How to Find the Best Airbnb Deals
As someone who literally lives in Airbnbs, I’ve had plenty of practice finding the best Airbnb deals! I thought it was time that to share my expertise in the area, so that you can find the best Airbnb for your needs at the cheapest price.
We are long term travelers and usually opt for monthly stays with long weekends or week-long stays in between. This means we avoid travel burnout by having a break from packing and moving but we’re still able to travel widely within a country, using our shorter stays. The varied travel style has meant that we’ve accumulated experience searching for accommodation to suit a variety of travel needs.
Table of Contents
- Before Starting Your Airbnb Search…
- So, how do you find the best Airbnb deals?
Before Starting Your Airbnb Search…
One thing to consider before starting your search is flexibility. The more rigid your travel plans are, the less likely you are to find a good price for your Airbnb. Decide on a list of priorities and use that to guide your search e.g.
- Location
- Dates
- Comfort-level
- Facilities e.g kitchen, good WiFi
When choosing a monthly accommodation, we make comfort a priority, as during the week we spend most of our time working from home. Facilities such as a kitchen are important. Location would come next. Dates are usually flexible. In contrast, when booking a long weekend stay, location is most important. You don’t want to spend your whole weekend commuting to your Airbnb and back. If it’s a specific weekend, the dates can’t be so flexible. We would eat out instead of cooking so would sacrifice a kitchen in favour of a more comfortable apartment.
So, how do you find the best Airbnb deals?
Here are our top tips:
1. Check if the Airbnb is listed elsewhere for price comparison
- Search on Booking.com and other popular websites, or check whether the host has their own website. This tends to work for shorter stays where the Airbnb fees make up a bigger proportion of the price. If Airbnb applies a discount (see the below section), you’re unlikely to find it cheaper elsewhere.
How to check if an Airbnb is listed elsewhere?
It’s not always straightforward. Sometimes searching the name can help but the name may be something generic. If so, resort to searching Google Maps. Airbnb doesn’t give the exact location. However, by searching “accommodation” in the general area, you should be able to find it, if it’s listed on Google.
A reverse image search could also help. In most browser, right clicking on an image will give you an option to search based on that image. This will bring up any webpages where that image is displayed, allowing you to discover if the Airbnb is advertised elsewhere.
Bear in mind that the popularity of Airbnb, Booking.com etc. vary by region. If you’re struggling to find a good deal, do some research into the most popular accommodation sites for your target country. For instance, in Turkey, Booking.com is actually banned. People still advertise on there but it’s not as popular. The biggest range of hotels can be found on a local site, Etstur.com.
Facebook travel pages can be really helpful for countries where there isn’t a big online presence/travel industry. This website shows the popularity of accommodation sites in different countries. Vrbo.com is one that’s gaining popularity. In Europe, I’ve found Airbnb still wins for the cheapest mid term housing deals.
2. Look out for Airbnb applied promotions
- New Listings – 20% discount for first 3 guests. This can make a huge difference to the cost of your stay! If you feel apprehensive about staying in a listing with no reviews, you can contact the host first with any queries. If they reply quickly and you don’t get any bad vibes, then it’s a safe bet.
- Longer stay discounts – applied to weekly and monthly stays. These are at host’s discretion so you may see them applied to your booking.
- Early bird or last minute discounts – again applied at host discretion.
These promotions can stack up. We have had a lot of success with booking new listings, including these deals:
Maximize Airbnb Promotions: Case Example 1
When we found the listing, it was brand new and had no bookings. The usual price is EUR 111 a night (i.e. for 28 nights, EUR 3108 without Airbnb and cleaning fees). As we booked for a month (end of August to end of September), we got it for EUR 1750 in total (62 a night).
It now has over ten 5* reviews…
Maximize Airbnb Promotions: Case Example 2
Similarly, we had luck on our side when we found this apartment in Greece:
After our Turkey travel plans were cancelled, we needed to find somewhere to stay for a month at very short notice!
Per night, per night this apartment costs EUR 57 before fees. We got it for EUR 660 for the month with the long stay discount and new listing discount. It was one of our nicest stays and we booked it just one week in advance!
3. Negotiate with the Airbnb host on price – this works particularly well in combination with points 1 and 2
- If you can find contact details for the property, try contacting them directly to negotiate a better deal. As they won’t have to pay fees, they may be willing to give you a better price.* Avoid arranging this through the platform directly – Airbnb still need to make money and you’ll risk being blocked if they find out you’re trying to dodge their fees.
