dubious pricing representation

[Dennis732]

I just noticed my credit card had been charged about 2x what the venue listed as the price.  AirBNB support was very nice but just told me the host was charging more for those days.  I don't mind a "high season" bump of but 2x seemed pretty crazy.  And to not get any indication in the UI?!?! Admittedly I book pretty quickly so I might have missed the actual total.  But then again I think it'd jump out at me that it was 2x what I was expecting.

Also I would expect the price in the listing to show a range, like in my case $161-$326, so I'd know to look at the actual price for my dates.

Anybody else know anything about this?  Do hosts' listings just show an average price? Or a lowest?

Thanks,

Dennis

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Dennis732 when you book a property the total price including tax is shown very clearly  before you finally commit to the booking. To then only 'notice' the amount when you looked at your credit card seems most bizarre.

[Dennis732]

I too find it surprising I missed that. Do hosts have any hack to go change the prices on the dates before they accept the rental? This rental is run by some company, not an individual. As you know a lot of companies have sprung up to both buy AirBNB properties directly and to run them for others so that the hosts "Beth and Dave" might really be Amalgamated Diversified Property Management.

Anyhow, I would like to see AirBNB display the rate range in big letters for the listing price:  $161-362 instead of just the $161 they show now.

And on the calendar, have some way of visually indicating higher price days, like if the price is over 20% of the base price, show those dates in bold red.

I don't suppose anyone knows how to reach a program manager working at AirBNB, do they?

Thanks,

Dennis

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Dennis732 No hosts cannot change the price once a booking is made. They can change the price regularly though so it may go up or down if you search for the same days at different times. Also Airbnb's smart pricing automatically adjusts prices based on demand/supply.

The USA version of Airbnb has caught up with the European version in that you can opt to see all the costs when searching (except tax). The breakdown of individual days is arguably irrelevant if you want to travel between certain dates who cares if one night is $1 and the next is $100 as long as you are happy with a $50.5 average price per night.

[Dennis732]

What I'm imagining is something like this. Not exactly this but just something to help cue the user about expensive dates.

[Dennis732]

And wrt "arguably irrelevant", I frequently plan my trip using a number of factors and if I saw I could save a bunch of money by hitting something on the end of the trip instead of at the beginning, that would definitely factor into my planning.

I've submitted my feedback via their airbnb.com/help/feedback link and I also have an acquaintance who works there so we'll see. Not overly optimistic...

[Kia272]

@Dennis732  All you have to do is pay attention when you book. The price you are being charged is clearly displayed once you put dates into the calendar. It's interesting to me that you are coming up with suggestions after the fact to help mitigate a "problem" that you perceive in the booking process, but the bottom line is that you didn't pay attention.

When you do a date search, before you even click into a property, there's a nightly price, as well as a "total price" link right next to it. When you click on that, it gives you a breakdown of the nightly price as well as the cleaning fee and any service fees. 

You can check out different prices by entering different dates in the calendar. The tools are available to you, you just seem to want somebody else to shoulder the responsibility for your mistake. 

[Dennis732]

Yes I made a mistake.  Now let's discuss the host's pricing.

I didn't go thru the whole year for this property but my 3 days are the only days I found anywhere near the $326/night price.  Most days are $161 with some "high season" prices rising to $200/night or so.  That doesn't seem unreasonable.  A 2x hike seems unscrupulous, and the fact I can't find any other days at that price makes me a little suspicious.

I didn't arrive at this property via date search. We went there last year and enjoyed it.  But looking back I see they also gouged me by about 2x last year and I never noticed.

Is there any chance there's some sideways thing they can do like remove the dates and re-enter them to get a higher price?  Something seems very fishy about the 2x hike on exactly those 3 days, especially since I couldn't find anywhere else with a price anywhere near what I paid.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Dennis732 hosts can change their prices anytime AND if on smart pricing Airbnb can change their pricing anytime as it is controlled by a computer.

no one knows how the Airbnb algorithm works but it could be very clever and monitor (like the airlines do) a particular ISP address and if it sees them looking regularly it could increase the price.

The important word above is COULD. We gave up on smart pricing because it seemed to be rather dumb as opposed to smart.

Were the dates you booked near a big event by any chance? If so that could account for the high pricing.

[Kia272]

@Dennis732 I guess I'm having trouble with your choice of words. The hosts didn't "gouge" you in any way. You agreed to pay the price when you booked. 

Yes- many hosts adjust their pricing for any number of reasons, but the bottom line is supply and demand. AirBnB even encourages that with their "smart pricing", (which is not actually very smart), but will adjust based on supply and demand. So holidays, towns with big events like major league sports venues, summer homes on a lake or the beach, any number of situations may cause a host to raise his or her prices. It's called capitalism, and it's legal. 

