Setting a different weekly discount % for a specific season (i.e. high vs low season)

[Dan-And-Catherine1]

We have no problem booking our lake home in the summer, but to encourage booking and longer stays in the low season, especially winter, we would like to set a greater discount for weekly stays in those low seasons. Does anyone know how to do this in the settings?

[Mike-And-Jane0 · Accepted solution]

@Dan-And-Catherine1 It is easy to do once you know how:

1) Go to your account and switch on Professional Tools

2) Go to the calendar and apply a ruleset to whatever dates you want and choose a weekly discount applicable to those dates

[Sangeeta8]

I just go to my calendar, select my dates and change pricing.

[Joan2709]

Hi Dan & Catherine!

As @Mike-And-Jane0 mention, the best way to do this since the new Airbnb summer release is to use Pro Tools and Rule Sets. Might take a bit to get used to it, but it's the only tool available right now to accomplish what you want to do. Below is a link to a Guide created to help hosts use Pro Tools and Rule Sets. There are screen shots to help as well:

Using Pro Tools & Rule Sets

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Community-Guides/GUIDE-Use-Pro-Tools-to-Set-Calendar-Custom-Pric...

Hope this helps. Let us know how it goes!

[Ian37700]

I see you have some ruleset responses from others but I am suggesting another option. I personally keep the discounts the same all year round but use a dynamic pricing tool to adjust pricing daily and seasonally automatically. I have found Pricelabs and Beyond Pricing do a far better job than trying to guess pricing and demand. Pricelabs is cheaper for larger value properties as it is fixed price per month while Beyond Pricing is a 1% of listing but a little easier to use. YouTube has lots of videos on both and how to use them and both their sites and support will provide a lot of helpful information if you go down that path. 

[Joan2709]

Hi @Ian37700 !

Good suggestions for clearing cache and/or browser history!

We have considered dynamic pricing as well. Can you tell me if you use a dynamic pricing tool, Airbnb require the host to pay the entire Guest Service Fee, or can you still use split fee? We would have to increase prices to absorb the cost if that is true. 

Also, have heard some hosts say that Airbnb Promotions are no longer available for hosts using dynamic pricing (or maybe that is just for channel managers?).

Thanks!

[Ian37700]

Hi @Joan2709 

I use Pricelabs and that is my current recommendation and are improving. with good support and have a fixed monthly fee. 

Beyond pricing I found was  easier to setup and use at first but less customisable. They also have good support. 

Both allow you to split the fee. I dislike the split fee so for me that was irrelevant in my choice. 

1. If you do the math it makes your total price slightly higher than paying the fee in full so you won't make quite as much per booking in the long run although I believe the split fee works different for some people or markets but that was what I found. 

2. Guests generally dislike the guest fee and a more simple fee structure presents better. Guests don't care about your costs, just the price they pay. The fee is the cost of running my Airbnb small business in my view but I understand and accept there is an alternate view.

3. I wish Airbnb would just remove the fee from the guest or make split fees standard as comparing listings on data sites is difficult as some hosts have split fee and some don't so reporting of statistics on market pricing is not as accurate as it could be. We had one guest ask what the booking fee was so having two fee systems causes uncertainty with some guests. 

4. Adjusting your prices for guest fee is fairly simple. 

If you use Wheelhouse which I didn't like for other reasons it connects like a PMS (Property Management System) or channel manager which disables the option to split the fee. 

My read with the recommended option of not splitting the fee and Airbnb statements on that over time is eventually split fees will go. 

I have never used promotions and moved to dynamic pricing very early on but I can't find promotions option following this article so I assume the answer is they become unavailable. 

https://www.airbnb.com.au/help/article/2982

Using dynamic pricing is probably at conflict with promotions, your really turning off most of Airbnb influences on pricing and controlling it outside with a dynamic pricing tool to avoid conflicts and unexpected pricing. The aim of dynamic pricing is to match your local market prices and demand and set a price so you have high occupancy throughout the year but also make extra on high demand times. The over simplified explanation is  Low demand lowers prices, high demand increases prices but you get a lot more controls. It is a learning curve but there is plenty of online documentation, YouTube videos and good support to help getting up to speed. 

[Joan2709]

Thanks so much @Ian37700  for taking the time to provide a ton of information!

We are still tossing this around and it certainly would be a time-saver. I do understand that even if you use dynamic pricing, you can't "set it and forget it",  but it would certainly eliminate alot of work with manually adjusting prices. 

Thanks again! 😊

[Ian37700]

Hi @Joan2709 

I see your already using rule sets from the guide you posted so likely have a good handle on pricing and calendar management. Depending on your rules your likely going to have to turn them off in Airbnb as a lot of the functionality on pricing and stay rules is being added to the third party pricing tools including advanced length of stay rules and you tend to get them fighting each other and not the best results. Each pricing tool has a list of things to change in Airbnb but they are essentially the same. 

I just found micromanaging daily prices tedious and third party managing pricing gave me more time to work on strategy, and other productive things. You can set and forget but watching videos and reading the help articles will help you understand the large range of factors they use to set pricing and when to use options if the results are not optimal. 

Since switching to using external pricing tools, I have used both Beyond Pricing and now Pricelabs I have been able to increase occupancy and also monthly income. There are changes I do in customisations to suit my listing and market to increase occupancy and I find I still have to set holidays and events in price changes by % so maybe add 20% extra for an event that you know will be popular but hasn't picked up demand yet and that allows the pricing engine to still to work with occupancy changes, often a few months out from an event if not booked I will remove price overrides % as there is plenty of demand data to predict the price well. I also have a few months in peak and off-peak season I set a different base price for. Pricelabs are working on improving those two areas currently. I have also seen an improvement in Beyond Pricing since leaving them. Both have very good support and advice through their help documentation, videos and webinars and support. 

You can connect your listing to both and set them up and see which one you like the most without syncing to see how they price. Until you turn on syncing you get some free data and

pricing and their basic market data. You only pay when sync to your calendar is connected. 

Beyond Pricing 

1. Easier setup for beginners.

2. Had all the even very local holidays so predicts holiday and event pricing better. 

3. Good statistics graphs on your listing.

4. Some new pro tools that are very interesting. 

5. Pricing is percent of bookings.

Pricelabs

1. Suited my market better with pricing out of the box.

2. More customisation.

3. More local data graphs.

4. Optional extra data dashboard for a monthly fee, first month free. 

5. Pricing is fixed monthly fee. 

Wheelhouse

Looked good but had lots of problems and while they have responsive support they don't seem to be able to get problems fixed and I can't currently recommend them. 

I hope that helps and I am happy to answer anything I have missed or clarify anything that is not clear. 

[Joan2709]

Thanks so much @Ian37700 for the wealth of information! It always helpful to hear from others and get their input! 😊👍