Smart Pricing Bug Issue

[Elise77]

Hello,

I had smart pricing on for a reservation and I am questioning the logic behind smart pricing as it looks like someone was able to book for $200/ night when it is Memorial Day weekend and all other homes in the area are set for $350+. This is very disappointing how do I go about fixing this? I don't want to cancel the reservation as I am a Superhost and I believe that takes away your status.

Thanks!

[Marzena4]

Hello @Elise77. What minimum price did you set? The smart pricing will not go below minimum, however, it is not smart enough to recognize festivals and holidays.

[Duane4]

They advertize it as being able to figure out holidays and festivals out but it clearly can't as it totally missed Pocono Race weekend June 1-3, 2018 when 80,000 people come to watch the NASCAR race and you can't get a hotel room anywhere in the county.

[Duane4]

Yup this is a problem that AirBNB refuses to acknowledge. We had the same problem and this is what we told airbnb about it...

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The issue was and still is that Smart Pricing was pricing Friday and Saturday nights at less than the other nights of the week. All prices that were set by the smart pricing tool. Here is a small sample of the pricing that was the product of the smart pricing tool:

1. Thursday March 8, $180. Friday March 9, $129 and Saturday March 10, $138.
2. Thursday March 15, $182. Friday March 16, $124 and Saturday March 17, $128.
3. Thursday March 22, $169. Friday March 23, $120 and Saturday March 24, $123.
4. The week of April 2-7 has very low prices.
5. Thursday May 3, $172. Friday May 4, $134 and Saturday May 5, $143.

Just those 4 instances left about $400 on the table or about $100 per weekend. That's $5,200/year in lost margin if this continues. Yeah I'm very concerned about this as it's a very wide swing in profitability as it's really a swing of about $10K when one considers the opportunity costs involved. Of course we turned it off for those days. We don't want to lose that much money in an experiment.

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This is how the AirBNB responded....

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I had my Supervisor take a look at your case, and agreed that this is how it works. 

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I asked them to have the supervisor call me and explain it to me. Crickets.

duane

[Duane4]

of coure AirBNB support won't acknowlegde that the tool is clearly broken. they want to show a lot of bookings for their public offering. Might be time to try another website.