Price keeps changing on its own? help... It looks so unprofessional to have a fluctuating price...

[Darla2]

Hi there

When I check my listing the price keeps changing when i refresh my browser or open a new browser. Why is this happening and how can i change it? It looks so unprofessional :0/ eeek

Thank You.

[Matthew285]

@Coleton0 the $12 price is probably the "Base Price". (When I looked at it, it seemed the Base Price was $30).

However, it seems that they are using custom pricing on pretty much every single day on the calendar. (They may be using one of the automated price-setting services, which sets custom prices day by day.) That means you will never get the "Base Price". If you choose any dates on the calendar, you get the special price for those specific days.

So the price isn't so much fluctuating or changing if you refresh the page. The price is changing as you select different calendar dates. If you choose the same calendar dates, the price is the same every time. (At least until the next time the pricing service changes all the prices again.) (Pricing services can change prices every 24 hours.)

By the way, I did not respond earlier because I did not know you had responded. If you want to make sure the person knows you sent a message, you should tag them by using the '@'.

[Jie18]

That's not true. Even when you select the exact same dates, the price various (typically increases) for the same property when you check at different times. I believe that's what their system is intended to do, no wonder there is no "fix" from Airbnb because they designed this to happen so that they can charge more. Basically it tracks how many hits/clicks for every properties over period of times, the more clicks (more popular) on the property the higher price it asks. I am not saying that the price can't change based on demands, but the rate it changes is too drastic and annoying, sometimes right before or in the middle of your request or booking. Very crafty, but sneaky and dishonest to customers I feel.

[James3863]

So freaking true. I recently made a booking for a month and what happened to me was that initially I thought the price was a little high, about 200 or so above my expectation, so I messaged the host and he told me to make an inquiry on the unit so that he could attach a special offer to my request. Did that, and the moment I opened up the request page again, the price went up by 500 dollars… So with the special offer, about 200 dollars’ worth, applied to the request,  I was looking at a booking thats actually 300 dollars more expensive than original. At that point I had become essentially speechless. 

[Andrea1354]

Same thing is happening to me... I have changed the prices manually ... I also called an agent who changed the prices manually... and every night they change back to what the system sets the prices for.  The agent also suggested that I turn off Smart Pricing ... I had a max and min set with the Smart Pricing but the system was not using those either! I thought when you turn off Smart Pricing you get fewer bookings! Now my prices are not competitive (since they change every night on their own), I am not enrolled in Smart Pricing and I have no future bookings! HELP!

[Katerina-and-Stephen0]

I'm a new host. AirBnB is also arbitrarily lowering our pricing w/o any notification at all. problem. We set the price for our listing at $125. We made sure to disable Smart Pricing and Instant Booking. We got our first booking at our set price of $125 minus a 20% discount for our first guests. We learned from our first guests that if wanted to rent each of our guest suites separately we needed to list them separately. They would have booked our other guest suite for another family member if they would have known it was available. Would have been nice to know that ahead of time... but AirBnB obscures this critical fact.

Within a week we got our second booking... which we accepted. Little did we know that AirBnB had lowered the price to $60!!! ... w/o asking our permission or even notifying us!!! I reset the listing price, but the listing continues to show random constantly changing pricing on an almost daily basis according to the AirBnB calendar. AirBnB's is setting prices which are less than 1/2 of our actual pricing. I have spent hours on the phone with AirBnB support... They are absolutely no help. The could neither fix the problem nor explain why it occurred. They said they had to escalate it to IT.  Are you kidding me? I've worked in software development for 25+ years. This isn't rocket science. Clearly, you are using some algorithm to set pricing against our wishes. We aren't looking for bargain hunters. We have a special and beautiful property that is worth every penny and more. All we want Airbnb to to do is TURN OFF their pricing algorithm and leave our prcing alone! We've had no contact from AirBnB. Calling them back just resulted in them saying there was nothing they could do as it had now been "escalated" to IT. (which apparently the same as disappearing into a black hole. They couldn't even provide a timeframe when we could expect an answer.

