The Offer
- Wealthsimple is offering a bonus of $400 when you become a new AirBnB host. Your listing must generate at least $500 excluding cleaning fees and taxes to trigger the bonus.
The Fine Print
- You must be a first-time host.
- You will qualify for the bonus once your listing generates $500 (excluding cleaning fees and taxes).
- The $400 bonus will be deposited into your Wealthsimple account within four weeks of your qualifying date.
- This offer is only valid for new listings in the US (excluding Miami and Hawaii) and Canada (excluding Toronto and Vancouver).
Our Verdict
A lot of you will already have Wealthsimple accounts from the Drop bonus. Wealthsimple is an investment app similar to Acorns, the $400 will be deposited into your account but I don’t see any reason why you won’t be able to withdraw it. Great deal if you’re wanting to host on AirBnB anyway, don’t think it’s otherwise worth doing. I think the standard referral bonus is like $100 and we’ve seen increased bonuses of $200 in the past. This is obviously much better than those.
E-mail went out from Wealthsimple today – Subj: Important update about your investment account
We are reaching out today to provide you with an important update regarding your Wealthsimple investment account. We would like to inform you that after careful consideration, we have made the decision to no longer provide investment advisory services in the US and will be transferring all existing accounts to Betterment over the coming months.
To help provide some clarity about what this means for you, we’ve included some more information below.
(Then it goes on about specifics for my account – which is a nice touch, as a lot of places would have just said contact us if you have questions)
My redemption code was accepted. We’ll see if it pays out.
any luck?
Haha great question – there’s no simple answer. I received my bonus from Wealthsimple actually, but I lost more money to Airbnb in the process. They suspected fraud and shut me down completely. I am waiting the results of an arbitration notice. The Airbnb customer service is fucked and worse than most banks. Think worse than Bank of America. The WS bonus made eating the airbnb money a little more palatable. If I win somehow, I will come out ahead. If not then I lose this round.
Can anyone report after they have done all the necessary steps if the bonus actually posts to their Wealth Simple account and if they are able to easily withdraw funds? Would really appreciate it! Thanks!
Just made an AirBNB account through the Wealthsimple link. Trying to get the booking part done most optimally. A few questions for those who may be more familiar with both the Wealthsimple side of this and the AirBNB referral schemes:
1) I got a notification stating this: “Introduce a friend to Airbnb and they’ll get $40 towards their first trip. You’ll get $20 in travel credit once they travel. Only for first time Airbnb users!” Not super interested in the travel credit for myself, and it appears thee $40 would just come off the top and not help me in any way. Is there a better referral offer (I’m referring myself here…)
2) Did the Wealthsimple offer track properly for someone who’s done it before? I clicked the link through the Wealthsimple site and the red “Get started” button to make my first account and listing. I’m sure I could appeal just fine but I’m also a bit paranoid and want to make sure I’m jumping through the hoops for an offer I’ll actually get.
3) Would anyone like to book my place? I’d reimburse you fully, of course, and leave a good review if you’re into that.
@ Will / Chuck / DoC
Can you please delete above’s post please.
“Great deal if you’re wanting to host on AirBnB anyway, don’t think it’s otherwise worth doing.”
Why do you say this, DoC?
Just seems like a lot of hassle to set up and get working. I didn’t realize there was no tax liability if renting less than 14 days a year though, so that might make it worth it.
Was trying to take advantage of this and the fees killed the deal –
$175 x 3 nights = $525
Service fee = $68
Occupancy Taxes = $36
Total = $629
This is just on the booking end, doesn’t include the host fee. Really cuts into the $400 that isn’t guaranteed.
thanks for doing the math, why do you think the $400 wouldn’t be guaranteed?
Try clicking through the link to get to Airbnb. The tracking of the offer is sketchy at best; I can’t find anything about Wealthsimple on the creation page.
I never fully count on getting a bonus. Some are easier to get than others, but have had a few times I’ve never received a sign up bonus of some sort.
Willing to book somebody’s listing for full expense reimbursement.
I have an account with many ratings.
Same here, would gladly deal with booking your listing in exchange for reimbursement. trevor dot caldwell at gmail dot com.
any luck with getting the bonus?
Curious if there’s a time limit on how long it takes you to get the $500. Don’t see one mentioned.
Doesn’t airbnb have give its own bonus for first time hosts in the form of a credit? If so does that stack with this?
Yeah, Doc, how does this fit in terms of best Airbnb sign up offers?
If only that was in the post…
“I think the standard referral bonus is like $100 and we’ve seen increased bonuses of $200 in the past”
Significantly better than normal
Asking a friend to do the favor of booking your over-priced listing for a night?
was thinking the same thing get someone to book my crap apartment for a night and reimburse?
How much fees/taxes/etc.. are taken out? Prolly $100 worth? So splitting 300 for a couple clicks isnt to bad
Good for some MS as well.
What kind of fees/taxes are we looking at here? Likely to be prohibitive when taking these into account, but I’d love to be proven wrong.
If you’re doing a referral scheme, you can do this without paying anything in taxes, so long as you keep your rental under 14 days in one calendar year. Little known IRS rule allows you to pay zero income taxes on rental income so long as you rent your place for 14 days or less in a calendar year.
So, one way I could see someone doing this is to do the following:
(1) Set up a listing at $100 a night. Make it a room in your house or something.
(2) Have someone you know book 5 nights or so to get to that $500 earned mark.
(3) Pay them back the money they spent on your place.
(4) Split the $400 bonus.
The money you “earn” from the Airbnb listing won’t be taxable so long as you rented out your place for less than 14 nights total in the calendar year, so no tax implications to worry about there.
Obviously, if you have local and state Airbnb taxes, that will impact it, but if you’re in a state/locality without that, this can work out very well.
2) Have someone you know…..
Not even necessary. Just go buy AirBNB gift cards and book it yourself.