How Travelers Can Get the Most Out of Stays

First, a quick mindset shift

Most people show up to Stays and use it like every other travel site they've ever been on. They search a place, scroll for a minute, maybe click a listing or two, and leave.

That works fine. But it's a bit like buying a nice camera and only ever using it on auto. You'll get a decent picture. You're also leaving most of what it can do on the table.

Here's the thing to understand: Stays is not a booking site. We never take a reservation or touch your payment. Stays is where you find the stay, follow it, and catch the best way to book it. The booking itself happens with the host, on whatever channel makes the most sense for you.

So the travelers who get the most out of Stays don't treat it like a vending machine. They treat it like a radar. Set it up once, and it keeps working in the background, surfacing stays, deals, and opportunities you'd never have found by searching dates on a booking platform.

Here's how to set that up, step by step.

Step 1: Tell Stays What You Actually Like

Creating an account is free and takes about a minute. When you're asked what you're here for, pick Find places to stay (or Both if you also host). That drops you into your Traveler Portal every time you sign in.

The first thing worth doing is setting your travel preferences in Traveler Settings:

• Regions you follow. Pick from the list or tap states on the map. If you live in Chicago and do most of your trips within a tank of gas, follow the Midwest. Dreaming about the Pacific Northwest? Follow that too.
• Settings. Lakefront, mountain, desert, forest. The kind of place you want to wake up in.
• Vibes. Secluded, romantic, design-forward, family-friendly, and so on.
• Property types. Cabins, A-frames, treehouses, domes, tiny houses. Everything is on by default, so turn off whatever isn't your thing.

This takes two minutes and it's the difference between a feed full of stuff you care about and a feed full of noise. Think of it like telling a bartender what you usually drink. You only have to do it once, and every recommendation after that gets better.

Step 2: Favorite Generously

See the heart on every listing? Use it. A lot.

On most booking sites, saving a place is just a bookmark. On Stays, a favorite is more like hitting follow. Once you favorite a stay, you'll see its new Offers, Giveaways, and photos in your feed as they happen.

This matters more than it sounds like it should. On a typical booking platform, the second you type in your dates, every stay that's booked disappears. That incredible treehouse you would have loved? You never even see it. On Stays, a great stay is worth knowing about whether or not it's open the weekend you happened to search. Favorite it now, and you'll be first to know when the right opportunity comes along.

A few things worth knowing:

• The bell on each favorite controls emails for that one stay. Crank it up for your bucket-list places and mute the ones you're only casually curious about.
• Favoriting tells the host someone's interested. They see a first name at most, and they can't contact you directly. What they can do is send you a private Invite with a special offer (more on that in Step 6).
• There's no limit. Favorite the dream stays, the realistic ones, and the "maybe for our anniversary" ones. It costs nothing.

Step 3: Organize Your Favorites into Trips

Once you've got a handful of favorites, they can start to feel like a junk drawer. That's what Trips are for.

A Trip is just a named group of favorites. A few examples of how people use them:

• "Fall Color Tour 2026"
• "Mom's 60th"
• "Ski weekend with the guys"
• "Someday, when the kids are older"

Create a Trip, toss in the stays you're considering, and you've got your shortlist in one place instead of scattered across six browser tabs and a group text. Deleting a Trip never deletes the favorites inside it, so there's no harm in making a bunch of them.

Step 4: Treat Your Feed Like a Deal Radar

This is where the setup starts paying you back.

Your feed is a running stream of what's happening with the stays you favorite and the regions you follow. New Offers. Live Giveaways. Fresh photos. New stays that just joined in your regions. Each item even tells you why it's there ("Because you favorited this stay," "Because you follow the Midwest").

Save the Offers you like

Offers are deals posted directly by hosts. Things like:

• "10% off direct bookings"
• "Book 2 nights, get a 3rd free"
• "Free early check-in on weekday stays"

See one you like? Hit the bookmark and it lands in your Offers tab, where it'll sit until it expires. Your Offers tab also pulls in deals from your favorites and your followed regions, so it's worth a peek whenever you're starting to plan something.

How redeeming works

Every Offer comes with the host's own instructions: a code to use at checkout, a link to book through, or a simple "mention this Offer when you reach out." You redeem it with the host when you book. Stays doesn't process the booking or the discount. We just make sure you know the deal exists.

