Watch out for how discounts accumulate

[Antonino91]

Hi all, 

I had a very bad experience with Airbnb combining long term and special offer discounts in a way that it is not supposed to. 

I will use round numbers to exemplify: 

My place is 100, and I offer a 10% weekly discount. So far so good. I decide to offer a promotion, 20% discount. 
Thus, for 7 days, the guest should pay 7 x 80 = 560, and on this value the weekly discount of 56 should apply, total 504.
Or, the other way around, he should pay 700, discounted by 10% is 630, on which a 20% discount applies, another 126, so total is 504. 

What Airbnb did, and supposedly still does, is take 10% off 100, take 20% off 100, total rate 70x7=490. 

So, watch out, if you offer such discounts, because Airbnb will make the lowest price for the customer, beyond what you intended. 

[Sarah977]

@Sammy35  You seem like a really cool person, but I have to say some of your posts are rather hard to read and decipher, as you seem to not be a fan of capitalizing words that should be, or using punctuation 🙂

If you reread my post on this, you'll see I stated that this dirty doctor situation was for a place I property manage, which is rented out long-term- it isn't an Airbnb or other STR platform rental.

I've luckily never had any difficult situations with my own Airbb guests- they've all been quite acceptable and most quite wonderful.

[Sammy35]

---

@Sarah977 wrote:

@Sammy35  You seem like a really cool person, but I have to say some of your posts are rather hard to read and decipher, as you seem to not be a fan of capitalizing words that should be, or using punctuation 🙂

pardon?  i'm sorry i must be mistaken or hallucinating...are you grammar policing me?  with a smiley face meaning your making a dig "funny"?

if so, please don't.  thanks

[Sarah977]

@Sammy35  You can write in whatever style you choose to, of course. Not criticizing,  just was commenting that it makes your posts difficult to read, when, in fact, I like to read them because I think you have a good perspective.

[Christine615]

Yep - they stack discounts. So I'm about to go into my account and eliminate them. It's just not worth the hassle. They way they compute our rates is pretty awful in those circumstances.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Antonino91 

Your two calculations are correct and Airbnb's implementation is wrong, thanks for bringing that to our attention!

Someone in the OCM team should bring this to the attention of Airbnb as it's obviously wrong and shouldn't be allowed to continue. It either needs confirming as a problem and all miscalculated discounts returned to hosts. Or Airbnb need to advise hosts that this is deliberate. Somebody needs to refer this to the relevant Airbnb department and follow it up to a decisive conclusion and let us know the reply and actions which will be taken.

@Lizzie @Quincy @Liv @Airbnb  @Nick @Katie 

[Sammy35]

TRUST US

[Helen427]

@Antonino91 @Sarah977 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Christine615 @Diane440 @Ann72 

I was stun by this crazy discount methodology when I first began hosting.

ABB entice newbies to offer from memory a 20% discount to the first few people who book.

 They then bait one with offering a 22% discount to offer to one's guest.

Believing I was offering a 22% discount instead of 20% I offered the 22%.

To say I was extremely annoyed when I found out my guest received a 42% discount is the understatement.

Lesson learnt.

 In my eyes it may have been deceptive practice. 

ABB were advised by our Commerce Commission to be transparent with pricing.

[Debra300]

This is an excerpt from best page that I found to provide any details regarding how discounts are applied:  

In another example, this is how the price would be calculated using a rule-set with a nightly rate rule, an early-bird discount, and a weekly discount:

• Nightly rate of $100 plus a 10% nightly rate increase = $110
• Early-bird discount of 20% plus a weekly discount of 10% = 30% combined discount
• Total takes the $110 nightly rate and subtracts the 30% combined discount for a final total of $77

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2061/how-do-rulesets-work

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Debra300 

Thats an excellent illustration of how manipulative the “Help” articles are, and it shoots Airbnb’s mathematical acumen in the foot. Help articles are often cited as ‘Terms’ when they’re not, and don’t often reflect the terms they’re supposed to be helping with.

Using their additive model the calculation should be:

+10-20-10= -20 = £80 Not £77

Again, the host has been robbed.

[Debra300]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0

At first, I was going to say that I have to disagree with your calculation, because the combined discount is applied to the sum of the base rate and nightly rate upcharge, but I now understand what you're saying.  If Airbnb were to do simple arithmetic for all percentage changes to the the base rate. It would result in a smaller discount.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Debra300 

Yes, I saw your original comment and You’re right - it was just about grasping the equal treatment of the discount structure. Theirs is wrong, in order to compare, you need to match their method and do it wrong in the same way.

For a host benefit I was trying to think where there might be a double rate increase where the percentages could be added, but couldn’t think of any. Then if I could have, the likelihood of that happening would be very small.

However, using additive increases (+20%+10%=130%) would not benefit hosts as much as compounding them (+20%=120%), (+10%=132%) in the same way it penalises them when added as discounts.

[Antonino91]

@Debra300 Thank you. I did not use rulesets, however, just vanilla settings plus the new feature of adding promotional discounts in the calendar. I feel that Airbnb was not transparent.

[Sammy35]

ABB IS USING WHATEVER THEY CAN TO LOWER PRICES TO GARNER BOOKINGS
watch your pricing discounts rates like a HAWK

[Huma0]

I do offer long term discounts because I specifically want to attract long term guests, but I gave up on the special offer thing very early on. I didn't find that it got me any more bookings. I only once got a booking due to a special offer and that guest had no idea that he even got one. He just thought it was the regular price, so I am not sure how that marketing is actually working or how visible it is from the guest's end.

[Sammy35]

discounting functionality is pure disastrous.  and people are still dickering (feeling entitled to) about discounts worse than ever thanks to covid.  brought mine down to bare minimum which is more an insult than a true discount but IDC.  i feel true empathy for the people that need to use this to supplement income and expenses.  this was my every weekend jaunt money for concerts and music events, now there's neither, i'd rather have no guests lol, private room shared or whole house.