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Airbnb is testing split payments so you won’t have to nag your friends

Airbnb is testing split payments so you won’t have to nag your friends

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This should have existed ages ago

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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Airbnb is testing a feature that should have existed ages ago: split payments.

Currently, if you book an Airbnb for a group of people, one person has to charge the entire expense, and if there’s a need to collect payments from other parties, well, that’s on you. Now, as reported by The Next Web, Airbnb is testing a function with a small group of listings that allows payments to be split up to 16 ways beforehand.

Airbnb has been rolling out several updates this year to make the service more streamlined and easier to use — like standardizing the check-in process with host-supplied photos and text instructions. Adding split payments is a welcome, but long-overdue update that comes with plenty of benefits (no more nagging your friends for their portion of the trip afterward, for one).

For now, use of split payments is limited. As Tim Rathschmidt, an Airbnb spokesperson tells The Next Web, “This is a small, initial pilot — our goal is to make it even easier to use Airbnb to travel with friends and family.”