Discounts for longer stays

[Susan99]

I am so happy with Airbnb and really have no interest in requests for private reservations.   In fact, for longer stays (over a month) I will gladly discount for the fees paid by the guest.  I was a landlord for many years and appreciate that fact that Airbnb  handles all the admin and policy making details, including the financial transaction.  Since joining the community I have been approached about discounting my rate even further than the 25% for a month or longer stay.   I like to keep things simple, not really inteeested in a lot of negociation.  I assume that this comes up  regularly.  How do other hosts handle this situation?

[Brittany1]

@Susan99 We don't offer any discount outright. When we do get asked for a discount we generally base our decision on how much we need the booking/like the person inquring.

When it is a request to change our nightly rate we send them a message that says something like " We work very hard to provide our guests with an affordable and competetively priced accomodation, what kind of discount were you thinking?" Then take it from there.

We had a guy recently try to nickel and dime us. When we finally offered him a discount (the equivalent of our cleaning fee) he told us he was going to cutting his trip short but still wanted to discount. We said no. And he was fine with it!

[Niku0]

Crazy calculation - I recently had a guest, who got charged more when he changed to a shorter stay.

Rates was set to - Day: $50 - Week $250 - Month $750.

Now my guest asks for 56 days, two Airbnb months of 28 days, 2 x 750 = $1,500.

Fine, he is happy with the rate, books and transfer payment to Airbnb.

Later he requests for two days earlier departure and to his big surprise the rate now is $1750 for two days shorter stay!

How can it be so? Airbnb's rate calculations is quite opaque, no help there, so he contacted Airbnb and was told, that monthly rate only is valid for whole months.

Which means, that our guest was charged 750 + 3 x 250 + 5 x 250 = $1750 for 54 days stay.

No problem the representive from Airbnb told our guest, just request for a special offer from the host, but a special offer cannot be made after the reservation is done!

So the only solution is to shorten the stay on the Airbnb calendar to 46 days, 750 + 2 x 250 + 4 x 50 = $1450 which match the price reduction the guest should have for two days less stay.

Confused? so am I, not to speak about the poor guest, who is at the boiling point after countless problems and solution suggesttions to Airbnb's goofy calculation methods.

[Matthew285]

@Susan99, when someone asks for a discount, we usually say something like:

Thanks for your inquiry!
We don't usually do any discounting; we already have set our price to be lower than other listings with similar amenities and location, and so we hope you can see it is a good value as it is.
We understand if you must look elsewhere if our listing is beyond what you are hoping to spend for this trip.
Otherwise, we would be happy to host you for your vacation!

They are free to book or not, but we hope it is clear that we don't negotiate discounts.