Low season: long stays, deals on your website, or closing

By GuestChat Team · 2 October 2026

When November comes, every host asks the same question: do I lower prices, look for long stays, or close until spring? There's no single answer, but there are three clear strategies, and you can set up all of them with what you already have in your dashboard.

Before deciding, look at the numbers

Open Analytics, quick picker for last year, and in the Income section choose Page date range and look at the By property breakdown for those months. If a property barely earned anything in winter and, after taking off commissions and what cleanings cost you, the numbers don't add up, closing may be the best option. If another one held up, it's worth fighting for.

Strategy 1: fill up with short getaways

Lower the minimum stay in the calendar. In low season, the one- or two-night getaway is what's out there.
Check that no summer restrictions are left over: no-arrival days or forgotten long-weekend minimums.
Adjust the Base price carefully: saving the base price republishes every day. If you'd rather change only the winter, use the range editor.
On Airbnb, a more flexible cancellation policy helps people who book while still unsure.

Strategy 2: long stays

Workers on assignment, remote workers, interns. Few bookings, few cleanings and steady occupancy.

Maximum stay: make sure it's empty or set to 0, with no limit.
On your website, an Automatic deal with Minimum nights of seven or more, limited with Stays entering from and Stays entering until to the slow months. It only applies on your website: the price on the booking sites doesn't change.
Extra charges: cleaning is charged only once per stay, so on long stays it hardly matters. If you have a Service, per night charge, remember that one does get multiplied by every night.
If someone leaves early, on a manual booking use Early departure, not cancellation: the nights they stayed count in your reports.

Strategy 3: close

If the numbers don't work, closing is a business decision too.

In the Calendar, Settings tab, Close bookings from a date. Bookings already made stay; nothing new gets sold.
In spring, Lift reopens what that rule closed, without touching booked nights or anything you had closed by hand for another reason.
Use the time for repairs, new photos and reviewing the property profile.

Mixing strategies

Many hosts do all three at once with different properties: the downtown apartment fills up with getaways, the big one is offered for long stays on the website, and the beach house closes. Since everything is set per property, you don't have to pick just one.

What to avoid

Lowering the base price on every property without looking at the numbers.
Leaving the summer minimums in place and then complaining that nothing comes in.
Closing on each booking site separately instead of in the dashboard.
A low-season deal with no end date, which ends up applying over Easter week.

Where to start

One afternoon in October: last winter's reports, one decision per property, and the settings done before the low season starts, not halfway through it.