How is the displayed pricing calculated?

[David7439]

If someone looks at my listing without dates selected, how is the default pricing that is shown calculated? 

It is showing much higher than my typical night, but I did hike my prices up for the holidays. 

[Emiel1]

@David7439 

Looking at a listing without entering dates will not show any price information:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/32036097

If you refer to the search system: it shows price including costs like cleaning fee, taxes etc., when no dates are entered in the search.

[Lisa723]

@Emiel1 that is not true in the US.

@David7439 Airbnb has up to now always displayed the lowest available nightly rate until dates and guest count are entered. But this is not the case for your listing, which is showing $343/night although you have dates available for less.

@Heather1086  It appears that they are switching things up without notice, again.

[Heather1086]

@Lisa723  I have been going back & forth with airbnb for over a week... my prices showed in the low $700's last week and have gone up every day since.  My typical daily rate is in the $300 range.  I have spoken to multiple CS reps who can't tell me what is going on... they gave me a $25 credit to spend on an airbnb at one point because they can see that it is having an adverse effect.  I went to do a general search in the community where our house is located, most properties are still showing the same as previous, except for mine and one other.  It has both of ours in a crazy high rate with our neighbors (who have typically higher rates) showing as cheaper.  Something is wrong for sure, but I have to wait until next week to see if it fixes itself and reverts back.  Otherwise I don't know what to do other than have my account reset... which is not an option.

Glad to see I'm not the only one with this problem!  It might be wise for others to check your listings too... the only way I realized it was by having my sister do a search to see if I was still an active listing after my views completely tanked.

[Lisa723]

@Heather1086 does the other affected property have the "rare find" label by any chance?

I can't see that this is happening to my listings or any others in our neighborhood.

In your shoes I might try the facebook/twitter route to try to get faster/better attention.

[Heather1086]

@Lisa723  No, the other one is from one of the rental management companies, and it seems to be their only listing that is effected, that I can quickly tell.  I did go the facebook route and it got a quick reply, but then nobody could tell me what was going on or even how to fix it.  They keep pushing me off but acknowledge that it is a problem.   I think there is some sort of system glitch on their end that is very random... it's an IT problem if I had to guess, but can't get anyone to help other than to say just hang on and wait it should fix itself... but it isn't doing this to other listings???

[Lisa723]

@Heather1086 ugh, how frustrating! Displaying the lowest available rate is not a difficult software engineering problem, and it's hard to see why any issue like this would affect only certain listings. Maybe try snoozing/unlisting and unsnoozing/relisting? Just a stab in the dark.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/476/how-do-i-snooze-unlist-or-deactivate-my-listing

[Delia223]

I can see 300$ x night 

[Heather1086]

@David7439  I am having the exact same problem!  I have been round and round with airbnb support and the best they can tell me is that it is averaging from the current 5 days???  On the general page it shows my rates as being over double what the typical rate is... it's crazy frustrating because I know my house is getting passed over and not included in search engines when people are looking without dates in my community.

A listing that is a couple houses down is way more expensive than mine, but in the general search right now it shows mine as being more???  It seems to me there is some sort of glitch because I have never had this happen before, and it doesn't seem to be consistent across listings as I have searched.  My typical night rate on the general page has always shown in the $300 range... it is currently at almost $900!?!

[Lisa723]

@David7439 @Heather1086 one thing both of your listings have in common is the "this is a rare find" note, even though you both have lots of availability.

Heather, do you have any open night that is $882?

[Heather1086]

@Lisa723  My highest night that is currently open is $750 during summer season (there are 5 dates with that price, the others are $350-450).  I am booked up the next two months, but then wide open after that which is rare... could be COVID, but doesn't seem quite right  Looking at my views graph when this price glitch happened the number of views went down to almost non-existent.  

[David7439]

Yeah, my views have also tanked. If it’s averaged from current 5 days, that makes sense. But, up until now we’ve been booked a couple months in advance with week long stays. Now having to drop to 2 day stays and that worked... could be a change in the market, but seems very sudden.

[Heather1086]

@David7439 Same exact thing here with booking patterns!  I got one booking in the middle of all this, but figure they must have put in dates directly to see what was available.  I noticed my views tanking and that is what led me to figure out that this was most likely the culprit.  I have more messages into airbnb CS, let's see if they can figure anything out.  Their answers are not consistent and their solution doesn't seem to be correct since other listings aren't having the same issue.

I posted a thread on this in the hosting forum when I first figured out the problem to see if there were others who were in a similar situation... seems pretty limited!

[David7439]

I contacted CS and they basically told me “don’t worry about it, people don’t usually view listings without dates selected” which seems like a not so great answer...

[Sarah977]

That's a terrible answer. Of course people would go down the list of homes in an area just to get a idea of what is out there at what price. 

"Don't worry about it" seems to be one of Airbnb CS's standard lines for some glitch they are unable to get a handle on and fix.

@Heather1086