How to Book Vacation Rentals on Points
Vacation rentals are a great option for big families (or multiple families!) as you explore, but they can also be a big expense on a trip. The good news is, there are ways to save big or get your vacation rental for free with credit card points! Keep reading below for some some ideas on how to to use credit card points to book your vacation rentals, how to save money when you pay cash for your vacation rental, and how to earn more points on a vacation rental purchase!
How to Use Credit Card Points and Miles for a Vacation Rental:
Disclaimer: Redeeming points and miles for vacation rental is not always the best way to get the biggest value out of your points, but if you value more cash in your pocket, free is free and this is a great option for you!
Four popular ways to use credit card points to cover the cost of a vacation rental:
Book your vacation rental in a bank’s travel portal! You may be able to book a vacation rental with all of the major banks if they have availability in their portal with points. With most of them, you will just search “Hotels” and if they have Vacation Rentals available, they will show there. To find options for booking vacation rentals through Capital One Travel, you will go to Premium Stays and then select Vacation Rentals. If you’re looking to use American Express Membership Rewards points for a Vacation Rental, you can see what options they available in the Travel Portal under Select Homes + Retreats™.
Tip: When you book through Chase Travel℠, your points are worth 25 percent more if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (for example you can book $125 worth of travel for 10k points). Your points are worth 50 percent more if you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve® (for example you can book $150 worth of travel for 10k points). So your points will stretch a little further in Chase’s travel portal versus other travel portals.
Cover your travel expenses with Capital One Venture Miles! If you have a Venture Miles earning credit card like a Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card or a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, you can cover any travel expense you make on your card with your miles. For example, if you pay $300 for a vacation rental with your card, it will code as travel and you can cover that expense with 30k Venture Miles. See here for more information on how to cover your travel expenses with Venture Miles!
Book a Vacasa Vacation Rental with points! While Airbnb and VRBO tend to be more popular for vacation rental bookings and have a wider footprint, your points can stretch further when you book a vacation rental with Vacasa instead! Vacasa is similar to Airbnb and VRBO, though only available to book in North America (including Hawaii), Belize, and Costa Rica. You can use Citi ThankYou points and Capital One Venture Miles to book Vacasa vacation rental by transferring your points to Wyndham! Check out this post for all the details on booking a Vacasa Vacation Rental!
Another more intermediate way to cover your vacation rentals with points (and stretch your points further) is to utilize the Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back feature. See here for all the details on this process!
How to Save on Vacation Rentals:
3 popular ways to save on vacation rentals:
Book the vacation rental directly with the host. If you find a vacation rental listing on a site like VRBO or Airbnb, you can contact the host to ask if they have an option to book directly with them which would save money on the VRBO/Airbnb fees. Some vacation rental hosts might also include a link to their website directly in the VRBO/Airbnb listing description which could be helpful and save some money!
It may be obvious, but planning ahead can often save you money on a vacation rental. If you know you will be staying during a busy season for that location, planning ahead can give you the most options, as well as some of the best prices.
Travel with friends! Most vacation rentals will have extra fees included in the total rental price such as cleaning fees, host fees, etc. When you rent a larger home for multiple families, you are sharing in those fees (which may be slightly higher for a larger home), but you’re also getting to create memories with friends all in one house instead of being spread out amongst several hotel rooms. You’ll likely have more amenities to enjoy in homes like these (game rooms, pools, etc), which can save money on activities you will need to do outside of the vacation rental.
Maximizing Your Points When Booking a Vacation Rental
If you don’t use your credit card points to cover the cost of a rental car, here are some ways EARN quite a few points on your rental car booking :
The best way to earn the most points when booking a vacation rental is to open a new credit card and book the vacation rental with that card! Depending on the cost of the vacation rental booking, this could help you meet a new credit card minimum spend! If you are staying long enough, you could earn anywhere from 50k-100k+ points with just one vacation rental booking! If you’re curious about the credit cards that have the best welcome offers right now, take a look here!
Earn 10x miles on vacation rentals booked through Capital One Travel if you use your Capital One Venture X card.
Earn 10x points on vacation rentals booked through Chase Travel if you use your Chase Sapphire Reserve® credit card.
Earn 10x ThankYou points on vacation rentals booked through the Citi Travel portal if you have the Citi Prestige Card (no longer available for signups) or the Citi Strata Premier Card.
Use a shopping portal like Rakuten or American Airlines Shopping Portal PLUS using a card that has a higher multiplier on travel transactions. All of the following cards earn at LEAST 2x points on every dollar you spend on vacation rentals:
Chase Sapphire Reserve - At least 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards points earn on all travel purchases. This card also comes with an annual $300 travel credit that if automatically posts when you make an eligible travel purchase
Chase Sapphire Preferred - 2x Chase Ultimate Rewards points earn on all travel purchases
Capital One Venture X - 2x Capital One Miles earned on each dollar spent on all purchases. This card comes with an annual $300 travel credit that you can use to book a vacation rental through Capital One Travel
Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card - 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards points on the first $150,000’ each account anniversary year on all travel purchases if you are traveling for your business.
If you’re booking an Airbnb, you can actually earn 2 British Airways Avios per $1 spent OR 1 Delta SkyMile per $1 spent with your booking! You can utilize the British Airways Airbnb or Delta SkyMiles Airbnb sites like a shopping portal. When complete your Airbnb booking from their sites, you will earn Avios or SkyMiles several weeks after your Airbnb stay.
You can also earn 3 United United Plus Miles per $1 spent when you book a VRBO vacation rental if you book through this website. If you’re spending $2,000 for a week-long VRBO vacation rental, that’s a quick 6,000 United Mileage Plus Miles that you can use towards a future flight!
Booking Through a Shopping Portal
One way to stack your point earnings on a vacation rental booking is to go through a shopping portal to make your booking. You can see much more details about utilizing shopping portals in this post here.
A shopping portal will help you earn an additional cash back or points on many online purchases you make, and sometimes include rental cars. Utilizing Cashback Monitor can be a great way to see where you can earn the most points or cash back on any given day for many different websites. In this example below for VRBO, you can earn 3 American Express Membership Rewards points, or 3 United Mileage Plus miles, or 3 American Airlines AAdvantage miles for each dollar you spend on VRBO.
Once you click through to a website like Rakuten, you will see the cash back terms & exclusions, as well as additional coupon codes that may be available for you. Note: Shopping portals may not give you cash back if you use a coupon code that was found from somewhere outside of their shopping portal.
Bottom Line
While I usually prefer to use my points and miles for hotels and flights, it is definitely possible to use credit card points for vacation rentals! Plus there are many ways to save and earn more points on your purchase if you chose to pay cash for a vacation rental!
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