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I stayed two weeks at an Airbnb in Santiago, Chile at the start of the month. That’s not uncommon for me, since I am a nomad. Here’s where I slept every night of 2015 for reference.
When your Airbnb stay ends, you and the host have two weeks to review each other. The first review is hidden until the two weeks are over or both reviews are made. My host reviewed me quickly and sent me a message asking me to review him because reviews are what determine search order on the Airbnb algorithm.
But I was slow, and didn’t get around to it.
Ten days after I checked out and with just four days left on the review clock, I got this email from Airbnb.
If I left a review, I’d get a $25 Airbnb coupon on my next stay of $75 or more. I jumped at the chance and immediately reviewed the property.
Airbnb emailed me the code immediately, and it is good for bookings for the next year (which means the stay can extend even farther.) Pretty sweet deal!
The lesson? Delay your next review and see if you get a $25 coupon. Maybe the offer is a rare occurrence. Maybe it is was only offered because this was a new Airbnb property without any reviews. I don’t know, but I know I like the free money.
If you’ve never stayed with Airbnb, if you sign up for Airbnb through my referral link, you’ll get $20 off your first stay, and I’ll get $20 off my next stay. Feel free to leave your referral link in the comments.
Further Reading:
- How Airbnb Works
- Three Ways to Save Money on Airbnb
- Trick: Pay Your Airbnb in Host’s Currency to Save Money
Have you been offered cash to leave an Airbnb review?
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Interesting… I’m in South America right now & have stayed in several places on this trip with AirBNB. Two of them, I procrastinated until the very last day to leave a review & I didn’t get any offer. One of them already had 5 reviews and the other had a single review. Next week, though, I’m staying at a place that has no reviews yet, so I will definitely wait before I submit the review. Question: do you typically leave a review for every place, or do you often not leave a review?
Thanks for testing this out next week, and thanks for the other data points.
I usually leave a review even though it doesn’t really benefit me. It helps other travelers, and helps the host if it is a good host.
My February stay just ended its review period, and I never received an offer (nor left a review) so this is definitely YMMV.
Thanks for the data point. Maybe they are A/B testing something. Maybe it’s just because my property had zero reviews.
I ended up not staying at that place in Colombia, so I couldn’t test it there. But, I am in Peru right now, and I did get the $25 offer. It was a listing with no reviews, so I believe that not leaving a review on a place that has no other reviews is what triggers the offer. I will try this on future bookings and see if I can get the offer multiple times.
Thanks for the data point!