Airbnb's 15% Top-Rated Guest Discount: Why We Recommend Turning It On (After Raising Your Base Rate)

Airbnb now rewards hosts who give highly rated guests 15% off with more search exposure. We recommend turning it on, but only after raising your Airbnb base nightly rate by about 17.6%, so the discount works as a guest filter rather than a price cut.

1. Conclusion: Turn It On, but Raise Your Base Rate First

On September 30, 2026, Airbnb announced a set of new host features. One of them is a top-rated guest discount: if you offer a 15% discount to guests with strong ratings, your listing appears in more search results.

Our recommendation to owners is to turn this discount on in most cases, but not as-is. First raise your base nightly rate on Airbnb by about 17.6%, then switch the discount on. Top-rated guests will see roughly the same price as before, while new guests and guests with lower ratings will see the higher price.

The goal is not discounting. It is guest selection: making it easier for well-behaved guests to book and harder for guests who are more likely to cause problems. That is our view.

2. The Rule: What Gets Discounted

Figure 1. What the 15% discount applies to

This breakdown is based on Hostaway's explanation and our own understanding; we have not found it stated explicitly in Airbnb's own materials. In practice, it means the nightly base rate is the only number you need to adjust.

Airbnb says hosts who offered a similar discount in a test saw, on average, 11% higher earnings and 14% more nights booked. These figures are modeled estimates from a June–July 2026 test and vary by listing and market.

The announcement does not say when the discount launches or when it will be available to hosts in Japan. Check your host dashboard to see whether you can use it.

3. How We Recommend Setting It Up: Raise the Base Rate by About 17.6%

Because 1 ÷ 0.85 ≈ 1.176, raising your base rate by about 17.6% before turning on the 15% discount brings the discounted price back to roughly your original rate. To raise the price on Airbnb only, adjust the Airbnb rate in your site controller (the Japanese term for a channel manager, which manages rates and availability across multiple OTAs in one place).

Figure 2. Who sees which price (hypothetical example)

All prices are fictional and do not come from a real property. Top-rated guests can book at almost the same price as before, and the owner's payout on those bookings stays roughly unchanged.

4. The Benefits: Easier to Attract Well-Rated Guests

1. A filter against new and lower-rated guests. Guests who don't qualify for the discount see the raised price as-is. New guests with no Airbnb reviews, and guests with lower past ratings, become relatively less likely to book. From our operating experience, guests with little booking history are more likely to damage a property or leave low ratings (this is our view).

2. Well-mannered guests book more easily. A guest with 3 or more reviews and a 4.8+ rating has been rated highly by other hosts several times. With a whole-house rental, you are entrusting the entire building, fixtures and furniture to the guest, so we think more guests with a track record is valuable.

3. More search exposure. Airbnb says listings that offer the discount appear in more search results.

For newly opened properties with few reviews, collecting reviews comes first. For that stage, see How to Get Reviews for a Newly Opened STR as Fast as Possible.

5. Points to Watch

• Stacking with other discounts: The top-rated guest discount is combined with last-minute and other discounts (Airbnb Help Center). If a pricing tool such as PriceLabs lowers your price close to the date, the 15% is applied on top of that lowered price. Review your tool's minimum price against the post-discount amount.
• Bookings from new guests: Airbnb has not disclosed how test participants priced their listings, so the test results (11% earnings, 14% nights) may not carry over to this approach. Raising the price before discounting may reduce bookings from new guests, since they see a higher price. That is, however, the flip side of the filter effect we are aiming for (our view).
• Accommodation tax: Some local governments, such as Tokyo and Kyoto City, set the tax amount based on the per-person, per-night room rate. The discounted price may become the basis for the tax, so confirm with the local government and your tax accountant. See Japan's Accommodation Tax Is a Monthly Task for details.

Figure 3. How discounts stack (hypothetical example)

All figures are fictional. If your tool's minimum price were ¥50,000 in this example, top-rated guests could still book at ¥42,500, so set minimums with the extra 15% in mind.

The same announcement also covered dynamic pricing (rolling out from October), AI-powered earnings insights, 3D floor plans, and a multi-listing calendar for hosts with six or more listings. All of these affect pricing or efficiency, but the top-rated guest discount is the one that most needs an owner's decision.

6. Our Recommendation and How We Operate

We recommend turning this discount on. The key is to raise the base rate first, keeping the price for top-rated guests roughly unchanged while improving guest quality.

The Room sells and operates whole-house rentals in Hakone, the Fuji Five Lakes area and Tokyo, all licensed under the Ryokan Business Act. This is the license required to accommodate guests for a fee, and unlike private lodging (minpaku), which is capped at 180 days a year, it allows year-round operation. We manage pricing across Airbnb and other OTAs, and we review settings whenever a platform changes its rules, as it has here. For how we think about pricing by channel, see The Optimal Path for OTA and Direct Booking.