You may think of an AirBnB as a nice, quaint alternative to a hotel, but it is actually a business, and you can't condemn a host for treating it as such. 

Personally, I don't play with my price at all. I believe there's a certain value in staying at my property, and for me, that doesn't change according to outside factors, so I charge what I think is a fair price from which I can still profit, and leave it at that, but I'm likely an exception to the rule. 

But to answer your original question, no- a host CANNOT change a price once you have booked. They also can't solicit more money after you have booked. They can try, but they'll get in big trouble if you report them. There are also hefty cancellation penalties for hosts if they cancel for any reason, so AirBnB is actively discouraging this type of behavior. 

I'm struggling with your perception that a host might be charging too much or ripping people off. When you go to a store or restaurant, and the item or food is what you perceive to be outrageously priced, you leave and take your business elsewhere. You should do the same if you find an AirBnB to be too expensive for you. 

The bottom line in my opinion, after several years of hosting, is that the biggest problem on the AirBnB platform is that guests do not read. They get caught up in the appeal of the pictures, or the location, or whatever they are dreaming about, and don't pay attention to price, fees, and things like check-in and check-out times. When it becomes an issue, somehow the host is at fault. Food for thought. Good luck. Kia

[Dennis732]

It's been over a year since I selected this property so I can't speculate as to how I missed the total but as I have admitted the mistake was mine.  I was probably trying different date ranges, saw this one usually coming up at $161 and then when I settled on final dates for the trip (actually got them from my wife), I picked this favorited property and booked it without looking further.

Had I noticed I was booking at $326/night I could have had some pretty awesome other property options altho my ceiling is usually around $220/night.

I'm totally OK with "high season" increases and understand that it's capitalism but I guess I was lulled into a false sense of complacency by seeing the $161 price for the other dates I was looking at. 

So AirBNB says they can't see the host's calendar and the host says AirBNB sets the pricing. So is the host likely using AirBNB's "smart pricing"?  How exactly does that work?  Does the host set a base rate and then the algorithm takes over?

I guess the algorithm could have decided to spike those 3 nights altho that's still a bit curious. Like I said previously I could get the next 3 nights for $201/night which seems like just a fine seasonal increase.

Thanks,

Dennis

[Dennis732]

Yes, it's Dec 27-30 over Christmas break.  Looking at the dates right after us Dec 31 - Jan 2nd it's showing $201/$201/$203 break down for those individual nights which again seems like reasonable pricing. I can't see the dates right before mine since those dates a blocked off.

Last year same dates same property I see they billed me $315/night and I didn't notice. 

What exactly does the dashed line price indicate? Some kind of mark down obviously.  And from what is that derived?

Looking thru other options for Prescott Dec 27-30 I see quite a few under $200 and a bunch that have that dashed-line price, for example $266 marked down to $207.

AirBNB is not my life, just something I do real quick when the family wants to go somewhere.

[Huma0]

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@Dennis732 wrote:

Yes, it's Dec 27-30 over Christmas break. 

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Well, that's a pretty straightforward answer to why the rates were higher on those dates.  I only host long term stays now, so I don't vary my prices significantly from one date to another (although Smart Pricing will tweak them a bit), but when I still hosted short stays, the Christmas break was priced the higher than any time of year. That's normal. Do you think that hotels don't charge a lot more for stays at Christmas than they would for less popular ones?

As for the way the pricing is displayed, the host sets a base rate and that is the price initially displayed in the search results. However, as soon as you enter your dates, it's going to show you the total price (minus taxes, but including fees etc.) for those dates. 

All this is pretty standard. When you see flight deals advertised, or a holiday package, it's always 'price from X'. That doesn't mean you will get that price regardless of which date you book. You have to check the price for the dates you want. 

One thing Airbnb could do, and should do in my opinion, to make it clearer for guests is to specify 'FROM $X per night' before the guest enters their dates. That way people won't assume that it's the same price for every night of the year.

[Dennis732 · Accepted solution]

OK I've learned a lot about AirBNB pricing.  Here's probably what happened. I was looking for possible properties in my price range ($150-$250) for our trip using approximate dates.  I favorited this one.  Then my wife came in with exact dates.  I grabbed a favorited property and booked it without looking at exact pricing.

The host says they use AirBNB's "smart pricing" and in addition use some other tool:

"Yes we and by extension our listings on Airbnb, VRBO, etc, utilize a dynamic pricing tool called Smart Rates, which means that our nightly rates can vary depending on several factors including day of the week, time of year, special events, booking windows, demand and more! Our rates are set very competitively to the specific market and are thus non-negotiable. These rates are also subject to change every 24 hours depending on the aforementioned factors."

So their rate tool apparently jumped in and put my dates at the $326/night rate but I was just clicking "reserve" on an already vetted property so I didn't notice that the actual price was 2x what I was expecting it to be.

Thanks everyone.

Dennis