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Today we’re going to be answering the commonly googled question “How to get hotel for cheap?”
I’m going to be walking you through ALL your options when it comes to accommodations and cheap lodging so you can figure out what the best course of action is for you and how to maximize your money!
The biggest travel expenses are flights and accommodations. If you’re able to cut the price of both by finding cheap flights and hotels we can significantly decrease your trip expenses. Which means we can take even more trips!! Finding cheap hotels and flights is the trick to unlocking more travel opportunities.
- Related Post: How to Save Money when Travelling
- Related Post: How to Save Money while Planning a Trip
Life is too short to only go on one vacation a year. Hopefully these tips can help cut the costs of your accommodations and you are able to increase your travels.
If you want a travel budget to help you plan your next vacation, check out my budget template for google sheets! Completely free in my resource library when you sign up for my email list!
Table of Contents
How to make your Airbnb cheaper.
I’m pretty sure everyone knows what Airbnb is but just in case, it is “an online marketplace for lodging, primarily homestays for vacation rentals, and tourism activity” according to their website.
There are several things you can do to get a better deal if you’re staying in an Airbnb. Here’s how to get cheap Airbnbs.
When to book an Airbnb:
- 3+ months in advance: If you know where you are going and when, booking very far in advance can work in your favor. Oftentimes hosts haven’t figured out what prices to set and you could score a cheaper deal simply because the host hasn’t increased prices yet.
- Within 7 days: Exactly like above but the opposite. Hosts may start decreasing the price of their Airbnb the closer it gets to the dates because they would rather have someone rent it for cheaper than have it be empty.
How to get Airbnb discounts:
- Week long discount: If you stay for over a week, a lot of hosts start offering discounts for the longer stays. You could get anywhere between a 5% to a 40% discount for staying longer.
- Month long discount: The same rule applies for staying over a month. You can get a good discount for the longer stay.
- Book more days than you’re staying: Because of the two discounts above it might be worth it to book additional days, even if you don’t plan on staying. As you can see from the pictures below, booking an additional night is actually cheaper! So make sure to play around with your dates and see if it’s worth booking a longer stay.
On the website:
- Scroll through the options: When you search for an airbnb, how often do you click into the second page? Or the third page or fifteenth page? Never. But there can be some incredible options that are often less expensive than page one.
- Book a new listing: New hosts are typically eager to start renting and getting reviews so they may have a discount on their listing. Looking for new listings can be a great way to snag a deal.
Ask for a discount: I haven’t done this myself but apparently it can work! Message a host before booking, you can let them know you’re finalizing your plans and they might be willing to give you a discount to ensure you’ll booking with them!
Hostel
What is a Hostel?
A hostel is a budget friendly lodging option with predominantly dorm style rooms. If you are a young traveler, staying in a hostel is an amazing way to get to know other travelers and stay on budget.
If you’re coming from the US, there seems to be a stigma about staying in hostels. However staying in hostels can be an amazing experience AND the cheapest option.
If you feel uncomfortable at the idea of staying in a dorm style room there are ways around that! Several hostels have male and female rooms as well as single rooms or four bedroom rooms.
Why should you stay in a hostel?
- It’s probably the cheapest option. If your budget is the main concern I would highly recommend a hostel. Depending on where you are traveling you could spend less than $5 dollars per night.
- Free breakfast. More often than not Hostels have free breakfast. I’ve stayed at my fair share and only a couple haven’t had it. This being said, by breakfast I mean coffee, toast, ham and cheese, bread. Nothing over the top.
- Meet other travelers. If you’re staying in a shared room, you’re most likely going to meet the people you’re sleeping right next to. Additionally, Hostels have common areas where people can sit down and connect with other travelers. One of my favorite travel memories involves playing board games in Madrid with some Australian travelers who happen to be in the same room as my group.
- Great for big groups. If you are traveling in a group, staying in a hostel can be a great way to keep the group together and save a significant amount of money. Booking one huge dorm room for your group is convenient and fun!
- Wifi. I have never been to a hostel that did not provide free wifi. However, I have been to MANY hotels that do not offer GOOD wifi. The quality of the wifi… well that’s a different story but they most likely will offer the option!
How to book a Hostel.
I exclusively use Hostelworld to book Hostels. Hostelworld includes over 36,000 properties, 179 countries and over 13 million verified guest reviews. I’ve also never had a problem canceling a reservation through them.
Tips for staying in a hostel.
- Bring Flip Flops. Even though, depending on what room you book, you could have your own bathroom for the room, bringing flip flops is never a bad idea.
- Bring a lock. If you’re still worried, just know hostels are generally very safe. Most hostels will offer you a locker for your belongings so make sure to bring a lock with you when you travel if you plan on sharing a room!
- Read the reviews. If you want a specific ambiance make sure to look through pictures and read the reviews of other travelers so you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. I’ve stayed in amazing hostels and very mediocre hostels so make sure you do your research.
- Don’t be afraid to talk to people! Everyone there is trying to see the world, just like you. You may have more in common than you think!
