Five easy ways you can save money when you book with Airbnb. We saved $1000 in one stay in Paris.

If you have tried Airbnb and loved it, you’re going to love these hacks! We’re going to show you five very easy ways to save you money when you book your next Airbnb. In Paris, one of the most expensive cities in the world we saved an amazing AUD$1000 (USD$700) on similar Airbnbs!

View from our Langkawi Airbnb in the middle of a rice paddy. Definitely one of our favourite Airbnb stays.

1.Sign up with a new account and get money off

Maybe you don’t have an account yet, you’ve been locked out of your old one or your partner has one but you don’t. By signing up with a new account and using our referral link you can get 15% off your next stay, plus $15 off an experience. Depending on where your next stay is located that could be a free night of accommodation! Not bad for 5 minutes of signing up.

2. Look for new hosts or listings

We used this hack numerous times, in fact this is how we saved over AUD$1000 (USD$700) on our accommodation in Paris! For a week in Paris in accommodation that fits 4 people (we had my two teenagers with us) with a private bathroom and kitchen, we were looking at about AUD$1500. I have to say I was regretting making promises about seeing the Eiffel Tower. But I was lucky enough to come across a listing for less than AUD$400 for the week from a new host who I could tell had no idea about Airbnb. The listing wasn’t well-written and the photos weren’t of great quality, but it looked clean, it was close to transport and it had a kitchen and private bathroom. And we are so glad we went for it, we saved so much money.

This is the view from our Airbnb in Benalmedina… you can see the Med in the background. We asked for a discount… and we got it!

3. Ask for a discount

Seriously! We have asked for a discount on several occasions, a lot of times we get no response or a ‘no’, but we send a massage to 3 or 4 hosts in the same location and one always comes through and accepts our offer. So, we have never paid full listed price when we have asked. Some hosts hate that you ask, but we see it as no different to haggling and a host can always say no. We get the most positive responses when we ask only a couple of days before under the guise of… your listing is not currently booked, if you’d like to get some money rather than no money, here is our offer. Obviously we ask much more nicely but that is the gist of it. We have saved anywhere between $50-100 a stay.

The view from our Barcelona Airbnb. We asked for an early check in and a discount, and got both!

4. Ask for early check in/ late check out

You may be wondering how this saves you money… well for instance we were catching a late, overnight bus from Paris to Barcelona, so we requested a late afternoon check out. This alone saved us from paying for an extra night of accommodation, or the hassle and cost of storing all our luggage somewhere for 12 hours. We also knew we were arriving in Barcelona at 6am, so asked our next host if there was a way to check in early. He had no one staying the night before so we were able to check in at 7am rather than 3pm! We saved money and time. Once again, this saved us from either having to pay to store all our bags (which would have cost about $100) so we could explore for the day, or sitting somewhere with our bags and not being able to explore. We were able to have breakfast before check in, then dump our bags and go and investigate the La Rambla area which was only downstairs. By the time it was our actual check-in we had been out for most of the day and were back having an afternoon nap!

5. Wait for them to email you

We have noticed that if you are searching on Airbnb and you click through to book now but don’t actually pay, then within a day or two often you will receive an email reminding you about the booking and asking if you are still interested in staying in xyz location. And we also noticed that in most cases a discount will be offered for your stay of between 15% and 25%. That could make a huge difference to your accommodation budget.

If you’re looking for other ways to save money on your accommodation, find out how we spent less than USD$4500 in 18 months of travel throughout Asia and Europe.

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