How We Save Thousands on Travel with Hostshare
If you are an Airbnb host who loves traveling, you MUST check out Hostshare!
Thanks to this host-sharing platform, we have made life-long memories with our family that would not have been possible without the thousands of dollars Hostshare allowed us to save on our vacations.
We are not being paid to promote Hostshare we just genuinely love it. We do have a referral link here and greatly appreciate if you use our link when signing up. 🙂
What is Hostshare?
Hostshare is a platform exclusive to hosts of short-term vacation rentals. It’s a platform made by hosts, for hosts.
How it works
Share your unbooked nights with other hosts, and in exchange, stay for free on your vacations (pay only the cleaning fee).
Your property’s availability will be capped at a maximum number of nights, determined by your average nightly rate. In return for this availability, you’ll gain access to 21 nights of free travel, instantly.
Step 1: List Your Property
Hostshare will calculate how many nights you will share in exchange for your 21 days of free travel. The formula is established so that the higher value properties share less nights, and the lower value properties share more.
For instance, if someone has an average nightly rate of $500, they would be sharing approximately 15 nights per year. Whereas if the property was valued at $100 per night, there would be closer to 45 nights shared.
You aren’t obligated to share all these nights. Your property will simply be listed and available on our platform.
If you are fully booked (most homes experience 40-50% vacancy, however if you end up having no nights available to share,m it would not impact your ability to travel and use other homes on the platform) or don’t have many people interested in visiting your area, you likely won’t share your maximum number of nights.
In our first year on Hostshare, our place was only booked for 3 nights out of the 20 available.
Step 2: Enjoy Free Travel
Travelers must book on short notice (the stay must be within the next 5 days). That part can be a bit tricky with planning.
If we know we will be visiting an area, we will save properties that interest us and then check the availability once it’s within the 5 day window.
If you have a lot of flexibility for last-minute trips, you will really be able to maximize your travel through Hostshare.
Where we have stayed:
Cabin in Broken Bow, Oklahoma for 4 nights in October
If Booked via Airbnb/VRBO:
Nightly rate: $525 x 4 nights = $2,100
Airbnb/VRBO commission: 14% = $343
Cleaning fee: $350
Taxes (Transient occupancy Tax): 12% = $294
Total: $3,087
Vs.
With Hostshare:
Nightly rate: $0
Commission: $0
Cleaning fee: $350
Taxes & Protection/Processing Fee: $34.21
Total: $384.21
Savings: $2,702.79 (88%)
Condo in Silverthorne, Colorado (within 30 minutes of Breckenridge, Vail, Keystone) for 3 nights in December
If Booked via Airbnb/VRBO:
Nightly rate: $248 x 3 = $744
Airbnb/VRBO commission: 14% = $127.96
Cleaning fee: $170
Taxes (Transient Occupancy Tax): 12% = $109.68
Total: $1,151.64
Vs.
With Hostshare:
Nightly rate: $0
Commission: $0
Cleaning fee: $170
Taxes & Protection/Processing Fee: $24.74
Total: $194.74
Savings: $956.90 (83%)
Where we want to go next with Hostshare:
- Smoky Mountains (SO many epic cabins here)
- Galena, Illinois (cool cabin that looks very kid-friendly)
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin area (another cool kid-friendly property)
- Las Vegas area (on the front or back end of a trip to Utah)
What are the requirements to join?
Hostshare accepts only quality properties with highly rated listings and a history of at least 5 reviews. Basically, you can’t go slap up a junky listing with no reviews and list it on Hostshare. As long as you have a legitimate Airbnb listing with 5 or more reviews, you are good to go.
If you receive a booking through Hostshare, you must send check-in information to the Hostshare traveler and honor the stay (don’t be a crappy person and try to back out last minute). This hasn’t happen to us, but each time we booked a stay, Hostshare let us know that they have had some hosts who have unfortunately done so.
Membership Fee
Your first trip (2 days) is free, no membership required, and if you want to continue traveling, just activate your membership.
Membership is $395/year.
Perks of the membership:
- 21 nights of free stays – instantly
- No nightly rates, only pay cleaning fees
- Save upwards of $1,500 on a typical 3-night stay
- Access to thousands of properties on the Hostshare network
- Friendly customer support
- 100% money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied after your first stay
There’s nothing I love more than traveling with my family, and we wouldn’t be able to afford these stays without Hostshare, which is why I wanted to share it with you!
Plus the more hosts we get to join, the more awesome places we all get to travel to!
Sign up here if you’re interested in joining.
Happy Travels 🙂
