It’s a terrible feeling to arrive at a checkout screen and realize that the cost far exceeds the original listed price.
Overall, base price accounted for 68% of the total cost of bookings, with taxes and fees making up the remaining 32%. This discrepancy means that travelers looking to comparison shop on the vacation rental platform should essentially ignore base prices and focus instead on the total charge at checkout.
Take two Airbnb properties in the Los Angeles area for example. One has a slightly higher base price at $215 than the other at $200. Yet the total price, which includes taxes and fees over two nights, is actually lower for the “higher” priced property, $559 vs. $662. Essentially, the base price is unhelpful in understanding the real cost.
Here’s another tip, if it’s feasible: Stay longer. Although longer stays will cost more overall, the impact of cleaning fees will be lower compared to single-night stays. Airbnb pricing, recappedIt’s annoying to find a higher rate at checkout than you anticipated, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world. Since service fees, taxes and cleaning fees are built into nearly every Airbnb booking, they might as well be baked into the base nightly cost — but they’re not.