Airbnb testing flexible payment options for guests

In France, by law, you could not ask for more than 30% non refundable down payment and the rest not farther than a month before arrival. 25 / 75 or 30 / 70 % was a common payment practice.
Finally allowing it, would be a good thing to convince the more traditional people.
For longer holidays, we often negotiated payment and would accept 3 or 4 parts, maybe the last one the month after the trip. Not cery risky with checks and none ever caused problems, not with the payment and not onsite.
Airbnb can use a feature, where they put a hold on the total amount but take in increments. (I discussed those options with different banks). You get it only for a higher turnover (no problem for them with that ) and it may cost more fees, but maybe not, if the turnover is so high.
A payment falling through would mean that the account is destroyed, in France it means blocked at the National Bank, with a horrible administrative procedure to get your credit rating restored. In other European countries, banks use a common credit rating association/authority and blocked there means blocked everywhere. No more account nor credit.

The devil is in the detail: check every single country, if part payments are offered by credit cards, check what failure means to people and how likely it is that they shrugg it off.
Also probable, that they will need a better ID verification than what they do now and a way to distinguish normal credit cards from prepaid ones.

As they take 50% and the rest only 2 weeks out, it may be tricky. If you are on strict, they could pay the 50% and treat it like a customer cancellation, what it technically is. But by then, 100% would be due.

Generally, it's a feature we asked for in French meetups. I like it, but it should be timed according to cancellation timing.

In Some countries, people get a double salary to pay the Summer holidays. ;-)
In France, it's possible but rare. In Austria, it's 14 by law, in Summer and for Christmas. Some lucky ones get 16, like in bank jobs. ;-))