Custom Promotion dates blocked

[Robin129]

I want to use the "custom promotion" option to set several special promotions during the down times. I managed to get one set a week ago. Most of my weekdays are blocked from the custom promotion option. I spent a couple hours tinkering with various prices, blocking and unblocking dates, logging out and back in. Nothing I could do would open those dates. So it appears that I can only offer those special promotions on weekends. 

Does anyone have any idea what the issue is? I've tried to see if the custom promotion is only available on weekends but I haven't seen anything that says so.

[Robin129]

ABB apparently decides what your promotional prices can be based on an average of previous prices. So, if you raise your rate for the holiday season the discount is based on an average of non-holiday rates. 😠 

[Dede0]

@Robin129 Note that they say they use the 30-day "median" price. Median is different from "average". But no matter which one they actually mean, I can state with certainty that they're not really using either, at least not if by "30-day" they mean the rates set for the 30 days before the selected promotion dates OR the 30 days surrounding the selected promotion  dates. I know this with certainty because of the odd behavior of a possible promotion I tested.  Within my selected range, two adjacent days showed radically different "median" rates, one for $210 and the other for $135.

So, what I think they mean by "30-day median" is that, for any given day, they're using the rates you've had set for that date for the last 30 days. In my example, that could result in the discrepancy I noted. The day that showed a median of $210 (part of a higher-priced special event) had been set to my default rate  of $90 and was blocked until about three weeks ago as it was too far in the future. After unblocking it, I set its rate to $240, then later changed that to $220. The date that showed a 30-day median of $135 had also been set to $90 while blocked, then set to around $160 when unblocked, then dropped to $140.

Long explanation, but I'm pretty sure that AirBnB is basing the "median" on the rate history of the selected date(s), not the existing rates of surrounding dates.

[Dede0]

@Robin129 As far as promotions being possible for some dates but not for others, what I'm seeing is that very far-off dates (in my case, 3 months out) aren't selectable, while unbooked dates (weekdays or weekends) closer in (from this week out as far as just under 2 months) are selectable.

[Robin129]

At the time I couldn't post a second "promotion" at all, even though I had a message saying I could do up to three, I think it was three. I haven't tried multiples since then. I may check later today.

[Diane574]

I talked to someone at Airbnb yesterday, regarding custom promotion dates and limits.  If you have a custom promotion available, you can "promote" no more than 50% of the nights in any given month.  Also, they need to be within 100 days, and they need to have been unblocked for 28 of the last 30 days.  That explained a lot to me, why I could promote some days and not others.  They need to make it more clear for hosts.  This took a LOT of time on the phone with airbnb to get these answers.  Airbnb isn't making it clear to us as hosts, nor to the people that work the phones there.  Anyways, hope that helps!

[Betsy13]

Thanks for sharing that information @Diane574.  I was just trying to do a promotion for my property for the 3rd week in July.  We had a last minute cancellation and now I'm scrambling to fill the vacancy with less than 8 days to go.  This is our PEAK season (we are usually booked a year out), so I would think this would be a great way to let Airbnb customers know that we have last minute availability.  But nope.  Airbnb won't let me do it.  The only reason I can see is because it hasn't been unblocked for 28 of the last 30 days (because it was booked until the last minute cancellation).  Such a bummer.  Why do so many Airbnb policies make no sense?