Pricing on Map View. Recent change?

[Paul154]

I always used Map view, because it was a great way to compare offerings against each other.

I believe they had combined the cleaning fee + listing price so that I could compare apples to apples.

It was a great tool to find daily rates and choose accordingly.

Now today, I see that offerings in map view are only  comparing LIST PRICES.

Grrr... In map view, I now seem more expensive to others who charge a high cleaning fee. Only by looking at the small print in the individual listing can you see that I am more ecomical.

Is this a recent change or have I always operated under the wrong assumption?

No problem really, I'll just lower my rate and charge a higher cleaning fee...

[Pete28]

I posted about this earlier. I tried to contact our dear leaders yesterday on Twitter and email to tell them that this was clearly broken. It's not only map view, it's also the results list as well

I got zero bookings until I added a cleaning fee and dropped my nightly rate - guests are still searching for low rates and all prices are now skewed low. Searching for <$70 on some weekends returns 300+ results all of which are over that when you add in cleaning fee.

I am glad I only have a single listing, this will hurt financially since it makes it almost impossible to do a real search on the web, and nothing tells you it's broken. Airbnb fix it !

[Pete28]

@Paul154 I am still seeing this problem.

Clearly Airbnb is once again experimenting on some part of the country because apparently not everyone is impacted.

I have switched to a 3 day max so that the low price + increased cleaning fee don't destroy earnings. Hard to imagine this is an intended result...

[Jess78]

@Pete28@Paul154

Is this is reason December Airbnb bookings have been NIL perhaps? I’ve never had a month with 0 advance bookings, even in low season. Things had taken a dive off a cliff. Lots of views, no bookings. I’ve had very low cleaning fees posted. Sigh... guess I’ll try to lower rates and raise the cleaning fee. Thanks for observing this glitch. 

[Pete28]

@Jess78 can you do a search on the web as above in your locale or anywhere else and see what pricing you get and if it includes the cleaning fee and service fee ? I keep trying with incognito mode etc and still see only base price.

As you note, this will kill bookings if you don't have a cleaning fee because no one is searching higher prices.

Beyond me how Airbnb has done this without telling anyone - it may even be a bug and they are all out for thanksgiving. Have tried airbnbhelp but they have no idea 😞

[Pete28]

Strategically I would drop daily rate to get views, increase cleaning fee and set a limit to max nights to avoid loosing money.

After I did this I have got bookings again but it's super annoying. I couldn't even book up thanksgiving before I did this 😞

[John1080]

@Paul154@Pete28@Jess78, I have had zero bookings for December so far also, but an uptick in views. 

I lowered my daily rate and added a cleaning fee again a few days ago to see if that helps! 

[Pete28]

@John1080 - after I did that it started moving again, but guests face a challenge figuring out what to book given they can't search by price...

[Pete28]

This thread from a while back suggests that Airbnb keep switching between total and base price.

I thought it was fairly clear that EU had told them to show accurate pricing wherever possible - even from the Uk I am still seeing only base price on map....

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Cleaning-Fees-Including-in-Price-on-Search-Results/td-p/...

[Susan17]

@Pete28 The EU has given Airbnb until the end of December to start displaying prices in a clear and transparent manner, on all EU language versions of the website. I'm clueless when it comes to tech stuff, but is it at all possible that the issues you're seeing now are as a result of system-wide glitches caused by whatever tinkering around they're doing to update the pricing structures in time for the EU deadline? 

[Lilly28]

@Susan17

I think maybe you guessed right. No other explanation for not having any bookings for the lowest price I ever had.

[Lilly28]

@Susan17

If this is right - well, this would be the most unpleasant thing, imagine your price and description in all possible EU languages - absolute nonsence. And what do they mean by clear and transparent? There was an EU directive - every cucumber should be... cm and do not have to be curved more than... well I gorget, but say - 5 degrees from the right line - 

[Susan17]

Lol! I thought that particular EU directive related to the curvature of bananas @Lilly28, but maybe it was cucumbers too! 🙂

This is one of the Commission's more sensible directives though, brought under the Unfair Commercial Practices policy, and requires Airbnb to show the total  price per night, including cleaning fees and service charges, to browsing guests who have entered their preferred dates. Guests searching without dates will still see the lower base price of the listing, but it must be clearly displayed to them that "additional fees may apply". Saves the guest from any nasty shocks later on!

As regards the EU language thing - Airbnb will have to update their pricing structure on all EU language versions of their site, but guests will still only be shown the pricing and description in their own language

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-18-5809_en.htm

[Pete28]

I completely agree. So why has Airbnb suddenly taken to showing base price only without cleaning fee on the web !? I could imagine a mistake being made for a day or two - but this is on going for a week. Does anybody at Airbnb use their own website ?

[Susan17]

@Pete28 Invariably, when Airbnb carries out a major update (and sometimes, minor ones too), it causes serious glitches system-wide that affects some users, but not all. These glitches often go unchecked for weeks. (Airbnb's strategy for fixing bugs appears to be - when enough people phone up to complain about it, we'll eventually get around to sorting it) Par for the course with this company. Been that way for years.