How We Find Better-Value Places to Stay (Now Airbnb Coupon Codes Are Gone)

If you’ve landed here hunting for an Airbnb coupon code, we’ll save you the scrolling: they don’t really exist any more. Airbnb wound down its old referral and new-user discount scheme, so those “£25 off your first stay” links you’ll still see floating around mostly lead nowhere.

The good news is we think there’s a better way to travel and it doesn’t rely on a code. We’re Charlie and Luke, and finding somewhere lovely to stay without overpaying is basically our hobby. Here’s how we actually do it.

How To Find the Best Accommodation Deals

1. Compare Before You Commit

The single biggest thing that saves us money is checking the place we want to stay across multiple booking websites. The same room can be available and a different price on Airbnb, Booking.com, the hotel’s own site and everywhere in between.

We often read Airbnb and Booking.com descriptions to check for hotel or apartment names, and then search for them on Google to compare prices per site. If we’re confident an accommodation is legitimate, we may book directly with the owner through their own website for better rates.

Note: You should be careful doing this and sure that you are booking with a reputable hotel or accommodation provider. Website like Booking.com and Airbnb have built-in protections to ensure you’ve covered if anything goes wrong.

2. Stay a Little Outside the Obvious

Our favourite money-saver isn’t a discount at all, it’s a location. The lovely guesthouse a five minute walk from the busy central one is almost always cheaper, quieter and nicer.

Even better, look for destinations that are a little more off-beat and, in our opinion, often more brilliant than the well-known destinations. We’d always recommend you stay in Burgau instead of Albufeira, or Taghazout instead of Marrakech.

Burgau is our favourite example. We’d been let down by Carvoeiro, which, though nice enough, felt more like a resort-y than the little fishing village we’d hoped for. We tried tiny Burgau further along the coast instead. We went in June and had a whitewashed village and a golden beach almost to ourselves in the evenings, once the crowds staying out of town had headed off. It cost less than the big-name Algarve resorts and felt far more personal.

3. Travel Just Off-Peak

Prices swing hugely with the calendar. The week either side of a school holiday, or a shoulder-season month, can be a fraction of peak, and the place is often nicer without the crowds.

The best example we’ve got is a safari at Rhino River Lodge in South Africa. We went over New Year, in the green low season, when it’s hotter and the bush is thicker so animals are a little harder to spot. In return we paid around £350 each for our stay, a fraction of high-season safari prices, saw far fewer vehicles out on the reserve so sightings felt private, and had what turned out to be the best New Year of our lives.

4. Check the Real Price, Then Ask for a Better One

It’s tempting to book the first great place you see and be done with it. Don’t. We always compare the total cost of at least three options before booking, and the word that matters is total. Some Airbnbs tack on eye-watering cleaning and service fees, so a nightly rate that looks cheap can end up dearer than a hotel. Add everything up and work out the real price per night. Most places we’ve stayed charge a reasonable cleaning fee of around £10, some none at all, so give a wide berth to any host piling on fees that make the total unreasonable.

Once you’ve found the accommodation you want, it’s worth asking for a better price, especially for a longer stay. Most people don’t realise you can message an Airbnb host directly (hit “contact host”) and the same on Booking.com, and simply ask. Whether they say yes depends on the host, the season and how long you’re staying, but you’re far more likely to get a discount for a week or more, and it’s often applied automatically on week or month-long bookings.

Here’s how it worked for us: we had spent August in Girona, which is surprisingly good value in high summer because the locals all head to the coast and leave the city behind. Come September we wanted to move to the seaside once the crowds had thinned and the kids were back at school. The catch was that apartment prices by the sea were still sky high!

We found a place we loved the look of in Sant Feliu de Guíxols on the Costa Brava, and because we were booking for a whole month, we messaged the host to ask if they would consider a discount. They offered us 50% off the original price. It made sense for them too: bookings were likely to be quiet, and one long stay meant far less faff than juggling multiple cleanings and frequent check-ins and check-outs. We were so glad we asked.

How To Find the Best Airbnbs

We sometimes still use Airbnb if we’re looking for a specific type of stay or apartment. Whilst it’s not our number one booking platform these days, we value being able to have our own apartment when needed, even if it comes at a slight premium price point.

1. Look for Super Hosts

All Airbnb hosts are verified. They must provide their contact details, address, profile photo and ID to be able to list their property on Airbnb. However, there are also ‘Superhosts.’ These are experienced hosts who continually provide excellent experiences for their guests. I’ve stayed with many Superhosts and always had amazing stays! Superhosts have a badge on their profile so you can identify them and you can search with the “Superhost” filter on to only see the best rated hosts. To become a Superhost, a host must meet the following criteria:

Airbnb checks on Superhosts every 3 months to ensure they continue to meet the criteria. You don’t only have to book with Superhosts, but it’s great if you can. It can be easy for a Superhost to lose their status if they had one difficult guest for example.

2. Read the Reviews

Always read the reviews on an Airbnb listing. You can find the reviews by scrolling to the bottom of the listing page. Look for places which have a minimum of 4-star reviews, otherwise you may not have a good experience. Raters can sometimes be generous with their stars. Look for any points highlighted in the reviews. I always search “wifi” in the review section to ensure there’s a fast internet connection.

3. Search for Unique Homes

Want to stay somewhere special on your trip? When you search, click “More Filters” and scroll down to the “Unique homes” section. Here you an select different types of unique homes like tree houses, castles and even planes!

One of the best features of the Airbnb platform is that you can find unique accommodation. Many of Airbnb’s coolest homes don’t immediately appear at the top for the search results. Once you dig a little you can find them. A night in a castle in Scotland or a week on a house boat in Amsterdam is a way more exciting experience than staying in a standard hotel.

One of our favourite unique stays was this Colonial Flat in the historical centre in Cartagena, Colombia. This gem of an Airbnb which came with a fabulous housekeeper who cooked our meals! This is by far the best Airbnb we’ve ever stayed in.

Where We Book

To keep it simple, here’s where we actually book:

• Comparing stays across sites: Booking.com
• Hotels and apartments: Booking.com and Airbnb
• Tours and experiences: GetYourGuide.com

The Short Version

There’s no magic Airbnb code any more, and honestly you don’t need one. Compare before you book, stay a little off the obvious path, travel just off-peak, and put your money into the stays and experiences that are actually worth it. That’s how we get better holidays in less obvious places, without overpaying.

This guide contains affiliate links. If you book through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only ever recommend places we have stayed or would happily book ourselves.