Just like how Uber has partnerships with numerous different travel loyalty programs from around the world, Airbnb has something similar.
Before booking any Airbnb stays, it’s therefore worth clicking through from one of these partnerships in order to earn points and miles on your stay. Here are all the current options available.
British Airways Avios
Earning rate
2 Avios per £1/€1/$1 spent
Direct link to offer
Must click through from this link after logging in
Airbnb Experiences
You can also earn 2 Avios per £1/€1/$1 spent on Airbnb Experiences
Delta SkyMiles
Earning rate
1 SkyMile per $1 spent
Direct link to offer
Must click through from this link after entering your Delta SkyMiles account number.
Qantas Frequent Flyer
Earning rate
1 point per AUD spent
Also earn 500 bonus Qantas points when making your first Airbnb booking via Qantas.
Direct link to offer
Must click through from this link after logging in to your Qantas Frequent Flyer account.
ANA Mileage Club Miles
Earning rate
First time users – 2 miles per JPY 200 (~$1.30) spent
Existing users – 1 mile per JPY 200 (~$1.30) spent
n.b. At the time of publishing this post, the landing page states that the 2x earning rate for first time users expires on December 31, 2025; it’s not clear if that’s been extended or not.
Direct link to offer
Must click through from this link after logging in to your ANA Mileage Club account.
Save on Airbnb stays with discounted gift cards
In addition to earning points or miles on Airbnb stays, you can save more by paying with discounted Airbnb gift cards.
At the time of publishing this post, AARP is selling Airbnb gift cards for 5% off, with denominations of up to $500 available with a limit of five per calendar month. That’s been an option for years, but there’s no guarantee as to how long AARP will sell them at a discount.
Alternatively, some Zift multi-brand gift cards can be redeemed for Airbnb gift cards and they’re often on sale somewhere. If you have card-linked spending offers for somewhere that has a gift card rack (e.g. Lowe’s Amex Offers), you might be able to find Airbnb gift cards there.
Paying with gift cards loaded to your account doesn’t invalidate your earnings from the above airline partnerships. My wife and I spent a decent amount of money on Airbnb stays on our road trip around the US and we earned Avios or SkyMiles on each booking and pretty much every stay was paid for with discounted Airbnb gift cards.
One important thing to be aware of is that if you pay for a stay with Airbnb gift cards and subsequently cancel that stay (in the event that it’s refundable), you’ll receive a refund in the form of Airbnb credit. That doesn’t expire, but it does mean that your money is tied to Airbnb, whereas if you paid for the stay with a credit card you’ll receive a refund to that card instead.
Several years ago, if you selected to pay for half your stay now and half later, if you paid for the first half with a gift card you could only pay for the second half with a credit card. That was an unwelcome surprise for people who thought they’d be able to pay for the second half of the booking with the gift card balance they’d already loaded. Thankfully that’s no longer the case – if you pay for the first half of a stay with Airbnb gift cards, you can pay for the second half with gift cards too nowadays if that’s what you want, although paying with a credit card is still an option as well.
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Airbnb/BA/Avios link is down. “This page isn’t available for British Airways”
It’s working for me – it might’ve been down temporarily
I have some Air bnb bookings. How do I link my BA Club account to those existing bookings? They are booked through my Air bnb US website.
You have to click through from the BA landing page before your booking; unfortunately you can’t associate your account number retroactively.
For Avios (for example), what would happen in you booked in a currency other than USD/EUR/GBP? Airbnb applies a markup when converting, so I typically set it to charge me in the local currency. I wonder if that would prevent rewards from crediting.
My assumption is that they’d convert it from that currency to one of those three currencies. Hopefully USD as that’d earn you the most points. I can’t check that myself though as I’ve always booked in USD.
Another Airbnb strategy (that won’t save you $ but will give you extra points earning) is if you have a credit card that gives bonus for spend at drug or grocery stores, buy your Airbnb gift cards there. (same with Amazon gc’s)
Awesome thanks – actually have an airbnb payment due tomorrow, just not confident i’ll get the AARP gift card in time (says it can take more than 24 hours and a quick google shows others have had issues…). If others have experience with how long it takes to receive would be helpful datapoint. May just keep this one in the back pocket for next time, although 5% discount would be nice.
Great reminder that opportunistically buying Airbnb gift cards(or Zift) will always be the best payment option. Unless of course you need to cancel the reservation.
Great timing! I have one month in between room rentals and I was going to stay in an Airbnb for a month. Does anybody know if I have to be a member of AARP to get the 5% discount?
it says members only, although membership is $15 and lots of promos on the usual portals (AA offering 1400 miles for signing up).
Thanks Peter, great tip! I also went on their website and saw that you get a $5 Amazon or Target gift card for signing up, or your choice of a mini travel power bank or cooler bag for ice and sodas.
I happen to be planning to buy both in the next month!
Thinking I’m going to get the cooler bag, since it doesn’t say what brand either one is, and the variation of quality on mini portable batteries varies greatly.
Kind of tough to screw up a cooler bag, and I only need a cheap one anyway for short day trips a few times a year. Portable batteries I use all the time, so I need to make sure I find a good quality one. Otherwise, I’m buying three more of them in the same amount of time that a good one that cost $ 5 more would last. In my opinion that makes my sign up free
Just be aware that if you sign up for AARP they will flood your mailbox with junk mail forever. I got so much I cancelled after one year and they still send me endless piles of crap.
You can easily pick and choose what AARP emails you get.
Oh thanks, but I meant my snail mail box. Like flyers and insurance offers and stuff. Somebody told me it was possible to limit that as well but I could never get them to stop the flood. And once you sign up they will bombard you forever. Finally several years after I cancelled it slowed down. I never found any discounts with them I couldn’t get otherwise, although no doubt that depends on spending habits.
Keep an eye out for an $8 AARP Chase Offer too which is valid when taking out a membership.
FWIW, there are several ways to get good value from your membership that fly below the radar – I covered those here https://frequentmiler.com/10-aarp-member-benefits-you-might-not-know-about/
Definitely avoid the power bank – it’s only 2000 mAh 🙁
Thanks Stephen, great post!
really?
Yes! I appreciate Stephens posts. I happen to need an Airbnb and it was perfect timing. I often appreciate the FM teams post. Please don’t discourage appreciation.
Sincere appreciation is warranted for the many posts on how to save money. Stephen is a whiz at gift cards and I sorely miss his dedicated site.
The posts about “2x earnings”, etc., however, give people the false idea that this kind of earning (on their organic spend) is important to pay attention to. It’s really not (unless you have singular large expenses)
I liked the post too. I spend a lot at Airbnb.