The Offer
- Spend $100 or more in a single transaction on bookings or gift cards at Airbnb with your registered Amex card and receive a $50 statement credit.
To register for this offer, tweet #amexairbnb or you may be able to find the offer in your online login.
The Fine Print
- Valid through 12/31/15
- Valid online at Airbnb.com or the Airbnb mobile app
- Offer valid on approved bookings and gift card purchases
- Offer not valid for bookings made with gift cards
- Offer valid for eligible domestic and international Airbnb locations
Our Verdict
AirBnB is a great way to book accommodation and it’s possible to find incredible value in two different situations: 1) when staying in the same place for an extended period of time (their short-term apartment rentals are great value) and  2) when travelling in a large group (it’s much cheaper than multiple hotel rooms and much more family friendly).
This offer is really incredible and even more so the fact that it has a Twitter hashtag which means you can save it on all cards, including third party cards and prepaid cards.
Many of us may not have enough travel coming up to use up all our Amex cards, but consider buying Airbnb gift cards to lock in the savings for the future.
New Airbnb Customers
If you are new to Airbnb, you can also get a free $20 credit toward your first booking of $75 or more by using our referral link. Stack that with the 50% off via the Amex offer for a smoking hot deal!
Updates
- There are mixed reports in the comments of this post whether you can apply more than one gift card per rental. (This page would sound to me that you can use more than one gift card.)
- Reports that you can’t buy a gift card for yourself; you’ll have to have a second person to send it to in order to take advantage of this deal.
- Reports that Safari doesn’t work well with Airbnb; use Chrome or Mozilla.
- Reportedly, prepaid Amex cards don’t work on Airbnb.
Just got 5 airbnb gift cards and used em all for 1 booking. I just saw a lot of confusion and wanted to post my experience.
Does the Airbnb account name and the credit card holder name need to match to purchase gift cards ? When you create account on Airbnb is there a verification process to link you to your home address ?
No, and No.
I also verified that the initial email recipient of the gift card does NOT have to match the email recipient of the gifted. However, prior to the recipient accepting the gift, the email must be forwarded to the gift recipient’s email which must match the AirBNB email used to log on to recipient’s account
Thanks a lot.
I find your response a little confusing, can you clarify.
I am trying to buy 3 cards for my self and still cant figure out the easiest way to do this..
thanks
Possibly noteworthy that since Braintree pendings are clearing as “AIRBNBGC”, DBA “MoviePass” rather than as “AIRBNB” that the offer auto-redemption logic will not trigger on back end which may require manual AMEX CSR intervention to trigger the $50 CR, or worse.
That is why I am waiting on the sidelines to see if Amex is crediting $50. If someone here has received a credit please report back.
Is your cash back credited to your account? If so, did you ask CS to manually help? The automatic offer does not seem to work yet
Made it up to $1100 on purchase/send side, $800 on the “Accept” to account side. Help desk incorrectly citing GC purchases being rejected by AMEX AFTER CG# issued, which I’ve disproved this AM.
Did you send all $1100 from one airbnb account? Did you have problems after $500? Were any that codes that didn’t work, start working later on?
I created a dummy ABNB account for Gift card purchases/sends after main account began throwing error upon send. Dummy account hummed along until began throwing send errors, then switched back to main account.
Sorry I did not get it. Were you able to add more than $500 gift cards to one account? Thanks
I just confirmed with my booking that you can deposit multiple giftcards and use that as a balance to deduct from.
were you able to claim more than $500 in gift cards?
Did anyone have problems applying airbnb gift card to account? I applied 5 $100 gift cards and the sixth keeps getting errors ‘Unable to perform action’. Is there a restriction on redeeming gift cards?
PS. All gift cards are not brought by my account so I should be able to apply them.
What is with everyone purchasing multiple GCs? Do you have 5 different cards? My fine print reads
“Get a one-time $50 statement credit by using your enrolled Card to spend a total of $100 or more in a single transaction on Airbnb by 12/31/15.”
