Post by High Priestess on Sept 25, 2015 3:03:42 GMT
The ghosted listing issue (sort of solved)
Look what I found buried in the pricing FAQ's. Surely it's something that should be front and centre in the instructions when you are setting up your prices. I wonder how many others have been caught out.
See below - from 'Help'
• Long-Term Prices: weekly and monthly rates. Weekly prices apply to reservations of 7 nights or more. Monthly prices apply to reservations of 28 nights or more. If you want to appear in long-term searches (of 28 nights or more), you need to set a monthly rate. You may also set custom weekly or monthly prices.
Reply
I never thought is was hidden, it has always been there with the pricing when setting up a listing. Not sure if you see some problem here?
Reply
Well yes, I do see a problem. I don't think many people are aware that leaving the field blank excludes you from the longer term searches, and that's evident from the comments below. I followed the instructions on the input fields on the page where I entered my prices, I didn't see any need (until now) to refer to the Help pages as it seemed fairly straightforward i.e. the purpose of the longterm pricing fields was to offer a discount, I (and presumably many others) don't realise these are a vital recognition component in the search algorithm and that even if your long term price is simply a multiple of days x daily rate, you still need to put that value in this field.
I've now found an even weirder 'glitch'. I assumed that the monthly price was the price I wanted to receive for a 28 day booking. But it's not. I thought perhaps it might instead be the price you want for a booking of 365/12 days duration. But it's not. I'm scratching my head trying to work out why the quoted monthly price coming up for my listings when I search for a 28 day booking is well below my stipulated monthly rate.
For example, the Mid-Century Modern in Jurassic Park listing has a monthly price set by me of 28 x the daily rate of AUD110, or AUD3,080 per month (or so I thought). The cleaning fee is $25. There are no additional person charges, no custom prices, no weekend rates. Nothing. However, when I search for it for a 28 night booking in March it returns a value of monthly rate = $2,982 on the search results page. I click through and this is broken down into an accommodation fee of AUD2,807 and service fee of $175. My intention in stipulating a non-discounted monthly rate of $3,080 was that the accommodation fee for the 28 day period should be $3,080 + $25, or $3,105. How does the system come up with an accommodation fee of $2,807?
If you could shed some light on this I'd be most grateful.
Cheers
L
Reply
Hi L --thanks for letting us know about the need to put in a long term price to show up in search results! Very good info!!
I can definitely help you with your question about the price being lower than expected for the 28 days in March.
So this is a confusing thing for many hosts. Even though monthly pricing applies to all reservations 28 days or more, the monthly price that you set is unfortunately NOT the price for a certain number of days, for instance 28 days. The monthly price is the price per month REGARDLESS of the number of days in any given month. Hence, if you set your monthly price at $3080 per month, that means the price for February (28 days in February) will be exactly $3080, but the price for the entire month of March (which has 31 days) will also be $3080. Now since Feb has 28 days, that means you are paying (phone number hidden) per day for February, but since March has 31 days, you are paying (phone number hidden) or $99 per day for each day in March.
So for a reservation of 28 days in March, a guest would pay 28/31 X (phone number hidden) plus cleaning fee of $25 = $2807, which is exactly what is shown.
But for a reservation of 28 days in February, a guest would pay 28/28 X (phone number hidden) cleaning = $3105 for that month.
Or for 28 days in NOvember, a guest would pay 28/30 X (phone number hidden)
THis can be quite confusing if you are expecting to see the same rate per day for every month, which is not at all what you will get. The monthly rate is the same PER MONTH regardless of the number of days per month, meaning it is a different daily rate depending on the number of days in any given month.
Reply
Anyway, long story short --- to determine your monthly price, you would probably be better off setting the monthly price as 30 x your daily rate or 31 X your daily rate, rather than 28 X your daily rate, if you don't want to end up getting less than your daily rate per day for any given reservation.
Reply
Invaluable information, thanks.
Reply o
Thanks Deborah ! it's a light bulb for me... I should fix mine as well.
Reply
Thanks so much for the heads up Deborah.
That's insanely convoluted. It results in the percentage discount per day for bookings longer than 27 days being linked to the the time of year of the booking - eg a day in March is a more deeply discounted than one in February.
Wouldn't it be great if a host could just specify a % discount to base rate that increased with the booking duration and allowed you to specify a maximum discount - eg day 28 is 95% of base rate, day 29 is 94% etc etc down to a minimum price of, say, 75% of base rate at day 48 onwards?
