🏡 How to stack points on Airbnb

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 32 seconds

Goooooooooood morning and welcome back to Daily Drop, the Ryan Gosling of newsletters – easy to love, but also someone you’d actually grab a drink with.

Now that I’ve got your undivided attention:

• 🏡 How to stack points on Airbnb

• 💳 Merchant offers, explained

• 🍋 Your new summer situationship

🏡 How to stack points on Airbnb

I’m a big hotel boi, and everyone knows it. I love my hotel programs, points, and co-branded credit cards.

But I know that many people want a more homey feel during their travels, preferring to use sites like Airbnb to book accommodations.

If this sounds like you, there are a few ways to really maximize the points you’re earning on stays like this.

Because while it’s harder to book Airbnbs on points (unless you use a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card to reimburse yourself for travel purchases), you can absolutely rack up points to use in the future when booking them.

Use the right card

The obvious starting point is to use a card that earns as many points as possible on your Airbnb purchase.

It doesn’t code as “hotels,” so you’ll want to use a card that earns a lot of points on general “travel” purchases.

Here are some options:

1. This underrated card earns 3x MR points on travel

2. This biz card earns 3x UR points on all travel (my personal preference)

3. This fan-favorite card earns 2x UR points on all travel

4. This other fav card earns 2x Capital One miles on everything (including Airbnb)

Taking that first step is already a good start.

But you might be surprised to learn that you can earn airline miles on top of all of those credit card points, too…

Earn Delta SkyMiles with Airbnb

Delta and Airbnb have a partnership that allows you to earn Delta SkyMiles on stays, experiences, and services with Airbnb.

Specifically, here is how it works:

• Earn 1x Delta miles on Airbnb stays

• Earn 3x Delta miles on Airbnb Experiences and Services

Services include things like photographers, massage, personal trainers, hair and makeup, and more.

Earning 3x Delta miles on top of the credit card spend could be meaningful if you want to book your travel and activities in one place.

Earn statement credits on Airbnb

Every once in a while, we even see merchant offers that let you earn a chunk of cash back after booking Airbnb stays.

In fact, I had an Airbnb merchant offer (which sadly ended yesterday) on this credit card.

And if you aren’t familiar with how merchant offers like that work, let me break it down in the next section for you. 👇

💳 Merchant offers, explained

One of the questions I often get asked is this one:

And my answer is usually something along the lines of:

But there’s another factor that often gets overlooked when it comes to justifying credit card annual fees…

I’m talking about merchant offers.

Here’s how these work:

Various credit cards will provide offers, which usually take one of the following forms:

• Earn x bonus points after spending y dollars at z merchant

• Earn an x-dollar credit after spending y dollars at z merchant

• Earn x% cashback up to a total of y dollars at z merchant

These offers are targeted and often based on factors such as which cards you have, how long you’ve been with the bank, and how much you spend on a card.

For example, if you have a Marriott card, you will likely get merchant offers for Marriott rather than other hotel chains.

Most of the time, these offers won’t provide hundreds of dollars in value.

But they can certainly add up…

For example, I just checked my account for this premium card, which has a painfully high annual fee.

I’ve saved over $150 from merchant offers alone, which definitely makes a dent in that annual fee (especially on top of all of the credits and other perks).

But you don’t have to inch your way toward racking up savings, either. Sometimes, merchant offers can be quite hefty (especially on premium cards).

For example, a couple of months ago, I had this offer on my shiny silver metal card to earn $250 back on Aer Lingus:

$1,250 isn’t a crazy amount to spend if you’re booking round-trip flights for multiple people – so getting a 20% return on that spend is awesome.

And it’s not just travel spending where these come in handy…

Fitness junkies rejoice – this premium card currently has an offer for all cardholders that covers the annual cost of a WHOOP membership (a savings of hundreds of dollars).

Merchant offers cover regular spending too – I get offers for restaurants, gas stations, rideshare apps, clothing stores, utilities, coffee shops, and more.

So here’s the bottom line:

Go into your credit card accounts, find your offer section, and activate ALL of your offers.

At the very least, you might rack up a few bucks here and there on everyday purchases.

At the most, you’ll save hundreds of dollars every year and justify holding onto your cards without needing to stress about annual fees.

That’s all for this Thursday, my friends.

I hope you enjoyed today’s breakdowns, and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow.

Cheers,

22.3193° N, 114.1694° E

With contributions by Sam Anthony and Alison Carrico.