- Why booking direct is almost always cheaper than Airbnb
- How to track down a listing’s real website
- How Google Lens can help with foreign-language sites
Airbnb is convenient, but you’re paying for that convenience – often quite a lot. The service fee alone can sting, and most hosts would rather not pay commission either. Book direct and you both win. The tricky part is actually finding the listing elsewhere. Here’s a neat trick that makes it easy.
Going direct is easy in theory. The problem you’re likely to encounter is one of visibility: not all Airbnb listings are easy to find elsewhere. With vague names like “wistful cottage in the mountains” and no specific address, you might struggle to track down the hosts anywhere else, killing any hopes of price comparisons. That’s where our sneaky tip comes in handy.
First, find the property you’re interested in on the Airbnb website in Safari – don’t use the Airbnb app. Long-press the main photo on the listing and tap Save to Photos. Now we can perform a reverse image search to see where else that exact photo appears on the web.
The easiest way to do that is with the free Google app. Download it and tap the Lens button in the main search field. Choose the photo you just saved from the All images section, and make sure the Search tab is selected. Scroll down to see the results, which are usually far more precise than if you’d attempted a text search.
If the property is listed on other booking sites, you’ll see a price comparison chart. This alone can often save a good chunk over the stated Airbnb price – around £20/night in our example here. That adds up fast over a longer trip.
But what you’re really looking for here is the venue’s own website, which is often the first result after the price lists. If you’re traveling to a non-English speaking country, Google Lens can help out here too by instantly translating other languages with the toggle at the top of the webpage. That means you won’t miss out on a great deal just because you don’t speak Dutch.
Here, you can see whether your stay would be cheaper direct. In our testing, it usually is. You’ll also find contact details if you want to go a step further and try haggling over the phone. If you’re booking somewhere big for a wedding or an event, going direct can save thousands!