Special Offers: A Community Help Guide [UPDATED]

[Dave-and-Deb0]

I see a lot of questions on the Community Center about how to make Special Offers so here is a help guide on how to send them to guests.  

There are two times you can make a Special Offer, when someone sends an “Inquiry” and when someone sends a “Reservation Request”.  

1. Sending a Special Offer When Receiving an “Inquiry”

Step One: Go to your “Inbox” and find the inquiry from the guest.  Your inbox is located at https://airbnb.com/inbox

Step Two: Choose “Send Special Offer”

Step Three: You will now be at the Special Offer screen where you can a) change the listing if you are offering the guest a different listing, b) change the check-in/check-out date, c) change the number of guests, and/or d) change the price.  

As you change things, your pricing will be updated BUT when you change the price, you need to add the cleaning fee, extra guest fees (if any) and taxes (if you charge taxes and Airbnb does not collect them for you) as these are not calculated into the Special Offer price.

Step Four: Once you are sure that everything is accurate, you can then choose to “Send Special Offer”.  Once you send the offer, Airbnb will calculate the Guest Service Fees and taxes (if they collect taxes on your behalf) and then send the total to the guest.  Your guest then has the option to accept/decline the Special Offer.

Here is an example of what the guest receives to accept or decline

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 2. Sending a Special Offer When You Receive a “Reservation Request”

Step One: Go to your “Inbox” and find the message from the guest which would be marked as “pending” and open it.  Your inbox is located at https://airbnb.com/inbox

Step Two: In order to send a Special Offer, you first need to decline the reservation request.  Decline the request by choosing “Decline” and you will then have a popup screen where you need to choose the reason for declining.  You can choose “other” from the list and enter a reason such as you are sending a special offer to the guest.  Ensure that you uncheck the box, “Block my calendar …” or your calendar will be blocked during these dates.  

Step Three: Go back to your inbox and choose the message from the guest which will now be marked as “Declined” and click on it.  This will once again open the messages for this guest.

Step Four: You will be taken to the declined reservation request but if you scroll down and look below the pricing you will find a box for sending a special offer.  Choose “Send Special Offer”.

Step Five: You will now be at the Special Offer screen where you can a) change the listing if you are offering the guest a different listing, b) change the check-in/check-out date, c) change the number of guests, and/or d) change the price.  

As you change things, your pricing will be updated BUT when you change the price, you need to add the cleaning fee, the extra guest fees (if any) and taxes (if you charge taxes and Airbnb does not collect them for you) as these are not calculated into the Special Offer price.

Step Six: Once you are sure that everything is accurate, you can then choose to “Send Special Offer”.  Once you send the offer, Airbnb will calculate the Guest Service Fees and taxes (if they collect taxes on your behalf) and  then send the total to the guest.  Your guest then has the option to accept/decline the Special Offer.

Here is an example of what the guest receives to accept or decline

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Here is the Help Article for sending a Special Offer: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/35/how-do-i-send-a-guest-a-special-offer

Here are a few things to note about special offers:

- A Special Offer doesn’t block dates on your calendar until after it is accepted by your guest.

- If you don't see the option to send a Special Offer, check that the dates on your calendar aren't blocked or that you don't have any pending reservation requests for the same dates. If you have a pending request from another guest, you'll need to decline it before you can send a Special Offer.

- You can offer multiple guests a Special Offer for the same dates until someone books. We recommend being open and transparent with your potential guests that other guests may be interested in the same dates.

- If you have a security deposit on your listing, it will be handled as normal and you do not need to add it to your Special Offer total.

[Martin91]

I have heard from other hosts that declining a booking request to give them a special offer will affect your ranking in searches. Is this true? I too have tried over and over to give someone a better deal than their first booking request but since there is no "send special offer" option you have to first decline their request and then go back and send the special offer. Problem is, it seems this affects your ranking on Airbnb which is horrible to do to hosts who are doing a great job at hosting - even giving better deals to repeat customers or word of mouth referrals, etc... 

