Background

When I’m travelling, I tend to stay for typical lengths of time like a week, two weeks, a month etc. However there are some trips where for whatever reason – scheduling, it’s a work trip, whatever – I need to stay a more random number of nights.

For example, I was travelling to NYC for DATAx and to cover everything I wanted to do at the conference (highly recommended, by the way, if you are interested in that kinda data stuff) and in the city once I was already there, I found I needed to stay exactly 6 days.

Here’s where things get interesting. If you look on Airbnb for a 6 day stay, you might notice they are more expensive. Paying $150/night is not bad for a 2 day stay but for 6 days it can start getting pricey.

The Twist

However, given how Airbnb has historically structured their discounts, many hosts offer a 7 day (weekly) discount. This means that a 6 day stay is just missing the weekly discount. For a weekly discount of 20% (which is not uncommon), you can get 7 days for less than you would pay for 6. Even if you can’t use this extra day, it’s still worth it! 

This quirk in how Airbnb structures their discounts is even more pronounced for monthly stays. I have seen many examples (and I’m posting a screenshot below of one such example) where a 27 day stay is more than $500 more expensive than the same stay with one extra day at the end, making it a 28 day stay, and thus qualifying for Airbnb’s monthly discounts.

So next time you can’t find a Hyatus where you are travelling and you need to resort to the risks and wonders of Airbnb, keep in mind that making your stay longer may actually decrease the costs if you are staying a little bit less than 7, 14, or 28 days. 

Best of luck with your travels!