Now, we are stuck with a booking that is paying us less than our costs, because as a new host we don't want to cancel the booking.  We have had to snooze the listing because we don't want any more bookings at the prices AirBnB is setting. AirBnB is literally stealing money from us... and apparently brazenly plans to continue doing so if we allow them to. AirBnB is the most unresponsive and arrogant company with the worst customer service of any company we have every dealt with!

[Matthew285]

@Katerina-and-Stephen0 you should contact Airbnb support to make sure Smart Pricing is off.

I know you turned it off at least once, but if your price is changing without you changing it, something is going on.

The price you set is the price that stays if Smart Pricing is truly off. There might be something strange going on with your listing if the price changes like that.

By the way: it does not look unprofessional if your price changes a lot. Airline ticket prices change constantly, but no one considers that unprofessional.

My price is different for almost every night, *plus* all the prices change from day to day. (I use a dynamic pricing service, which I think is very professional.)

However, your nightly price should not change unless *you* want it changed, and defininitely should not be lower than you want.

[John6510]

I set my base price at one sum and check that my calendar price is the same and my smart pricing is off.

Three times over the last 6 years, I get a booking at £5 less, look at my calendar price and find that my calendar price has magically been reduced by £5 across all dates but my base price is as it should be and I definitely did not do it and nobody else has access to my account.

Dare I accuse airbnb of deliberately altering my calendar price to generate more bookings and thus more income for themselves.

Have others had this experience???

When I ring and complain, I just get told that I had made the change!!!

[Marsha62]

I am so frustrated by the prices changing, I'm going back to staying at a hotel. Airbnb needs to figure out how to run a business professionally or just go out of business.

[Andreas-and-Anna0]

i think you need to talk with @Maria0&jean in Anchorage Alaska, Jean posted something similar

[Andreas-and-Anna0]

i think you need to talk with Maria&Jean in Anchorage Alaska, Jean posted something similar

[Dede0]

@Darla2 Another remote possibility for the smallish variations that you see may be related to currency exchange issues. I witnessed some crazy fluctuations a few months ago when I was hosting some guests from Hungary. They had most likely booked using the Hungarian Forint to see prices. AirBnB will then show me my amount (and what they're charged) in USD. But every time I looked at that info, it was bouncing all over the map.

Even when hosts don't *think* that a currency exchange issue shoujld even be involved -- for example, when the listing is in country X and priced in X's currency, and the guest (or host examing their own listing in guest mode is also in X) -- I suspect that all (or almost all) AirBnB internal calculations are made in USD. Extreme exchange rate fluctuations could account for small differences moment to moment, but more likely are short-lived "technical issues" in the way that AirBnB code is handling the transactions at the moment.

In the case of my Hungarian Hilarity, the issue lasted about two hours, then stopped. In the meantime, I made numerous screen captures, which I exchanged with the Support people I'd contacted.

[Laura-And-Mike0]

I've been having the same issue for weeks, I'll set the price for upcoming months at $110, then next day they're all over the place like $89 - $292.  It's preventing me from getting bookings.  Airbnb tech support has been working on this issue for weeks.  I had Smart Pricing on, then I turned it off and it's still adjusting prices for me.  I've checked minimum price, and it overrides it.

[Joseph490]

It keeps happening to me also but when I move to a different computer (IP address) the price goes back down. They are also terying to force my to upload my ID. I will not do that.

[Ron224]

On the following listing it shows as $50 per night. When I book 2 nights, it becomes $71 PER NIGHT. When I book 3 nights, it becomes $81 PER NIGHT. This just doesn't make sense ... I was about to use AirBnB for the first time but this just turns me off ...

https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/261873?location=Calgary%2C%20AB&s=48_oEccw

[Ange2]

@Ron224   Must be a glitch I looked and it stays at $50 a night regardless of number of nights. The only thing that changes is the 'Service Fee' that Airbnb collect, which is based on the total dollar amount for the number of nights.