'Smart Pricing' enabled without consent

[Mark1125]

HI all,

We have had for the 2nd time in a year, had 'Smart Pricing' turned on for our property without our consent, and users have booked our property at rates where we lose money.

AirBnB refuses to acknowledge the problem, or accept responsibility for the technical error, and will not remove the booking that ocurred at the incorrect rate.

After messaging the prospect to inform them of the error caused by the platform, we offered them the unit to stay if they were willing to pay the rack rate.

At this point we no longer trust the prospective guest, nor feel comfortable with the booking, yet AirBnB refuses to help.

Have others experienced this?

[Emiel1]

@Mark1125,

It is unlikely "Smart Pricing" is turned on automatically, as also the upper and lower bounderies need to be set. If you do not trust the platform, maybe trun off "instant Book" so you can check first if each booking is OK. It is not common to contact guests after the booking to  increase the price.

It is not the fault of the guest your listing is not setup correct. I have 5 listings and NEVER experienced prices changes without my intervention.

So check your pricing and also be sure nobody else has (legal or illegal) access to your account.

[Mark1125]

@Emiel1,

So the last time this issue occurred, the major cause was "instant book" being activated (we NEVER allow Instant Book) and us recieving a booking while we were out of town. We called AirBnB, they admitted that there was a glitch in their system while I was on the phone with their support person.

24 hours later, we get a booking during our high season (May 1 - Oct 1) here, at >50% off our standard high season rate. We had not even logged into our account since speaking with AirBnB, and the rest of 2018 was set to 'Smart Pricing', which we do NOT use ever.

No one else has access to the account, we have asked AirBnB to confirm the IP addresses of the most recent logins, and they have refused our repeated requests. 

We have never had any of these types of issues before on other platforms, it only seems to be with AirBNB.

[Tony286]

Hi,

i’ve Just had this happen to me, with 2 bookings made at a lower rate, costing me money.

I turned off ‘smart pricing’ & set my own pricing last year after I worked out that it was a load of crap and a revenue driver for Airbnb who play the numbers game...

i challenged Airbnb & got some rubbish back about ‘it’s not possible to send me a report about who changed this setting & when, but the icing on the cake was maybe someone I know changed it - WTF.

I have requested a call back from a senior advisor based on serious breach of agreement....

I have again set up my own pricing for what it’s worth but maybe after catching them out that I’m now safe....

Frustrated host,

Tony

[Pippa33]

I know I'm late joining the conversation, but I turned off Smart Pricing last year and have manually set my own price since then. Last week I got a booking at really short notice. No wonder! It was less than 50% of what I normally charge and Airbnb refuse to accept that their system has overwritten my price and implemented Smart Pricing. They also refuse to give me evidence as they are claiming that I did it! I'm furious. I'm based in the Uk so will now be taking the legal route to make them provide me with evidence. I've been a Superhost for over a year and have made them plenty of money, so am doubly angry that they wont admit fault and make up the difference. Any advice from anyone to help me take them on?

Thanks

Pippa

[Anne-Marie-and-Russell0]

This happened to me today!  I have had Smart Pricing turned off for over a year and we have set our own prices using a 3rd party pricing tool, and today it spontaneously turned itself on.

Our prices lowered by nearly $50/night and we had 3 bookings within hours, taking advantage of the fire sale.  We lost hundreds of dollars on multi-night bookings.

What's worse, right when we figured out what was happening and took steps to fix it, a potential guest was in the middle of making a reservation.  They were enticed with one price, and then when it was time to click "book" the prices had gone up significantly.  They were understandably upset! 

What is our recourse?  How can we prevent this from happening again?

Anne Marie

[Dylan248]

Just happened to me also... very frustrating. Both smart pricing and instant booking was turned on. Both of these I made a point of turning off.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Mark1125 

We had this happen on VRBO. A guest took a discount on their instant booking we did'nt notice until later, we simply never discount so the discount was not of our doing. Taking it up with VRBO they accepted that they had switched their databases over to another system and there must have been an error in the transfer. Trying to get compensation was impossible. We had 5 cases closed without resolution despite the service rep's acknowledgement that it was their problem. I would do updates, save them, check them and next day changes would no longer be saved.

