The quiet months take more work than the summer. These two Airbnb discounts help, and this is how they work, how they stack, and where to aim them.
Autumn and winter bring a different kind of guest. Couples after a few quiet nights, families around half-term, last-minute weekends booked on a whim from a phone on the sofa. The demand is there, and a good deal of it is browsing right now.
Airbnb has two discounts available that are built for exactly this. One targets the guests most likely to book and leave a good review. The other targets the place most people are booking from (their mobile!). Both take a couple of clicks to set up in SuperControl.
Here is what they do, how they work together, and how to get the most out of them.
The top-rated guests discount
Aimed at the guests most likely to book, and most likely to leave a good review.
You offer 15% off to guests rated 4.8 or above with at least three reviews. Only those guests see the discounted price. Everyone else sees your normal rate.
You are not lowering your price to the whole market. You are lowering it for guests with a track record of leaving places as they found them, and who are more likely to leave you a five-star rating afterwards.
Airbnb’s own figures from a recent pilot put the effect at around 11%* more gross booking value, 14%* more nights booked, and a 43%* higher chance of securing a booking from a top-rated guest. These are modelled estimates and will vary by property and market, but the direction is clear.
What it does to your listing:
- Discounted pricing can improve where you appear in search results
- A badge appears on your listing page showing you are offering a discount
- Your original price shows with a line through it, so the saving is visible
The mobile-only discount
This one is about where people are booking rather than who they are.
Airbnb reported that over 60%* of browsing globally happened in their app in 2025, and around 65%* of bookings were made there. That has continued into 2026, with the app accounting for 63%* of total nights booked, up from 58%* the year before.
The mobile-only discount shows a 10% discount to guests browsing in the app. It is a straightforward way to put your best price exactly where the demand already is, while desktop bookers continue to see your standard rate.
How they stack
Stacking means more than one discount applying to the same booking. Instead of receiving a single discount, the guest may receive multiple discounts that are applied sequentially, resulting in a greater overall reduction.
Both of these new discounts stack. So if a top-rated guest books on the app, they get 15% off as a top-rated guest, and then the mobile discount comes off on top of that.
They also stack with the promotions you may already have running, such as early bird, last minute, new listing and custom promotions. Only one of those applies at a time, chosen by Airbnb’s priority order, but the top-rated guests and mobile-only discounts sit on top of whichever one it is.
The result is that the guests most worth having, browsing where most people browse, see a price that is hard to resist. Your standard rate never moves for anyone else.
Before you switch anything on, take your base rate, apply everything you have running, and look at the number at the bottom. Knowing your floor means you can stack with confidence.
Getting the most out of Airbnb discounts
Discounting works best when it is aimed. Applied across the whole calendar it just lowers what you earn on bookings you would have taken anyway. Pointed at the dates that need help, it does something useful: it moves the nights that would otherwise sit empty, without touching what you charge for the weeks that sell themselves. A few things worth doing before you switch anything on:
- Leave your peak weeks alone. Christmas, New Year, half-term. If a week sells every year without help, a discount just costs you money on a booking you already had.
- Think in gaps, not in seasons. The orphan nights are where these earn their keep. The Tuesday and Wednesday stranded between two weekend bookings, the three nights before a changeover. Those are the ones that go last, and often not at all.
- Give the listing a look while you are there. A discount brings people to your page. Photos that suit the season are what convert them once they arrive. Swapping summer shots for a lit log burner takes ten minutes and works alongside anything else you do.
- Set it and let it run. These are not weekly decisions. Apply them to the dates you want to fill and leave them working in the background. Constant fiddling makes it harder to tell what worked.
- Watch what fills, and at what price. Come the end of the season, the dates that went and the rates they went at will tell you plenty about where to point these next year.
Not on Airbnb?
In peak season, the bookings tend to find you. Repeat guests, direct bookings, word of mouth.
October to March is where that changes. The people who would have found you have already booked, and what is left is demand you might not reach from where you are standing.
The maths changes in the off season too. Commission on a peak week is a cost you might reasonably question. Commission on a midweek night in November that was heading for nothing is coming out of revenue you would not otherwise have had, and a guest who finds you that way may well book with you directly next time.
Airbnb’s crowd is big, books late, and books from a phone on the sofa. Which is more or less exactly who is looking in the quieter months.
If you are not listing on Airbnb, these two discounts are as good a reason as any to have another look, particularly for the nights that are hardest to fill.
In summary
Using discounts is not about discounting your way through the winter. It is about being deliberate. Knowing which dates you want to fill, deciding what they are worth to you, and putting your best price in front of the guests most likely to take them.
That is the difference between a discount and a plan. One costs you money on bookings you would have had anyway. The other fills the nights that were heading for nothing.
Both discounts take a few minutes to set up in SuperControl, and you can apply them to the dates you choose rather than the whole calendar.
*Figures cited are Airbnb’s own, based on a pilot running February to March 2026 and modelled estimates observed June to July 2026. Results vary by listing and market.
