Custom promotions and wrong reservation amounts

Evangelos8
Level 1
Athens, Greece

Custom promotions and wrong reservation amounts

1) I set a custom promotion

2) I define the % discount amount and the respective promoted price is calculated

3) The promoted price is calculated by applying the % discount on the 60 day median price 

 

Lately I received 3 reservations under a "custom promotion" in which the guests paid a lower nightly price than the one I had set in the respective promotion.
I contacted customer support and they repeatedly ignored the "promoted price" which was higher than the nightly price paid by the guest. Instead they kept on mentioning the base price in the calendar (which happened to be lower than my 60 day median price). However, Airbnb clearly mentions that in order to calculate the promoted price they take the 60 day median and not the currently set price. So the customer support seems to be untrained on the "custom promotion" feature

So right now I have:
1) Lower earnings
2) A "bug" in the system which makes me uncomfortable to set again custom promotions
3) A customer support that not only seems to be untrained on this specific feature, but also they are borderline impolite by ignoring my specific questions and answering things that seem to be irrelevant to my issue

ps: I would happily add images for proof but the system does not allow me to do so

10 Replies 10
Girish25
Level 1
Layton, UT

Hello,

 

I am having the same issue on my listing. Whenever I try to put a promotion, it sets a base price to a much lower number which was not a median price at all. Were you able to find a solution on this?

 

Thanks

Girish

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Rob9918
Level 2
Vienna, Austria

I have the same issue. Disturbing that airbnb hasn’t been able or willing to answer this question in over 3 years!!!???

Mel8382
Level 2
South Jordan, UT

Same issue happening here.  My base price is $45. But, under promotion it shows $31, so 25% of $31 isn't what I wanna do. I want to do 25% of $45... but, I can't change the base price under custom promotions.

Hello Mel! Did you have a solution for this one? I'm also having a trouble with this issue.

Sorry no. 

Hi @Evangelos8 

I agree with you that Custom Promotions are a bit of a mystery. Some information is available to Hosts and some only Airbnb knows. Be sure you do not have any early bird, last minute, or other discounts set for the dates in question, as I believe those discounts are "stacked" on top of your promotion discount (not sure on that). Also, make sure you don't have any active Rule Sets over the dates in question that could also discount your price further. Airbnb does restrict some dates from promotions (haven't figured out the logic on this) and you won't know if they are available or not until you try to add a promotion. Here is an article on how they calculate pricing for Custom Promotions:

 

Custom Promotions

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2719

 

Eugénie12
Level 2
Brussels, Belgium

I have exactly the same issue and this is going in circle with airbnb support. This "bug" is not token into account by the helpcenter and they keep saying that we are not understanding that they took the MEDIAN PRICE to do so. I know extremely well how to calculate a MEDIAN PRICE. My nightly base price is 240€ and it drops to 208€ BEFORE applying a promotion. crazy 

I also would like to add that NO other promotion of any kind are active on those dates so there is no possibility that other promotions overrule this. 

 

I also would like to add that I have two listings and that "bug" only occurs one one of them and on specific dates: we are now in NOVEMBER. The bug occurs for any dates after 31 DECEMBER (I try to set promotions for January as it is our low season here). 

I calculated the MEDIAN for the stay occurring in the 60 days prior to January and none is under 235€ nightly price. So how can the MEDIAN be 208€??? 

 

I also tried to set a custom promotion in DECEMBER and it works perfectly. It respect my BASEPRICE of 240€ nightly price. 

 

CONCLUSION: there is another issue that the help center doesn't know or understand. Telling us that they took the 60 day MEDIAN price is NOT a valid answer. 

@Eugénie12 

Very frustrating. If you NEVER changed your price for the previous 60days on any date, then the system should be using the base price as the "median" price when calculating the promotion. If it's not doing that, it does sound like a bug.

 

One thing I have noticed is don't look at the price on the promotion itself to know what the price will be on your calendar and shown to guest. Look at your actual calendar to see the resulting price after applying the promotion.

 

Joan2709_2-1732977185303.png

 

The only other thing I can suggest until (and if) Airbnb ever resolves, is to manually change your prices for each day of a month you want to apply a promotion. This is just a shot in the dark though. Change it by one dollar and then change it back to the price you want the system to discount (base price). Then when you go to create your Custom Promotion go to your actual calendar and see what the resulting price is after you set the promotion). Don't look at the price that appears above the custom promotion.