Black Friday for your B&B: whether to run a deal, and how to do it smartly

Short answer: as a B&B, don't run a blanket Black Friday discount on all your nights. You would sell cheaper what was going to fill in spring or summer anyway. A deal does pay off when it sells something that would otherwise stay empty: gift vouchers (money now, stay later), a discount code valid only for quiet weeks, or an extra instead of a discount. Keep it short, give it an end date and measure what it brings in. In 2026 Black Friday falls on Friday 27 November and Cyber Monday on Monday 30 November.

Why discounting nights is rarely the answer

A webshop running a Black Friday sale sells extra units from almost unlimited stock. You have a fixed number of rooms per night. Every night you sell at a discount is a night you can no longer sell at full price.

So start by looking at your calendar for next year. Weekends in May, the summer and the holidays usually fill on their own. Someone booking such a weekend in November is often the guest who was going to book regardless. Give that guest twenty percent and you have mostly given away your own margin.

Add the commission if the discount also runs on Booking.com or Airbnb. A guest who books through a platform at your discounted price costs you that discount and the commission on what remains. What that comes to in practice is explained in How much commission does Booking.com charge.

When a Black Friday deal does pay off

A deal makes sense when it sells something that would otherwise go unsold, or when it brings a guest to your own channel who would otherwise book through a platform. Four forms that fit:

1. Selling gift vouchers

By the end of November people are already looking for holiday gifts. A voucher for a night or a weekend at your B&B is a present they won't find anywhere else. The upside for you: the money comes in now, in a month with few guests, and the voucher is redeemed later, often in a quieter period.

A small added value turns it into a deal without cutting your room rate: breakfast in bed, a bottle of bubbly or a late check-out with every voucher sold before Cyber Monday. How to sell vouchers and handle them correctly is covered in Selling gift vouchers for your B&B.

2. A discount code for the quiet weeks

Do you have empty weeknights every year in January, February or March? That is where a discount belongs. Create a code that is valid only for stays in that period, with a two-night minimum stay and an expiry date on Cyber Monday. That fills gaps that would otherwise stay empty, without touching your busy weekends.

Send the code to your returning guests and newsletter subscribers rather than making it public. A closed code for your own list is treated differently from a publicly lower price on your website in many OTA terms, but always check your own contract. More on those rules in Rate parity with the booking platforms. How to set up such a code with the right limits is in Discount codes for direct bookings.

3. An extra instead of a discount

A discount costs you cash, an extra usually only costs you the purchase price. A free late check-out, breakfast included or a local product in the room for anyone booking direct during the Black Friday weekend feels like a gift to the guest. You keep your rate intact, and that rate stays visible on the platforms after the deal ends.

4. Early booking for next season

If you do want to work with a percentage, tie it to a condition: book now for a stay in a period you still want to fill, and pay a deposit. Then you get certainty and cash in return for the discount. See also Setting up an early bird rate.

What about the platforms' own campaigns?

Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia often launch their own promotions or deals around this time, which you can opt into through the extranet or your host account. Taking part almost always means an extra discount on top of your usual commission. So first work out what you keep per night, and only opt in for dates where you still expect gaps. What Booking.com's promotions actually do is explained in Mobile Rate, Country Rate and Deals explained.

When you are better off doing nothing

• December and January are already well booked. A deal will mostly attract guests who were coming anyway.
• Your brand is about calm and quality. A loud discount campaign doesn't fit a house that sells on experience. A gift voucher does.
• You can't measure it. If you don't know afterwards how many bookings and how much revenue the deal brought, you won't know next year whether to repeat it.

A simple playbook

1. End of October: look at your calendar for the next twelve months and note the periods with gaps.
2. Early November: pick one form (voucher, code or extra), write down the conditions and set the end date to Monday 30 November.
3. Week of 23 November: announce the deal to your returning guests and on your own channels.
4. Friday 27 to Monday 30 November: the deal runs. Remind your list once on Sunday or Monday.
5. Early December: count the bookings, revenue and vouchers it produced, and note what you will do differently next year.

How to do it in BedFlow PMS

In BedFlow PMS you create a discount code in your own booking engine with an expiry date, a minimum stay and excluded dates, and afterwards you see per code how many bookings and how much revenue it produced. Gift vouchers are sold through the same commission-free channel; the system keeps a sold voucher separate from your revenue until it is redeemed against a booking. Rate rules such as an early bird discount are set per channel, so you decide whether they go out to the platforms or stay on your own site only. What the platform costs is on our pricing page, and how each feature works is in the documentation.

Want to measure your Black Friday deal this year instead of guessing? Try BedFlow PMS free for 30 days: calendar, booking engine with discount codes and gift vouchers in one overview. No credit card required.