Build a $50,000 Airbnb Waitlist (Hack)

If you're building a new Airbnb or hotel, this is for you.

Today, you'll learn how to make money before someone clicks "book now" by selling pre-booking vouchers.

How pre-booking vouchers work is simple:

• Sell a voucher for $20-$40.

• Let people know how much they will save on a future booking by buying the voucher. (I.e. spend $20 now, save $200 when we open).

• Run Meta Ads at $600 per month to sell the $20-$40 offer.

Core idea: Get paid for building a waitlist.

Let me walk you through this hack:

Get paid for building a waitlist

Before pre-booking vouchers, there were two ways to capture attention for a new stay.

1. Invest in building an Instagram following or email list.

2. Open for bookings with nothing but good ol' fashioned hope and grit.

Both options are risky.

There's another way:

How to sell pre-booking vouchers and make $50,000 before opening

1) Sell a voucher for $20-$40

First, you'll need to build a webpage for people to buy this. Keep it simple, but make sure to mention these key things:

• Who this stay is perfect for (couples).

• Where it's located.

• What it's going to look like (use early photos or renderings).

• When it's going to open (spring 2026).

The transaction should take 5-10 seconds to complete.

• Click

• Enter information

• Buy

Use Stripe to accept payments. Stripe can integrate with almost every website software that has the ability to sell. I like:

• Squarespace

• Wix

• Shopify

2) Build the offer

Next, you need to give people a reason to spend $20-$40 now for a future reward.

This is what they want:

• Early access

• Future savings

Here's what you could say for each benefit:

Early access:

• Be the first to know when we open

• Book two weeks before everyone else

• Be the first to know when we open and get the dates you want

Save money:

• Spend $20 now, save $200 when you book.

• Spend $20 now, save 20% during the first year.

That's it! Super simple offer.

3) Run Meta Ads

Run Meta Ads at $600 per month to sell the $20-$40 offer. Use renderings or early videos as the ads.

In a perfect world, you want to break even.

Example: $600 / month in ad spend should get you $600 / month in pre-booking voucher sales.

Even better, you might become profitable. We are.

Right now, we're making ~$1,000 for every $600 we spend.

In that case, open up the ads budget. Spend as much as you can while breaking even or better.

Follow this timeline, build a $50,000 waitlist

• Start this strategy ~6 months from your opening date.

• Launch Meta ads at $20 per day.

• Try to break even in the first month.

• Then, increase ad spend by 20% every 7-14 days.

This is a much better way to build a waitlist for your new hotel or Airbnb.

That's all for today. I'll see you in the next article.

Note: I learned this strategy from Nick Purslow. Watch our interview to learn more about pre-booking vouchers.

P.S. Hope you had a great 4th. The boat ran out of gas so we had to paddle and swim-tow the boat back. I was the swimmer. Shoulders still hurt.

Before you go

I spend about 10 hours writing this newsletter each week. The rest of my time is spent running Lodge Social.

Our marketing team will help you get more guests to like, share and book.

Work with me and my team here.

Links you might like:

1. Is glamping a trend? What I learned… (YouTube)

2. (Q2 2025 Recap) 90 days inside Lodge Social (The Lodge Social)

3. Largest Airbnb markets in the US (AirDNA)

4. How to 10x your marketing in 2hrs per day (LinkedIn)

5. Love this newsletter? Ask me anything (SURVEY)