How to Add Special Offers on Airbnb: A Promotion Guide

Updated : Feb 9, 2025

Sending a special offer on Airbnb is an excellent way for hosts to attract more guests and boost bookings. Offering discounts or added perks gives potential guests an extra reason to choose your listing.

Special offers can include incentives such as lower nightly rates, free airport transfers, discounted cleaning fees, and discounts for returning guests. 

In this article, we go over how to add offers on Airbnb. We’ll also provide personalized message templates to delight your guests!

What are Offers on Airbnb?

Offers on Airbnb are special deals hosts can extend to potential guests to make their listings more attractive and increase bookings. These offers typically involve discounted rates or flexible pricing that cater to guests’ specific needs, encouraging them to book.

Here are a few examples of the various offers you can provide on Airbnb:

1. Last-minute booking discounts: If a property hasn’t been booked for upcoming dates, hosts can offer reduced rates to fill the vacancy quickly.
2. Extended stay discount: For guests staying longer (e.g., a week or more), hosts might offer a percentage off the total price, making it more appealing for travelers on extended trips.
3. Seasonal discounts: Hosts can provide lower rates during off-peak seasons or for local special events, helping boost occupancy during slower periods.
4. Mid-week specials: Offer discounted rates to encourage weekday bookings, which can increase occupancy on typically slower days.
5. Returning guest discount: Offer lower rates to guests who have previously stayed at the property, incentivizing loyalty and repeat bookings.
6. Exclusive Weekend Rates: Offering a discounted rate for extended weekend stays, like “Stay Friday through Sunday, and get 15% off.”
7. Early Bird Discount: This is a special rate for guests who book several weeks or months in advance.
8. Group Discounts: Offering a price reduction for larger groups or family bookings, like “Book for 4+ people and receive 10% off.”
9. Flexible Check-In/Out Times: Waiving early check-in or late check-out fees as a special offer for guests staying more than three nights.

These offers enhance the guest experience and help secure bookings by offering something unique that makes the stay even more memorable.

Why Should You Add Offers on Airbnb?

Adding offers on Airbnb can significantly boost your hosting success by attracting more bookings and enhancing guest satisfaction. It can:

1. Increase Bookings: Special offers make your listing more appealing, especially in competitive markets. Discounts or perks can be the deciding factor for guests comparing similar properties.
2. Attract Last-Minute or Long-Term Guests: Offering discounts for last-minute bookings or extended stays can help fill gaps in your calendar, maximizing your occupancy rate.
3. Enhance Guest Experience: Unique offers, such as free local experiences or personalized welcome packages, create a more memorable stay. This can increase guest satisfaction and positive reviews, boosting your listing’s visibility.
4. Encourage Repeat Guests: Offering special deals to returning guests, like discounted rates or waived fees, builds loyalty and increases the likelihood of repeat bookings.
5. Stand Out in Search Results: Special offers, like discounted rates, may improve your listing’s search ranking on Airbnb, increasing its chances of being seen and booked by more guests.

How to Add Offers on Airbnb?

Here’s a quick guide on how to send a special offer on Airbnb:

1. Log in: Access your Airbnb dashboard to view your listings and any pending reservation requests.
2. Select the Reservation: Choose the guest’s request you want to modify and click to open it.
3. Review Details: Confirm the guest’s information, stay dates, and any specific requests.
4. Send Special Offer: In the request, click on the “Special Offer” option to customize the offer.
5. Set Custom Terms: Adjust the nightly rate, apply discounts, or modify fees as needed.
6. Review and Submit: Double-check all details and hit “Send Special Offer.”
7. Wait for a Response: Guests have 24 hours to accept, decline, or counter the offer.
8. Confirm Booking: Once accepted, the reservation is finalized. Update your calendar and get ready to host!

How to Add Offers on Airbnb Using PriceLabs?

When understanding how to add offers on Airbnb, you should also understand how to weave it into your pricing strategy. With PriceLabs, you can dynamically adjust your rates and add discounts or premiums according to a particular scenario.

