My Monthly Discount Is Not Showing When Guests Try To Book

Jackson4
Level 2
Atlanta, GA

My Monthly Discount Is Not Showing When Guests Try To Book

Hi Friends,

I have a monthly discount set in my pricing, but I've had two guests try to book and tell me that the monthly discount is not showing up when they enter the dates. The last time this happened was earlier this week, and I replied to the guest with a special offer but never heard back.

 

I'm afraid I may be losing business because of this; does anyone have any suggestions?

 

Thanks in advance for any help,

 

Jackson Faw

4 Replies 4
Clare0
Level 10
Templeton, CA

Hi @Jackson4 I just took a brief look at your two listings.  The Entire Home listing has a discount percentage for monthly stays which is fine.  Only problem is that your calendar is totally blocked for months to come.  Is that because right now you are only renting a private room in that house?

For the private room, your listing has a fixed price for a month but when I tried to "pretend" book for a month the price calculated was the average nightly price times the number of days.  Interestingly I no longer have the option to set a fixed price for weekly or monthly stays so I have to put in a percentage discount.  I would advise that you go to your price settings and change from a fixed price for monthly stays to a a percentage discount to arrive at what you want to charge.  Try it. 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Claire,

You are correct re: the dates for my home; I only rent my home out when I'm going to be gone for an extended period.

 

Regarding the discount on my room: I just made the change you suggested, and hope this takes care of the problem. If you have a moment, could you please check again and let me know? I REALLY appreciate this great insight and help.

 

I have a few more questions; I'll probably post them to the group so that I'm not overly burdening you, but just wanted to go ahead and ask while I'm thinking of them. First, are discounts automatically applied when the person books a minimum of either 7 or 30 days? I.e. I assume that if someone books for 30 or 7 days, they do not have to be M-F, or the 1st through the 30th? And what if someone books, e.g., 35 days; would the monthly discount apply to the first 30 days, then revert to the daily rate for the last 5 days, etc.? At which point, of course, you would handle through a special offer I assume?

 

Last question: do you think Instant Book is good? I've been hesitant to use this so that I can look at someone's profile before booking.

 

I think I might learn more by trying the "fake booking" you mentioned; is that easy to do?

 

Again, I don't expect you to reply to all of this, but if  you can help with just the original request and check my discount I would be most grateful,

 

Jackson

First of all, @Jackson4, you are not a burden.  Happy to help you out!

Here's a screen shot of your weekly discount. The discount applies to all days of 7 or more regardless of what day of the week is selected. 

 

Weekly Discount.JPG

 

And your monthly discount.  Yes, the discount is applied for all days greater than 30.

Monthly Discount.JPG

 

As far as Instant Book goes, some hosts love it and others hate it.  I have location issues as I'm pretty remote out in the countryside so I don't have it turned on since I want to discuss my location with guests to be sure my place suits their needs.  My listing shows in nearby, larger, towns so many guests don't realize that the actual location is not in those towns.  If that weren't the case I might consider Instant Book since I've gotten really terrific guests and haven't had to decline any reservation requests.  One thing that really helps is to have Verified ID as a reservation requirement (to the left of Calendar and More).  That cuts out a lot of questionable people.  With Instant Book, though, it's really important to stay on top of your calendar to be sure any dates you don't want reservations are blocked.  Also, you have to be sure the pricing is correct for as far out in the future as your calendar allows.  Many hosts with Instant Book don't do this and are surprised by IB bookings, for say, New Year's, and they haven't adjusted their prices for the holidays.  Personally, I don't allow reservations more than 3 months out so managing my calendar is a lot easier.  

Yes, the "fake" booking is something you can do easily.  Just go to a preview of your listing and put in some reservation dates and see what shows up.  Don't press the Request to Book button, though! (The system probably wouldn't let you do it anyway since it's in Preview mode but I have never gone that far.)

 

Since you are a relatively new host, you might want to book mark this page which has incredibly helpful instructions for common hosting situations. 

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Community-Help/Community-Help-Guides/m-p/23100#U23100

 

Wish you the best of luck and that you have a very lucrative Airbnb career!  If you have any more questions, go ahead and ask!  I'll do my best to answer them. 

 

Clare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow...thanks Clare for the extremely thorough and helpful reply...this is awesome! I truly appreciate your taking all this time to help me, and please let me know if there's anything I can do to return the favor!

 

I am going to take your recommendation on the guest verification, and also make sure I have my booking in advance limits turned on, and double check my calendar. I also look forward to experimenting with the booking on my own listings - that's very good to know!

 

Thank you again,

 

Jackson