Practical Guide to Airbnb Promotions

When used strategically, discounts can help you fill your calendar, boost visibility, and appeal to price-conscious travelers.

To get the most value from discounts:

• Be strategic - apply discounts to dates where you need more bookings (e.g. low season, weekdays). Use them to boost visibility during slower periods.
• Set limitations - use booking windows so discounts only apply when it suits you. This helps you protect your high-demand dates.
• Use data insights - review which discounts lead to bookings and adjust your strategy based on results. See performance trends and focus on offers that actually increase occupancy and revenue. Check our free tool - Analytics.

Airbnb promotion types

Airbnb discounts are based on certain conditions (e.g. booking in advance or staying multiple nights). They appear automatically on the Airbnb website to guests when they meet the criteria.

Read more on how to add new, edit and remove these promotions here.

Promotion details

Each type of discount can have different settings and restrictions. Read below about the parameters you can edit for each of the discounts.

• Internal name - Provide a name to differentiate the discount from other discounts of the same type.
• Months before arrival (Early-bird) - Booking time condition to become eligible for the discount. Min. is 1, max. is 24 months. For example, set it to 3 to offer this discount to guests who book 3 months or more before the check-in date.
• Days before arrival (Last-minute) - Booking time condition to become eligible for the discount. Min. is 1, max. value is 28 days. For example, set it to 3 to offer this discount to guests who book 3 days or less before the check-in date.
• Minimum booking length (Length-of-stay) - Minimum number of nights in the booking to be eligible for the discount. For example, set it to 7 to offer a weekly discount.
• Discount - Provide the discount amount, for example 10%.

Restrictions

Proportional discounts 

Airbnb requires longer stays to have the same or higher discounts than shorter stays. If your set-up is different, you will receive an error when trying to define it.

• Incorrect set-up: 20% discount for weekly stays, 15% discount for monthly stays
• Correct set-up: 20% discount for weekly stays, 20% or more discount for monthly stays

LOS discounts

Guests can only book listings with a LOS promotion when the property uses the Daily price model. If the listing uses the LOS pricing model, the LOS promotion doesn't apply to guest bookings.

Guest view

Long-term and early-bird discounts are promoted to guests on the Airbnb website and are a great way of boosting reservations. These promotions will be highlighted next to your original price in the price breakdown on your listing.

• A line-item discount breakdown on your listings and at checkout.
• A strikethrough on your nightly price in search results and on your listing.
• Guests who have searched listings in your area recently may see your listings featured in Airbnb emails.

Last-minute discounts are deducted from the nightly price, but are not actively promoted or displayed to guests on the Airbnb website.

Line-item on the listing

Length-of-stay promotion as a line-item on the listing.

Strikethrough in search results

Length-of-stay promotion as a strike through in search results.

Special callout on the listing

Not actively promoted promotion

Last-minute included in the price, but not actively promoted.

 

Host view

Your promotions will be applied to your listings, but also displayed in the Airbnb dashboard.

1. Log in to you Airbnb dashboard.
2. Go to Calendar and select the listing on the left.

3. Click Price settings. The promotion details are displayed in the More discounts section.

   

Stacking and priority rules

Discounts do not stack in Airbnb. Airbnb prevents you from over discounting your rates.

• If you set up multiple types of discounts for the same time period (e.g. lengths-of-stay and early-bird), only one will apply per night. It is always the highest-priority discount that will always apply and override the others.
• If you have multiple discounts of the same type (e.g. weekly and monthly), the one that is the most beneficial for the guest will apply.

Check below the order of applying discounts:

1. New Listing Promotion
2. Custom promotions
3. Seasonal discounts
   • LOS discount
   • Early-bird discount
   • Last-minute discount
4. Promotions
   • Length-of-stay
   • Early-bird
   • Last-minute
5. Non-refundable discount

Practical use: Promo stacking and priorities

Example I

I already have early-bird and weekly discounts activated in my account. I want to enable New Listing Promotion, but at the same time I want to avoid offering unprofitable rates.

• Base rate: $100
• No seasonal discounts
• Active discounts:
  • Early-bird promotion: 10%
  • Length-of-stay promotion: 15%
  • New Listing Promotion: 20% fixed discount

I. Discounted rate - New Listing Promotion

If New Listing Promotion is active, Airbnb disregards any other discounts as New Listing Promotion has the highest priority of all.

$100 - 20% = $80

New Listing Promotion is a temporary offer that automatically turns off after your listing receives three bookings. Once it is deactivated, Airbnb will revert to the next eligible discount based on the priority order.

II. Discounted rate - Length-of-stay

If a guest qualifies for both Early-bird and Length-of-stay, Airbnb will apply the Length-of-stay discount, as it has a higher priority.

$100 - 15% = $85

III. Discounted rate - Early-bird

If a guest qualifies for Early-bird, but the stay is too short to qualify for the Length-of-stay discount, Airbnb will apply the Early-bird discount only.

$100 - 10% = $80

Final outcome: Discounts do not stack, but apply according to the priorities. Airbnb protects your listings from accidental over-discounting by limiting the number of discounts that can apply at a time.

Example II

I have both seasonal discounts and promotions. How will discounts apply?

• Base rate: $100
• Seasonal discounts:
  • Seasonal Last-minute discount: 3%
  • Season: from 1 October to 14 October
• Promotions:
  • Last-minute: 10%

Discounted rate - only one discount applies per night

There is a booking from 27 September until 3 October. Seasonal discounts normally have higher priority than promotions. However, since the seasonal last-minute discount only covers part of the stay, the last-minute promotion is applied to the remaining nights that fall outside the seasonal period.

• Discounted rate (27 - 30 Sep): $100 - 10% (Last-minute promotion) = $90
• Discounted rate (1 - 3 Sep): $100 - 3% (seasonal Last-minute discount) = $97

Total booking amount: 3 x $90 + 3 x $97 = $561

Final outcome: Discounts do not stack, but apply according to the priorities.

Example III

I have both seasonal discounts and promotions. I want to introduce a Non-refundable discount to the set-up from Example II.

• Non-refundable discount: 10%

Discounted rate - Non-refundable rate always stacks

There is a booking from 27 September until 3 October. Non-refundable rate is calculated with the lowest priority from the total booking amount.

• Discounted rate (27 - 30 Sep): $100 - 10% (Last-minute promotion) = $90
• Discounted rate (1 - 3 Sep): $100 - 3% (seasonal Last-minute discount) = $97

Total booking amount: 3 x $90 + 3 x $97 = $561

Non-refundable rate: $561 - 10% = $504.90

Final outcome: Non-refundable discount stacks with other discounts and applies to your nightly price after all other discounts are calculated.

Supported types of promotions and discounts

Related articles

• Managing channel promotions
• Early-bird one-pager
• Length-of-stay one-pager
• Last-minute one-pager