Reply
THat would definitely be another way to do it, which would free up the calculations from the vagaries of corresponding calendar date, and would be clearer that way. It can be quite complicated to calculate total cost, when, for instance, the guest has a stay stretching over different months eg from Feb 6 to April 19 --- the days in February go at a different daily rate from the days in March, which go at a different daily rate than those in April, all due to the varying days/month in those months. I am thinking perhaps Airbnb wanted to have something structured similarly to typical long term rent arrangements. When you are a standard tenant in a standard long term rental, you are accustomed to paying the SAME amount per month regardless of the number of days in that month, eg your monthly rent is $1500 a month. So Airbnb may be trying to emulate that just to make things clearer for guests, since if it went the way you are suggesting, then no "monthly rate" could be stipulated, nor would a fixed monthly rate show up in search results. Everything would vary based on #days desired -- and some people search without entering the days they want (eg they may not know yet how many days they will stay) so they need to see some version of a monthly rate just for clarity's sake. As I see it the best options would be to either charge per month as they do or to charge for a fixed number of days, eg 30 days, which would give an "approximate" month but be clearer in that then the daily rate would always be the same, and they would bill the guest every 30 days.
Reply
We do not get many long term guests but I did not know that., Thanks Deborah for a great explanation x
Reply
Though calculation of price can be confusing, there are some benefits to Airbnb doing the long term fees the way it does.
First, there is the clarity that the price per month is always the same for each month, which again is what long term tenants expect. It would be confusing for the tenant, wouldn't it, if a long term tenant with say a year lease, instead of a fixed monthly rent, had a rent of $3000 per 30 days, and then had to pay $3100 for Jan rent, $2800 for Feb rent, $3100 for March rent, and $3000 for April's rent, wouldn't it?
Second, the payment date stays the same date for each month, which is convenient for guest and hosts alike. So, take the example of a guest whose reservation is from Jan 6 to April 10, and who is to pay $3000 per month. The host gets the first payment of $3000 (less whatever fees) on Jan 7, for the day after guest arrives. Then, regardless of the fact that there are 31 days in Jan and not 30, the host gets paid again on Feb 7 the next $3000 (less fees). Then once again, regardless the fact that Feb has 28 days instead of 30, the host gets paid again on March 7 another $3000, and then on April 7 the remainder of $400.
If the price were per 30 days instead of per month, the host would get paid $3000 on Jan 7, but then on Feb 6 is the next payment of $3000, and then because Feb is short, gets paid on March 8th for the next $3000, and then on April 7 the last payment.
Reply
I see why Airbnb is doing it this way - more toward long term rental thinking. It is something to think about including Airbnb branding and overall goal.
Reply
clears a lot say upto say 70 % of the matters discussed . thanks
Reply
Its a great script Deep
REply
Thanks Deborah, now I understand their 'logic', though I see it more as the apotheosis of cultural imperialism
In Australia, rents are advertised on a weekly basis, not monthly, though most leases are drafted on a calendar month basis - ie daily rate x days in period divided by months in period covered by lease. The result is that a one year lease may require a slightly different amount payable per month to, say, a 3 month lease. In effect, you pay the same for each day of your tenancy but the amount payable per calendar month under a lease will differ depending on the duration of the lease.
Given that Airbnb has aspirations for global domination of the short term rental market, perhaps it might be better to find a methodology that isn't culturally specific. My assumption about the 'monthly rate' asked was that it was the price to be applied for any stay stay of >27 days expressed as the daily rate required for long stays multiplied by 28 days and that the actual rate charged would be this 'monthly rate' divided by 28 and multiplied by no. of nights per stay.
Given this, why not replace the whole monthly rate concept with either a daily rate to be applied to all stays >27 days, or, better still a discount (or series of sliding discounts) to be applied to the daily rate for stays above a certain duration. The amount that would turn up on the search page as the monthly rate for comparison purposes across all listings would just be either (depending on the method Airbnb chose to apply) - either the rate for 28 days or the base rate per day for stays of 28 days.
Seems like a non-culturally specific solution to me .....
Reply
Your take on this is quite interesting. I would have had no idea that an issue like this could be viewed as cultural, and given how rentals are done in Australia, it makes sense that the method Airbnb uses is quite foreign to you. I haven't explored how rentals are done in different countries, but my guess would be that the way you indicate things are done in Australia is more the exception than the rule. Any hosts from any nations other than USA and Australia care to comment and let us know how rentals are done in your part of the world?
Reply
I don't think it's all that unusual. The Brits do the same. London rents are quoted on a weekly basis.
Reply
I find it kind of amusing that you don't think it's unusual because the Brits do it---almost everything the Brits do is unusual!! (ask any other "euros")....We love them, but they are as eccentric as heck! must be the island thing....