- If you find a property that doesn’t automatically offer a weekly or monthly stay discount, you could try approaching them to see if they are willing to give you one. Similarly if you’re staying for 6 days or 2+ weeks, they may be willing to drop the price for you.
- Things to bear in mind before contacting a host to request a discount are: time of year (off season is a great time to bargain, high season is not), location (occupancy rates vary depending on where the property is. Don’t expect to get discount in a popular city like Lisbon or Barcelona) and culture (In Morocco, for instance, bargaining is expected!)
*A word of warning before doing so: Airbnb offers protections to guests and hosts. If you experience issues with the booking or property, then you will have to resolve them with the host. For the Airbnb host, if they’ve had problem customers in the past, they may prefer to use a platform like Airbnb which covers them. In the end, use common sense. If the apartm
How to ask for discount on Airbnb?
We tried our luck negotiating in Morocco and had success 2/2 times. Here’s how we did it:
How to ask for Airbnb Discount: Case Example 1
The first property was villa on the beach in Northern Morocco. I noticed the property was advertised at € 987.12 for the month (about 35.25 per night). There was no discount applied for the longer stay. We wrote the following message to the host (after noticing his profile said he’s a chess fan).
“My husband and I are travelling to your beautiful country later this year and your apartment has caught our eye. I think Steffen would also love to challenge you to a game of chess as well 😊
Unfortunately it’s outside of our budget and we wondered if there was any room for negotiation on price, as we would be staying for a month in the quieter season?”
After a bit of back and forth where I highlighted that often a 20 % discount is applied for longer stays, he offered us 10% off. When I explained that unfortunately our budget was maximum 800 for the month, he agreed to the price!
In the end, we didn’t end taking the offer as we decided the location wasn’t right. However, being a friendly Moroccan, he wished a great stay and told us to reach out if ever needed help in Morocco.
How to ask for Airbnb Discount: Case Example 2
The second property was an apartment located in Chefchaouen. The host had already applied discount for the longer stay. As the dates we were looking for were 21st October – 18th November (off-season), a lot of properties still had availability for the month. We approached the owner to ask whether he’d consider an offer for us as it was the quiet season and he agreed to do so. In this case, we made the deal directly with him and got a 200 EUR discount.
For the record, I’ve also had success in Europe. In Germany, I rented this swanky apartment and got it down from €2,852 a month to €1,600 by searching for them on Google on contacting directly. Admittedly this was during COVID but it’s always worth asking. I tried my luck in the UK and in Romania, but was not so successful. You can’t always win!
Asking a Host for Airbnb Discount: Top Tips
- Be polite and respectful. In the end, you’re saying you think their property is worth less that the price it’s advertised at, so be sensible about when/how you’re doing it
- Highlight your own positive review score as a guest. See ‘The Golden Rules of Being A Good Airbnb Guest‘ for tips on making a good impression.
- Read their profile first. If you can find a way to connect with someone, it definitely helps. I’m sure that worked with the Moroccan chess player 😀
- Make sure you have some information about yourself on your profile and a photo that makes you look like a respectable human being.
- Don’t give up straight away. You can offer the fact you always leave reviews for places and would sure to give them a good one. Perhaps you could stay a day or two longer and they might rethink the price? If it’s a definite no, try your luck elsewhere.
Optimise your search
- Always use a laptop for searching. Trust me, you just don’t get the whole picture when searching on your phone, especially when there are a lot of options. Sometimes you really have to zoom in to see offers. If you have 20 pages of results, then it’s easier to sort through them on a laptop.
- Don’t rule out based on rating – check the reviews first if a place a has bad score. It could be that historically there was an issue with the WiFi but it’s since been fixed. What other people consider a negative point may perhaps not be an issue for you, or even advantage. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as they say.
- On the flipside, check all the reviews of your potential stay for things like noise levels, bed quality or whatever is important to you, to avoid a crappy stay. If there are loads, at least check reviews from the last year.
That’s all from me on this topic! I’d love to hear if you have had any success stories finding awesome Airbnbs or perhaps you have your own tips! Get in touch below or write to me on Facebook (Hopelessly Nomantic), Instagram (Hopelessly_Nomantic) or Twitter (HopelesNomantic).
Check out my location specific Digital Nomad Guides, for top tips on medium term stays specifically for Digital Nomads:
Happy travels!
You May Also Like
The Golden Rules of Being A Good Airbnb Guest
Kotroni: How to Spend a Month in the South Pindus Mountains
