Price change with smart pricing off

[Stacy141]

This is my second time posting about this situation, because I am so frustrated, I am being completely shut down by airbnb. The guest sent an inquiry and asked if he could have late check out on Christmas day. I said yes, and told him I'd pre approve him. I sent pre approval and he immediately accepted, so his 7 nights were booked. Then I looked at the callendar weeks later and saw that he booked 7 nights for $120 per night under our minimum rate. I click on the details and price breakdown, and it says "special offer." I call airbnb and tell them this is not correct. The response was agent's supervisor has a screenshot proving I sent a special offer. I asked to see it, and my case is closed. Next time I'm told that a pre-approval works the same as a special offer. The guest is offered the price on my calendar at the time of booking. I have explained 10 times that I did not send a special offer, my smart pricing was turned off, it has never been on, and my rates have never been set below my normal nightly rate. Now I just ask if I can send a change order to the guest, to explain the situation and say if he'd still like to keep the nights he's booked at my normal nightly rate. The problem is if he doesn't accept the change request and I cancel, the dates will be blocked. 

[Emiel1]

@Stacy141 

When a guest sents you an inquiry, you can see the price breakdown of the potential booking.

When you pre-approve,  this specific  guest can make the booking for the price stated in the inquiry.

So why did you not check this price before making the pre-approval  ?

After several weeks you noticed the price was not what you expected.

But this is not the fault of the guest.

So you can not sent a change request asking for more money.

[Stacy141]

No, it's not the guests fault, it's my fault for pre-approving him. I was traveling alone at the time with a serious health condition. I answered the inquiry late at night believing it was for five nights, not seven. I should have waited until the next day to respond. My problem, I know, but I had no reason to believe that my house would be booked at a rate lower than my nightly minimum. I have always been careful to be sure that smart pricing is off, and that my calendar is booked at the correct rate, which has always been the same. 

So I'm confused, I don't ever remember seeing the words "special offer" after pre-approving an inquiry before. And there is no nightly rate listed under "host payout". It says Total Stay Price, and under that it says "special offer." I was told by airbnb, and it has always been my experience, that to send a guest a special offer I need to type the amount I want to charge, not including the fees, and sent it to the guest. I didn't do that. He sent me an inquiry with a question about checkout policy, I answered the question and pre-approved him for the dates he requested, and it was booked.

So can a guest can send me an inquiry, and then I send them a special offer simply by pre-approving the dates he requested? And the reason I didn't contact the guest was because I wanted airbnb to help me find a solution. Instead, I've had messages ignored, I've been hung up on, my case has been closed three times, with no explanation for why this happened. In my three years of being a host on airbnb (and now superhost) I have never cancelled a guest booking, I have never had under a five star rating, so it didn't cross my mind that airbnb wouldn't at least attempt to help me find a solution to this problem. It has taken me three weeks to get a final answer from support on this.

The reality of it (for me), is that I can't afford to rent a different place for my family and I to stay for Christmas week, so either the guest will be angry with me and I will be penalized, and dates blocked out.

[Brian2036]

@Stacy141 

Other people have reported that absurdly low prices were spontaneously offered to guests during the holiday season and Airbnb refuses to admit any fault.

It is clear that something is wrong with the system and I hope someone is trying to fix it.

[Stacy141]

The vibe I’ve gotten from Airbnb regarding this issue:

-they’re system doesn’t have glitches,

-it’s not their fault,

-live with it. 

I can explain to the guest that a glitch caused him to receive the wrong price, but then if he doesn’t agree to a price change I risk the nights getting blocked.

I would still give him a nightly discount of $100 off per night, but now it’s been almost a month...

I wouldn’t be worried about it if it weren’t during Christmas week...

[Delia223]

That's unfair. Commenting so I can know more about this matter. Horrible! 

[Colleen253]

@Stacy141 You know and I know, you did not send a special offer. Sending a SO takes very deliberate steps. This platform is glitch RIDDEN. I had a situation recently where Airbnb did not collect tax on a single isolated booking. I have to file and remit this tax myself, Airbnb does not do it for me, so it matters. I was first told that it was my fault for turning tax off. Yeah, right, as if I would do that in the first place, never mind that it would have taken several very deliberate steps to do that. They later came back and admitted it was a system glitch. 

I have Instant Book on, and all the various guest requirement boxes checked, but recently had an IB come in that didn’t fulfill my requirements. I went and checked my settings and all the boxes had been unchecked. Most certainly not by me! There are many posts on the forum of similar IB complaints. 

Some time ago, my check in time of 4 pm kept reverting to ‘flexible’. That was proven to be a bug tied to making changes to ‘booking settings’. They fixed it and the problem stopped. 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Check-in-Start-Time-keeps-defaulting-to-FLEXIBLE-WHY/td-p/1...

See below for a recent instance of a pricing glitch. Coincidentally, also an Xmas booking. Note the host is quite seasoned and not a newbie.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Help/Smart-pricing-gone-horribly-wrong/m-p/1497122#M328524

I’m sorry I’m not here with actual solutions for you, but I’m sympathetic and hopeful that you can get this sorted eventually. Be persistent. In the meantime, be vigilant and check ALL your settings daily, and scrutinize bookings etc carefully. Take screenshots of important settings.