Reply
Australia and Britain are rather culturally linked, arent' they?
Look what I found buried in the pricing FAQ's. Surely it's something that should be front and centre in the instructions when you are setting up your prices. I wonder how many others have been caught out.
See below - from 'Help'
• Long-Term Prices: weekly and monthly rates. Weekly prices apply to reservations of 7 nights or more. Monthly prices apply to reservations of 28 nights or more. If you want to appear in long-term searches (of 28 nights or more), you need to set a monthly rate. You may also set custom weekly or monthly prices.
Reply
I never thought is was hidden, it has always been there with the pricing when setting up a listing. Not sure if you see some problem here?
Reply
Well yes, I do see a problem. I don't think many people are aware that leaving the field blank excludes you from the longer term searches, and that's evident from the comments below. I followed the instructions on the input fields on the page where I entered my prices, I didn't see any need (until now) to refer to the Help pages as it seemed fairly straightforward i.e. the purpose of the longterm pricing fields was to offer a discount, I (and presumably many others) don't realise these are a vital recognition component in the search algorithm and that even if your long term price is simply a multiple of days x daily rate, you still need to put that value in this field.
I've now found an even weirder 'glitch'. I assumed that the monthly price was the price I wanted to receive for a 28 day booking. But it's not. I thought perhaps it might instead be the price you want for a booking of 365/12 days duration. But it's not. I'm scratching my head trying to work out why the quoted monthly price coming up for my listings when I search for a 28 day booking is well below my stipulated monthly rate.
For example, the Mid-Century Modern in Jurassic Park listing has a monthly price set by me of 28 x the daily rate of AUD110, or AUD3,080 per month (or so I thought). The cleaning fee is $25. There are no additional person charges, no custom prices, no weekend rates. Nothing. However, when I search for it for a 28 night booking in March it returns a value of monthly rate = $2,982 on the search results page. I click through and this is broken down into an accommodation fee of AUD2,807 and service fee of $175. My intention in stipulating a non-discounted monthly rate of $3,080 was that the accommodation fee for the 28 day period should be $3,080 + $25, or $3,105. How does the system come up with an accommodation fee of $2,807?
If you could shed some light on this I'd be most grateful.
Cheers
L
Reply
Hi L --thanks for letting us know about the need to put in a long term price to show up in search results! Very good info!!
I can definitely help you with your question about the price being lower than expected for the 28 days in March.
So this is a confusing thing for many hosts. Even though monthly pricing applies to all reservations 28 days or more, the monthly price that you set is unfortunately NOT the price for a certain number of days, for instance 28 days. The monthly price is the price per month REGARDLESS of the number of days in any given month. Hence, if you set your monthly price at $3080 per month, that means the price for February (28 days in February) will be exactly $3080, but the price for the entire month of March (which has 31 days) will also be $3080. Now since Feb has 28 days, that means you are paying (phone number hidden) per day for February, but since March has 31 days, you are paying (phone number hidden) or $99 per day for each day in March.
So for a reservation of 28 days in March, a guest would pay 28/31 X (phone number hidden) plus cleaning fee of $25 = $2807, which is exactly what is shown.
But for a reservation of 28 days in February, a guest would pay 28/28 X (phone number hidden) cleaning = $3105 for that month.
Or for 28 days in NOvember, a guest would pay 28/30 X (phone number hidden)
THis can be quite confusing if you are expecting to see the same rate per day for every month, which is not at all what you will get. The monthly rate is the same PER MONTH regardless of the number of days per month, meaning it is a different daily rate depending on the number of days in any given month.
Reply
Anyway, long story short --- to determine your monthly price, you would probably be better off setting the monthly price as 30 x your daily rate or 31 X your daily rate, rather than 28 X your daily rate, if you don't want to end up getting less than your daily rate per day for any given reservation.
Reply
Invaluable information, thanks.
Reply o
Thanks Deborah ! it's a light bulb for me... I should fix mine as well.
Reply
Thanks so much for the heads up Deborah.
That's insanely convoluted. It results in the percentage discount per day for bookings longer than 27 days being linked to the the time of year of the booking - eg a day in March is a more deeply discounted than one in February.
Wouldn't it be great if a host could just specify a % discount to base rate that increased with the booking duration and allowed you to specify a maximum discount - eg day 28 is 95% of base rate, day 29 is 94% etc etc down to a minimum price of, say, 75% of base rate at day 48 onwards?
