u/Gingerbutt81

When we first joined our approval rate on requests was not great. Over time we figured out that a detailed home description, plenty of photos, and a personal bio that shows you are a real person makes a big difference. Also, being open to doing a call with the host first has helped us in a couple of instances. Hosts want to know who is staying in their home.

I will say sometimes hosts just don't respond. This is definitely just a part of Kindred...

Would love to hear what has worked for others. Any specific changes that made a noticeable difference?

For me it's Japan. I'd love to stay in a traditional home in Kyoto, walk to temples in the morning, and actually feel like I live there for a week rather than just passing through as a tourist. Kindred has usually made my experience feel more authentic which I love!

Drop your dream destination in the comments.

Curious what you think Brissett’s value is rn in a 12 team SF. I can’t get any bites on a 27 or 28 2nd so feel like I just have to hold at this point.

The over-preparer

Stressing for days before guests arrive, deep cleaning every corner, losing sleep over whether the spare key situation is airtight, etc. We’ve been guilty of this. It’s exhausting and unsustainable.

The good news is Kindred takes a lot of things off your plate. Professional cleaning is handled before and after every stay. You don’t need to strip beds or scrub bathrooms. That alone eliminates most of the stress if you let it.

The too lax host

On the other end, some hosts treat it like guests will just figure it out. No instructions for appliances, unclear key logistics, no heads up about quirks in the home. This is where guest experiences go bad.

Where we’ve landed

A simple one page note covers the essentials: how to get in, wifi password, any appliance quirks, where things are, and who to contact if something goes wrong. That’s it. Takes 20 minutes to put together once and you reuse it every time.

For keys, Kindred gives you two solid options most people don’t know about. They cover a Keynest subscription, which lets guests pick up a key from a nearby participating location like a local shop, no coordinating arrival times needed. They also give you the option of sending a lockbox if you prefer that route. We use Keynest and it has been a game changer.

The goal is a guest who feels taken care of without you feeling like you’ve just prepped an Airbnb rental.
How do you all approach it? What’s on your must-do list before guests arrive?

I've spoken with a couple of families recently who tried Kindred once and walked away. Their two main complaints were that prepping the home for guests felt like too much work, and they just weren't comfortable with the idea of strangers in their home.

I get it. Those are real concerns and I'd be lying if I said the thought never crossed our minds either.

But for us the professional cleaning on both ends took a lot of the prep stress away, and over time the vetting process gave us more confidence in who was staying with us.

Curious if anyone else started out feeling this way and eventually came around. What changed your mind? And for those who did walk away, was there anything that could have made you stay?

Close friends paid over $10K for LuxNomads, which is run by Michelle Garabito and were promised a dedicated Success Manager, real estate support, community access, and hands-on help through the full Spain relocation process (visa, padron, TIE, etc.).

What they actually got:

• Padron appointment booked at the wrong address. Anyone who's dealt with Spanish bureaucracy knows that's not a small mistake.
• The "private community" of fellow relocators had zero events. Completely dead.
• The real estate agent they were connected with did almost nothing except make calls on their behalf.

They ended up figuring most of it out themselves despite paying for what was marketed as concierge-level support. LuxNomads simply outsourced all of the services they offered and didn't seem to be genuinely helpful with any of the process.

Curious if anyone here has used them and this matches your experience as well. Also interested in what people would actually recommend for Americans relocating to Spain who want some hand-holding through the process without getting burned on fees. Gestoria route? Something else? My wife and I used an individual gestor and real estate agency that were very helpful for a fraction of the cost.

For us it was a couple of days, which felt reasonable, and within a week of being approved Kindred sent out a professional photographer to shoot our place at no cost. But I've heard approval time varies quite a bit depending on your application and home listing.

Curious how long others waited and whether there was anything you did that seemed to speed up the process.

If you're still on the fence, feel free to read through the community to get a feel for real user experiences. And if you have questions or need a referral code for 5 free nights, just DM me.

We’re US expats living in Valencia and just went through a bit of a stressful padrón renewal experience that I wanted to share and get some community input on.

Our original padrón registration date was April 11, 2024, meaning we needed to renew by April 11, 2026. We submitted our renovación de personas extranjeras online through the Valencia sede electrónica on March 12. My wife submitted hers on March 22.

Neither of us received any confirmation or approval for over 6 weeks. We eventually went in person on April 29 and finally got both renewals officially processed. The problem is the official renewal date on our certificates shows April 29. This is 18 days after our original registration anniversary.

We have solid documentation showing we submitted on time so the delay was clearly on the ayuntamiento’s side. But I’m wondering if that April 29 date could cause any complications when we go to renew our TIE cards.

Has anyone here experienced pushback from immigration when there’s a gap between your padrón expiry date and the official renewal date? Were you able to resolve it with proof of your original submission? Any advice from people who’ve navigated this would be really appreciated.

