Get £50 off your first Airbnb booking over £100

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• Paul says:

  16 Mar16 March 08:25

  Huge fan of Airbnb. Why have a copy cut hotel room for a week when i can rent a whole apartment for about one third to a quarter of a price of a (decent) hotel room? And a lot of these apartments have been stunning. I have had one bad apartment out of 30+ bookings worldwide and airbnb sorted it out immediately.

• Wesley says:

  16 Mar16 March 08:27

  Another great tool for the frequent flyer is JustPark. It’s a great way to get substantially cheaper parking near the airport or in a city. Considering 4 of the top 10 most expensive airport parking are in the UK, i’d recommend them.

• Graeme says:

  16 Mar16 March 09:32

  I really like Airbnb and have had a couple of great – and very cheap – stays using it.

  The one BIG drawback is that you can’t just book, you have to request a stay – and lo and behold, it often transpires they can’t do it. Either they don’t manage their calendar well, or they’ve realised there’s an event on and they can screw people for more money at a later date. I was declined over twenty times on one occasion – and when one finally accepted, they later cancelled as they were moving!

  Also, the headline price is nowhere near the final price – Airbnb’s fees are not insignificant, and there’s often a “cleaning” fee added as well.

  I like it a lot, but it’s best used in conjunction with hotel sites, I find.

  • Relaxo says:

    16 Mar16 March 13:07

    Airbnb introduced an Instant book option a couple of years back, so it is no longer necessary to request a stay if the host has enabled this option on their listing. The cleaning fees charged by some hosts can be ridiculous on occasion.

    • Graeme says:

      16 Mar16 March 14:19

      I’m obviously looking at the wrong places – I’ve never seen an ‘instant book’ option! The time it was worst for me was last year, and I had to wait to be rejected on each occasion. Drove me mad.

• ankomonkey says:

  16 Mar16 March 09:35

  I have rented through Trip Advisor rentals once – in Florence for a family stay with 2 pre-school children. We booked the whole apartment (2 bedroom). It was really nice and the owners were great. Compared to the price of booking two hotel rooms in a similar location we saved significantly and the place was really nice and comfortable. Would do this again on similar trips.

• Tanya says:

  16 Mar16 March 09:48

  Similar to the other respondents I frequently use apartments for my stays. They are a great alternative for longer stays when you want a bit more space. However, unlike others, I wouldn’t touch airbnb with a barge pole! Despite airbnb rating a host’s credentials it turned out they were a fraudster and I lost £1000 as I inadvertently got diverted from their website to a fake one. Airbnb didn’t want to know or help but the police are investigating. I’ve heard a few similar stories since. I consider myself a savvy traveler so yes I should have known. But when there are so many other great sites to use BEWARE of airbnb.

• Cot says:

  16 Mar16 March 09:56

  It’s similar to many other sites in that you’re renting a property owned by an individual or small business, rather than from a big corporate. Where it differs, and this is a big obstacle for me, is you must have a social network profile to get a booking request accepted (this is kind of the point of the site – linking like-minded people.) Thankfully my partner has a online presence – a limited one, but sufficient activity to get through the booking request process.

  • martin says:

    16 Mar16 March 20:08

    There are ways around the social media profile thing – I didn’t fancy giving them access to my Facebook, Google+ or LinkedIn contacts, so instead uploaded a photo of my driving licence, and recorded a short video(!) of me saying my name and where I was from. This was approved fairly quickly.

• The_Real_A says:

  16 Mar16 March 10:05

  I had never considered airbnb before because i enjoy my solitory existance whilst travelling and would hate to live with a host! However the “whole” apartment options is very interesting.

  Dumb question – i assume that the owner takes care of linen loundry and cleaning on departure?!

  • RT says:

    16 Mar16 March 10:11

    Yep! It’s basically rent a apart-hotel except you don’t get daily housekeeping.

    Once you’re done off you go.

    • The_Real_A says:

      16 Mar16 March 10:30

      Thanks!

• signol says:

  16 Mar16 March 11:01

  I’m looking at booking a week in Nice or Côte d’Azur in August, shame this has to be used before May. In any case, there is a standard refer a friend credit of about £16.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.