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 in my thinking, and then also talk about how the current COVID-19 pandemic has changed some of our 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 get $35 off if you create a new Airbnb account, or 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
- 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 been burned 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.
How COVID-19 changes the equation
As with most things in life, the current COVID-19 pandemic changes the equation on hotels vs. Airbnb a bit. I do feel like it is possible to travel responsibly, depending on where you live, where you’re going and how you travel. I am not quite comfortable with our family staying in a hotel just yet, though if it were to be just myself, or just my wife and I, then I might be okay with it.
And of course, hotel breakfasts have been eliminated or vastly changed at most hotels, and most of the hotels that offered an “Evening Reception” AKA free dinner are no longer offering those types of things. That is totally understandable, and I don’t think I’d currently be comfortable with a hotel breakfast or dinner buffet, but it does also remove one of the selling points of staying in a hotel vs. an Airbnb.
My family’s recent experiences
Our family of 8 recently got back from a trip to Upper Michigan, where we stayed in an Airbnb. As I mentioned, neither my wife nor I were yet comfortable with our family staying in a hotel, so an Airbnb was perfect for this situation. One thing that made me a little hesitant was just not knowing the cleaning protocols that our host would be doing. In my head, hotels would have a more strict cleaning regimen, though we’ve certainly seen individual hotels not following the cleaning regimens that their corporate bosses mandate in any case. We also took along some of our own cleaning supplies as well.
For us, the separation from other guests was a big selling point on this trip and I definitely see us staying in more Airbnbs if we take any other family trips in the near future.
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.
Thanks for these perspectives Dan and I am also pleased to read that you are unapologetic yet diplomatic in asserting the view that responsible travel is possible in these times. That being said, you may have missed on a significant point which is that it is much easier to hold hotels accountable for meeting new health standards. In some states and Provinces, laws are much stricter with mega-corps like Marriott than a Mom and Pop B&B (with all respect to the good folks at Air B&B they do not have the best track record with ensuring standards are adhered to.). Anyway stay well folks and travel responsibly!
That is a good point. I personally have not yet stayed in a hotel since March (though I may be staying in some next month), but I have heard plenty of horror stories of places where social distancing and mask-wearing was paid lip service at best. I’m not sure I’ve seen any / many stories of any states or provinces cracking down on hotels for lack of adherence to health policies.
Many of us have expected hotels to be at the top of their game but experienced otherwise. The typical problem: other guests. There are those who refuse to wear masks properly (y’know, covering the mouth and nose at all times). Of course, there can be workers in the same category, as I’ve also recently discovered. With vacation rentals, you typically aren’t dealing with people in person at all, nor do you have other guests to ruin the experience. If you’re in a single-family home, you also don’t have to worry about being on crowded elevators with others (who may or may not mask). Of course that’s oversimplified, but that’s mostly how my experience has been since resuming some travel. I have one go-to boutique hotel I trust, and I haven’t had a lot of luck adding more to the list.
Yes – those are some of the things that make me nervous about staying in hotels
We just returned from a two-week road trip where we mixed Airbnb stays with using Marriott points, and I really resonate with what you’ve said here. Some of the hotels were terrific about cleaning, social distancing, etc. (Shout out to the Marriott Residence Inn in Peoria, IL, which took it totally seriously and even had us check out by turning our card keys into a disinfectant solution!) But at least one of the other hotels (from the same chain, but in another state) had a housekeeper guy wearing his mask as a chin strap around his neck while he was cleaning the hotel. And everywhere, you’re at the mercy of all the other guests in terms of how they comply, and we saw a number of people who were lame about it.
At the AirBnbs we felt more relaxed and safe. It was just the two of us and the dog, and we had brought our own cleaning supplies. So for future trips during the pandemic, I think we’ll be saving the hotel points for a time after the virus. With a lot of hotels, it’s not worth it anyway when you’re traveling with a dog. We were charged a pet fee that ranged widely even within the same hotel chain, from a totally reasonable $28 to an outrageous $100 for just one night! (I bargained them down, Dan Miller-style — you would have been proud. But still.)
P.S. Maybe a future post could look at pet fees, from the chains that make it totally free (like the Drury Inn) to the ones that are expensive and/or a mystery. At the Residence Inn, a chain I generally like a lot, it seems to be every hotel for itself, and the rate is not on the website. You have to call the hotels individually to get the policy.
Ah I have stayed at the Marriott Residence Inn Peoria Illinois as well and had a good experience. For pet fees, you might check out the No Home, Just Roam blog. That’s the blog of a couple who is traveling the US with their dog and I know they’ve written about traveling with a pet and pet fees quite a bit
Prompted by the previous note from Jana, I am very allergic to pet dander. I have noticed there are now more public places that are pet friendly which we try to avoid if possible. Have you seen this trend as well? or is it just the cities that I happened to be visiting?
Once seen a dog on a floor that’s supposedly “no pets” (was told that pets stay on different floors), I have been very uneasy staying at hotels that are pet friendly as I have to ride in the same elevator as they do. And the thought of the possibility of pet pee in the room is not comforting. We already customarily wipe down all the surfaces with Clorex wipes as it is upon checking in the room, esp. during flu seasons. but not sure how to remove possible dander short of bringing a HEPA vacuum. :- (
Maybe our days of staying in a hotel are over?
I appreciate this article. We have also ventured out on a few small trips in what we believe to be a responsible manner during this pandemic. We continue to stay in hotels but require a few things: 1) Must have own heating and air conditioning in unit. 2) Must have a balcony (we have paid extra to ensure upper floor room) we can hang out on. 3) Must have a view of some sort–so when we hang out at on the balcony we are NOT looking at a parking lot (LOL). 4) I read reviews and hotel MUST be enforcing mask wearing. We have had some fantastic getaways. Headed to San Diego in two weeks. Can’t wait to see how it goes.