of tiered add ons. $58 only covers you and a 10kg carry on. You want a piece of luggage? Additional money only added in at the add tier screen, because the base ticket price is 'correct' and there's no standard for how many pieces of luggage the advertised ticket should include, so they advertise the price with 0.
if they could advertise a 'standing room only' and force you to upgrade to a seat I bet they would. Maybe you need the first luggage tier for washroom access? The nickel and dime sort of approach is exactly what made the dishonest prices the first time around detestable.
Don't know how this is legal, but the ACCC needs to jump all over it either way.
This happened to me a while back and I went ape on Twitter and got the charges refunded by Airbnb. But that's not how it should work.
Is the currency billed the same as the currency displayed on the site?
The Booking.com issue is much more recent. See this letter [0] in the Fairfax 'Traveller letters' column of May 6 2022.
"I have been using this booking.com for many years. As a Genius member I received discounts on bookings and more. Last year I booked accommodation and was shocked to see that I had been charged an overseas transaction fee of nearly $50. Enquiries to booking.com were time wasting and fruitless. They blamed the hotel and were of no assistance at all. I eventually found through my bank that the charges were being routed through Amsterdam."
— Peter Frederics, Balmain, NSW
Similarly my partner ordered flowers last year from a supposedly regional florist and was billed from an overseas system, incurring charges.
It happens frequently, and it ought to be illegal in my view. It's cool if you want to offshore your processing to save money: but you have to tell me.
[0]: https://www.traveller.com.au/traveller-letters-i-was-charged...
If you are billed in your domestic currency the location should not be relevant to my understanding. But I have little exposure to how things work in Australia.
Edit: It has never happened to me that I was billed in a different currency than what was displayed a checkout. However, sometimes there is a little checkbox preselected that they would do the conversion into the currency of my card. I always unselect that. Haven't seen a single case where the rate of my bank would not have been better.
The company bills you in AUD but from a billing entity overseas. This might be like the situation where you choose in which currency to be billed, I'm not sure on the exact mechanics. But close enough.
Crucially, you are not informed that you are being billed from an overseas entity. No indication whatsoever.
Your bank, seeing a charge from an overseas entity, applies their surcharges. Whatever they are.
And so you pay the amount you expected to pay - totally cool - plus some surprise surcharge - totally uncool.
Smart move. You can be sure that when a bank offers you convenience, it's not to your advantage.
The absolute worst are ATMs, where a "guaranteed exchange rate" can cost you 50 - 100 Euros, depending on the amount withdrawn.
Has some additional information. If the merchant-ID for an online sale is outside the US, a US credit card company might charge a foreign transaction fee even if the sale is in USD. (This isn’t a currency conversion fee.) Substitute AU for US above as needed for Australian customers.
Personally it's somewhat unlikely that I would have encountered it, because I pay in the currency of the seller whenever possible and let my bank do the conversion to EUR (their rates seem generally better what I have seen elsewhere).
Consumer organizations generally advise not to accept those conversions offered at the seller end. But the reason being the rate, I have never heard the reason to avoid an overseas billing fee. That sounds like an American/Australian/who else "invention".
Additionally I remember when travelling to non-Euro countries they insisted that I have to pay in Euro "for my convenience", of course the conversion rate was significantly worse than what my bank would have offered. (I checked by visiting the site in local currency of the host.)
I don't need the convenience of being cheated. If I couldn't handle different currencies, I would stop travelling there.
Edit: Obviously for the Australian customers mentioned in the article they were less concerned about convenience. But the pattern of doing business unfavorable for the customer is the same.