Airbnb prices in Barcelona dropped 40% after I changed one thing on my booking

I went to Barcelona back in March and paid $120 a night for a tiny room. Then I talked to a local guy at a bar who told me to search by month instead of just a few days. I tried it for a trip last week and got the same type of place for $70 a night. The difference was I booked a full 28 day stay and then just left after 10 days. The host still got paid for the month but I only paid for what I used. Has anyone else tried this trick and had it work in other cities?

4 comments

4 Comments

tara79317d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, doesn't the host get suspicious when you check out early and leave the place empty? I feel like that could backfire if they check in on guests or have cameras in common areas. I get why you'd try it though, those nightly rates are brutal for short trips. I've seen people do similar stuff with booking apartments in Paris but only if the host sets a big discount for monthly stays. Just seems risky unless you're sure the host won't notice or care.

kellyjones17d ago

Actually, hosts do get suspicious and a lot of them have rules against this in their fine print. I tried this in Lisbon last year and the host showed up on day 3 because the cleaner tipped them off that I was leaving early. They threatened to report me to Airbnb for booking fraud, and I almost got my account suspended. It's not really a hack, it's more like a loophole that can totally blow up in your face if the host checks in on the place or has a neighbor watching it. I'd just look for hosts who offer honest monthly discounts and actually stay the whole time, way less stressful lol.

carr.lee17d ago

... honestly I don't think it's that serious though, like yeah the one person had a bad experience in Lisbon but that doesn't mean every host is gonna be running background checks on you the second you check out early. I've done the monthly booking trick a bunch of times in different cities and nobody ever said a word to me about it... hosts usually just want their money and don't wanna do extra work, you know? If they got a cleaner coming in that's one thing but most of them aren't staking out the place unless you gave them a reason to already. I feel like people get scared off by one horror story and forget that thousands of people do this every month without any issues at all. Being too cautious is almost as bad as being too careless in my book...

matthewmartin17d ago

It's just how the system works man, gotta hack your way through everything these days.