Recently, I managed to pill one of the Airbnb hosts—it wasn't easy, but it was so worth it because I could come back anytime and pay in sats now.

The Art of Using Airbnb

As many of you might already know, I'm a nomad, and I usually book accommodations on Airbnb when I'm out exploring. And here is one of my hacks: I only book the first 1-2 days of the trip. If I like the place, I extend; if I don't like it, I find a new place. I like being flexible and definitely don't want to be stuck at somewhere I don't enjoy.

Another hack is I always ask for ways to contact the hosts outside of Airbnb after I pay for the initial days and keep the good hosts' contacts. If I happen to go back to that place, then I just text them and say I would like to come back and stay again, and then we discuss how the payment works between us; Airbnb already served its purpose of connecting, but after we are connected, it has done its job and got paid for that—everything that happens next is private, and nobody needs to know anything, but many people don't understand the meaning of public and private...

My Pilling Experience

I returned to somewhere I had stayed before lately, and all I did was message the host, reserve the time and agree on the price. Then, as I mentioned here, I don't have much fiat with me, so I used the same strategy again—I asked the host if I could pay in Bitcoin.

At first, he said no because the house is his parents and they are old and don't quite understand Bitcoin, blah blah, and would prefer cash. ( The first ask failed. ) But after a week, I decided to extend the stay, and I just asked again and said I don't have enough Lira with me, how about I pay you in Bitcoin? He still said no and didn't mind waiting for me to exchange. ( The second ask failed. )

After that week, I decided to extend for two more days due to weather reasons, so I asked again, do you want to try accepting Bitcoin? All it takes is two minutes, and so much easier! Actually, during that entire week, I learned something interesting, and I saw my opportunity — there is a new Airbnb policy in Turkey. Basically, anyone who wants to continue doing Airbnb needs to apply for a license and pay extra tax, and dat is my chance! And he probably doesn't want to bother with that, so I just said Bitcoin easily solved this problem, and you can even accept it with other old guests, and not to mention the inflation! He was intrigued, so I guided him to download Blink and showed him how to send and receive, and voila! Now, I can pay in sats whenever I come back. 👀

But something interesting I've noticed is whenever I pill someone new, they always ask how they can sell it back to fiat, and then I would just say why would you even want to sell the best money?! The goal is to use them directly like what I'm doing now. But okay, I'm fine showing them how to exchange with fiat too, they are free to do whatever they want with their money, after all...

Easy Pilling Strategy

  • Try with a simple ASK.
  • Keep trying and be patient, but only for the ones who are worth it,  especially those you need to contact from time to time.
  • Spot the pain points of others and show how Bitcoin can help with that.

Did you learn any new hacks on pilling others? 🤓