It leaves hosts out of pocket, guests with a great deal and the platform hiding away from a bungled update. I did wonder how many other hosts were possibly affected by this?

The only recourse is to suck it up or switch platform if you get no resolution.

[Emily352]

The system has a bug, but it seems to affect only those hosts that in the past had picked instant booking and then removed it.

My new name is Emily352, but I don’t drive a cab.

[David-Erik0]

Same problem here:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Smart-pricing-activated-by-itself/m-p/1032937?search-act...

Smart pricing has two places where can be activated, one is the listing settings and that control all the days the other way to control it, is by manually activate or deactivate each single day you are opening in your calendar and this was I did since I've started to host. 

This morning I've found out that on all my days, smart pricing was activated with a consequent reduction of prices.

[Deb125]

You have to be very careful,,, AIRBNB constantly sends you too much info on other properties getting more bookings than you are, and to lower your rates.. (my issue is the competing condo's in the rental pool collect taxes when the guests arrive and check in, I can't do that, so my daily rate includes  taxes  (14.42% which is a lot)  since AIRBNB is the only platform that doesn't have a seperate catagory for State & local taxes, my rates appear higher.. I am constantly getting messages from AIRBNB that my rates are too high (HATE THAT)  and saying offer a 39% + dicount.. if you touch anything you could accidently turn the discount on

[Nina518]

This happened to me too yesterday. I had manually set the pricing myself for these date and yesterday and today I  started getting loads of booking as Airbnb had put smart pricing back on. This was half the price of what I set it to. I have now lost a lot of money becuase of this fault, it is in the middle of high season. 

I have just sent a message to Airbnb asking them to correct the issue or give me a refund. Hopefully they will acknowledge the issue and solve it in a good way. 

[Laurie100]

This is the 3rd time AirBNB has randomly enabled smart pricing on our listings. We received a booking for 1/2 our nightly rate & then immediately contacted AirBNB & were connected  with a *resolution specialist*.  I have 3 houses & have been a superhost  for 3 years yet I am constantly amazed at the ghosts in their booking machine.

I am highly suspicious this is an algorithm AirBNB incorporates into their code in order to increase bookings for both ratio and earnings to enhance their numbers prior to their IPO.  There is no other way to explain the existance of an issue that has existed for more than a year.  Our off-shore resolution guy admitted they know they have an issue, but with all of the resources at their disposal there is no way the issue isn't a calculated one.

At any rate - every time this happens, AirBNB first instructs me to contact the customer and cancel the booking.  I tell them NO F'ING WAY.  It is AirBNB's mistake, they can contact the customer and rectify the situation.  They don't want to do this, so in the end I pursue until I am made whole.  If hosts allow them to randomly mess with you on price without a battle they will continue with this predatory behavior.

Since these unicorn IPO's only are concerned with gross sales - not bottomline - AirBNB will continue to manipulate the properties pricing on their platform to maximize sales.

[Susan17]

@Laurie100 

"I am highly suspicious this is an algorithm AirBNB incorporates into their code in order to increase bookings for both ratio and earnings to enhance their numbers prior to their IPO"

That's a very valid suspicion, shared by many. We can expect lots more "glitches" in the coming months. 

[S110]

This has happened to me twice now, and the first time, I just didn't have time to investigate but the second one, I have contacted airbnb as to how my total came out to so low as I price each night myself. The answer I received was that my SMART PRICING as turned on. I do not use smart pricing as I do not make any money off it, but Airbnb does per booking. So I assume that they have turned it on without my consent. I have told them that i have never used nor turned on smart pricing and it was ALWAYS turned off. It is in their interest to have it turned on to attract bookings at the cost of the hosts losing money. I am still waiting for their reply after 90mins of conversation. It is suspect and shady what they are doing. Trying to blame this on me saying that i had smart pricing turned on when I always check that it is turned off and when i adjust my pricing for each night, i make sure it is turned off for a good reason. I will need to cancel the reservation as this cannot happen again the second time. And i'm glad i caught it this time. But this is hurting both the guests and the hosts, manipulating us to increase Airbnb's sales is unacceptable.