Price to guests wrong eventhough smart pricing off and no discount set

[Frances52]

Hi, I hope someone can help. I'm at my wits end.

I don't have smart pricing on and I have not set a discount for monthly stay. I have even set max 7 nights stay and anything longer needs to be manually reviewed. 

I ensured the above was done because previously I did not set max length of stay and a guest instant booked for a 30 night stay and horror of horrors, the price he was quoted and booked at was 40 per cent of actual total price, that is, a whopping 60 per cent discount! I tried contacting support but each time it 'timed out' and there was no actual option available on how to be contacted. (See screengrabs) So that meant going round in a loop until the case was closed with no resolution. In the meantime, I requoted guest correct price with a discount. The guest cancelled anyway and suggested I rectify the monthly price. If only he knew that the so-called error is through nothing I had done, and not only that, did not know what happened. 

And today, I received enquiry for another 30 night stay and again, at almost 60 per cent discount.  Again, I'm going round in circles trying to get support. 

Has anyone else who has experienced this problem managed to get a resolution and if so, share what exactly is going on when this weirdness happens? It annoys me to have to explain that Airbnb seems to have a glitch and is randomly offering unauthorised discounts, and I'm not trying to take my potential guest for a ride by claiming that what's been quoted is wrong.

Please help if you can.

Thank you!

Below:

1) After "select a contact method"...

 

 2)... you get this

???? Airbnb's equivalent to putting you on hold listening to elevator music....

3)... and then... they hang up

 

[Frances52]

😂😂😨

[Ann72]

@Frances52  One more thing - when you go to "Add a discount for other stays," you'll see this:

Have you tried removing the weekly discount entirely?  In addition, just for now, I would turn Smart Pricing on with your usual price of 100 GBP a night set as the minimum.  Might work?  Might not!  🙂

[Frances52]

@Ann72 

I'll give that a go and then do a test and see what happens. 🤞  Thank you for trying to help me.

[Frances52]

@Ann72 

Hiya, just my luck, tried this and didn't work either 🙄 Thank you for your generosity with your time and effort 

I'm now communicating with another support person 

She's suggesting maybe this is a new property listing and pointing to a 20% promo I offered in 2019 as new listing. (Which I can no longer see on my dashboard so must be lodged in their system somewhere). The fact that its now 2022 and my complaint is about monthly 60% discount.... 😑 I despair I'll ever get a resolution.

[Ann72 · Accepted solution]

Of course that's what they're pointing to @Frances52.  🤦‍♂️  Plus no ability to do math (although discounts are heaped on top of each other so who knows, 10% here, 20% there, and voila, 60%).  

I can see promotions as far back as 2017, but I can't delete them.  What's the point of CS bringing it up?  They need to find a current promotion and give you access to it.  But it's clear you're caught in a glitch.  So frustrating, and I hope it goes away soon!

I was about to sign off, but thought of one more thing - a temporary measure until this gets sorted.  My maximum is 7 days, but I allow guests to request longer stays.  You probably have the same thing set up.  But the problem right now is that a guest can choose 30 days and see the erroneous discount and think he's hit the jackpot.  Then it's awkward to tell him no, that's not the price.  So for the time being, maybe consider removing the ability to ask you about longer stays?  They won't be able to choose and put in a reservation request for more than 7 days.  But they can always put in an inquiry about something longer.  You would then have to ask them to make several bookings in a row.  It's really about managing guests and their price expectations right now, until it gets sorted out.

[Frances52]

Hiya @Ann72 good call!

You are right, I did have setting on to manually approve request for longer stays beyond the maximum 7 night.

So, I did as you suggested -- not allowing any requests for longer days beyond the maximum but also extending the maximum number of nights to not lose out on potential longer stays.

I did several round of tests to check what guests got quoted if they tried to request anywhere between minimum (2 nights) and maximum. I progressively upped up the maximum number of nights and found that 27 is the magic number. When it's more than 27 nights, the weird glitch of 60% discount comes into effect. When it's 27 nights and under, the problem is solved.THIS MAY BE THE SOLUTION for anyone caught in this Twilight Zone of an Airbnb discount glitch. It works for me but, of course, as Ann suggested, if a guest wants to stay more than 27 nights, they may have to do 2 sets of bookings 😞

So, thank you, @Ann72 because you prodded me on and this encouraged me to keep varying the options to see if there was a solution.

And yes, it has been super awkward explaining to guests about Airbnb glitch on discount. (Thankfully, I have only been mortified twice, when two different guests tried to reserve month-long stays.) Though  I don't think they believe me about the glitch being on Airbnb side, cos one told me to make sure I got my pricing settings right; the other just fell off the face of the earth when she realised there wasn't a 60% discount to be had, and the 30% I counter offered was probably not attractive enough. Ah well.... let's hope the days of looking unprofessional are over.

