Airbnb host shocked by alleged booking fee: Who can possibly afford to pay?

This upcharge didn’t get up-voted.On the wildly popular Airbnb Reddit page, a poster who identified themselves as an Airbnb host garnered online attention after sharing a “crazy” experience working with the hospitality platform — involving a shocking and unexpected extra fee.The poster explained that they currently have five guests staying at their home, which was initially rented for a week.The visitors wanted to extend their stay for 90 days — a decision that made the host “happy,” as they were excellent guests.In do-gooder hopes of saving the group money, the host advised their guests to wait a few days before re-booking their place, as they would soon be lowering their price to the “winter rate.”“I offer a 20% discount for monthly stays bringing their rate (to me) down to $3100/month,” the host explained.But the poster ran into an unexpected snafu with his thrifty plan:They claim fees from Airbnb and Evolve (which they describe as their property management contract) had charged a whopping “50% surcharge on the monthly rate.”The revelation shocked and baffled the accommodating Airbnb host.“Who can possibly afford to pay near 5k a month?” the post questioned, addressing the virtual void.They went on to share their opinion that the companies’ sneaky fees were going to “kill their own business.”Faced with the guests leaving their accommodation — or worse, leaving a bad review —  the host realized he could “cut out” Airbnb and Evolve as the middlemen, and offer the guests a short-term lease himself.“Crazy, right?” reads the poster’s last sentence, appearing to expect Redditors to agree with his real-estate hack.

Turns out, most did.“Wtf that’s an insane markup, basically doubling their cut for no extra work on a long stay,” one commenter said.“Smart move just doing the short term lease though, you kept good guests and they probably appreciate not getting gouged.”“I’ve seen larger [propery managers] do...