In the past several years, Airbnb (and really all types of vacation rentals) has gotten popular to the point of being eponymous. When you are looking to plan a vacation or trip, there are two different schools of thought. Some people prefer staying in Airbnb or other vacation rentals — others prefer the hotel experience.
(SEE ALSO: The best Airbnb in Athens Greece)
My personal experience has been that there are benefits to both, and they both can be useful in different situations. In this post, I thought that I’d share a few of my thoughts and experiences as to when I prefer Airbnbs vs hotels. I’ll examine some of the pros and cons of hotels vs Airbnb in my thinking.
Reasons to prefer hotels over Airbnb / vacation rentals
Here are a few of the reasons where I prefer hotels over staying in an Airbnb:
- Hotel points! This is a miles and points blog, after all, and getting “free” stays is a big reason I prefer hotels. With Airbnb, there aren’t really very many good ways to use points to pay for Airbnb stays. You can use purchase-erasing points like Capital One Venture miles, but that’s about it
- Consistency of experience: With an Airbnb, every home and every host is a completely different experience. While offering unique experiences is part of the charm of the vacation rental experience, most times I like knowing what I’m going to get. With Airbnb, I feel like I have to be constantly scouring the reviews to see if this is going to work out. While there are some hotel chains I read the reviews on (Rodeway Inn and Choice Hotels, I’m looking at you), for the most part, I feel like I can show up at a Holiday Inn Express or Hampton Inn and know exactly what I’m going to get, though that has burned me in the past.
- I don’t have to worry about breaking things: Another thing I like about the hotel experience is not having to worry about breaking things. With an Airbnb, I feel like I need to be super careful about that. Having had bad experiences with this in the past, I also feel like I have to photo or video document anything that was broken when I got there or risk being charged for it. If you want to argue towards individual responsibility on this, I understand the point, but I prefer that being amortized across every stay at the hotel and raising rates minimally to account for that.
- “Free” breakfast and/or dinner: With a family of 8, staying in a hotel that offers “free” breakfast or dinner can also be good value
Reasons why Airbnb is better than hotels
On the other hand, here are a few reasons when I think that Airbnb is better than hotels
- Location, location, location: Sometimes there just aren’t hotels where you want to go. I stayed in an Airbnb in Billund, Denmark to go to Legoland with my son. There weren’t any hotels (or at least any points hotels) in the whole city.
- Having a (larger) place to yourself: We are a family of 8, so being able to spread out and not have to worry about disturbing the neighbors is a nice feature.
- A full kitchen: Being able to cook our own meals can drastically cut down on our total food budget.
My family’s recent experiences
Our family of 8 will often look for an Airbnb or other vacation rental when we are all traveling together. We stayed at an Airbnb in Upper Michigan, and we have used the Wyndham / Vacasa partnership to stay in some very nice vacation rentals for cheap – a “1 bedroom” condo (sleeps 10!) in the Smoky Mountains and a 2 bedroom suite on the ocean in Maui.
(SEE ALSO: Is This REALLY a 2 Bedroom Suite?)
(SEE ALSO: How to Save Money on Vacation Travel Expenses)
But we also do a fair amount of staying in hotels, where we can use hotel points. This is especially true if we can all stay in one room. I often use my “trick” of emailing and asking for a larger room, especially when we’re staying in a “suite” hotel like a Homewood Suites, Staybridge Suites or Residence Inn. This worked out great when we stayed at the Residence Inn Cleveland Avon.
What do you think? Do you prefer hotels or Airbnbs / vacation rentals? Leave your thoughts in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at
You can earn Delta miles on Aibnb stays.
I stay in both hotels and AirBnB, but the biggest advantage of hotels for me is the ability to cancel when our trip plans change (which they frequently do).