Couchsurfing
What is Couchsurfing?
Couchsurfing is a website that connects travelers. It’s the idea of crashing on someone’s couch for free and getting to know them and their town. The website just facilitates it.
Couchsurfing is really about getting to know the locals that are being kind enough to host you. It’s about building a community and getting to know that city in a more authentic way.
How to use Couchsurfing
Due to the inherent risk of hosting a stranger in your home, you need to have a really good profile. After creating an account, you want to make sure you include several photos of yourself. Provide as much detail as you can so that hosts can clearly see what kind of person you are.
People on both ends are worried about creepy people. So having as many reviews as you can is going to help you out. Additionally, Couchsurfing hosts several meet-ups in multiple cities so attending a few isn’t a bad idea either!
At the end of the day, if you want to be successful on Couchsurfing, it’s about what you can do for your host. They are giving you free accommodations, so what are you going to do for them? What do you have in common with them that you saw on their profile?
People offering their home just want to make meaningful connections and get to know other travelers.
TrustedHousesitters
If you love pets, TrustedHousesitters might be the best option for you on this list.
What is TrustedHousesitters?
Trusted Housesitters is a website where you exchange accommodations for taking care of someone’s pet.
This means, if I’m going out of town and I need someone to watch my dog, I can find someone who needs a place to stay and is willing to look after my dog while I’m gone.
How does TrustedHousesitters work?
TrustedHousesitters is about the same as Couchsurfing above when it comes to using the website. You have to create a very detailed profile and get reviews and recommendations to make sure you are trustworthy to stay in someone else’s home.
One big difference is, you have to pay an annual membership to join TrustedHousesitters.
This payment adds a certain level of safety to make sure the pets are properly taken care of. You have to be a bit more committed if you’re putting some money down. I believe the basic membership starts at $129 a year.
With that membership however you have unlimited sitting which means if you’re able to find places that need a sitter, you would only be paying the price of the membership for all your accommodations.
Although TrustedHousesitters isn’t the most popular option, it’s a great way to stay in a local home and make a new best friend abroad!
How to Find the Cheapest Hotels / Condos
If you are booking a hotel or a condo for cheap, I found a great hack to find you an amazing hotel deal. If you’re craving the luxury hotel experience but don’t want to pay the price, that’s ok! It can be done. Let’s learn to find hotels for cheap.
Hotel Credit Cards.
This is a little bit of a shameless plug… But, it can significantly benefit you!
I recently applied for the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless credit card. This card gives you a FREE night award every year which is worth about $280, by itself, this perk covers the credit cards annual free, making the card worth it (in my opinion).
Additionally, if you sign up through this link you will be awarded THREE free nights! The Marriott Bonvoy Credit card lets you stay at over 7,000 hotel properties thanks to its travel partners.
If you want to learn more, here is a a review by The Points Guys.
Where to find cheap hotels.
There are a plethora of websites that all advertise the same thing, getting you the best deals. Hotel.com, Priceline, Hotwise, Easy Click Travel, Last Minute Travel, Trivagp, TripAdvisor, Booking.com and many many more.
Now you know where to find the cheapest hotels, but let’s look at an example.
From a quick search for hotels in San Francisco on the SAME DATES I was able to immediately see price differences and comparisons for the same hotels.
Trivago.com at $92
Booking.com at $413.
LastMinuteTravel.com at $121
Expedia.com at $103
Never book the first thing you see!
Express deals.
However, for this specific hack, we are heading over to Priceline or Hotwire. Priceline and Hotwire both have something that those other websites don’t have (that I know about). Priceline calls this “Express Deals” and Hotwire calls it “Hot Rate”.
For my example I will be using Priceline but Hotwire works just the same. You want to go into Priceline.com type where you want to go and select some dates. Then if you click “Express Deals” you will be shown a list of hotels at an extreme discount.
Obviously, there is a catch. In order to book the hotel with this deal you won’t know which hotel it is until after you’ve booked.
Now, that sounds super sketchy doesn’t it? But it’s legit!
It’s also fairly easy to figure out which hotel it is if you put a little effort into it. If you click into the deal you want to explore, they give you a good amount of information regarding that hotel.
Then, all you have to do is a quick google maps search to see what hotels are in that area! BAM! You’ve just figured out which hotel it could be. If you are comfortable with that choice you can go ahead and book your extremely discounted hotel!
Priceline will even play confetti once you’ve booked! Now you know how to find hotels for cheap!
Final Thoughts
Those are all my tips and tricks to help you get cheap lodging on your next vacation! Traveling shouldn’t have to break the bank so let’s figure out ways to make sure we all get to see the world!
Don’t forget to snag my FREE travel budget template for google sheets! Additionally, I use three travel credit cards to help me travel for free. You can earn 3 FREE NIGHTS when you sign up for the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card here.
Which accommodation are you booking next? Let me know in the comments!
What more do you want to read about? Send me an email, I do my best to respond to as many emails as I can!
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