Unexplained 38% monthly discount

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Nordia0
Level 2
Sister Islands, Cayman Islands

Unexplained 38% monthly discount

So a guest booked one of our spaces and instead of getting the usual 10% monthly discount, he got a 38% discount. I contacted Airbnb almost a week ago and they still have not been able to find where this apparent glitch occurred or remove it. My settings  still say 10%. 

Anyone has a similar experience? Any ideas?

1 Best Answer

I can't edit the remarks in my comment above but I can correct it here.
AirBnb phone support helped me out with this.
What was going on in our case was there were some old "Custom Monthly Prices" on the listing 

Unfortunately, these are hidden out of view on the Pricing and availability page.

To see them, you first have to click on the Edit link next to Monthly Discount.
Then, beneath the Tip suggestion for the discount in your area, there is a link labeled

Set a custom price for a specific month

Click on that and there are the custom prices.

I must have set these up during Covid when there were not many short term bookings. Probably better to avoid this feature and just use the monthly discount percent (if that!)

Prices have gone up so much in our area that these custom prices were WAY off.  

Also, don't forget to click the black SAVE button below after you make the edit. We kept erasing the discount and it would be back again because we didn't see the Save button down on the next screen. 

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31 Replies 31
Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Nordia0 

You are not mentioning for which of the 5 listings it happened. Please note there can be other discounts set elsewhere in a listing, like a fixed price for a certain month, a rule set applied with discount, an promotion (like the 20% discount for first 3 reservations in a new listing) etc..

Nordia0
Level 2
Sister Islands, Cayman Islands

It's the 'Complete Package ' listing. 

Even Airbnb has been telling me for a week now that they can't find where that discount is set.

Maybe the problem is that each time I call I get someone from an outsourced call centre who knows very little. I'm getting nowhere 😕

@Nordia0 This listing shows a 54% monthly discount when I try to book!

Nordia0
Level 2
Sister Islands, Cayman Islands

@Jennifer1773 🤦🏽‍♀️ no idea what is happening

@Nordia0 If I were you I would immediately change my maximum booking to 27 days so no one gets the 54% discount... until you get it all sorted out. The weekly discount only shows 5%. Good luck!

 

Nordia0
Level 2
Sister Islands, Cayman Islands

@Jennifer1773  good idea. Thanks!

I’m going through the same issue and no help

from Airbnb so far 

“maybe the problem is that each time I call I get someone from an outsourced call centre who knows very little” 

 

That’s exactly the issue. Emiel gave you a few things to look at, start there. @Nordia0

I couldn't find anything about that either. AB has been giving out 42% monthly discounts on our listing when we have it set to 20%. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/26950351
Is it just a coincidence that their "hot tip" for the monthly discount in our area is 42%? See image below.

Can anyone else confirm this phenomenon?


So far we've lost over $1000 on this. Does anyone know any way to file a resolution claim with AirBnb to ask them to make good their mistake and pay back what we lost because of it? 

 

(What if it's not so much a mistake as a way to increase their competitiveness and market share, and let us hosts pay for it? That would be a good reason for them not to talk about it.)

 

Here is the image of the edit screen for monthly discount. 20% is our setting, 42% is the tip, and 42% is what customers see and get.

For now I am deleting all our length of stay discounts on this listing. It seems to take a day for that to take effect, so I'm taking it off instant book until the discounts are gone from the public page.  

 

MoDiscTip42%.JPG

I can't edit the remarks in my comment above but I can correct it here.
AirBnb phone support helped me out with this.
What was going on in our case was there were some old "Custom Monthly Prices" on the listing 

Unfortunately, these are hidden out of view on the Pricing and availability page.

To see them, you first have to click on the Edit link next to Monthly Discount.
Then, beneath the Tip suggestion for the discount in your area, there is a link labeled

Set a custom price for a specific month

Click on that and there are the custom prices.

I must have set these up during Covid when there were not many short term bookings. Probably better to avoid this feature and just use the monthly discount percent (if that!)

Prices have gone up so much in our area that these custom prices were WAY off.  

Also, don't forget to click the black SAVE button below after you make the edit. We kept erasing the discount and it would be back again because we didn't see the Save button down on the next screen. 

You have the CORRECT ANSWER AND THE SOLVE TO THIS MYSTERY!

 

There is one additional thing I figured out. The result is a combined discount. Here are how it worked with my numbers....

 

My nights were $200 per night so a month should be around 6k. Then about a week ago I selected a suggestion box from Airbnb that said something like "welcome long term stays for more visibility" or similar. 

 

I then put in monthly discounted rates for entire months. I put in $4200 if booked for the 30 days.

 

Then I got a few booking requests where they had received quotes of about $3700 per month. This is what led me to this thread. 

 

My regular monthly discount that I always have turned on is 10%, so what airbnb was doing was taking my $4200 per month and applying that to anything over 28 days and then applying my monthly 10% discount. 

 

So I ended up with a combined discount. One that is obvious (10%) in the monthly discount section of "pricing and availability" on top of the less obvious discount of $4200. 

 

I tested this by eliminating every monthly price I had set and kept the 10% in place. 

 

I then went to a private tab, found my listing and selected 28 days and my discount was only 10%!!  So removing those worked!!!

It's explained here how to remove large monthly discounts https://airbnbase.com/cancel-instant-book/

Nordia0
Level 2
Sister Islands, Cayman Islands

Resonse from Airbnb:

"Hey Nordia,

We are aware about the situation , Its a known technical issue, and we are trying to resolve it as soon as possible.
It's been reported by other Host too.
Please allow us more time until its resolved.
I would suggest turning on the request to book so you do not get any booking with the discount."

Hey. I just got my first booking for 3 months and the same exact thing happened. My guest is now getting $2,000 off per month! I did NOT set this discount (obviously) . I created my account and listing through the app which even shows that there is a 0% discount,  but when I checked my setting through the browser (as customer support had suggested I do, there it was, a $2,000.00 discount per month… Strange!

 

Now my question is, Airbnb themselves wrote back to you saying that this is a known technical error, so who gets held accountable??? I just potentially lost $6,000 and felt forced to accept the reservation regardless because my place has a very slow winter offseason so who knows if I would’ve booked it at all had I not.