"We're Going Back To Hotels": Man Shares How His $172 Listing Became $972 After Ridiculous Fees

These days we’re spoiled with choices for holiday rentals. The number of apps that promise the best deals out there is amazing—there’s Booking.com, Trivago, Vrbo, and, of course, Airbnb.

The latter revolutionized the short-term rental market once it entered it back in 2008. It promised a local experience at a smaller price tag for visitors as well as an easier time for hosts that didn’t want to hop through all the bureaucratic hoops to get a little extra income.

However, as per usual, capitalism does its thing, and here we are, dealing with sky-high prices of properties that aren’t good enough to be hotels. All that, while seeing the detrimental impact it has on many local housing markets, and while the company is doing everything to avoid taxes.

In other words, the issues related to Airbnb are plentiful. TikTok user jsmartinlive pointed one of them out in a viral video that resonated with many—the fees. Scroll down to see what’s his gripe with the company, and why he’s urging everyone to go back to hotels.

"Do you wanna know why we're going back to hotels? Because of this. $172 a night? Reasonable, cool. $344 for two nights? That makes sense. Taxes $95? Not rocking. But a $108 service fee? Okay... $425 host fee? What are you doing? Are you telling jokes or something?"

"What do you mean host fee? Like, am I paying you to give me entertainment? Like, that's crazy. What do you need $425 for? You better clean the place while I'm there. Can I go to a hotel? They're gonna make my bed. They're gonna give me free soap, free lotion. What am I getting here? Huh?"

"So that you can call and be like, 'Hey, you gotta keep it down because you can't get too loud for your neighbors or what? I'm going to not be able to even put my foot up everywhere because that's how it is in these Airbnbs. 'Cause then you're gonna charge me even more money for a cleaning fee after it. It's getting ridiculous. I go to a hotel and have somebody at the front desk and everything just waiting on me. But look at this. Now I'm going from $172 to $972. It's crazy."

Martin’s issue here is valid. Airbnb is notorious for its fees, especially the cleaning one, which you have to pay even though often you have to do majority of the cleaning yourself.

In his video, however, the cleaning fee is not mentioned. Instead, Martin points out the ridiculously high “Host fee” which does not specify what exactly it covers.

In our research regarding the host fee, we only found a charge that is applied to hosts themselves. In those cases, they take on the whole service fee (the charge for using Airbnb’s platform) and the guests don’t need to chip in. In many countries, this fee is mandatory for hospitality listings.

We also discovered that some properties have hospitality fees. Those are usually applied to Luxe stays and can involve daily cleaning service, concierge, personal chef, a butler, and other high-end services.

However, that’s not what you find when looking at Martin’s bill. There’s no hospitality charge and he’s the one taking on the host’s and service fees.

Many people in the comments agreed that this is ridiculous. One shouldn’t be charged made-up fees without explanation.

Commentators also pointed out other problems they encountered when staying at an Airbnb. Such as ridiculous rules, cleaning demands, and hidden cameras.