Airbnb Discounts: How to Get Them Right

Everybody loves discounts, so offering enticing deals to your potential guests can help fill your rental faster and increase your Airbnb occupancy rate. Airbnb encourages hosts to add discounts to their listings to make them more attractive to travelers and drive more bookings.

Read on to find out what Airbnb discounts you can set up for your listings and when adding a discount makes sense.

What Airbnb Discounts and Promotions Are Available for Hosts?

Airbnb system allows hosts to set discounts and custom promotions tailored to their business needs. However, it’s important to remember that you must follow the Airbnb Host Discount Policy. Airbnb wants to ensure that discounts hosts set up for their listings represent a lower price than usual. So, all hosts must offer an actual discount, which means that a listing’s discounted price is lower than its typical price for that specific date.

Under Pricing, you can set, edit, or delete any available discounts and promotions for your Airbnb listing from your calendar. Let’s take a closer look at how Airbnb discounts work so you can consider the benefits of each discount to determine which ones are right for your listings.

New listing promotion

You can offer a 20% discount on your first three bookings if you have a new listing. A listing must have fewer than 3 bookings to be eligible, and Airbnb smart pricing must be turned off. According to Airbnb, hosts who enable new listing promotions, get their first bookings faster.

If you opt-in for this promotion, your discount will be highlighted with a strikethrough price in Airbnb search results and on the listing page. Travelers will also see a message on your listing page that highlights the deal you’re offering. This can attract new guests and help you get the three reviews you need for an Airbnb star rating.

And if you opt for vacation rental software like Hospitable, it will be easier to ensure your guests never forget to rate their stay. Do your best to ensure your guests have a memorable experience, and we will help you get more excellent reviews with our Airbnb review generator and automatic review request.

Custom promotion

You can offer a custom promotion if your Airbnb listing has at least three bookings. You just need to choose your dates and the percentage of your discount. For discounts of 15% or more, potential guests will see a special callout on your listing. According to Airbnb, you’ll improve the chances for your listing to stand out in search results if you create a promotion for at least seven consecutive nights.

You can create a custom promotion by clicking Calendar and selecting the listing calendar you want to change. After that, you need to click Pricing, click Promotions, and choose Custom Promotion. Select dates on the calendar, set your discount, and finally, click Apply Promotion.

Still, it’s important to remember that you only can add a custom promotion to your listing if you meet certain requirements:

• Your listing must have at least 3 bookings and at least 1 booking in the past 365 days.
• Dates in your calendar must be unblocked at the time the promotion is activated.
• Dates also need to have been available for at least 28 days to be eligible for promotion.
• You can promote only 50% of nights per month.
• A price per night can’t be higher than your highest booked nightly rate from the last year.

Note that сustom promotions can’t be applied if you have set regular, weekly, or monthly discounts for your listing. Airbnb Luxe listings and hotels aren’t eligible for custom promotions.

Length-of-stay discount

You can give your guests a discount for booking longer stays. You can set weekly (for stays of 7 or more nights), monthly (for stays of 28 or more nights), and other length-based discounts. Airbnb says that travelers interested in longer stays tend to search for listings with discounts.

If you offer a discount of at least 10%, it will be displayed in search results and can help you attract travelers who prefer a longer stay. This can extend the average length of stay across your listings and reduce turnovers, which means higher occupancy and less work for you when scheduling turnover cleanings.

Early-bird discount

Hosts can add a discount for bookings made further in advance (from 1 to 24 months before check-in). If you set a discount of 3% or more, potential guests will see a special callout on your listing. Many people prefer to plan their trips early, so offering an early-bird discount will allow you to build a strong base of bookings for upcoming seasons.

Last-minute discount

Yet, some travelers plan their trips spontaneously, so if it makes sense for your bottom line, you may consider reducing your nightly rate as the check-in date gets closer. For discounts of 10% or more, Airbnb will display a special callout on your listing and in search results, which can help attract guests looking for last-minute deals.

Offering last-minute deals on Airbnb can help fill any unbooked nights and increase your revenue. By leveraging the right tools, such as Hospitable, you can easily manage all your bookings and automate your hosting routine even during tight changeovers so you can focus on scaling your business.

Sending special offers

If a guest sends you a message before they make a booking request, you can respond with a special offer that includes a custom discounted price. You can also suggest different dates or another one of your rentals instead. The guest will have 24 hours to accept this special offer, and once they do, their reservation will be confirmed automatically.

Here is how to send a special offer:

• Click Messages and open the message from your guest
• Click Special Offer
• Under the Subtotal, enter the price you’d like to offer for the entire stay
• Click Send Special Offer

If a guest has already booked or requested your property, you can’t send a special offer to them, but you can still give them a discount by changing the booking details.

Although there are no company discounts specifically for military personnel, hosts may offer a personalized Airbnb military discount to veterans and active duty members. This way, you can express gratitude for the military members’ service and improve your brand’s image among the military community. If you decide to offer a military discount, you should clearly state this in your listing’s description.

How Airbnb Discounts Are Prioritized

You can set up multiple discounts for your listing for the same period, but remember that only one will apply per night. The highest-priority discount will always apply and override the other discounts.

Airbnb discounts are prioritized in this order:

• New listing promotion
• Custom promotion
• Length-of-stay discount
• Early-bird discount
• Last-minute discount

Is Offering Airbnb Discounts Worth It?

Adding discounts may help improve your listing’s ranking in Airbnb search results and make your rental more appealing to potential guests, giving them an incentive to book. This strategy can be effective in certain situations.

For example, offering last-minute deals can help fill gaps in your booking calendar and prevent your property from going without guests for too long. Creating special offers and promoting discounted rates for extended stays can also help to attract more guests to your property during a slow season and a shoulder season when the demand is lower.

But it’s important to remember that keeping your property fully booked doesn’t always mean high revenue. It’s all about finding the right balance between your occupancy and nightly rates.

You should consider the costs of running an Airbnb and know the current situation in your market to ensure that your discounted nightly rates are competitive and you’re not losing out.