Step 5: Enter the Giveaways (Seriously, It's One Click)

Hosts on Stays regularly give away free stays. Real ones, usually one to three nights at the actual property.

When a Giveaway is live, it shows up at the top of your feed and on your Giveaways tab. Open it, read what the prize includes, and click Enter. That's it. Not open yet? Tap Remind me and we'll let you know when it is.

A few honest notes:

• It's free to enter. No purchase or membership is ever required to enter or win.
• Read the Giveaway Page. It spells out the prize, the dates, and who's eligible (U.S. residents, 18 and up). The full Official Rules are linked there too.
• There isn't always one running. Check back, or leave your Giveaway emails on.

Step 6: Say Yes to Invites (or Don't. Your Call.)

This one is unique to Stays, and it's one of our favorite features.

When you view or favorite a stay, the host can see that someone is interested. They see a first name at most. From there, they can send you a private Invite: a personal note plus a special offer that isn't on their public listing.

Think of it like a shop owner noticing you've walked past the window three times and stepping outside to say, "Hey, I can do a little better on that if you're interested." Except here, you stay anonymous until you decide otherwise.

How it plays out:

1. An Invite lands on your Invites tab (and in your email, if you allow it).
2. You open it, read the note, and see the offer.
3. You choose I'm interested or Not interested.
4. If you're interested, you get the host's instructions for redeeming it.

Every Invite is open for 7 days, so don't let a good one sit. On the free plan you can receive 3 Invites every 30 days. Anything past that waits in a queue instead of disappearing.

Not into it? Turn Invites off entirely in Traveler Settings and no host can reach you. You're in control either way.

Step 7: Let Stays AI Do the Legwork

Stays AI is the assistant built into Stays. It searches our curated directory, and it knows your favorites, your Trips, and the current Offers.

So instead of clicking through filters, you can just ask:

• "Find pet-friendly A-frames with a hot tub in the Northeast."
• "Which stays in my Fall Color Tour trip have Offers right now?"
• "Compare my shortlist. Which one's best for a group of six?"
• "Are there any Giveaways I can enter?"

It's like having a friend who's already read every listing and remembers all of them. One thing it won't do is book anything for you. Stays AI never books, holds, or prices a stay. It points you to the host's booking options and gets out of the way.

Want the full walkthrough? Read Planning a Trip with Stays AI.

Step 8: Book Wherever Makes the Most Sense

You found the stay. Now for the part where Stays is a little different from everyone else.

Scroll down any Listing Page and you'll find the booking options: every place the host lets you book that property. That might be their own direct booking site, Airbnb, Vrbo, or all three, side by side.

How to choose:

• Look for the "Best Value" tag. Hosts can mark the option that costs you the least. It's usually their direct booking site.
• Compare the final price, not the nightly rate. Fees vary a lot from one platform to the next, so click through and look at the total.
• Check for an Offer first. A lot of Offers only apply on one booking channel.
• Go with what you're comfortable with. If you've got years of history and trust with one platform, there's nothing wrong with booking there. The choice is yours, and that's the whole point.

New to booking direct? Our complete guide to direct booking covers how it works and how to make sure a site is legit before you pay.

A Few Extra Tips

Follow the stays you love on social

Every Listing Page links the host's social accounts. Following them on Instagram is a great way to see the place in different seasons and catch last-minute openings.

Look for the "More from Host" links

Some hosts plug a cancellation waitlist, a newsletter, or gift cards right on their Listing Page. If it's a stay you really want, get on that list.

Check your Invite and notification settings once

Five minutes in Traveler Settings saves you from either missing a great deal or getting more email than you want. Set it the way you like and forget about it.

Come back when the seasons change

Hosts rotate their Offers seasonally. The stay with nothing going on in July might have a great deal posted for November.

The Short Version

If you only remember three things:

1. Set your preferences and follow a region or two. It takes two minutes.
2. Favorite every stay that catches your eye. That's what fills your feed with Offers, Giveaways, and Invites.
3. Compare your booking options before you pay. The best deal isn't always where you'd expect.

Do those three things and Stays stops being a website you visited once. It becomes the place your next great trip quietly comes together.

Keep Reading

• Is Stays Premium Worth It?
• Planning a Trip with Stays AI
• Stays vs Airbnb: Different Tools for Different Purposes
• Direct Booking for Vacation Rentals: The Complete Guide