Till so far, if you booked an Airbnb accommodation you had to pay the full amount at the time of booking. Earlier this week Airbnb introduced a new Pay Less Up Front option, which now allows travellers to pay in two instalments: 50% at the time of booking and the balance closer to the arrival date.

This new payment option is available effective January 15, 2018, across iOS, Android, mobile-web and desktop. Guests can avail the Pay Less Up Front option:

• Where the minimum stay value is 250 US dollars
• When the trip is booked a minimum of 14 days in advance

The second balance payment will automatically be charged before arrival. Airbnb reservations will notify the guests three days before the charge is going to be made.

According to Airbnb’s press release,

The new feature extends our commitment to providing flexible payment options to more guests and greater opportunities for hosts. In our testing of Pay Less Up Front, we saw a clear demand for more convenient payments: Given the option of paying less up front, 40% of guests chose to do so and opted for higher-value bookings on the whole.

Pay Less Up Front helps our hosts as well. Given the ability to pay in instalments, hosts won’t lose out on bookings from cash flow-sensitive guests who prefer not to pay the entire amount up front. What’s more, we’ve found that Pay Less Up Front encourages bookings further in advance: Compared with ordinary bookings, the Pay Less Up Front payment option led to bookings with nearly double the lead time, helping hosts to secure and manage bookings more easily.

With the introduction of Pay Less Up Front option, Airbnb hopes to increase revenue by making paying for travel more convenient and flexible for travellers. In November 2017, Airbnb was also the first housing rental company to allow guests to split payments among family and friends.