Unable to add custom promotions after updating to simplified pricing

[Andrew497]

we recently updated our listings to the simplified pricing. We had some custom promotions running, and they stayed in place. However, now I am unable to add a new custom promotion. the option does not appear where it usually does. I only see a list of past custom promotions,.

[Hass529]

I cannot as well but I didn’t change anything 

[Polly164]

They've changed the rules it seems. If you offer any discount on a stay longer than one night, now you cannot run promotions at all. So weird.

[Polly164]

It seems they've changed their rules for Custom Promotions. I am getting the same thing. So annoyed. I've loved being able to offer promotions, especially for those awkward, and hard to fill dates. 

https://www.airbnb.com.au/help/article/2720#section-heading-0

Because I have lots of discounts on longer stays, to encourage people to stay for more than one night, I now cannot run promotions for any of my Listings. I honestly do not understand the thinking behind this! My promotions are always cheaper than the longer stay discounts. And I cannot think of a better way to fill those gaps in the calendar coming up in 1 or 2 weeks. 

[Greystone0]

Hi @Andrew497  - we too use promotions regularly and now that option is just 'greyed out' in my calendar settings - it's there but not clickable or enabled. We didn't change anything (that I am aware of) in our underlying listing.

@Rebecca @Quincy @Elisa @Paula @Alex  - would you mind taking a look and let us know if what we are experiencing here is just the new normal or is there a glitch in the matrix?

[Loi4]

Looks like they legit have changed the rules on this. "Custom promotions can’t be applied if you have regular, weekly or monthly discounts in the listing"  - from here: https://www.airbnb.com.au/help/article/2720#section-heading-0

So if you want to offer custom discounts, it would mean de-activating the length of stay discounts and other such offerings. Sigh! 

[Andrew497 · Accepted solution]

I have a new AI support bot that actually provides a helpful answer:

”Even if both were active in the past, the system doesn't allow custom promotions when weekly (10%) and monthly (20%) discounts are enabled—they are mutually exclusive. If a custom promotion was active, it may have been automatically removed when the length-based discounts were applied. To regain access, you'll need to remove the weekly and monthly discounts first, then create new custom promotions on eligible dates.”

However, I have been using these in combination for years…

[Joelle43]

Hello @Loi4 

I am new to custom promotions and have several in place for April during the week and also offer a weekly and monthly promotion so was very surprised to receive an enquiry for 9 nights yesterday that clearly stacked the weekly discount with the special offers! 

Am in right in thinking that this is not normal?  

[Richard3217]

This would be crazy if this is the new norm. I used custom promotions all the time to fill in dates that aren’t booked. Please @Airbnb don’t now take that away from us. 

[Loi4]

Exactly, I use this feature very regularly, it feels so frustrating that they would just take the option away! Like, why?? This will force many people to price themselves down full-time, and probably distort standard market rates in many areas.
I would really like to know the reasoning behind this shift. 

[Andrew497]

So, either I am hallucination or Airbnb AI is. Now, the option to add a custom promotion is appearing again - despite the AI telling me that it’s not possible to have both stay length discounts and custom promotions active at the same time.

But I do have to say the AI is nice and it got right to the point instead of telling me what a great superheat I was for three paragraphs before getting to my question 😇

[Shelley159]

@Andrew497 I've wondered whether they perhaps put the 3 000 paragraphs of Superhost praise at the beginning of each answer to reduce the volume of Support enquiries 😀

Thank you to everyone in this thread - it's a good heads up for us all to keep an eye on the custom promotions.

[Greystone0]

@Andrew497  - my promotions function is back and available! 

It was not about an hour ago.

[Shelley159]

@Greystone0 very good to hear, but we should probably take it as a sign that there are plans to change the rules for custom promotions soon?