Why has Smart pricing activated by itself?

[David-Erik0]

Hello, 

This morning I've logged my account and I've found absurd prices on all my calendar days (around 43) turned out that smart pricing was active for every single day. The only problem is that I do not use smart pricing since I've started to host... In the main settings of my account, is active but when I open the days of my calendar, I manually change it for every single day. 

Anyone else experienced this?

[David-Erik0]

Well, the problem is most likely a code problem. Someone was working, added new line of code and something triggered this fx, good luck to find it, there will be thousands of line of code to review XD

[Simon703]

True but they can see what code was checked into the codebase recently. The problem they are going to be having is trying to figure out an easy way to see who had smart pricing turned off before this bug was introduced that switched them onto smart pricing. That way they can fix it for those that had it turned off and keep it as smart pricing for those that had it turned on.

[Lindsay214]

Airbnb support is 100% useless unless you ask for a supervisor and get nasty with them. 

 Airbnb was advertising to people in my area through commercials on the radio and on TV that they needed people to open up their homes for a large event.  I had just moved out of my place so I figured, why not? I set the automatic pricing because I had no idea what to charge people and Airbnb stated they would adjust the price due to demand in the area.  They set the nightly rate to $60 a night .... someone booked within hours and i later found out other people in the area were charging 4 to 5 times that a night.  Airbnb auto pricing screwed me and that was the end of that!

 I also had my settings to give 45% off to any one that booked 30 days or more .  someone booked my place for two months and they did receive a discount… But not the one that I set. The girl that booked the listing called and talked very politely and at length to Airbnb support 3 to 4 times and I did the same. We finally ambushed them on a three-way call and asked for a supervisor .   Our problem was finally resolved but it took about eight people lying to both of us about the discount that was being applied before that happened. 

[Airbnb]

Update: thank you all for your patience. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience the Smart Pricing issue is causing you. We know some of you received bookings during the time of the disruption. For those of you who received bookings that were affected by the disruption, we are in the process of reaching out to each of you individually to ensure appropriate compensation for those nights. You should receive an email with next steps within the next few days.

@David-Erik0 @Jude56 @Lindsay214 @Simon703 @Lisa1889 @Vice4  Jessica & Henry1 Branka & Silvia1

Petar16 Michelle1362 Sarah977 Susan17

[Jude56]

@Airbnb when????

[Susan17]

Well, there's a first!! Excellent news. Let's see if it actually happens. Judging by the multitude of posts from affected hosts across all other Airbnb-related FB groups too, this is going to cost Airbnb a pretty penny. Always good to avoid a dirty big scandal ahead of an IPO though, right? 

[Emiel1]

That's why it's called Smart Pricing. Artificial Intelligence finds his own way....

[Sarah977]

@Airbnb  Now see, that wasn't so hard, right?  Please remember this the next time there is a glitch- rather than just apologizing and saying you're working on it, mention how you are planning on addressing it with the affected hosts without  having to be called out on it first.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Airbnb 

Agree with @Sarah977 - would have been preferred if Airbnb had put all the affected hosts' minds at ease, letting them know they will NOT have to lose money from the start, as soon as Airbnb was aware of the bug. I'm sure many affected hosts around the world lost several nights of sleep worrying what to do. 

I get that dealing with the problem is important. But so is COMMUNICATING and not causing excessive worry, concern and widespread panic. Seriously.....Airbnb is a multi-million dollar company that has a global presence. The way this company handles issues is worse than a lemonade stand - soooo unprofessional. 

[Emily352]

Airbnb654

Administrator

224 years ago

Dear hosts, we would like to thank you for bringing this to our attention. The problem was caused by a glitch in the system on the string HolYShEeT723.

The algorithm, which smells of Budweiser, flipped out again, and on its twelfth beer selected the smart pricing.

Our team of engineers we play the online game “tic-tac-toe” with, has identified the problem and is currently working to solve it.

Don't worry if you now read the words from right to left, it's the community platform that, after christening users with numbers in the name of AIRBNB, now started writing things backwards.

.situation the resolve we while patient be Please .apologies our accept Please

A system error has occurred. Please restart.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Emily352

😄

DIVINE!

SODA CRUSH!

NEXT

[Cormac0]

@Emily352

It took me a minute or two to realise that your comment was a spoof, which is an appalling indictment of Airbnb’s technical support...

Heads need to roll at the software department of Airbnb, could you imagine if a glitch on the Apple store allowed people to buy iPhones at a quarter of the price, there’d definitely be changes of management, a comment and an apology for Tim Cook, but not so at Airbnb…

There needs to be management changes at the top of Airbnb, Chesky head of community(LOL) is nowhere to be seen on a matter as serious as this.

[Susan17]

@Airbnb4 

Perhaps it was an oversight, but the wording of your update makes it sound as if you're only addressing those who have posted here in this Community Centre.

Can you please confirm that all hosts who have been affected by this latest glitch - whether or not they have posted their complaints online - will be contacted and recompensed?

Do you have the means to identify all those who have been affected, and if so, within what timeframe should they expect to hear from you? Rather than the "few" hosts that you referred to in your original post on this issue, it's very clear from host commentary all over social media, that this has been a widespread issue, and has had negative consequences for many, many hosts, sitewide. Definitely not "a few". 

If you don't have the means to identify all affected hosts, do you have plans to send a blanket email to your entire host community, advising them of the glitch and outlining Airbnb's efforts to rectify it, apologising profusely for the confusion, timewasting, stress and inconvenience caused, and inviting all those who have suffered financial losses - yet again - due entirely to Airbnb's negligence and incompetence, to contact you immediately for full, fair and swift reimbursement? 

By way of restoring host confidence, can you assure us that from this point forward, Airbnb will pledge to communicate all known glitches to its host community (and its Customer Support teams) in a timely and transparent manner, so that hosts may be forewarned, in good time, of any potential issues and implications? 

And finally, can you confirm that going forward, Airbnb will take full accountability and responsibility for all losses incurred to hosts that are directly  attributed to provable failures in the Airbnb system - be they technical or administrative - and that the company will reimburse accordingly, without prejudice, without penalty, and without forcing hosts to jump through an endless series of ridiculous hoops to claw back what's rightfully theirs. 

Thank you. 

[Susan17]

@David Erik @Jude56 @Lindsay214 @Simon1959 @Lisa2109 @Vice163  Jessica & Henry1 Branka & Silvia1

Petar16 Michelle1362 Sarah977

@Emily352 @Joanna355 

[Joanna355]

I’ve received an email but it’s really generic. Would post it here but can’t on the app. I sent a screenshot of it to the chat with the support person (who denied there was an issue and tried to say I had been misled about smart pricing) and no response yet, when the messages were coming promptly yesterday. Frustrating.