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I’ve been seeing red dots on my calendar recently, but I don’t know what they mean. The other new icon that I’ve been seeing is a green bulb, but that seems to correspond to messages like:
People looked at your listing for this night but booked listings that are about ₹597 less per night
In other words, one of Airbnb’s methods to try to get you to lower your price.
But the red dots remain a mystery. I’m seeing 3 right now, for February 12th, 13th and 14th (it’s February 10th today), but there is no indication what they signify.
I like those little bulbs as I feel that they are giving me a heads up for in demand dates and maybe I could raise my price, lol. Little Miss Opposite here. Due to me being a drive through destination lots of people book at the last minute. Because I’m in a position to accommodate this I just ride it out with my “higher” price. The less expensive places will be booked now but I will end up being booked 85% of my available nights at the price I want. Currently for April I only have one reservation and 4 nights with lightbulbs. All the prices but 5 are now green instead of the usual orange or red. I’ll get booked.
Definitely not Valentine’s Day. I’ve seen them marking other days. Usually days in the near future. And no, I don’t have those dates booked.
Only to the extent that Indians imitate Americans. Valentine’s Day is an American holiday, right? I read somewhere that it was invented by Hallmark to sell more cards. However, this version of events isn’t supported by the Wikipedia page, fwiw. And regarding India and Valentine’s day, the WP page has this funny bit:
In modern times, Hindu and Islamic[92] traditionalists have considered the holiday to be cultural contamination from the West, a result of the globalization in India.[90][91] Shiv Sena and the Sangh Parivar have asked their followers to shun the holiday and the “public admission of love” because of them being “alien to Indian culture”.[93] Although these protests are organized by political elites, the protesters themselves are middle-class Hindu men who fear that the globalization will destroy the traditions in their society: arranged marriages, Hindu joint families, full-time mothers, etc.[91][92]
The Shiv Sena is a Hindu nationalist organization. They’re borderline fascist.
Yes, these days I’m getting a lot of last minute business too. I’m not happy about it, though.
ADDENDUM: Re: Hallmark. I think I was confusing Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day. It was possibly Mother’s Day that was supposed to be a Hallmark invention.
I belatedly sent a message to @AirbnbHelp on Twitter to ask them about this. They promptly replied as follows:
@AirbnbHelp: Hello Faheem, thank you for contacting us. We believe that the red dots that you are seeing is a visual aid to indicate to you the demand that our system is detecting. Red means that there is low demand for those dates in your region. This information can help you to perhaps adjust your price or another aspect of your listing to attract guests. If you feel that this answer does not suffice please send us a screenshot so we can see what you are seeing. Thank you.
This sounds like a plausible explanation. As I mentioned above, I’ve seen this mostly (entirely?) for upcoming dates. And I can believe that dates that are just around the corner are in low demand, since few people book at the last minute.
So, in short, this is yet another strategy to get us to lower our prices. Though not explaining what it means kind of defeats the purpose, don’t you think?
They don’t seem to be interested in developing strategies to raise prices. That would be great: hover over an icon and it says “these dates are in high demand, you should try raising your price.”
I love that they say
They don’t know what they are either; that doesn’t inspire any confidence, does it?
Red dots—good to know the CS said could be low demand.
The light-bulb on a specific day indicates: “Your listing appeared in search for this night but people booked other listings that are about $XX less per night”
In other words they are telling me to lower my price. The answer is “no”. I checked, my home is competitive with whole home listings. My 3 BR 2.5 bath condo can’t compete price-wise with a one bedroom home-sharing rental.
How annoying that they do this. They should just leave us alone once we’ve booked. They make much much more money on a large volume of low priced bookings. Their commissions are a greater percentage.
Hi faheem, for the red dots, I can red this message on the right side of the calendar
"Try lowering your price to increase your chances of getting booked.". I have also a green bulb and a red dot for the same days at the calendar. I’m very tired of them trying to manipulate prices like that. In my city they suggest prices as lower as 13 euros/day, really insulting.
That’s really weird. I’m now seeing the same thing. As of right now, the red dot for the 13th has disappeared, leaving those for the 12th and the 14th. And the following message appears for the 12th
Use price tip: ₹1453
•
Try lowering your price to increase your chances of getting booked.
and for the 14th
Use price tip: ₹1584
•
Try lowering your price to increase your chances of getting booked.
I could have sworn those weren’t there before. Maybe the site heard us talking about it?
i opened my calendar through the summer at much higher prices and now air keeps telling me, “your average Tuesday rate is $78” or something like that. Basically trying to get me to lower my summer (high season here) rate to what I’ve been getting in the winter. No!!!
I tried their auto-pricing and it was abysmal. They were pricing 30-50% less than what I’d booked for the same place in the prior year. Why would I price less than history has shown I could? It would make sense if there was significantly more competition, but as it is - just a terrible algorithm!
that they say