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There are several ways to save money on Airbnb stays from discounted gift cards to Amex Offers to Chase Offers and more.
That’s not the only way to maximize your Airbnb bookings though. There are three ways to earn additional rewards or cashback when actually making a booking, one of which I just discovered today.
1) Delta
The first option is probably the most well-known. Delta and Airbnb have a partnership with its own dedicated website. The partnership is fairly straightforward – you visit DeltaAirbnb.com, enter your SkyMiles number and click through to Airbnb. You then earn 1 SkyMile for every dollar you spend on Airbnb.
The partnership has offered double miles in the past, although I think it’s been a couple of years since we last saw one of those offers. Delta also sometimes offers other bonuses, such as earning 1,000 miles for every partner you shop with which included Airbnb.
This used to be the only avenue for earning rewards on Airbnb bookings, so I earned several thousand SkyMiles from this partnership.
Since the beginning of 2018 though, I’ve used a different portal when booking properties on Airbnb as it offers better rewards from my perspective.
2) Acorns
Airbnb is one of Acorns’ Found Money partners. They offer 1.8% of your booking subtotal which works out at 15% of the fees Airbnb collects when you make a reservation.
I don’t value Delta SkyMiles as high as 1.8cpp, hence why I now use Acorns. If Delta ever goes back to offering double SkyMiles for Airbnb reservations, I’ll switch back to the DeltaAirbnb portal.
If you’re not too familiar with Acorns, the 1.8% you earn isn’t awarded in the same way that a regular cashback portal would. Instead, it’s invested in your Acorns Core account, so I view it as a way to invest a few bucks each month without it having to come out of my pocket.
If you need to book a property on Airbnb, it could help towards earning a $50 bonus from Acorns this month.
3) Qantas
This is the partnership that I only discovered today. Qantas offers 1 point per Australian dollar spent on Airbnb when booking at qantas.com/airbnb.
This partnership works a little differently to the Delta and Acorns setup though. With those two, you click through to the Airbnb website and book a property there. With Qantas, you have to book directly on the Qantas landing page in order to earn points.
The Qantas site only allows you to book stays for up to 21 days. If you need to make a reservation for longer than three weeks, you have to click through to Airbnb, but that means you won’t earn Qantas points.
For most people, earning Qantas points won’t be of interest. However, with them recently being added as a Membership Rewards transfer partner – in addition to already being a transfer partner of Citi ThankYou and Capital One – this provides another option for topping up a Qantas balance. Qantas points can also be useful for booking short American Airlines flights, so this Airbnb partnership is certainly worth being aware of.
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Use the MPX app for double miles points + normal card points + 25% chase united points bonus.
As a word of caution, for buying AirBnb giftcards (ex. Raise) – Airbnb requires using the giftcards entirely at original time of securing a stay. What I mean, some stays allow partial payments (pay half now, other half before stay); you cannot apply giftcards to remaining balances.
I learned the hard way. Put $1000 down on my CC, noticed a few weeks later that Airbnb giftcards are actually on Raise, bought $1000 in giftcards to apply to my remaining $1000 balance but Airbnb wouldn’t let me apply it to my remaining balance – since I used a CC initially, I must finalize the payment using CC. I called and after numerous representatives, they did accommodate a “one time only” deal.
I was happy to save 8% off $1000 but I am now worried that since I didn’t use a CC – I have now relinquished my “Travel Insurance” protections?
Buy GCs from grocery stores or Lowe’s this quarter with Chase Freedom for 5x
VRBO?
You can go to gift card granny or raise and buy discounted Airbnb gift cards.
Are there any current Airbnb discount gift card promotions?
I’m not aware of any Airbnb-specific gift card promotions, but there are some general options. There are a couple of Staples Amex Offers – one for $25/2,500 MR on $100 of spend and another for 10% back on up to $500 of spend. Similarly, there’s a Lowe’s Amex Offer for 10% back on up to $1,000 of spend. Both those stores sell Airbnb gift cards, so that’s a way to save 10%-25%.
If you have a Kroger store near you (or one of their affiliates), you can save up to 14% on gas when they run a 4x fuel point promotion. Bitmo sells Airbnb gift cards and they often provide codes giving discounts of ~10%.
For those who collect British Airways Avios points, you can collect Avios by booking your AirBNB stay by first starting at the British Airways site and clicking through to AirBNB