Ryan Dube · March 25, 2022 · 6 min read If you’ve ever tried to make your travel more affordable, you know that your hotel stay is a significant portion of the travel costs. If you’ve never tried Airbnb as an alternative to hotels, you may want to consider trying it.
Airbnb is a site where people can list their home, cottage, apartment, or even just a room in their house for travelers to stay for a night, a week, or even for months. Airbnb offers some of the more unique and quirky getaways you’ll find anywhere, and if you know what you’re doing you can find some amazing, inexpensive vacation rentals to stay.
Find Any Cheap Airbnb Rental to Stay
If you have a flexible schedule and you’re willing to travel anywhere, you’ll be able to find the best deals on Airbnb places around the world.
To do this, from the main Airbnb page, select the I’m flexible button in the middle of the page.
When we say being flexible will offer some cool opportunities, we’re not kidding. You’ll find some of the most quirky and fun places to stay around you if you choose the “flexible” option.
However, for some of those options, you’re going to have to pay a pretty price. If you’re looking for travel options at the lowest cost, you’ll need to adjust the search filters.
To do this, select the Filters button at the top right corner above the listings.
Scroll down the list to the “Price range” section. Here, you’ll see a slider where you can move the max price to the highest price you’re willing to pay per night.
Notice the vertical bars in the chart above the slider. These are the volumes of vacation rentals available in that price bracket. This is useful, because if you lower your maximum price too low, you’ll remove almost all possible rentals to stay.
Select the Show x stays at the bottom of the form. Now you’ll see that all listings have been updated to exclude those vacation rentals above your maximum price range.
Hopefully, you’ll see that the variety of fun places to stay doesn’t disappear at the lower price range. You’ll find the coolest options like treehouses, tiny houses, glamping, and possibly even beach houses.
There may be fewer amenities and perks (don’t expect mountain views), but there are plenty of wonderful cheap rentals on Airbnb where you can stay. Using the “flexible” option lets you see all the variety that’s out there.
Best Airbnb Tips for Getting Great Deals
If you know exactly when you want to travel and where you’re going on your next road trip, that doesn’t mean there are no affordable options available.
Check Your Notifications
The first place to look for random deals is the notifications section of your Airbnb account. To access this, select your profile photo at the upper right and select Notifications.
There, you may see opportunities like discounted stays in locations you may have previously searched, or options to invite friends to Airbnb and get cash rewards.
Adjust Price for Regular Searches
If you do search for Airbnb listings to stay using the regular search field and date selector, you can still customize the price range.
To do this, select the Price dropdown at the upper left of the listings. You’ll see the same slider control with the vertical bars showing how many Airbnb accommodations are available at that price point.
Just adjust the max price slider to the left until the max price field displays the most you’re willing to pay per night for your Airbnb stay.
Set Minimum Rooms and Beds
Another way to see the best prices, without the clutter of seeing accommodations with things you don’t need, is to adjust the “Rooms and beds” values in the filter to your minimum needs.
Places with fewer rooms and beds are almost always less expensive than those with more. By adjusting this filter, you’ll remove higher-priced options even within the price range you already selected with the slider.
Choose the Right Property Types
Another good method to find the lowest price options is to adjust the “Property type” selections in the filter.
These selections let you isolate Airbnb listings to only show you things like an entire house, a bed and breakfast, a cabin, and more.
Property types that typically have the lowest prices include:
- Guest suite
- Loft
- Bed and breakfast
- Guesthouse
These are typically “shared” properties where the owner either lives in the same house, the same building with a separate entrance, or on the same property. Properties with the highest prices tend to be entire houses or hotel rooms.
You can also filter for property type on the main listing page by selecting the Type of place dropdown, and selecting either Private room or Shared room.
Because these properties have a slight decrease in privacy, prices are typically adjusted down. So for the best price, select shared locations like these.
Also keep an eye out for lack of amenities that may be important to you like Wi-Fi, a full kitchen, hot tub, or air conditioning. Also, be careful about “shared living” options – the last thing you want to end up doing is sleeping on the couch in someone’s living room!
Find the Right Vacation Rentals
After all your filtering work, you’re probably looking at a list of very cheap places to stay. However, there are additional steps you can take with individual listings to lower your overall costs.
As you’re scrolling, keep a close eye on the total before taxes amount. This is in small print right under the per-night price.
You may notice that some Airpnp stays may have equivalent or cheaper per-night stays than others, but the total before taxes is roughly the same or higher.
This is because some Airbnb hosts try to earn a few extra bucks by slightly padding cleaning or service fees.
In most cases, this padding isn’t too significant, but there are cases where you could not end up getting the great deal you thought you were.
Also, as you’re scrolling through listings, you’ll see some have crossed-out prices.
These are excellent opportunities to get a normally higher-priced Airbnb stay at a steeply discounted rate. Many hosts offer these when their location is off-season or when reservations are a bit slow and they’re looking to drum up more business.
This is because a vacant place earns them less money than a reserved place – so accepting less per night on a limited basis is better than nothing.
Enjoy Your Adventures on a Budget
If you make use of all of the tips above to find your next Airbnb getaway, you’re likely to save a lot off your sleeping arrangements. That means you get to put more money into having a great adventure without breaking the bank.
And if you don’t like Airbnb but still want to find good travel deals, there are plenty of Airbnb alternatives.
