Often my wife and I stay in hotels over the December holidays while visiting family. There’s just not enough room in the house for everyone. But hotels are not cheap! And while we’ve tried using hotel points to cover the cost in the past, it’s a bit tricky and not the best use of earned miles/points. So I was excited this year to find a home exchange for a whole week around Christmas.
Instead of a hotel room we’re enjoying a 2 bedroom 2 bathroom house. It’s so big we haven’t used half of it. We enjoying free laundry and cooking most of our meals at home (saving more money!). And the comfortable desks and fast wifi are very useful for some holiday work catchup.
The house is a short drive from the ocean and some fun tide pools.
This home exchange was done using the LoveHomeSwap system of swap points. I found a family who already had holiday travel plans and was leaving their house empty so they didn’t mind if we used it for the week. Coincidentally another couple from San Diego is staying in our house using GuestToGuest points this same week.
Because LoveHomeSwap offers Home Exchange insurance to hosts and my host in this house decided to opt in I did have to pay a small fee for the swap. The total cost for a week of lodging will be $108 (this is the 10% fee charged by LHS for providing about $1000 in swap insurance coverage for the host). Overall a pretty good deal!