Airbnb has announced it will seek to end a ‘painful’ feature that has frustrated users

Airbnb announced that it would be looking to end a “painful” feature that has been frustrating travelers for some time, after backlash from users around the world.

Excessive payment fees and a long list of guest ‘chores’ have caused many guests to revert to more traditional booking options with hotels, but Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky took to Twitter to say that he had heard the complaints “loud and loud”.

“I heard you loud and clear – you feel like pricing isn’t transparent and payment tasks are a pain. That’s why we’re making 4 changes,” Chesky said in a lengthy thread, in which he announced major changes to some of the company’s most criticized policies.

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“You shouldn’t have to do unreasonable checkout chores, like stripping beds, doing laundry, or vacuuming,” he wrote.

“But we think it’s reasonable to turn off lights, throw food in the trash and lock doors, just like you would when leaving your own home.”

If hosts require tasks to be done at check-out, Chesky said they should be transparent at time of booking and be “reasonable.”

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In a statementAirbnb added, “We advise hosts that if they have payment requests, they should be reasonable and displayed to guests before booking.”

In the comments on the Twitter feed, many people discussed what would then be considered reasonable and what would not.

“Undressing the beds, taking out the trash, cleaning the hobs, we’ve done it all. When will there be rules about what’s ‘reasonable’ and what’s not?” one person asked.

Others said they didn’t mind doing chores, but not if they also had to pay a hefty fee.

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“The problem isn’t necessarily performing payment tasks. The problem is when you are charged a $350 cleaning fee AND you have to perform unreasonable tasks,” one person wrote.

While another agreed: “I don’t think the vast majority of customers bother to do the decent thing of tidying up after them, but when asked to do a lot of tasks, on top of paying a fee major cleanups, they wonder why.”

Earlier this year, a traveler shared this exact scenario, posting a list of his ‘leaving tasks’ online after having already paid a cleaning fee.

“How Airbnb lets you pay a hefty cleaning fee and then clean before you go,” the American traveler explained on Reddit.

In another screenshot, the traveler shared the fees he claims he paid for the property, which included a $95 cleaning fee, $63 service fee, plus $61 tax.

Many people agreed that the list was a bit long, especially since a cleaning fee had already been paid.

“I would leave a note saying ‘please refer to the $95 cleaning fee I gave you,'” one person commented.

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