“Limit 1 statement credit per American Express Card across all American Express offer channels”
You seem to be new at this. Do some more reading. Search for “Smart and Final Amex offer” or the “Walmart $20 samsclub offer” to see how people got one amex offer on each of their cards.
Between me and my wife we have 13 amex cards including amex serve and cards not issued directly by amex.
Yes, multiple card are ok for this offer.
In the same boat as you, not able to add the 6th gc. I called customer service and they told me the status of the 6th card was returned.
I am in the same boat stuck on the $500. I tried to add the 6th and 7th $100 and both wouldn’t work. Customer service says there were no maximum so i don’t know what the problem is.
Raise won’t let you resell these.
“Your listing was denied for the following reason:
Brand Restricted”
I guess I’ll just have to wait the 90 days, float the $50 and let the $100 be refunded back to my card. Curious if Amex will claw back the statement credit after that long of a time period.
Everyone have the right to set their own limit on how low they are willing to go to ear a few dollars. What you are planning to do is dishonest in my opinion and I personally wouldn’t go there. But to each his own
What is it you think I’m planning to do that’s dishonest? I bought one to test reselling on Raise. Raise wouldn’t allow it so I have no choice but to wait the 90 days for it to be refunded to me.
Are you claiming that reselling gift cards bought at a discount with Amex offers is somehow dishonest?
You could just add it to your account and use it in future which is how the offer is supposed to be used.
Getting $50 credit from Amex and then waiting 90 more days to get $100 refunded from Airbnb is “being dishonest”. Again, this is in my opinion and I accept that I have no right to be a moral police.
Do you know of a way to get a refund for a purchased gift card from Airbnb? Because I don’t. You also can’t add gift cards you’ve purchased to your own account. Plus, I would never use it.
I have no other option but to wait it to be refunded. If someone wants to PP me $50 I’d be more than willing to sell it.
But never mind all that since apparently it’s important for you to be condescending to people over the internet.
Actually, given your attitude this guy seems to be amazingly non-condescending. For what it’s worth, reselling gift cards is also where I draw my line. I use them to save money, not make money. Again, to each his own though.
I don’t understand the distinction? The company is still getting the same amount of money. What does it matter if I used it or resold it on to someone else who then uses it? Is a retailer that makes money selling things above wholesale dishonest?
AirBNB front-line help desk states no actual limit to any given GC $ balance. Currently stuck on $400.
One way to monetize the GC value is to be an AirBnB host. I bought a number of GC and sent them to family members and friends whom I know will come to Kansas City to stay with me anyway. A bit of comms will go to AirBnB, but I’ll still get a healthy chunk back once my friends and family book their stays with me using the GC I bought them. PLEASE: If anyone out there wants to be a host to monetize this GREAT deal and make it even better—-please SEND ME YOUR EMAIL so I can list you to be invited to be a host by AirBnB!! We will BOTH receive incentive $ from AirBnB. Read more here: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/1129/host-referral-program-t-c—referring-host
[email protected] 🙂
Lots of blog speculation whether you can or can not apply multiple gift cards to an airbnb reservation. Obviously, the offer is a zillion times more useful if you can. Can anyone get to the bottom of this?
The fact is, historically, you could NOT use more than one GC per booking. It “appears” that the new language may indicate that this policy has changed. It is also a new thing that you can store your GC on your account where they will be “automatically” applied. YMMV but I think that they may well be changing their policy….
That’s interesting, but what IS the current situation with using multiple gift cards? I’m reading about people posting them to their account (perhaps up to $500?). Can you then use MULTIPLE cards for the same booking? That would be the holy grail here, and it seems surprisingly difficult to find the answer to this question.
I CAN confirm that the HOLY GRAIL that you speak of has arrived! I bought and sent 2 $100 gift cards for a friend of mine that travels to KC on business that stays wih me at my AirBnB. He loaded the 2 gift cards to his AirBnB account and booked a stay with me last night in KC. My rate on AirBnB is $100/night. AirBnB charged him $112 and did NOT charge any of it to his credit card–all of it came out of the “2” separate $100 GC he had loaded ealier in the day!
Thanks Jeff!