How do I give an automatic discount for longer stays?

A long-stay discount takes a percentage off automatically when a guest books a stay of a certain length or longer, with no code to enter. Where you set it up depends on the channel: Smoobu handles it for your own website and booking engine, and for Airbnb; for Booking.com and other channels you set it on that channel. It is different from a discount code (How do I add a discount voucher or promo code?), which a guest types in at checkout.

Before you start

• Your booking engine set up, for the discount on your own bookings. See How do I set up my Booking Engine?.
• Each channel keeps its own long-stay discount. A discount you set for your own booking page does not carry over to Booking.com or Airbnb; you set each channel separately.

Set it for your own booking page

Your website and booking engine share one place for long-stay discounts.

1. Open Configuration > Booking Engine and pick the property.
2. Open Accommodation settings, then open the Length of stay discount section.
3. Click the add (+) icon to open the Add long stay discount form.
4. Under Accommodations, choose which property or sub-property the discount applies to.
5. Enter a Minimum length of stay (the number of nights a booking must reach) and the Discount to take off (for example, 7 nights for 5% off).
6. Click the add (+) icon again to add more rows for tiered thresholds if you want (for example, one row for 14 nights and another for 30 nights).
7. Click Save.

This applies all year round, and only to bookings on your own website or booking engine. When a guest's stay reaches a threshold, the discount comes off automatically at checkout.

Set it on your channels

Each channel keeps its own long-stay discount, so set it where that channel lives:

Airbnb

Airbnb's weekly and monthly discounts are managed from Smoobu. Open Channels, open your Airbnb card's Additional Settings (Gear Icon), and set the weekly and monthly discount percentages there. Smoobu keeps these in sync with Airbnb. If you change them on Airbnb directly, Smoobu does not overwrite them: it imports the change and shows it under the Airbnb card's Additional Settings. For all of Airbnb's discounts and promotions in one place, see How do I manage my Airbnb listing with Smoobu - Settings, Discounts, Additional fees, Seasonal Rules, Lead time and more.

Booking.com

Booking.com's long-stay discounts are weekly and monthly rate plans you set in the Booking.com Extranet. Set them up there so they derive from your standard rate; the prices you set in Smoobu still flow through. Smoobu does not set Booking.com discounts for you. See Set up Booking.com promotions.

Other channels

Every other channel keeps its own long-stay discount in its own interface. Set it there for each channel you use.

Charging more for short stays instead

Many channels let you add a short-stay surcharge, so a guest booking one or two nights pays extra. Smoobu has no short-stay surcharge. It works the other way round: you set your price at the short-stay level and give a discount back once the stay is long enough. A discount with a minimum of 4 nights leaves 1 to 3 night bookings at full price, which is the same outcome as a surcharge on those bookings.

If you would rather keep your headline nightly rate where it is, you can get the surcharge effect on your own booking page by combining two settings:

1. Add an Additional Item as a service fee, set to Required field and calculated per booking. See Offer extras and upsells to your guests. This raises the total on your own booking page only, because required items are charged on Booking Engine bookings and are not sent to your channels.
2. Add a Length of stay discount for the same amount, with the minimum nights set at the point where you want the surcharge to stop applying.

Short bookings pay the service fee. Bookings that reach your minimum get it back as the discount, so they pay what they would have paid anyway.

The two are calculated on different bases, so a percentage will not simply cancel out. The length-of-stay discount applies to the nightly price only, even when your price is set per person. The service fee applies to the whole booking total, including extras such as final cleaning, bed linen or breakfast. If you use percentages rather than fixed amounts, work out both figures against a real example before you rely on it.

On your channels, use that channel's own short-stay surcharge if it has one. The Smoobu-side workaround above does not reach them, because the service fee never leaves your booking page.

Check it worked

Preview a booking in your booking engine for a stay that reaches your night threshold: the total drops by the discount at checkout. For Airbnb, confirm the weekly and monthly percentages show in the Airbnb Additional Settings; for Booking.com, check the rate plan in your Extranet.

Common problems

The discount didn't apply to a channel booking

Long-stay discounts are set per channel. A discount on your own booking page does not reach Booking.com or Airbnb. Set the equivalent on that channel: Airbnb in its Additional Settings in Smoobu, Booking.com in the Extranet.

A guest expected a code to type in

A long-stay discount has no code; it applies on its own. If you want a code guests enter at checkout, create a discount code (How do I add a discount voucher or promo code?) instead.

Related articles

• How do I add a discount voucher or promo code?
• How do I set up my Booking Engine?
• Offer extras and upsells to your guests
• How do I connect Airbnb to Smoobu?
• How do I connect Booking.com to Smoobu?

Still stuck?

If these steps didn't fix it, contact the Smoobu team: open the Help menu to open a ticket or book a call slot, or use the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner. To get the fastest answer, please include:

• Your Smoobu User ID (in the profile-icon menu, top right).
• The property name or ID, if it's about one property.
• The Booking ID, if it's about one booking (Bookings, then View more).
• The channel name, if it's about channel sync (Booking.com, Airbnb, Vrbo, and so on).
• A short step-by-step: what you did, what you expected, and what happened.
• Screenshots or a short screen recording of the problem.
• Your browser and operating system, if something looks wrong on screen.