PRICING

[Judith162]

I am new to Air bnb and have a villa in the Dominican Republic.  I have 5 bedrooms but I often have to alter the pricing depending on the number of bedrooms used.  How can I reflect that in my pricing and how can I accept without using Air bnb's suggested pricing?  

[Karen-and-Brian0]

Hi @Judith162 If you want to keep your 5 bedrooms as one entire home listing, the best way to do it is to add an additional cost per guest over a base number. I don't know how your house is set up, but if 1 bedroom sleeps 2, then add in an additional fee after 2 people. We charge $50/per person after 4 people, but you can set the amount & the number to fit your needs. The price will be calculated when they book.

I'd stay away from Airbnb's smart pricing - it's often much too low & not all that smart! Hope that helps - Karen

[Judith162]

Thank you for your help.  At this time I added some notes to the listing that the final pricing will be determined after discussing the logistics.  We charge differntly depending upon number of bedrooms as well as time of year.  If this becomes a problem I will try your method.

Thank you!

[Louise0]

It seems counter-intuitive, but the 'easiest' way of approaching this is by having 5 seperate listings, i.e. a 1 bedroom Entire Place version, then a 2 bedroom, then a 3 bedroom etc, all of which have different prices.  

I do this with mine.  As well as offering Private Rooms, I offer it as a three Entire Place listings in either a 1, 2 or 3 bedroom format and all with different prices.  It's cumbersome to set up initially (because Airbnb has yet to offer a cloned listing functionality) but it will save you loads of time in the long term.

[Gerd19]

I agree on that. 5 seperate listings are needed if you want your place to get found in search results for 1, 2, 3 etc. bedrooms.

[Christopher187]

Just a warning here: I once had a guest wriggle out of a booking (with strict cancellation policy) because of my bedding setup.  I write in my listing, which is an "entire guest suite" that if extra bedroom/bed/bedding is needed the guest needs to inquire so we can discuss pricing.  I also have a per-guest price after 2 people.  Sometime after booking the guest wanted to cancel (for some other reason unknown to me) and complained to airbnb that I advertised an "entire place" but didn't give access to the extra bedroom.  I offered to give the extra room for free, but the guest still complained and Airbnb cancelled the booking and told me that my listing violates their TOS and that the guests must have access to all rooms for the place to be advertised as "entire guest suite".  This still bewilders me.

So the multiple listing idea might be safer by making it exceedingly clear how many beds they're getting.

[Matthew285]

@Christopher187 the customer service rep who told you that information was wrong.

AirBnB own help page on the room types says

• Entire homes/apartments: Guests rent the entire unit and don't have to share the space with you or with anyone else.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/317/what-do-the-different-room-types-mean

You define what the constitutes "the entire unit", and as long as they don't have to share that space with anyone, it is an "entire" place.

We rent out an "Entire Guest Suite". That doesn't mean the guest must be provided with access to all the rooms in my house. They just need unshared access to the rooms we define as the Guest Suite.

Lame reasoning on the part of that customer service rep. They probably just wanted to give the money to the guest and had to manufacture a reason to justify it. (Other than "the guest is being really naggy, and I don't want to deal with them any more.")