I am going on a week now of no payment. There apparently is a widespread issue with the processing/release of payments but their customer service people have no idea what exactly that issue is. They just keep repeating the same thing…we are aware of the issue, your case has been marked urgent & a case manager will contact you shortly. I’m still following the Airbnb help twitter feed & it looks like they’re having a myriad of problems related not only to payouts. I would love to know exactly what is going on.
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I’m not sure why they would need a huge operation. I guess they do have a lot of localization issues, but a web site, even a big one, isn’t that labor intensive to manage. Now if it was software development, that would be different.
It does seem like they are spending increasing amounts of time fighting lawsuits, so I imagine they have a considerable number of legal people.
And my general complaint, again, is simply that they often don’t seem to know what they are doing.
Sure, I can believe that being on Airbnb has helped a lot of people.
I’ve not heard of that.
It was on their blog. The deadline is closed already.
Well Faheem, just look at their job listings and you will see what I mean. The infrastructure worldwide looks large, especially on the technical side and you can work all over the world.
I think you way underestimate the technical team’s required size.
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(Shrug.) Maybe. But to my inexpert eyes, it doesn’t look like they are doing that much.
Go look at their career openings! Then you will believe us!
I use to think it’s easy money on their part until I found out that they won’t be making a profit until years into the future.
On the delayed payments, I don’t buy that it’s a technical issue.
It’s never a good thing when you make false statements of fact as to why people aren’t being paid. It wasn’t a paypal issue as they were claiming.
Given the monies they are disbursing on any given day, the scale of the delays could have been in the billions of dollars. For Inauguration Day in the DC area alone we are talking over 10 million dollars for one day in cash being processed.
When you consider that they are now not only across the entire United States, but in virtually every country in the world, and the problem was worldwide, the scale begins to become apparent. We are not talking loose change here!
That said I’m glad that they’re back up and running and it is in all our interests that they remain so 
Here’s a link on one author’s view about their business model correct or otherwise: New Unicornomy
A quote from the authors’ thoughts on the cash flow side of things:
How does AirBnB make Money via Checking Account Arbitrage
The entire AirBnB business model is based on the premise that most of the travel plans are pre-booked to the tune of 4-6 months we can safely assume that this entire money is lying some where post the payment has been received from the traveller.
It is actually lying with AirBnB. They hold the entire payment of the host untill the guest checks out or 24 hours post check in (which ever is earlier).
This is how AirBnB makes money from investments because this money is invested in debt market securities like money market instruments which have zero risk and flexible maturity.
Disclaimer : All views on AirBnB Business Model & How does AirBnB make Money are of the authors. User discretion is advised.
Hence my earlier comment on why mass Hillary related cancellations could cause an unexpected bump if the Trump bookings don’t adequately compensate.
It’s not about viability, it’s just about short term cash flow!
Airbnb as a business I’m sure are fine
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I honestly think they tell the reps to make up a fake story to appease and get you off the phone when there is a payment problem. Have heard the paypal one before and I never believe it. That said, I have had easier payment since switching to bank direct.
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Still no payout for me 
My own personal suspicion (and one that was alluded to in a conversation I had with a rep) is that the new programs they roll out (new code, new buttons, new looks etc. etc.) don’t always work together well. Maybe the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Alternatively, I wonder if they’ve been hacked. They would never admit to it, because it would shake people’s confidence in using Air if they thought it was vulnerable.
It’s been a week for me as well. I was thinking that they may have been hacked as well. I’m still following their support feed on twitter & quite a few people are complaining that their accounts have been hacked. Also, it seems as though most aren’t able to book new or see their upcoming reservations. Perhaps they’ve shut most of the site down until they straighten things out?
I submitted a ticket via the website and got the money next day. You can either call or submit a ticket. I suspect it is something to do with their payout process, they now have to manually process a payout when it becomes available, so no pay until you contact them.
I am based in the UK and the last week or so I also noticed that the paypal payments were coming through a day or so later than they normally do (they usually come in the next morning after a guest checks in).
Not exactly a biggie as such (don’t have any real cash-flow issues either) it was a bit disconcerting to a person like me who tends to envisage the worst case scenarios (Airbnb going into liquidation crossed my mind too, I’ll admit;))…
There was a similar problem in September 2015 which other forum members here will recall… If I remember rightly, it was much worse…
The ‘glitch’ was resolved in the end but not before a journalist for FORBES got involved and did an article on it all 
. Funilly enough, everyone’s payments seemed to come through just after…
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It would be so great to have someone with real clout and/or a large social network following to bring host issues to Air’s attention and then to public attention. AirBnb is very one-sided (and often arbitrary), but hosts are the only reason it works. Without us, they’re nothing. Any journalists out there?
I think they know exactly what is happening, and are just not in a position to do much about it!
I still believe this is the reason for all the payout delays: Comparing Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s inaugural crowd sizes
@AquaticQuests. Can you expand on your thoughts? Are you saying that fewer people using the service in one city amongst all the cities worldwide is causing a financial problem at AirBNB?
I’ll bet my left eye that this absolutely nothing to do with it. After 8 years of listening to ridiculous right wing conspiracy theories I can’t want for (what I hope is only) 4 years of ridiculous left wing ones. FWIW my payments have been normal this week.
New host…first time poster. I spent my career in finance. Forty two years and now retired. I did experience a few days delay for payment after my last booking. It has been my experience when a company has cash flow issues, paying vendors/host a few days delay is the first line of defense. I undestandstand Aibnb is looking to go public and this just may be something the bean counters are wanting them to do for now. Of course, not having access to their financial, we can only guess. No need for alarm. This may be temporary or may be what will be the policy going forward
Off subject…I have learned so much from this forum and thank all of you for your time and input
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Hi there.
What I meant was it depends on how many inauguration cancellations they were having to deal with vis a vis how many stays.
Inauguration is probably their biggest single event?
If there were mass Hillary cancellations, it would mean they would have had to have made HUGE refunds.
Which is ok, as long as their finance people kept the cash absolutely liquid.
If they had not forecasted such huge refunds, then the cash may have been parked somewhere not so liquid, in which case they’d need time.
On the other hand with Hillary cancellations also come trump reservations.
If the trump sign ups were significantly less than Hillary cancellations and their financial gurus hadn’t accurately forecasted the difference, and had invested the cash on hand in securities based on the said forecasting, then it could lead to delays.
Airbnb is a private company, so all this is idle speculation as their financial affairs aren’t open to scrutiny.
No cause for alarm.
Just something to keep our eye on.
They wouldn’t be the first major corporation to have made similar mistake.
Just saying…
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Just saying … inaugeration and bookings in Washington are a very tiny part of their global presence and the bookings they take worldwide on a daily basis. Just saying.
I’d not bother with the conspiracy theories. Even if people weren’t turning out in droves to support trump they were going on various protests. Airbnb doesn’t discriminate; a booking is still a booking.
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From a business perspective, you’d be very surprised the relatively small amounts (as compared to gross revenue) that can cause cash flow problems, and in this case, when you compare refunds (which is not actually their cash but just other peoples’ that they hold in trust) vis a vis their own profit/ loss margins, then suddenly those figures don’t look that small anymore.
But then again, we don’t really know their figures so just groping in the dark here!
