How do I report a technical glitch in the platform?

[Shelley342]

There has been an ongoing issue that appears to be a programming error in the promotions feature on the platform. I rely on this feature to run 20-30% discount promotions on my rental during slow seasons in our market.

Every time I try to run a promotion discount the algorithms either significantly under value by more than 50% or over value by over 200% the nightly rate of my listing making it impossible to use the promotion feature.

I’ve tried several times to get help from customer support with this issue but they don’t seem to fully understand the issue or are not adequately trained to know what to do in situations like this.

This issue is costing me business and has significantly impacted my bookings on the platform. I’ve been a show host for 7 years with great reviews so this isn’t my first time dealing with the customer support team but they seem to be completely useless and unhelpful in addressing any issue these days.

Does anyone know how, whoa d where I can report technical issues with the site that does not involve trying to go through the customer support team? I need to get this elevated so that the right teams can appropriately address the issue.

[Joelle43]

Hello @Shelley342 

I went onto your listing and put in dates for just over a month stay and no less than FOUR discounts are being offered!  There is the usual long stay discount for monthly stays and three others that would have been added to this booking so the problem must be somewhere in your settings.  

I did a search between the 14th January to 25th February and this is what comes up:

==>Promotion if booked within 38 days

==>Promotion if booked within 24 days

==>Promotion if booked within 31 days

==>Monthly discount

Are you using professional tools by any chance?

[Shelley342]

I turned all of those promotions off several weeks ago. You should not be seeing any promotions except for the 20% discount promotions.
But.... this doesn't explain why a space priced at $95-$115 is being priced at $130-$179 per night when I try to apply a 20% discount promotion. Smart Pricing is turned off. I manually price every night weeknights are $95, weekends and holidays are $105-150 (depending on the season). I wasn't a genius in algebra but $130-$179 isn't a discount... it's an increase... and that is why I think there is a glitch in the programming.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Shelley342 

Appears there is a glitch with custom promotions after the Winter Release. There is another thread on this. Did you opt-in to the new release? My suggestion is to gather screen shots showing the problem and advise Airbnb CS of the issue. 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/Listing-not-appearing-in-search/td-p/1868929

"Thank you very much, Joan. I did remove the promotion because I was wondering if it was causing a glitch since my non-promotion dates were showing my listing. Still not sure what is going on and still trying to get answers from customer support."

@Paula 

[Bhumika]

Hi @Shelley342 ! Hope you are doing well!

Would you be able to share a few relevant screenshots that may help explain the issue? It will help me to raise it to the team that can advice further.

[Shelley342]

Checking to make sure you received the screenshots that I uploaded. I do not see them in the comment thread and am not sure if they went through.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Shelley342 ! I can see your screenshots and have passed it over to the tech team to look further. In case I need any information, I will make sure to reach you through direct message.

[Bhumika]

Hi @Shelley342 ,

The tech team double checked and it seems that everything is working as expected.

Just to explain how this feature works :

• Hosts can change pricings as they please, but when they add a custom promotion, in order to avoid "false promotions" the system will retrieve a 60- median price in order to provide a "base price" while setting up a promotion.

• So, it's expected that the Host may not see the calendar pricing reflected on the promotion , as this will be influenced by any price changes in the previous 60 days.

It's important to note that the system uses a median price, not the average price. This is the help center article that might help with a better idea : https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2721.

Hope this helps! 

[Shelley342]

View of my current nightly rate. Note that there is NO Smart Pricing applied to this listing.View of what the promotion feature says my nightly rate is. See right side panel and one the price different between what is on the calendar and what is being displayed in the right panel.View of the increased nightly rate that is applied to the selected dates after a 28% discount is applied.

[S31]

This is very true to my entire account too and listings. I opted in for early access and it messed up my entire account. I have been reporting this since November 30th also. I also have no bookings since November update. 

[Shelley342]

I've been trying to get in touch with someone in Customer Support about this issue since November 30th. They would not take the issue seriously, left messages at 3 am while I was sleeping and then cancel the support request, called on Christmas after promising that a manager would return my call in 3 hours 4 days prior, and generally treated my attempts to get this issue resolved without much consideration or respect until I spent the entire day after Christmas calling the customer support number until I reached a team member that was located in the United States. Samuel, took the time to look at my listing and could see that that promotion feature was indeed not performing the way it is expected to perform and flagged the issue to someone who I hope will be able to resolve the problem.
A second issue here is that it shouldn't take a month of reporting the same issue to customer support before you get help.
Is there an easier way for hosts to report technical glitches in the platform when new releases occur?

[Shanna5]

These are the same tricks that airbnb CS has played on me with a bug report.

Add messages that say " I feel it would be impolite of me to call you at this late hour" at 8:30 PM my time. Then I immediately message back "call me", wait two hours, no call.

Also they "assure me no bug" then add screenshots which dont actually relate to the issue, and close the call without input.

I have been re-opening calls and attempting to escalate for over a week. Its ridiculous that there is not a specific way to make bug reports.

[Cynthia724]

I am experiencing the same thing. The promotional pricing and the price on the calendar that is visible to guests do not even match. Additionally, the multi-listing calendar is all messed up....not even sure where those prices came from? Speaking with the escalations team member, he said it is an average of the nightly rate. Who needs that? I want to see the actual price. It's really messed up. Everyone I know is having the same problem, and there doesn't seem to be a good work-around. I hope they fix it soon. We have numerous listings and it is tedious and exhausting trying to "guess" at what the promotional price will show up on the calendar.