[Lawson0]

Help. In my normal listing I intentionally did not include a security deposit.

I had a special offer request come in. When I sent them the special offer I included the cleaning fee and the security deposit. I presumed that I would return it after the stay. Am I doing this properly? I'm not sure what to do since I don't normally include a security deposit, but for the length of the stay a security deposit made sense. 

What should I do? Should I have changed my settings for a security deposit temporarily, gone over to send the special offer, and then back to my deposit and set it back at zero? Is the same true with the cleaning fee?

I just included all of it in the special offer. He has not confirmed yet, I have a chance to correct and resend if that makes sense. 

[Neville5]

i have just listed a new room and chose the option to offer a special discount to the first guest that makes a booking. since the first booking has been made the offer has not withdrwan itself and continues to allow the discount to be applied subsequent bookings. this is not a good tool, guys, please help me to switch off!!!

[Lon0]

Thanks for this detailed clear information about special bookings. I have a feature request though that seems simple to implement and would vastly improve the utility of the special offer tool.

When someone makes an inquiry and I pre-approve I have the option to block the dates so no one else can book while the person decides whether to book. On the other hand, if I send a special offer to someone, I don't have that option. So, there is the risk that someone else can come in and book those days despite the fact I've made an offer to the first person. If I block the days, then the person with the special offer is not able to book. (I believe this is what is happening, right?) It would be great to have the option when sending a special offer to block the days except for the person receiving the offer. Any chance of that being added?

When I call AirBnB help they don't seem to understand the problem and just refer me to documentation on how special offers work now. Thanks. 

[Dassi0]

Is there a way to send a Special Offer to a guest to return?

We just had a guest stay that told us the dates he is planning to return to our town. We were his first booking ever and we had to help him (with step by step instructions) complete his booking. 

It it would be nice — for both him & us — if we could just send him an offer now for this future stay...

[Dave-and-Deb0]

Unfortunately not @Dassi0.  The guest would need to either make a requestion (or Instant Booking) or send an inquiry.  There is no way a host can initiate a reservation.  It always need to start with the guest unfortunately.

[Katie467]

I’ve just been told by a “specialist” that a feature requested by Lon (prior message) now exists. After manually blocking the calendar only the guest/s who have received the special offer will be able to book the dates you specify to them in their offer. If you withdraw the offer or it expires without being booked you have to remember to manually unblock your calendar though - a bit of pain 

[Victor65]

Thanks so much for the tutorial, unfortunately you would have to update it again, since recently Airbnb changed the Special Offers again, and the most recent update is really terrible. We don't see anymore the lines "your guest will pay" and "you will earn". So now it is impossible to know if what it corresponds to. Very bad update, what do you think?

[Laura3224]

I agree 100%.  Experienced the same problem twice recently and just had to guess that the special offer I sent (which was a pain in the neck to do now that you have to first decline their offer) was $80 more than their original quote.  How can I figure out what is going to be $80 more with Airbnb's taxes and fees figured in if you don't have the original quote.  I ended up giving up and just figured what their rate would be by pretending I was booking my own place.  I didn't want to upset them by guessing wrong.  

Please Airbnb fix this.  It is frustrating for owners and I'm sure your representatives are getting a lot of unnecessary calls because of this change.  

[Cliff55]

Understood taxes/fees need to be added, security deposits do not. However, do hosts need to include the cost of the AirBnB Service Fee into their special offer or is that tacked onto whatever the Special Offer is by AirBnB itself? 

[Laura3224]

It is tacked on.

[Veronica867]

How to charge guest for bringing extra guest  to stay in the space without paying.  

[Laura3224]

I couldn't figure it out because of Airbnb's new method of not letting us see the original quote.  So, I let the guest stay for free.  The guest said they'd pay me on the side.  I'm not accepting it, but Airbnb will lose money because that type of thing will go on.