Set high price to lure advance bookings at lower occupancy, then slowly lower prices starting 2 weeks out?

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My house is very nice in comparison to other AirBnBs in my area. It tends to attract families and an older crowd. I’ve noticed that these types of guests are very prepared and often book 1-2 months in advance, and also have the money to spend on a listing that is nicely furnished and in a good area, with great photos.

I just switched to BeyondPricing, and one of their interesting metrics is a health score, which uses your occupancy percentage 30 and 90 days out to determine if you’re under or overpriced. Mine came in as well underpriced - I’m averaging 85% occupancy this year.

This got me thinking: perhaps I should jack my price up by quite a bit, hoping to get a smaller amount of advance bookings, but at higher dollar values, from the prepared advance bookers, then start exponentially lowering my prices, from a 2% discount 14 days out, to a 50% discount 2 days out.

The advantages I can see:

  • Could raise my overall RevPAR
  • Dual pricing strategy caters to both advance and last-minute bookers

Disadvantages:

  • My house sleeps 7 in a 2-bedroom format, average guest size is around 4, so it may not be ideal for last-minute bookings as larger groups don’t tend to book last-minute

I’d be interested to hear experiences of anyone else that has tried the same.

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Guess no one has tried this yet :-/

I’ll test it out and report back!

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@ultinon I generally set a higher rate for 90-plus days away and then lower it as it gets closer if I was unable to book at the higher rate. I also set a higher number of days for a minimum stay on dates well in the future and then decrease the minimum number of days as it gets closer to the date if I was unable to book for the longer periods. It works for me.

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I have almost that strategy. Three-bedroom house in a fly-to location with limited and expensive flight options. I start lowering the price about two months out since my experience is that very few larger groups book when it’s less than a month away. It works part of the time.

But I won’t go to 50% of the earlier prices. If I can book 65% or so occupancy at $600 per night, I might try to book the rest of the nights at $475.

Oh - I do the same as MissMiami. Set a 7-night minimum, then lower that whenever I have “holes” - for instance, if I have a six-night hole, I’ll lower the minimum stay to 3 nights.