I was told that Airbnb automatically sets a 30% discount for monthly stays. I don’t believe this is true. Does anyone know about this?
You set your own to whatever you want, even if it is 0. Maybe 30% is their recommended?
When it comes to pricing, it is recommended not to do what is recommended by Airbnb!
JF
4 Likes
I don’t think it’s technically automatic, but it might be the default. As I recall, when I created my listing, 20% was the default weekly-stay discount and 30% was the default monthly-stay discount, but both were presented as values that you could change while setting up the listing.
However, there are some situations you might get into when making changes to your listing that might make you think it’s automatic. For example, suppose when you first created your listing, you only allowed stays of up to 10 days. In that case the monthly discount discount is irrelevant because you don’t allow month-long stays, so you leave it at whatever the default value is. Suppose a few months later, you decide to allow longer stays and you go to you listing’s availability settings page and change the maximum stay to 45 days. The problem is that the monthly-stay discount will now get activated, but you don’t necessarily know it because it’s over on your listing’s pricing settings page.
BTW, Airbnb currently recommends a monthly discount for my listing of 49% 
4 Likes
I believe it’s 20% and it may very well be set by default for new listings, so if you don’t want it, make sure it’s turned off. I never offered that discount when I started, I pay zero attention to Airbnb’s pricing tips and recommendations.
Also be aware that discounts are cumulative- one doesn’t override another. So if you have the 20% new listing discount, and also a weekly discount of 10% to attract longer bookings, the discount will be 30%.
1 Like
We would never do LTR with Air or any other OTA. Our Air max days are set to 15.
If a guest were interested in 30 days or more ( = Tenant not guest), that would be direct only with big deposits up front and an iron-clad contract in our favor.
We set weekly discount @ 10%. Air’s “suggestions” are almost never to your benefit, just like all their policies.
I do not offer any discounts for longer stays, which may account for why in 3 years my longest stay has been 6 nights, although I am getting a 7 nighter for Thxgvg. My max sty is 14 days. I prefer 2-3 nights.
RR
I’ve never offered any length of stay discounts, either. My min. is 3 days, max is 2 weeks. My place is in a beach destination tourist town- people normally come for a week or two anyway, so I’d be screwing myself for no reason to offer those discounts.
Pay close attention to that cumulative effect. I did not and ended up unwittingly giving my first guests a huge discount!
I have a surcharge for longer stays.
1 Like
November - March 50% discount is what most offer for LTR in my area.
While I firmly believe we should set our own pricing & discounts, we are affected by what our competition does. So if your area is like mine with an abundance of competition, my choice was discount or face probably getting no or few rentals.
Is that entered as a negative discount? How do you do it? I want to do that for last minute bookings automatically. AirBnB only allows a positive discount fir that so I leave it at zero.
1 Like
Longer stays in our rooms require an inquiry. I have set discounts, but I weigh how much I want the guest and sometimes offer a deeper discount. For example, sometimes a long term guest doesn’t care about breakfast or is not expected to actually be in the unit much of the time. He/she might be offered a deeper discount.
1 Like