Before setting off on our 50 state road trip, I’d been expecting we’d stay most frequently in hotels.
Although that’s been the case, it’s surprised me how often we’ve ended up staying at Airbnb properties thanks to their great location and/or low cost.
That’s meant I’ve been trying to find ways to save even more money on Airbnb stays. You might think that the amount you pay for a property on Airbnb is set in stone, but it’s possible to reduce the cost every time you book a stay.
If you’re wondering how to do that, here’s a list of 7 ways you can save money on Airbnb stays.
1) Save $40 When Signing Up
If you’re a first-time user of Airbnb, you can get $40 off your first stay when using a friend’s referral link. Your friend will also earn a $20 Airbnb credit after your first stay, so it’s a win-win for both of you.
If you’re new to Airbnb, I’d love to be your friend and be half of that winning team 😉 If you’d like to save money while also supporting our road trip adventures, here’s my referral link. Thanks in advance if you use it!
2) Buy Discounted Gift Cards
It’s often possible to buy Airbnb gift cards at a 6% – 9% discount through Paypal Digital Gifts on eBay. They’re a completely legit gift card reseller (I’ve bought gift cards from them literally hundreds of times.)
They frequently sell $110 gift cards for $100 or $100 Airbnb gift cards for $92-$94. In fact, as of today they have one of the $110 offers running.
You receive the gift cards by email, usually within 30 minutes or so. They can then be applied to your Airbnb account for future use – here’s a link to the ‘Redeem Gift Card’ page.
3) Buy Gift Cards From Stores With A Category Bonus
You can buy Airbnb gift cards from a wide variety of stores, so pay using a credit card that offers a category bonus to earn additional cashback or points.
For example, the Chase Ink Business Cash and American Express SimplyCash Plus Business credit cards offer 5% back on purchases from office supply stores. Many Office Depot/Office Max and Staples stores sell Airbnb gift cards, so that’s one way to earn 5% back.
Similarly, the Hilton Ascend credit card offers 6 Hilton Honors points per dollar spent at grocery stores, while the American Express Blue Cash Preferred credit card also offers 6% cashback at grocery stores.
4) Earn Grocery Store Fuel Points Too
I mentioned above that you can earn up to 6x / 6% at grocery stores, but you can also stack that with fuel rewards.
Several grocery stores offer fuel points on gift card purchases. The store I’m most familiar with – Kroger – frequently has digital coupons offering 4x fuel points when buying gift cards. Buying gift cards can therefore mean you rack up rewards nice and quickly.
Let’s say you buy a $250 Airbnb gift card when Kroger’s offering 4x fuel points and you pay with the Blue Cash Preferred card. Paying with the credit card would earn you $15 back (6% of $250), while you’d also earn 1,000 fuel points.
Those 1,000 fuel points are worth $1 off each gallon of fuel, up to 35 gallons. If you can max that out (either with a vehicle with a large gas tank or by filling up two of your cars at once), you’d save $35.
Your $250 gift card purchase would therefore earn / save you $50 – a 20% discount.
5) Book Your Stay Through The Delta Portal
Delta and Airbnb have teamed up to offer Delta SkyMiles every time you book a stay on Airbnb through their portal.
The standard rate for existing guests is 1 SkyMile for every dollar spent, although they sometimes offer higher rates. For example, there’s a promotion until the end of February 2018 offering 2 SkyMiles per dollar spent on Airbnb.
Thanks to this portal, I’ve earned almost 8,000 Delta SkyMiles over the past six months.
6) Book Your Stay Through Acorns
Acorns is a relatively new service that encourages people to invest small amounts of money at a time to build a larger balance (hence the name).
One of their benefits is something called Found Money. That works in the same way as a cashback portal, although it should be noted that you can usually get better payouts from other portals.
There are a few exceptions though, one of them being Airbnb. If you click through from the Acorns app or website and making a booking on Airbnb, you’ll earn 1.8% back.
When Delta is offering a bonus, I’d rather book through their portal as I value 2 Delta SkyMiles higher than 1.8%. When they’re only offering 1 SkyMile per dollar though, 1.8% from Acorns is a more attractive proposition.
If you’re new to Acorns, you can get a $5 bonus when signing up and investing $5 when using someone’s referral link. Here’s my referral link – I earn $5 if you sign up and invest $5.
Check out this post about Acorns by Nick over at Frequent Miler which offers a great overview of how it works.
7) Ask The Airbnb Host For A Discount
When I was at the Chicago Seminars last year (a conference about airline miles and hotel points), the most helpful session (for me personally) was given by Scott Grimmer of MileValue.
His talk was about how to negotiate a lower price by contacting the host on Airbnb. You should check out his post for a comprehensive explanation, but the gist of it is that you message several hosts a few days before you want to book and ask for a discount. It might sound like this wouldn’t work, but Scott explained how he frequently has success with this method.
I’ll be honest – I’ve not used his method yet to save money on Airbnb reservations. It’s not that I think it wouldn’t work, but it’s because I like to sort out our accommodation sooner than 1-3 days beforehand.
Final Thoughts
So those are seven ways you can save money when booking a property on Airbnb. The great thing is that you can stack several of them to save even more. For example, you can book a stay through the Delta Airbnb portal and pay with discounted gift cards.
And don’t forget that you can save money on your first booking with Airbnb. Here’s my referral link again if you’re planning on signing up and want to save $40.
Do you have any other tips for how to save money on Airbnb? Let us know in the comments below.
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