My wife and I as well as two others have a destination wedding in Zanzibar in July. We’re coming from Dublin.

The route to Zanzibar got cancelled and received a refund because British had no other flights to get us there. We still have return flights through Oman Air and Qatar.

We can rebook but it will have to be with two airlines and 2 reservations…so basically, we have a lot of opportunities to have some portion of our trip canceled because of the war.

Any advice you can give? Anyone have flights through Oman, Qatar or World 2 Fly being cancelled in July? My absolute worst case scenario is getting stranded in Zanzibar or Oman.

Ours was in Malta. A 4 story home filled with trinkets and decorations collected from all over the world, and a rooftop where you could watch the sunset over the city. It was such a unique, memorable stay that we never would have found on Airbnb or a hotel booking site. That’s the kind of experience that keeps us coming back to Kindred.

Would love to hear yours. Drop the location and what made it special.

New to Kindred? DM me for a referral code and 5 free nights.

I just finished my A2 exam. I’m really relieved to be done with it to be honest.

I did much better on the speaking than I thought I would. I was really nervous but think I did well.

One thing I am nervous about is I switched the answers in the answer sheet for tarea 2 and 3 for the listening portion. I noticed it going into tarea 4 so I used the 30 seconds you have to read the answers to erase and change all of the answers on the answer sheet. This left me behind when tarea 4 started as well. I’m really glad I caught the mistake and think I still did well but can’t help but think maybe I messed things up a lot because of this.

How is everyone else feeling? Good luck today!!

My wife and I have been on Kindred for about a year now, with over 50 nights hosted and booked. We're expats living in Valencia, Spain, and home swapping has become a real part of how we travel. Here's the unfiltered version of how it's gone.

It’s different than booking an Airbnb

I came in treating it like a standard booking platform. Specific dates, specific cities, specific requirements. If you approach Kindred like Airbnb, you'll likely get frustrated. It takes some patience and a bit more work than popping in dates to book something immediately.

You will likely interact with the host through a few messages before you are approved to stay. I don’t mind it because I like to get a feel for who will be staying in my home as well.

What Actually Works

Flexibility is everything. Using Kindred without locking in rigid dates and locations opened things up for me and started finding a lot more stays. Kindred rewards members who can adapt. If you can say "sometime in May" instead of "May 14 to 18," you're going to have a much easier time.

The easiest approach we've found: if you're open to traveling anywhere, browse homes you love and book one. Then plan your trip around the Kindred you booked. It sounds backwards but it works really well and takes a lot of the frustration out of the process of the booking process.

If you already have a trip planned and need a specific city and dates, it gets harder. What we do in that case is check the app daily to see if something new has popped up, then request to book quickly before someone else does. It takes patience but it does work more often than not.

In these situations, we always also have a backup plan. We will book something for our stay elsewhere that has free cancellation. Then, if we find a Kindred, we will cancel the existing reservation. We just did this for a 4 night stay in Dublin. It saved us $1,200!

Cleaning (This Is Huge for Us)

This doesn't get talked about enough. My wife and I both work while we travel, so we genuinely do not have time to strip beds, deep clean, and prep a home before we leave, whether that's our own place or someone else's. The fact that professional cleaning is included on both ends has been a game changer for us. It's one of the main reasons we've stayed on the platform as long as we have.

That said, it hasn't been perfect. We had one experience where the cleaning at our home was subpar and didn't meet the standard we expected. It was disappointing, but Kindred's support team was responsive about it. Worth knowing going in that the quality can vary.

The Numbers After One Year

We've saved approximately $5,500 through Kindred over the past year. That's money that would have otherwise gone to hotels or Airbnbs. This is honestly what keeps us coming back despite it taking a bit more work than simply booking elsewhere.

Where I'm At Now

We've hosted a lot and built up a decent credit balance, but finding stays for trips we already have planned is still the hardest part of using this platform. It's a real supply and demand issue and something I'd like to see improve. The daily check-in habit helps, but it's not ideal for everyone.

Still, the value when it works is genuinely hard to argue with. Staying in real homes, in real neighborhoods, at a fraction of what hotels or Airbnbs would cost, adds up fast over a year.

For Anyone Curious About Trying It

If you've been on the fence, I have a referral code that gets you 5 free nights immediately after approval and helps move your application along faster. Just DM me and I'll send it over.

Happy to answer questions in the comments too.

TLDR: After a year and 50+ nights, we've saved around $5,500 through Kindred. Book a home you love first, then plan the trip around it. The included cleaning is a standout perk, especially if you work while you travel. It's not flawless, but for frequent travelers who can adapt, the value is real. DM me for a referral code and 5 free nights to get started.