I have not noticed any difference in payout delay over the past 3 years, every payout has arrived when I have expected it. That is not to say it arrived when Airbnb released it, it arrived eventually after Airbnb and the banking industry played games with it for a while.
The Airbnb system is to a certain extent corrupt!
I can do a bank transfer to another account anywhere in the world, and the transfer takes place immediately, almost in the blink of an eye.....once I hit 'submit' that little revolving wheel of death in the middle of my screen spins for no more than 5 seconds before the transfer of my money is confirmed by, the airline, Amazon, Ebay, Ezibuy, Harvey Norman.....anyone I do online business with. It doesn't matter what the time of day or day of week, it is always the same.....it's electronic and instantaneous.
Airbnb's transfer system does not operate in the same way as the universally accepted banking industry.
They state they will release the payout 24 hours after the guest arrives. That is not strictly true, and they confirm this is not true by stating alongside the payout advice that funds will be available in my account by a date that is up to 7 days behind the release date. What they are saying is, they will think about putting the payout into 'processing' mode which simply means it is no longer showing up as future transaction, it is showing as 'floating' in the system somewhere. All those little bts and Mbs and Gbs and Tbs, need a bit of time to get their act together!
There is always a minimum of 4 days between the release time and the time I actually see the funds in my account. And I say minimum because, no Airbnb transfers take place over a weekend! Airbnb takes our money for a spin around the block between Friday afternoon and Monday morning!
They would not put an estimated arrival date if transfers happened as they should!
And it stands to reason, $4m a day earns a bit of interest so you can see why they are doing it.
Just wish they would be a little bit more honest and tell us our payouts will be released to our account between 4 and 7 days after the guest arrives.
On the flip side my Stayz (now VRBO) payouts always arrive the day after the guest arrives.....just when they say they will!
Airbnb operates a fairly unique payout system!
Cheers.......Rob