Airbnb unauthorized price change

[John2279]

Hi,

My manually set prices on Airbnb (I have never turned on Smart Pricing) were changed by Airbnb.  I had AirDNA (subscription allowed to lapse)  and SmartBNB (now Hospitable).  But, I never activated their Smart pricing functions.  I am just trying to think through this maddening experience.

The ambassador said they had never heard of this before, but reading older conversations this seems to be an infrequent, though recurring issue.

Luckily, I had just turned off the Instant Booking function.  None the less, it cost me a reservation from a request who thought I was arbitrarily raising the prices. I now one other request where, the difference is small, and I will honor this and take the small loss.

But, I have made all dates unavailable until this problem is fixed and may post a disclaimer listing the actual prices in the listing to avoid future adverse encounters.  This will cost us.

Anyone else have suggestions?

Thanks,

John

[Helen744]

@Helen 744 yes we can do that . I simply mean that you can overide the base price with individual day pricing or weekend pricing and it is not smart pricing but must be done on the calendar a day at a time.Smart pricing is provided by airbnb as an algorithym result and has little to do with how many guests you might cater for etcetera

[Helen744]

helen744@John2279, Open listing and go to pricing and availability.If base price is on and not weekend pricing then either remove base price or go back to calendar and manually fill in all prices for three months or whatever your cut off is.Save.Then go back and remove base price if it has not reverted to weekend pricing. then if special dates come upyou have the option to put your price up and down . Price shown may calculate over a week and maybe apply your weekly discount and average different price days together.as long as your bookings come in at the right price.Cheers Helen

[John2279]

@Helen744 

Helen, 

Thanks for sticking this out.

Airbnb is "making" me set a base price.  Here is the error message when I try to enter "0" as my base price:

Please use a base price of at least $10 but no more than $10,000.

It appears I either have to have a base price or use Smart pricing, neither of which I want.

John

[L62]

Hello,

I also had this issue where Airbnb was changing my prices by reverting to my base weekend rate *AFTER* I had manually set the prices higher than that (for specific holiday weekends).  This has happened 3 times. The first time I noticed was when a guest booked a December weekend (booking date Oct. 9, 2021) for a lower rate than what I had set. I thought I had made a mistake. But afterwards, it happened two more times for upcoming holiday weekends, after I had set the prices manually where I wanted them, I saw days or weeks later (not sure when the change actually occurred) it was reverting to my base rate.

Airbnb did not offer any help other than to tell me to be careful entering the prices and make sure my co-host (my husband who doesn't even open the app) is not changing the prices. They also suggested the desktop version of the site might not have as many bugs as the app. However, I do exit the app and look again, to be sure my changes have been saved, and that does not seem to be the problem. The "reverting" happens randomly days or maybe a week or so later, as far as I've been able to tell. I will try to document to see what pattern I can notice.  

It would be nice if Airbnb could fix this bug.

[John2279]

Hi,

I am sorry to hear you are going through what appears to be the same problem that I went through.  "Reverting" can happen hours, days, or longer after you set the price manually.  

This problem resulted in two guest cancellations and others likely scared away by my disclaimer that essentially said do not trust the Airbnb price, here is the real price.  I also blocked out most of 2022 for one month.

The problem was fixed after countless phone calls, messages, and six weeks.  Here what they (lamely and unapologetically) said:  "Let me explain it to you. When the custom price was removed by you, it wasn't actually removed from the system so we can had reset it and remove it from our end."

Note the lack of responsibility in their email.  So, maybe ask them if their custom pricing is wrong and not reflecting what you have listed.

It did motivate me to complete my VRBO account and to turn off "Instant Booking".  

Hope this helps and all the best,

John

[L62]

Hi John, 

Thank you so much for replying. That does sound like what I am going through. 

Are you saying that I need to ask Airbnb to remove something from their end? When you say "custom pricing", are you referring to the weekend pricing or the manual pricing? I think we are speaking of he same thing -- I had set certain weekends manually to be higher than my normal set "weekend rate", but Airbnb kept reverting the price back to my regular weekend rate for those days. I agree, it usually happened days later, and was not apparent right away.

Thanks so much for your help!

Best wishes,

Laura

[John2279]

Hi Laura,

Glad to try and be of help as I know how frustrating this is.  I think I talked to have of their agents.  All very nice, but all reading from the same useless script.

Yes, the problem with my listing (and I suspect yours) can only be fixed by Airbnb.  They never explained what they meant by "custom" pricing.  I use two prices.  The first is the manual one that I input into the calendar.  The second is the "base" pricing that Airbnb allows us to set.  My understanding of this base price is to set a floor so that if we forget to price a month that becomes available, the system sets it for us.

I manually set both weekday and weekend prices based on my understanding of our rental market.  Until the problem was fixed by Airbnb, their system kept changing the price back to the lower price their system picked.  

I have accounts with Hospitality (used to be called SmartBNB), AirDNA, and Host Tools.  I suspended/cancelled all of them because of their potential to automatically change pricing.  I just wanted to let you know in case you inadvertently have a third party vendor that somehow is setting prices for you (sneaky software).  

All the best!  Now, if you know an alternative to CalFAIR property insurance that will insure our place in Yosemite, all will be good.  We were dropped after the last two fire seasons.  Argh, tripling in rate coming at us!

John

John