How Taking One Extra (Easy!) Step Saved Me 12% On My Vacation Rental
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Earlier this year my family and I went to Portugal and visited Lisbon, Sintra, Cascais, and the Azores (which are a hidden gem, by the way!). I’m the deal-finder, so I was in charge of researching and booking flights and hotels.
Because we were a larger group of 5, I decided to book vacation rentals instead of hotel rooms so it would be easier to hang out together. I searched Airbnb and found an amazing rental for our time in Sintra. After getting a thumbs up from everyone, I decided to book. Luckily, I took one extra step before making the reservation, because it ended up saving us 12% on our stay!
I’ll explain.
Whenever I make any purchase online I start by checking Cashbackmonitor.com to see if I can earn bonus miles, points, or cash back. And that’s exactly what I did before booking our vacation rental in Sintra!
TopCashBack (a reputable and popular cash back site) happened to be paying double their normal rate for bookings through Agoda, a site similar to Booking.com and Airbnb. So, I headed to Agoda to see if I could find the same listing I’d found on Airbnb.
To my surprise and delight, I found the same house listed for the same price!
TopCashBack was paying out 12% for Agoda at the time of my booking. I’d made a reservation through Agoda before without issue, so I figured it was worth a try. It’s hard to know for sure whether a cash back portal will payout when all is said and done.
I was a little worried because the terms on TopCashBack state that cash back is paid on “tracked transactions completed immediately and wholly online,” and I knew the transaction wouldn’t be “complete” until we checked-in and my credit card was officially charged.
But again, it was worth a shot, and the reservation was eventually approved for cash back! Our stay cost ~$1,167 so I earned ~$140 cash back on the booking!
That’s a pretty great return for the few minutes it took me to check cashbackmonitor.com and search for the rental on a different site.
Right now TopCashBack is paying 6% on Agoda bookings, while none of the portals are paying cash back for Airbnb bookings. 😉
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