Airbnb unauthorized price adjustments

[Roham0]

I have all of June marked at $139 a night with a 15% discount on 7 day bookings. I just received an instant book for 7 days at $108 a night. How is this possible? This is high season and you can't get a budget motel for $108 a night let alone an entire property! Has this happened to other people as well?

[Robin4]

@Roham0

It doesn't seem that much out to me! You say your listing is $139 per night and you offer a 15% discount for 7 days. You said you have received a 7 day booking which means the discount applies. That discount comes to $21 and then there is the Airbnb 3% service fee which they round up so that is another $5. That bring the nightly rate down to $113 so there is a shortfall of $5 there. Could this be a tax component of the Listing price.

Cheers....Rob

[David126]

Do you have Smart Pricing on? Seems to be $10 difference per night so as @Robin4 mentioned not a major difference.

[Roham0]

@David126Smart pricing is one of the scariest things I ever did see. It's driving the prices of my entire property down well below a motel room price. Very scary. I booked once $59 a night for a week thanks to smart pricing. After the cleaning costs and airbnb fees I was left with $250 for a week. No thanks. Turned that off long ago. I have everything individually priced up to two years in advance.

[Roham0]

@David126, @Robin4, Thank you for the replies.

"It doesn't seem that much out to me"

"not a major difference"

Guys, come on. Business. That's the cost of cleaning the property between guests or worse. Let's put this into perspective. $10 of $118 is almost a 9% difference. 

Just got off the phone with Airbnb. Possible glich in the system.

They will phone me back as it will take some digging on their part.

[Robin4]

@Roham0 Hey Roham I didn't mean it was inconsequential....even a dollar is worth querying because they all add up. What I was  infering is could there be something else in there you have set that could account for that $5. And @David126 did raise a good point, was this booking the result of Smart Pricing! Some hosts say they like smart pricing but my feeling is most don't like it because it is designed to secure bookings for Airbnb rather than offer the host a good deal. In most instances I have seen Smart pricing reduces the cost of the listing to the point where the host actually looses money.

If 50% of hosts in the area set...lets say a private room for $120 per night, and do not set a cleaning fee, they will have to compete with hosts who list at $90 and set a $30 cleaning fee as an add-on. In theory the host who does not set a cleaning fee will be better off for short term stays but, what happens is 'Smart pricing' looks at the listing fee set and does not take into account the cleaning fee so of course will suggest and use of the lower amount as the fugure the host should use. It completely ignores that fact that these hosts are making up the difference by charging a cleaning fee and hosts who don't (if they use Smart Pricing) will get screwed.

It's an emotive area and I have had a few detracters on another thread about just this topic...but I won't be swayed!

Cheers.....Rob