If this is the first time reading our blog, you should know that we try and travel on a budget. Mainly meaning, that for airline and stays we do not look for any high class. At for a place to stay we always look for somewhere where we have the entire apartment, private bathroom and free wifi. Those are the most important things for use, the rest doesn't matter. It does not have to be extra luxurious but not very shabby either.
Airbnb was not the first site we used to opt for when booking our stay for a holiday. Like many of you we used to check out booking.com. We are not saying that now we abandoned booking.com, not at all, but it is not the first site we look it anymore. Airbnb has been our number one choice lately for plenty of reasons which we will be mentioning during this blog.
But you might ask: What is it that you like and what do you have to keep in mind when booking with Airbnb?
1. Ticking filters is IMPORTANT
When you do a search on airbnb, you are mostly looking at apartments, which is exactly what we aim for as they are cheaper than a stay at a hotel. We do not like to have a private room and the common areas shared with the owner, so if you are like us make sure to look for "entire apartment".
This brings us to our first experience with Airbnb. We took a chance on it back in December 2019 for Pisa. We found this cute little apartment and we decided to go for it. We thought that it was going to be an apartment for ourselves, but when we arrived we got to know that the host only rents rooms in the flat. We were also supposed to have a private bathroom, but we were also sharing that with the host, which was pretty uncomfortable.
This is the apartment we rented the first time with Airbnb -> https://www.airbnb.com.mt/rooms/20870841?source_impression_id=p3_1585591161_fXMzOhpvbRgl3gJf
Note: Thus, it is very important to tick your filters as you may end up with and experience like ours.
2. Contacting the host
Something which we absolutely like about this site is that you can actually contact the host if you have any queries, while this is quite difficult if you are booking with booking.com. We have a 2 week family trip planned for August (hoping that this pandemic would be over by then) and we were in a situation where we needed more detailed information regarding the apartments accessibility as one of the family members makes use of a wheelchair. We contacted the host and she was replying immediately with the answers we needed.
If you are interested in where we are going to stay in August -> https://www.airbnb.com.mt/rooms/35508400?source_impression_id=p3_1585591543_VzdqGx3O5B2%2Fwovi
When booking with Airbnb you have to wait around 24hours for the host to confirm your stay, BUT if you message the host, they can send you a request to book their property and your stay would not need to be confirmed.
3. Self check-in
Sometimes, flight times might be really later or early, but you are sorted for the accommodation with Airbnb. Reason being is that certain stays offer the facility of a self check-in. If you like an apartment and you it does not state that is has a self check-in always check with the host if this is a possibility. In all honesty, we did not make use of this but who know what we might need in the future, right?
4. Additional fees
Yes, a property might be cheaper per night then something you might have found on booking.com but hold your horses, do check the additional fees. Reason being is that with all the costs, it might even be more expensive than just a basic hotel on booking.com. We came across this when we were booking our holiday in Rome. All the stays on Airbnb were sky high, while then we found a 2 star hotel with everything we needed and it did the job quite nicely.
Therefore, make sure you do all your research before booking ;)
5. Host and Traveler profile
On this site, both the host and the traveler have to have a profile. The cool thing is that after each stay the host leaves feedback about you as travelers and vice versa. This is very nice as when booking another property the other hosts can see the feedback you had so far from your previous stays and same goes to travelers about the hosts.
6. Payment
The last thing that attracts us to Airbnb is the method of payment. By this we mean that you have the option to either pay the accommodation fully in advance or else just pay part of it and you will pay the rest when it is closer to the holiday. This is something which we like quite a lot, as we would have already spent quite a lot of money in one month just to get the tickets, so not paying the full amount for the accommodation definitely helps.
We only booked with Airbnb three times since we started traveling and we wanted to share our experience and how we go about it, to those who might not have yet made use of this.
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