Should Airbnb, VRBO, and others like that include hidden fees in their room prices?

We usually rent small houses, and most of the time you can contact the agency listing the rental (outside of vrbo) for a better deal. They often throw in bikes or chairs as well.

So scroll down and you’ll see Sandpiper Vacation Rentals.
https://www.vrbo.com/1540174?arrival=2021-04-11&departure=2021-04-17&unitId=2099892
Once we find a place available on vrbo, we just call up Sandpiper (or whoever) and act dumb...we’d like to rents a house on these dates, what do you have, are there any deals for that time...?

Check out those fees...I pulled this up randomly on vrbo, but have stayed in this exact house. Pretty funny when I looked at the photos better.

Once you have a few agencies in the area you want, just call all of those and see what you can get. Check in is usually different, you just go to the agency...sometimes it’s the same with a key code.

While I agree, you could say this about almost anything booked online? Let’s not act like hotels don’t have additional daily internet fees, parking fees, etc. Airlines have additional fees like baggage fees, taxes, etc that often are not initially included. Go on ebay, and tons of items have free shipping but not all. Go to check out and there’s $50 shipping fee, it’s no longer the cheapest.

ETA: part of the reason is the fees are a one time thing and the “daily rate” is the rate for the time without total fees. So originally listed price could vary greatly if you are staying 3 nights at $100/ night with a $100 cleaning fee for a long weekend or 3 weeks at $100/ night with a $100 cleaning fee.

What’s the right answer? I don’t know.

I don’t mind the cleaning fees.

Otherwise they would include it in the daily rate and it would take away the advantage of longer stays.

I typically stick to hotels for short stays anyway.

A lot of vrbo/airbnb properties if you scroll down are being rented through another company and not an individual. Once you see the name of the company do a quick Google search and book the property directly through them. You'll save hundreds (sometimes thousands in my case in breckenridge) by going this route. It's not always an option but it's a nice little hack I found.

It is frustrating looking for a house on VRBO or AirBnB.

You can have 2 houses both priced at $400/night. You go to book them for 5 nights and one is $2,400 and the other is $3,000.

If i'm telling you the dates i'm staying there, then just tell me the true average daily rate.

Cleaning fee is fine, somebody has to get it ready for the next tenent. A single charge when you leave is going to be the most equitable way to do it.

I don't understand why you're complaining about a pet fee. There's more risk in allowing a pet and more clean up work. I wouldn't even allow pets if I was a rental owner, not worth it.

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Again, its no different then looking at flights. You can't just ask, whats the cost of a flight from MSY to Berlin? Well that's going to depend on multiple factors like dates, time, stops, etc.


I've found the frustration by most in this is that they think they found a good deal and its not. No one is trying to trick you, its just how the pricing works.

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I understand that, and that is my frustration. The pricing doesn't need to work like that.
Once i fill out the pertinent information, and you spit out all the properties that meet all the criteria i picked, i expect to see accurate pricing. At that point, the total for the stay is known, b/c i've filled out all the fluctuating data, so either tell me the grand total on the listing page, or tell me the true average daily rate on the listing page. If i'm willing to spend $1000/night for 5 nights, then show me properties that meet that criteria, with all your fees and what not included now that i have told you exactly what you needed to know to provide accurate pricing. Like i said, i can look at properties for $1,000/night for 5 nights, and have totals anywhere from $5,500 to $7,500.

I find myself having to click on just about every property just so i can see the actual price, when i could very easily filter the more expensive ones out if they'd simply provide the full total amount from the get go, and not make me have to click on the property to see it.

The service fee is a VRBO fee paid directly to VRBO, airbnb is no different and actually higher fees. Sales tax is the same rate for hotels and vacation rentals generally.

I don’t disagree with you guys. I don’t disagree with sites like Expedia and airlines being shitty on pricing either. I’m just explaining that’s the booking engine’s policies and not the hosts.

It would be fairly easy for the platforms to have you put in your dates and other requirements and spit out an all in total price, that’s on them. I agree.

Airbnb:

$79 a night. What a great deal!

+ $125 cleaning fee
+ $50 owner fee
+ $25 administrative fee

New affordable rate of $279 a night