Of course, latest Airbnb Superhost Support has remained of no help. I get the impression that the poor service staff have no clue, do their darnest to close cases as fast as possible, copy and paste stock FAQ links to look like they're providing solutions. Must be on a quota or something.... sigh.

[Ann72]

@Frances52  Wow, that is great news!  Thank you for your kind words, and well done you on finding a workaround.  Having to tell guests they can't have a discounted price struck me as the most urgent problem, so I'm really relieved to hear you've solved that.

[Frances52]

@Ann7 

For sure, looking like a greedy host and clawing back on supposed discount offered was awful

I have to say, setting a max of 27 night stays is ok for me as this is a shepherd hut and it would be very rare to stay for ages in one of those (just think of the need to empty the compost toilet and you can see why I say that)

For other hosts however who may be encountering similar or same issue, but have offerings that are conducive to longer stays, this is a really bad glitch

I doubt my talking and writing to Airbnb support folk about escalating to tech dept has made any dent in that direction

How nefarious, that somewhere, deep in the bowels of code, Airbnb deigned they had the right to create 60 % discounts and tack it on to host properties. Just unfathomable

[Frances52]

@Ann72 Got response from support today. Finally! For anyone following this thread, the mystery is solved. 

Wrote to Airbnb Support and asked them to treat me as an idiot and send screengrabs of what was meant by my 'activating custom monthly' pricing. Received screengrab and I finally understand where problem was tucked away at. 

Long and short is, even though I did not set monthly discount pricing, Airbnb system auto set an arbitrary 60% monthly discount under 'Custom monthly prices.' This option is hidden and can't be seen until you click 'edit' on 'Monthly discount' section (even if you have not set a monthly discount). And then manually click 'remove' on any unauthorised, auto discounts Airbnb created. I have included screengrabs so for those who were as baffled as me, so they can follow. I will also repost as a resolved issue in hopes that others facing same will not fall into same glitch.

[Sybe]

@Frances52 thank you so much for sharing this update!

[Ann72]

I now see that this is what @Emiel1 meant when he said on the first page here that there were monthly discounts somewhere.  I'm going to my settings now @Frances52 to check every month.  I think it's unconscionable @Airbnb would do this.  As usual, their wording is slippery.  They say "You are responsible for choosing the listing price," but they don't say the same thing about choosing discounts. 🤔

[Emiel1]

@Ann72 

Exactly !

"Issue" could be solved instanty by OP with few mouseclicks, instead of creating this circus of screen shots.

[Ann72]

Now now @Emiel1  😇 - it wasn't very clear, and she asked you for a screenshot.  Who would even know to drill down and down and look at every month for discounts one had never applied?  And besides - it apparently hasn't been solved!  Meanwhile, another host might find all this helpful - you never know.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Frances52 Great result. The same thing happened to us with a random weekly discount that the system invented so that our weekly price for the Christmas week was £60. It took some finding and 2 disappointed Instant Book customers before someone on here helped me find it.

[Frances52]

@Ann72  @Sybe @Mike-And-Jane0 

Please see below as not completely out of the woods with solution above

UPDATE: WARNING!

After further testing, I noticed that even after having done the above, if you allow guests to book more than 27 nights, the darn arbitrary and unauthorised monthly discount activates  itself again and you have to manually remove the custom monthly prices one by one again!  

[@Ann72 , can you believe this crazy? So I reset to manually review and approve reservation requests. I then went to my listing as if I were a potential guest and when I plugged in stays beyond 27 nights, the 60% discount reappeared. I then went back to dashboard and lo and behold, it was as if I had not removed the custom monthly pricing.]

THIS PROVES THE POINT that this so-called 'custom' monthly pricing is hardly 'custom' on the part of a host. It is auto and instated by Airbnb and nothing to do with what hosts choose to do. Whether this is a glitch in Airbnb's programming or an intentional 'bug' of some sort, we are non the wiser. Having flagged it to Airbnb tech and getting no response, who knows. 

In short, to be assured of unauthorised massive discount being quoted to your guest for monthly or longer stays beyond 27 nights, you will have to adjust Trip Length settings:

1. Set maximum stay to 27 nights (if 28, it auto triggers the monthly discount)

2. Not receive request for longer stays beyond 27 nights

(See screengrab below)

But what to do if a guest wants to stay more than 27 nights?

If a guest wants to stay, say, 29 nights, you may have to get them to book the extra two nights as an additional booking, or maybe it will be possible to change the offering to the guest in terms of both agreed rates and time frame. (Like what you would do it if a guest asks to change reservation dates or asks for a special quote that's different from original price.) However, I haven't tried the latter, so not sure if this circumvents auto custom monthly discount from activating.

Good luck everyone!