Reply
THat would definitely be another way to do it, which would free up the calculations from the vagaries of corresponding calendar date, and would be clearer that way. It can be quite complicated to calculate total cost, when, for instance, the guest has a stay stretching over different months eg from Feb 6 to April 19 --- the days in February go at a different daily rate from the days in March, which go at a different daily rate than those in April, all due to the varying days/month in those months. I am thinking perhaps Airbnb wanted to have something structured similarly to typical long term rent arrangements. When you are a standard tenant in a standard long term rental, you are accustomed to paying the SAME amount per month regardless of the number of days in that month, eg your monthly rent is $1500 a month. So Airbnb may be trying to emulate that just to make things clearer for guests, since if it went the way you are suggesting, then no "monthly rate" could be stipulated, nor would a fixed monthly rate show up in search results. Everything would vary based on #days desired -- and some people search without entering the days they want (eg they may not know yet how many days they will stay) so they need to see some version of a monthly rate just for clarity's sake. As I see it the best options would be to either charge per month as they do or to charge for a fixed number of days, eg 30 days, which would give an "approximate" month but be clearer in that then the daily rate would always be the same, and they would bill the guest every 30 days.
Reply
We do not get many long term guests but I did not know that., Thanks Deborah for a great explanation x
Reply
Though calculation of price can be confusing, there are some benefits to Airbnb doing the long term fees the way it does.
First, there is the clarity that the price per month is always the same for each month, which again is what long term tenants expect. It would be confusing for the tenant, wouldn't it, if a long term tenant with say a year lease, instead of a fixed monthly rent, had a rent of $3000 per 30 days, and then had to pay $3100 for Jan rent, $2800 for Feb rent, $3100 for March rent, and $3000 for April's rent, wouldn't it?
Second, the payment date stays the same date for each month, which is convenient for guest and hosts alike. So, take the example of a guest whose reservation is from Jan 6 to April 10, and who is to pay $3000 per month. The host gets the first payment of $3000 (less whatever fees) on Jan 7, for the day after guest arrives. Then, regardless of the fact that there are 31 days in Jan and not 30, the host gets paid again on Feb 7 the next $3000 (less fees). Then once again, regardless the fact that Feb has 28 days instead of 30, the host gets paid again on March 7 another $3000, and then on April 7 the remainder of $400.
If the price were per 30 days instead of per month, the host would get paid $3000 on Jan 7, but then on Feb 6 is the next payment of $3000, and then because Feb is short, gets paid on March 8th for the next $3000, and then on April 7 the last payment.
Reply
I see why Airbnb is doing it this way - more toward long term rental thinking. It is something to think about including Airbnb branding and overall goal.
Reply
clears a lot say upto say 70 % of the matters discussed . thanks
Reply
Its a great script Deep
REply
Thanks Deborah, now I understand their 'logic', though I see it more as the apotheosis of cultural imperialism
In Australia, rents are advertised on a weekly basis, not monthly, though most leases are drafted on a calendar month basis - ie daily rate x days in period divided by months in period covered by lease. The result is that a one year lease may require a slightly different amount payable per month to, say, a 3 month lease. In effect, you pay the same for each day of your tenancy but the amount payable per calendar month under a lease will differ depending on the duration of the lease.
Given that Airbnb has aspirations for global domination of the short term rental market, perhaps it might be better to find a methodology that isn't culturally specific. My assumption about the 'monthly rate' asked was that it was the price to be applied for any stay stay of >27 days expressed as the daily rate required for long stays multiplied by 28 days and that the actual rate charged would be this 'monthly rate' divided by 28 and multiplied by no. of nights per stay.
Given this, why not replace the whole monthly rate concept with either a daily rate to be applied to all stays >27 days, or, better still a discount (or series of sliding discounts) to be applied to the daily rate for stays above a certain duration. The amount that would turn up on the search page as the monthly rate for comparison purposes across all listings would just be either (depending on the method Airbnb chose to apply) - either the rate for 28 days or the base rate per day for stays of 28 days.
Seems like a non-culturally specific solution to me .....
Reply
Your take on this is quite interesting. I would have had no idea that an issue like this could be viewed as cultural, and given how rentals are done in Australia, it makes sense that the method Airbnb uses is quite foreign to you. I haven't explored how rentals are done in different countries, but my guess would be that the way you indicate things are done in Australia is more the exception than the rule. Any hosts from any nations other than USA and Australia care to comment and let us know how rentals are done in your part of the world?
Reply
I don't think it's all that unusual. The Brits do the same. London rents are quoted on a weekly basis.
Reply
I find it kind of amusing that you don't think it's unusual because the Brits do it---almost everything the Brits do is unusual!! (ask any other "euros")....We love them, but they are as eccentric as heck! must be the island thing....
Reply
Australia and Britain are rather culturally linked, arent' they?
Louise