Guest asking for a discount? How to reply on Airbnb, Booking.com, and by email

When an Airbnb guest is asking for a discount, you don’t have to choose between a flat no and a lower price. Reply the same day: thank them, explain in two or three lines what the price includes, and offer something extra instead of a cut. If you decide a lower price makes sense, send it through Airbnb as a special offer. Never agree to a cheaper deal paid outside the platform.

The same approach works for hotels, B&Bs, and vacation rentals (holiday lets, if you’re British), and it works on Booking.com, by email, and on WhatsApp, with a few platform rules. But if these requests arrive every week, the price is rarely the real problem: guests ask for discounts when your listing doesn’t show what they’d be paying for.

Why guests ask for a discount

“Hi, I saw your place. Can you do a better price?”

It arrives on WhatsApp at 11:15 p.m., often before the guest has read what you offer. Say no, and you may lose the booking. Say yes, and you may have just given €30 to someone who would have paid the full price anyway.

A guest who asks for a lower price straight away hasn’t seen enough value to justify the number on the screen. Usually the listing has three gaps:

• The photos don’t show the real quality of the place, so it looks like listings that cost half as much.
• The description could belong to a thousand other properties.
• Nothing on the page says why a guest should choose you over the place next door.

With nothing else to compare, guests compare prices: if all they see is “double room with breakfast,” the cheapest one wins. The discount request is the symptom. The cause is on your listing.

Should you give the discount?

Usually not, at least not because someone asked. A discount feels painless: the guest books, the calendar fills up. The cost comes later:

• Your price stops being real. If asking is enough, your listed price becomes a starting point.
• You attract guests who shop on price, and they have no reason to come back at the full rate.
• You lose money you would reinvest in good sheets, your staff, or the breakfast guests talk about.
• You set a precedent. Returning guests, and the friends they send, will expect the same deal.

A discount you decide in advance is different: a weekly rate for long stays, a last-minute price for nights still empty close to the date, a thank-you for returning guests. It applies to everyone who qualifies, so it’s part of your pricing. Set those rules once, and you won’t have to decide at 11:15 p.m. with a guest waiting.

How to reply to a guest asking for a discount

You can answer and keep both your price and the guest, in four moves:

1. Answer with what the price includes. “Our prices are fixed” and “Sorry, we don’t do discounts” sound defensive and end the conversation. List what the guest gets for the money, so the number makes sense.
2. Add something instead of taking something off: a room upgrade if one is free, a bottle from the winery down the road, a late check-out, a tasting or a guided walk. The price stays the same, and the guest feels well treated.
3. Say what makes your place different. Most guests don’t know what sets you apart, because nobody has told them. Name one or two things only you have.
4. Let price shoppers go. Explain the value once, kindly, and if the guest only wants the lowest price, let them book elsewhere. Sometimes an empty night is better than a guest who bargains before arrival and leaves a lukewarm review.

Here are two replies to adapt. Change every detail, and only promise what you really offer.

A short message for Airbnb or WhatsApp

Hi [name], thanks for your message. My price is the same for every guest, and it covers more than the room: breakfast with eggs from the farm, parking inside the gate, and a map I made of the places nearby that you won’t find on Google. If you book these dates, I’ll add a late check-out and a bottle from the winery down the road. The dates are still free if you’d like them.

An email for a hotel or B&B

Subject: Your stay at [property], [dates]

Dear [name],

Thank you for your email. Our rate for [dates] is [price], the same for every guest. It includes breakfast made to order with vegetables from our garden, the spa, secure parking, and a map we made of the places nearby that guidebooks leave out.

Every room has its original antique furniture, and breakfast changes each day with what’s fresh. It’s what guests mention most in their reviews.

If you book these dates with us, we’ll add a late check-out on your last day, at no extra cost. The room is still free for now: reply to this email and I’ll send you the booking link.

Kind regards,
[your first name]

Airbnb guest asking for a discount: what Airbnb lets you do

If you decide to lower the price, use Airbnb’s own tools:

• Before the guest books, send a special offer from the message thread, with the total for all nights, cleaning fee included. The guest has 24 hours to accept, and the booking is confirmed as soon as they do.
• After the guest has booked, send a change request with the new price. If the guest accepts, Airbnb refunds the difference.
• For rules you set once, use the discounts in your listing’s price settings: weekly (7 nights or more), monthly (28 nights or more), early-bird, and last-minute.

What you can’t do is take the booking off Airbnb. Its off-platform policy forbids offering or asking for a discount to book outside Airbnb, and any payment outside it. Breaking it can get your listing suspended. So if a guest offers to pay you directly for less, the answer is no, and you can report the message to Airbnb from the conversation.

On Vrbo you can do much the same by editing the quote you send in reply to an inquiry, before the guest pays.

On Booking.com: deals for everyone, no private prices

Booking.com has no equivalent of Airbnb’s special offer: guests book at the prices on your property page. What you can set, in the Extranet under Promotions, is a discount for everyone who qualifies, such as a Basic Deal, a Last-minute Deal, or an Early Booker Deal. Or you can add value instead: Booking.com’s value adds let you include extras such as parking, a bottle of wine, or flexible check-in and check-out in a rate plan.

Two more things to know:

• Your answer may be public. Guests can ask questions before booking through Booking.com’s guest Q&A, and the answers can appear on your property page. Write your reply to “can you give me a discount?” for every guest who will read it.
• After booking, the price rarely changes. You can edit a reservation’s price only in a few cases, such as after check-in when you collect the payment yourself. An extra on arrival is simpler.

By email or WhatsApp: your price, your rules

When a guest writes to you directly, through your website, by email, or on WhatsApp, the price and the rules are yours. That includes the guest who found you on Booking.com and asks whether booking with you is cheaper: in Italy you’re free to offer a better rate than on Booking.com. My guide to winning direct bookings covers the rules and what to offer. Just never use a platform’s messages or guest details to pull guests away from it.

Reply quickly. With your rules already set, it takes a minute, and a question left until morning gives the guest a night to book elsewhere. Many guests, especially from Europe, would rather send a message than an email: here is how to run WhatsApp for hotels and B&Bs.

When the request comes with a threat

Sometimes the message is a threat: a lower price, or a bad review. On Airbnb that breaks the reviews policy, which says guests can’t threaten a negative review to get a refund, compensation, or another incentive. Don’t give in. Keep the messages, report them to Airbnb, and if the review is posted anyway, ask Airbnb to remove it. The rule works both ways: you can’t offer a discount for a good review either.

Booking.com says it can’t stop guests from leaving reviews, and a bad review doesn’t count as guest misconduct, but you can ask it, from the Extranet, to check whether a review follows its rules. On both platforms, reply to the review calmly and in public, as in these negative hotel review response examples.

Get fewer discount requests: show the value first

The replies above are first aid. The better fix is to get fewer requests, and that happens on the page guests look at before they write to you:

• Photos that show what a stay feels like: the light, the atmosphere, the details, not just four walls. Photos are the first reason a place looks worth its price, as I explain in how professional photos affect bookings and rates.
• Words that say something. Vague words lower the perceived value as much as poor photos do. Here are vacation rental description examples, with the 10 words to delete first.
• Reviews where guests see them: what other guests say convinces more than any adjective you write about yourself.
• The whole stay, not just the bed: breakfast, the view from the terrace, the village, the walk to the winery.

Guests who write to you already convinced don’t ask for a discount. They ask whether the dates are free. Planning what guests see before they write, from the photos to the words, is the core of my marketing work with hotels, B&Bs, and vacation rentals.

Meanwhile, answer every request calmly. If you believe your place is worth its price, the guest reading your reply is more likely to believe it too.