After Virgin America partnered with Airbnb—allowing users to earn Virgin miles from Airbnb stays and hosting—big sis Delta couldn’t resist getting Airbnb to play both sides too. Now, if you book an Airbnb stay through Delta, you can earn 1x Delta SkyMiles per dollar spent. New users can also get extra bonuses. In addition, new hosts can earn up to 25,000 miles. That said, Delta miles are still generally considered a weak currency overall, even though there have been signs of improvement since last year. Meanwhile, Virgin America miles will become Alaska miles and increase in value, so we only recommend this for people who know how to get solid value out of Delta’s weaker miles.
Promotion Details
Earn Miles on Stays
Book Airbnb through this link and earn 1 Delta SkyMile per dollar spent.
New Airbnb Users
Register through this link and get $25 off your first stay of $75 or more, issued in the form of a discount code. In addition,
- Earn 500 Delta miles after your first stay of $75 or more; or
- Earn 1,000 Delta miles after your first stay of $150 or more.
New Airbnb Hosts
Register to become an Airbnb host through this link by October 31, and you can earn:
- 2,500 Delta miles after reaching $250 in cumulative hosting revenue; and
- another 7,500 Delta miles after reaching $1,000 in cumulative hosting revenue; and
- another 15,000 Delta miles after reaching $2,500 in cumulative hosting revenue.
These three bonuses are stackable, for a total of up to 25,000 Delta miles.
Non-green-card holders and non-citizens who host on Airbnb will receive a 1099-K, not the type of 1099 form used for self-employment or independent contractor income. Renting out your home as a nonimmigrant is legal, but you must not devote substantial labor to it yourself, such as providing breakfast or spending a lot of time cleaning every day. Therefore, for H1B holders (or other nonimmigrants) who want to host on Airbnb, we recommend hiring an outside cleaning company whenever possible, to avoid making immigration authorities think you are participating in the operation like a hotel employee. Would you stay at an Airbnb? Leave your thoughts in the comments.