Why should you reclaim your Airbnb service fee? I'm going to explain that to you!
A while ago I booked a vacation for our family through Airbnb. I had already heard several positive stories about it and wanted to immerse myself in this rental service. In our case, booking Airbnb was not necessarily cheaper than booking through a holiday park, but it is more personal. And in our case we received a warm welcome by the owner of the house and we were also shown our way around the area. So very cool.
It now appears that a Dutch court has examined the service provided by Airbnb earlier this year. To be more precise:about Airbnb's charged service costs. It turns out that something is 'wrong' and in a number of cases you can reclaim the Airbnb service costs as a tenant.
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We are always stuck with the high season, because I work in primary education and our oldest is of school age. With all those weeks of vacation in education, you won't hear me complaining. But a fact is that it is therefore more expensive holidays than when you opt for a holiday in the low or late season. For a long time, at least ten years, I wanted to visit the Wadden Islands. An acquaintance gave me the tip to book this through Airbnb, because then you rent accommodation from locals and private individuals and you get the real island feeling.
That same evening I got behind the laptop and looked at what exactly the offer at Airbnb was. Plenty of choice:from chalet to an entire apartment, but also a guest house in the garden with people or a bungalow in a holiday park that then belonged to the landlord himself. I decided to go for a 'super host', as it was described by Airbnb. Seemed as safe to me.
An Airbnb booking states how much it costs per night; in our case € 120.00. So for a week we lost € 840.00 and to that were added the Airbnb service costs of € 129.00 (which I can now claim back).
We received a nice email from the landlord with how we could best drive and with tips for times of the ferry. Once we arrived it was a warm welcome. I had nightmares beforehand that it turned out to be a basement on arrival and that there was no Airbnb house at all. But really:the landlord was super friendly, the house was clean and there were even toys for the children to play with. The landlord also offered to show the area and the last evening we were even allowed to eat with him and his wife. The apartment we stayed in belonged to his in-laws, who had a holiday home in France and rent out their apartment on the days they are in France themselves.
Although we really liked that one time, we didn't book with Airbnb after that. That was not due to the holiday experience, but more to our financial priorities. We want to make our new house more habitable. However, many of our friends and acquaintances regularly book this way. My sister, our own Floortje Dessing, also regularly spent the night through an Airbnb.
At the beginning of 2020, a judge looked at Airbnb's rental service, because many people indicated that the service fees charged by Airbnb did not appear to be correct. Airbnb charges the service costs to both the landlord (i.e. the owner of the home/sleeping place) and the tenant. This revenue model is not allowed, because it is not only double service costs, but also because money is 'earned' on both sides. In our case it was a small amount, but if you use the Airbnb platform a lot, it can quickly run into hundreds of euros. In addition, Airbnb initially charged a small percentage for service costs, but nowadays that can rise to 14%.
I did take a different look at the amount of € 129 in service costs that we had paid earlier and I definitely want to request this back from Airbnb.
Reclaiming service costs yourself via a letter or e-mail to Airbnb turns out not to be so easy. Firstly, because Airbnb does not agree with the court decision and they also do not respond to individual requests. But what then?
Thinking of the motto:'together you are strong', it turns out that there is a company that does reclaim service costs for all individual cases and has even set up a foundation for this. The Airbnb service fee foundation. If they fail, you pay nothing yourself. If you succeed, you pay 25% of the amount you receive back from Airbnb to this company. In principle, you do not lose anything, because you have already lost the money. It is advisable not to wait long with this, otherwise your booking may no longer be reclaimable due to 'time of limitation'.
There is a good chance that you do not remember the service costs of a booking, let alone if it has been multiple bookings. You can simply find these costs incurred in your account on Airbnb.
What you need to do for this:
You can also look it up in your mailbox. You do this by:
If you don't want to worry about getting these service fees back, you might want to join the joint Airbnb refund initiative. Led by a team of top lawyers, they focus on recovering these costs. If it succeeds, you pay 25% of the reclaimed amount, with a negative result it costs you nothing.
What do you have to ask in return?
