Should you lower your vacation rental prices?

Rental Scale-Up reported on November 12 that an empty vacation rental calendar ahead of Thanksgiving does not necessarily mean hosts need to cut their prices. Its analysis of PriceLabs data found that booking habits differ between destinations, so your own booking history may tell you more than an empty calendar does.

Compare this year's bookings with last year's

The Rental Scale-Up report on Thanksgiving bookings looks at several US destinations and finds that around half of November bookings in its tracked listings arrived within the final 20 days before check-in. Destin attracted many Thanksgiving bookings well ahead of arrival, while Scottsdale had a much larger share of reservations in the final seven days.

An empty calendar can mean different things depending on where your property is. If your guests usually book late, dropping your nightly rate too early might cost you money on reservations that would have arrived anyway.

Open your booking history before changing anything. Compare the same holiday period from last year and look at how many nights were already reserved at this point before arrival. Your total number of occupied nights today doesn't tell the whole story.

• Check the same holiday or seasonal period from last year.
• Compare booked nights at the same point before arrival.
• Look at your property's own history instead of assuming nearby rentals behave the same way.
• Check whether guests in your area tend to book early or wait until the last few weeks.

If you're keeping pace with last year, an immediate discount might simply reduce what you earn. If you're clearly behind, it's time to look at your calendar, booking conditions and competing properties.

Check whether your quiet dates are normal

A holiday weekend can bring plenty of visitors to one destination and very little activity to another. Rental Scale-Up found that November performed particularly well in Gatlinburg, while Destin and Breckenridge had weaker results compared with their average months.

Think about the type of property you run. A beach house, city apartment and mountain cabin don't follow the same seasonal calendar. A quiet weekend on your dashboard might be perfectly ordinary for your location.

Compare your nightly rates with properties offering roughly the same accommodation and amenities. A large rental with a hot tub isn't a useful comparison for a small apartment simply because both appear in the same search results.

We also think hosts should be careful about copying every price reduction they see nearby. The report found that US listings faced more competition and fewer booked nights in November 2025, while average nightly prices remained almost unchanged. Cutting your rate just because another host has done so won't automatically bring more guests.

Review your minimum stay before cutting prices

Your nightly rate might be fine. Your booking conditions could be the problem. Rental Scale-Up points out that a minimum stay longer than four nights can exclude the typical Wednesday-to-Sunday Thanksgiving trip discussed in its report.

The same thing happens around other holidays. Someone planning a short weekend away might never consider your property if your listing requires a longer stay than they want.

Open your Airbnb, Vrbo or direct booking calendar and check a few things:

• Are your minimum-night requirements longer than the stays guests usually book in your area?
• Are isolated empty nights blocked by your minimum-stay settings?
• Could you accept shorter reservations on dates unlikely to sell as part of a longer stay?
• Would allowing a different check-in day make your property easier to book?

You don't have to change every date. Try a shorter minimum stay on the nights giving you trouble and watch for suitable reservations before changing the rest of your calendar.

Offer discounts on the dates that need them

Broad Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions can create another problem. A discount applied to every future stay might lower the price of popular December weekends that would have sold at the normal rate. Decide which dates actually need help before creating an offer.

Separate your calendar into periods with strong demand and dates that usually stay quiet. Keep the stronger dates out of a promotion if you have good reason to expect them to book without it. Direct the discount toward nights where an extra reservation would make a difference.

Set the lowest amount you're prepared to accept before advertising a cheaper stay. Rental Scale-Up advises hosts to account for cleaning and preparation costs when setting last-minute prices. Filling an empty night isn't much of a win if the payment barely covers the work involved.

Change one listing or group of dates at a time, then check the results again after a few days. If you change your rates, minimum stays and check-in rules together, you won't know which adjustment brought the booking.

Make the booking details easy to understand

Price is only part of the decision. Guests also want to know how check-in works, where to find the keys and what they'll need during their stay. If your listing leaves basic questions unanswered, a cheaper nightly rate might not fix the problem.

Check your welcome information before the next busy period. An Airbnb welcome book template gives you a place to organize arrival instructions, property details and useful information about the area. Check that every instruction still matches what guests will find when they arrive.

You can also give visitors somewhere to leave a message after their stay. A welcome book and guest book have different jobs. One answers practical questions; the other lets guests share a written note about their visit.

If you'd like to keep those messages in one place, a free online vacation rental guestbook is another option. Guestbook World lets you share a guestbook link or print a QR code so visitors can leave their names and messages from a phone or computer. You can approve new entries before they appear and download all the messages as a spreadsheet.

Before lowering your next nightly rate, check how far ahead your guests usually book and compare this year's calendar with last year's. Look at minimum-stay restrictions too. If certain dates are still falling behind, adjust those dates rather than putting your entire property on sale.

Sources

• Thanksgiving 2026: Empty Calendars in Mid-November Aren't Always a Warning Sign Rental Scale-Up, November 12, 2026