Airbnb and Booking discounts and promotions: when a price cut really makes you money
Weekly discounts, early-bird offers, last-minute deals, the Genius programme: platforms keep adding discount levers, and many owners switch them on without doing the maths. Badly configured, these discounts stack up, eat into your margin on weeks that would have sold anyway and weaken your positioning. Used well, they fill exactly the nights that would otherwise stay empty.
Judge a discount in nights won, not in percentage points
The only question that matters before switching on a discount is simple: would this night have sold without it? A 10% discount on a February half-term week, which sells at full price anyway, is a straight loss of several hundred euros. The same discount on a mid-January week at risk of staying empty turns a zero-revenue night into a profitable one. So think in net revenue per available night, not occupancy rate. Work out your floor price too: the level below which a booking no longer covers cleaning, linen, energy and commission. A discount that pushes the rate below that threshold is not a promotion, it is a night you are paying for. Finally, remember that the discount usually applies to the nightly rate, not the cleaning fee: on a short stay, its effect on the final price the guest sees is smaller than you might think.
Airbnb and Booking levers, and their traps
On Airbnb, weekly and monthly discounts favour longer stays, the early-bird discount rewards guests who commit early, and the last-minute discount applies to dates close at hand. A special new-listing promotion also exists to kick-start your first reviews. On Booking.com, the Genius programme gives loyal guests a discount, on top of which early-booker deals, last-minute deals, mobile rates or country rates can apply. That is where the main trap lies: depending on the combination, several discounts can hit the same booking, and a week displayed at €200 a night can end up selling at €150. Before each season, open the extranet, simulate a booking and check the price actually paid. Switch off any offer you are not actively managing, rather than leaving it running by default since the listing went live.
Building a winter discount policy
In a ski resort, the right discount strategy follows the calendar. Christmas, New Year and February holiday weeks need no discount at all: they sell early and at high prices, so any early-bird reduction on them is wasted. Conversely, early December, non-weekend January and the end of the season in April are the periods where a targeted discount makes the difference. Favour time-limited reductions on specific dates rather than a permanent discount across the whole calendar. A last-minute discount 14 days out on a January week that is still free makes sense; the same discount applied to the entire winter teaches guests to wait. For longer stays, a moderate weekly discount secures full weeks and reduces the number of turnovers, and therefore your cleaning costs. In Lyon, the logic is the same around trade fairs and the Festival of Lights: no discount on event dates, targeted offers on midweek gaps.
Measure, adjust, never leave it on autopilot
A discount policy is managed like the rest of your pricing. Every week, look at the booking pace of your upcoming dates: if a period fills faster than expected, remove the discount and raise prices; if it is still empty a few weeks out, trigger a targeted offer. Compare net revenue collected with and without discounts on the same periods from one season to the next, taking into account the commission charged by each platform. Watch the effect on your guests too: discounts that are too deep sometimes attract less careful travellers, which then weighs on wear and tear and on your reviews. At SmartStay, discounts are set date by date in our revenue management tool, consistently across Airbnb, Booking and direct bookings, so that no premium week is sold off cheaply and no quiet week stays empty for lack of attention.
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