Airbnb Promotions Integration
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Mark Petrillo
Airbnb has offered hosts the ability to set up "Promotions" for the past couple of years. This is a way for hosts to discount prices for specific dates, and depending on the discount offered, the promotion is advertised through their platform via highlighting it in search results, emailing guests looking for those dates, etc. This is a very powerful tool.
Since the summer update released by Airbnb last week, software connected hosts can no longer create (or even edit existing) promotions. I spoke with Airbnb customer support about this, and they told me I need to reach out to my PMS. I followed up with Beyond Pricing, just in case, and they confirmed this would need to be handled by Uplisting.
So my suggestion/request is for Uplisting to add a way for hosts to use Airbnb promotions. This has been a very valuable tool for me in the past.
And just to clarify, if a nightly rate is usually $100 and you discount it to $75 through your pricing software or on Uplisting, that is not nearly as powerful as offering a 25% discount through an Airbnb Promotion which comes with many additional listing visibility perks. Promotions make the algorithm happier than simple price decreases, and they make guests feel like they are getting a special discount as well.
Vince Breslin
complete
We figured out a solution.
How to use occupancy boosting Airbnb custom promotions when connected to a channel manager.
https://www.loom.com/share/87a47768e7c548a797ff2857b2db8878
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Why can't you add promos directly into Uplisting?
Airbnb don't provide an option on the API/Integration. This is out of our control unfortunately.
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Mark Petrillo
Vince Breslin: This is brilliant. I find it interesting that Airbnb Customer Support was not aware of this workaround. Nice job figuring this out!
Vince Breslin
Mark Petrillo: don't tell them for fear they'll change it!
I knew this was a potential solution as we have issues from time to time where a teammate has changed prices on their calendar and the Airbnb account owner blamed Uplisting. A major PITA to troubleshoot!
Villa Aelia
Vince Breslin: Thank you Vince for this very fast finding of a solution.
Unfortunately though not all of us can create a team, to use the solution, that is the ones of us who are also co-hosts for other listings ...see picture attached :(
Vince Breslin
Villa Aelia: you’ll need to ask the account owner to create a team member for you.
There’s unfortunately no other solution for this. Unless Airbnb rolls back the change.
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Mark Petrillo
Vince Breslin: Hey Vince... Unfortunately, this work around no longer seems to be working, as the co-host account I created no longer has access to the Promotions tab either. Can you please confirm if you are able to access this from any of your accounts (ie, is the problem just me?), or if Airbnb has killed this feature for all software-connected hosts now? Thanks.
Vince Breslin
Has anyone tried using rulesets to achieve similar results?
Mark Petrillo, Nathan Welton, Dale Fox
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Nathan Welton
Vince Breslin: Rule sets do not come with listing perks like enhanced visibility, strikethroughs and direct email campaigns sent out by AirBnb. So, unfortunately they don't work.
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Nathan Welton
Vince Breslin I just sent you an email
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Nathan Welton
Yes, using this feature correctly got us through the slow off season with only a marginal loss. The market basically crashed here. This is SO SO SO important and losing it is creating a tremendous disadvantage. Vince Breslin please prioritize this! I am happy to jump on a call to explain how we capitalized on this feature.
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Dale Fox
Ah, I wondered what happened. We saw the same thing. The summer update broke the promotions feature. It's a HUGE asset to be able to use these. I don't know how they would expect UL or any other third party PMS to be able to implement this, but it's incredibly valuable. We're hurting with that feature now gone...