Here are the offers that you can provide using PriceLabs:

1. Last-minute Prices:

Your property is an expiring commodity; if the date has passed, it can not be booked for that particular date. You might want to apply for last-minute discounts according to your booking patterns. 

The first step to applying this strategy is understanding your booking lead time. This metric will help you understand when the booking was made and when the person arrived at your property. Understanding this metric will help you know how early people book your property, and you can then effectively apply these strategies. 

With PriceLabs, you can understand your market’s booking window in the Neighborhood Data tab. You can compare the number shown here with the bookings in your property. 

For example, the booking window is shown as 24 days in the image below. Let’s say you’re checking for bookings from Dec 15th to Oct 5th. There might not be a lot of bookings, but there’s no reason to be worried right now because it’s over a month in advance, and people haven’t started booking yet. You should get worried and change pricing strategies when bookings haven’t started coming in around Nov 28th because there are less than 24 days to the booking date.

You can use PriceLabs to set up a cascading or flat last-minute discount. By default, we apply a 30% gradual discount over 15 days from the current date.

You can choose ‘None’ if you do not want the last-minute default discount to apply.

2. Date-Specific Overrides

Our algorithm already applies a premium to important days or days when your property is experiencing high demand. If we haven’t accounted for a particular event, you can add a date-specific override to override our suggestions and add your premium. 

With experience, you will have your demand seasons; we give you control! You can specify your rates for those dates according to your demand. 

💡 Pro Tip:

If we haven’t considered an event in your area that is driving the demand up, let us know!

Once you report the event, our team will review the data to analyze if it is driving demand and add it to our list of events. 

With PriceLabs, you can control how your property is priced daily with Date-Specific Overrides. Choose the date range you want the customization to apply to and mention the prices you want for those days—once you’ve done it all, you’re good to go!

You can also mention the reason for this override so that you remember it whenever you have to go over it again.

3. Day-of-Week Pricing Adjustments

You can do that here if you want your Friday prices to differ from Monday prices. This would be extremely helpful if you’re in weekend markets – where people arrive in huge numbers every weekend.

4. Orphan Day Prices

Orphan days are unbookable days between two booked dates. These can be less than your usual minimum stay, and booking for that date might be difficult. For example, one date might be left unbooked between two bookings – these are difficult to book. So, if you want that date to be booked, you can offer a discount for that particular date! 

You can do this with PriceLabs. Define your gap and the rates you want to charge. By default, we apply a 20% discount to gaps of two nights or less.

How to Add Offers on Airbnb and Track Pricing?

You might consider using special offers to enhance your competitiveness across different booking channels and property management systems (PMS) when managing your listings. For instance, you could provide a limited-time discount on Airbnb to attract more guests. However, implementing these discounts could complicate understanding how your rates compare to those of your competitors.

To streamline this process, our Markup/Markdown feature in the Future Prices and Competitor Calendar graphs within our free Neighborhood Data allows you to visualize your offers with fixed or percentage adjustments. This tool enables you to simulate various pricing scenarios and see how your nightly rate, combined with any special offers, fits into the market.

Once activated, these adjustments will also be reflected in the Competitor Calendar, giving you a clearer view of your competitive position and facilitating straightforward comparisons in neighborhood market analysis.

Conclusion: Adding Offers on Airbnb will Help Increase Guest Satisfaction

Adding offers on Airbnb is a powerful strategy to attract more guests and boost your bookings. Special offers, such as limited-time discounts, complimentary services, or unique incentives, can make your listing stand out in a competitive marketplace. Following the steps outlined in this article, you can easily create and manage offers that resonate with potential guests, enhancing their overall experience and encouraging them to choose your property.

As you implement these offers, remember to monitor their performance and adjust your strategies as needed. Engaging with guests and maintaining open communication can foster positive relationships, leading to better reviews and increased repeat bookings. With the right offers, you’ll be well on your way to maximizing your Airbnb success and creating memorable stays for your guests.

Simplify Adding Offers With PriceLabs 

With people preferring exclusivity and personalized stays, there is significant potential to earn from a vacation rental home. However, managing the property and revenues together can seem like a hassle. Not anymore if you choose PriceLabs.