Accommodation

Book Hotels & Hostels in Argentina Online

Accommodation in Argentina runs the gamut — from Patagonian mountain huts to luxury five-star hotels such as the famed Llao Llao Hotel and old-world urban oasises such as Alvear Palace and Faena in Buenos Aires.

Booking your Argentina accommodation in advance online is a good idea to get some peace of mind knowing you have a warm bed waiting for you after a long flight, boat or bus ride.

In smaller towns in the Argentina, some places aren’t open year-round, close for siesta or get overbooked for special events, such as the yearly Gaucho Festival in San Antonio de Areco.

When this happens, travelers can show up at a destination and find nobody around or no rooms available.

That is how the owner of this blog ended up sleeping in a nice family’s scary spider-filled garage one night in Cafayate!

Another advantage to booking online is that participating hotels aren’t permitted to charge less in person than what the customer pays online, so you know you are getting the best price.

As of 2022, if you purchase accommodation online in Argentina with a credit card, you will receive a refund of the 21% sales tax automatically.

If you don’t book online, the hotel may include the taxes and you will have to request a refund retroactively on your way out at the airport.

But now that the Blue Dollar is back, it’s a cash economy again and paying in pesos cash will save a lot of money.

The problem is that most accommodations require some sort of deposit to make a reservation in the first place.

Because of the Blue Dollar, it’s best to pay as much of the bill as possible in cash.

The best way to manage this now is to search for accommodation online, pay an initial booking deposit and reservation and then settle the rest of your bill in cash.

the interior of a classic Buenos Aires hotel

—> See some of our picks for places to stay in Buenos Aires

Using Apartment Sharing Services in Argentina

Get a Free AirBnB travel credit when you sign up


Airbnb is increasingly popular in Argentina, particularly Buenos Aires.

‘Slow travelers’ looking to settle in somewhere for a bit may find that Airbnb provides a value for longer says.

The reason is because it is notoriously difficult for foreigners to rent apartments for longer stays in Argentina due to antiquated property laws that require a renter to already have a deed to a local property to secure a lease.

Argentina’s quirky rental laws means that furnished rentals in the normal local market for travelers tend to be overpriced and agents take full advantage by extracting large fees. Airbnb alleviates that problem.

Airbnb enables travelers to cut out the local middle-man, so that they can rent directly from owners, making the local short-term rental market more competitive and accessible to travelers.

On the other hand, as with complaints with Uber, people aren’t too thrilled about the sharing platform’s effect on the normal rental market for locals.

That means you can find a house with a pool for a few friends or a cool loft in San Telmo for better prices than a traditional hotel.

Renting an actual apartment allows visitors to ‘live like a local’ and enjoy all the city has to offer.

This means visitors can rent a condo with a great view in Palermo for a month that has a gym and pool and do wine tastings and excursions in their free time.

The biggest issue with Airbnb for travelers is that it is more of a gamble.

Something going wrong — such as a last minute cancellation right after you land — can leave you high and dry.

Then you begin a journey of dealing with their customer services bots for a resolution, a scenario which can make for a bitter Airbnb user real quick.

Having a problem in a foreign country where you don’t speak the same language as the host isn’t the ideal scenario.

Make sure to document everything and for any Airbnb related problems.

The best Airbnb Customer too-free Service number is +1-844-234-2500.

And if you are traveling for a while, it’s always worthwhile to think about renting out your apartment for Airbnb income while away — more medialunas and Malbec.

This book by blogger and Airbnb pro, Jason Ribbers can help learn the ropes.

Booking Online & the Blue Dollar

As noted above you automatically get the 21% VAT tax removed when you book your stay online.

But now that the Blue Dollar has returned, guests who want to save money should pay what they are required to online, and then try to arrange to pay the rest of their stay in cash.

This is one advantage of using traditional online booking engines over Airbnb — unlike Airbnb owners they can’t request the bill be paid in dollars.

When paying for accommodation it gets more complicated because the hotel may require guests paying in cash to pay the 21% VAT (which is waived when booking online).

So if paying cash using the Blue Dollar rate, accommodation will end up being approximately 30% less expensive (as per early 2022 exchange rates) because you get double your money using the Blue Dollar, but have to pay the 21% tax.

Booking

The hotel and hostel metasearch engines we use on this website only have verified reviews (unlike pages such as Trip Advisor, where anyone can leave a review).

This means that you can trust that the customer ratings are by real customers — not friends doing a favor, nor the complaints lodged by the business owners bitter enemies.

Booking is a trusted hotel booking engine founded as a start-up in the Netherlands, now part of the Priceline travel group.

They work with not only chain hotels, but many smaller family hotels, B&B’s, guest houses and even boats with sleeping facilities.

One of the reasons people like to book with this company is because they don’t have any reservation fees, have great rates, instant confirmation and cancelling reservations is easy.



Hotels Combined

Hotels Combined is the world’s largest hotel metasearch engine with a great selection of accommodations in South America that includes hotels, resorts, apart-hotels and cabins throughout Argentina.

Just like with the other hotel booking engines, you get the 21% VAT tax off if you book online.

In addition, sometimes you’re able to book a hotel and pay on cash on arrival– this is a great way to avoid paying with a credit card and getting heavily taxed, as you can just pay with money exchanged at the blue dollar rate.

Should You Get Travel Insurance for Argentina?’

Expedia in Argentina

Expedia is a travel fare aggregator and meta search engine that allows travelers to book flights and hotels.

It was named to Fortune magazine’s ‘Most Admired Internet company’s’ list, although we’d give it mixed reviews, sometimes the deals are good though.

Hostels & Hospitality Communities

For those on a budget, nothing beats a hostel hopping.

Hostelworld is the world’s largest hostel search engine and pretty much the only option for specifically booking hostels online.

Hotellook, by the creators of budget airlines search engine, Jetrader is a hotel search engine that includes hotels, hostels as well as small apartments and guesthouses that don’t appear in larger search engines.

Some of the best hostels are Milhouse Hostel, which is a well-oiled machine as the family that runs it has been at it a long time.

Couchsurfing used to be fairly active for events and meetups in a few cities of Argentina.

It wasn’t used as much for couchsurfing as in some other countries, because a lot of young people live with their parents.

When the Couchsurfing platform became a paid service it lost many users and its grassroots vibe, but there are still some people using it and Couchsurfing communities on Facebook and Reddit.

There are similar accommodation share platforms travelers can try such as BeWelcome, TrustRoots and the non-profit, Couchers but with the small number of users on these platforms, it can be hard to screen out bad actors.

Read about places we like to stay:

Bariloche
Buenos Aires
Cachi
Cafayate
Iguazú
Mendoza

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