Mystery Discount

[Lusine22]

Couple of days ago I received the listing reservation request and upon checking what I will potentially earn I noticed that there was a Weekly discount applied. It didn't say how much the discount was but I calculated and it was 30% off. I knew that something was off because I never give weekly discounts since I rent out monthly long term only. When I went and checked my listing's pricing settings in the calendar I saw that in fact I had 0% monthly discount, 0% weekly discount, and I only had a temporary 20% off promotion on from October to December of 2024.

So I contacted Airbnb and they too checked my pricing settings and came to the same conclusion that there was no weekly discount on my end but they were not sure how there was a discount applied. So they told me to decline the reservation request and ask the guest to make the reservation again after I remove the 20% off promotion I had, that was not even applicable to that reservation. I followed those instructions, the guest made the reservation again, and the weekly discount of 30% off was still on. So then somebody else from Airbnb started working on this case and after one phone call with me somehow concluded that the fault is with me.

They proceeded to give me instruction on how to apply and remove discount. They somehow concluded that this system error happened because I used to have a 20% of monthly discount which I removed in October and then by creating a 20% promotional offer from October to December and deleting that two days ago upon their request, this caused their system to give a 30% off weekly discount for a guest in January of 2025.

There's no logic behind this, none of this makes sense. All I know is that my guest has a bad experience because they're seeing a huge discount, which shouldn't have even been there because I didn't put it there, and now has to decide if they want to book at a higher rate (I gave 20% off special offer after having to decline their reservation request the 2nd time since the weekly discount was still on it). Airbnb tried to close the case and I've requested for it to be escalated at this point so there's no real conclusion or solution yet.

Has anyone else experience something like this?

[Shelley159]

@Lusine22 

Are you using professional tools? You can check whether it's turned on in your account settings - perhaps you created a rule some time ago?

Also, I assume you're not using third party software that could have caused this?

[Paula]

Hello @Lusine22 I hope you are doing well 😊

Our experienced host, Shelley, has stepped in to help, but it seems a few clarifications are needed to better understand the source of this discount.

Looking forward to your response. Any additional information or details would greatly help our host community provide further guidance 🙏

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Lusine22 

I agree with you that what they are telling you doesn't make sense. @Shelley159 had a good idea to double check if you had a rule set applied to the dates that you forgot about (if using Pro Tools). I would also check to see if you had any custom length of stay discounts set or other custom trip-length discounts or last minute stay or early bird discounts that could also apply to this reservation:

[Lusine22]

Yes turns out it was the trip length discount which is so hidden and I don't understand why there is that section in addition to the other section that you add weekly and monthly discounts. I ended up remembering that I added those discounts and my intention behind it was to add a discount for a 3-week stay but turns out it's 3 weeks or more which is very confusing and unclear. I thought I was just adding a custom length discount in case somebody booked something for 3 weeks, but it turns out that's not the case.

[Joan2709]

@Lusine22 

Glad you got it resolved!  Discounts can be tricky as some are “stackable” and some aren’t. 

Another option would be to have the guest send an  inquiry for the dates and then send a Special  Offer for the amount you agreed upon. Don’t forget to include your cleaning fee in the special offer total.