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Contractors · 7 min read
Whether it's a crew of three for a fortnight or a dozen people for a season, getting accommodation right keeps a job on schedule. Get it wrong and you feel it every day: late starts because the vans are parked three streets away, tired people because four of them shared two rooms, and an expenses tangle at the end because bookings went on whoever's card was handy. This checklist walks through what to sort out before you book anything, in the order it's worth thinking about it.
By Offer2Stay · Updated October 2026
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Get offers for your crewThe most common reason crew bookings go wrong is that nobody wrote down what was actually needed. Someone searches for 'accommodation near the site', finds something that looks fine, and only discovers on arrival that it sleeps six in four beds or has one parking space.
Spend ten minutes writing a short brief first. It doesn't need to be formal — a few lines in an email or a note on your phone is enough. It becomes the yardstick you measure every option against, and it's exactly what you'll paste into a request if you let hosts come to you.
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Tip: Measure distance to site in drive time at the hour the crew actually leaves, not in miles on a map.
A holiday guest and a contractor want very different things from the same house. A family on holiday will forgive a small kitchen for a sea view. A crew working ten-hour days won't, because they're cooking every night, washing work clothes every couple of days and getting up before it's light.
Go through the list below for every property you consider. If a listing doesn't make one of these clear, message the host and ask — it's far easier to find out now than on a Monday morning.
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On a short job almost anything will do. On a job that runs for weeks, the accommodation becomes the crew's home, and that changes what matters. A living room where people can actually sit together, a table big enough for everyone to eat at, and a second bathroom for the morning rush all make a noticeable difference to how rested and settled people are.
It's worth asking the crew, especially on longer jobs. People who have been asked what matters to them tend to be more forgiving when something isn't perfect — and they'll often point out something you hadn't thought of, like a nearby gym or a supermarket that's open late.
Nightly rates are a poor way to compare accommodation for a crew. What you actually want to know is the full cost of housing everyone for the whole job — every night, every person, with cleaning and fees included. Once you add up meals, parking and laundry, the option with the lowest headline price isn't always the cheapest.
Here's how the main options usually compare for a crew. It's a rough guide — the right answer depends on the job, the location and the team.
| Whole house | Hotel rooms | Serviced apartments | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitchen | Yes — the crew can cook | Usually not | Usually yes |
| Shared space | Living room and dining table | None | Limited |
| Parking for vans | Varies — check | Often limited or charged | Varies, often city-centre |
| Washing machine | Usually | Rarely | Sometimes |
| Best for | Crews staying a week or more | One or two nights | Individuals or pairs in towns |
Before the first booking, agree who books, which card or account the bookings go on, and what documents you need afterwards. Bookings made on someone's personal card and claimed back later are the single biggest cause of accommodation paperwork headaches.
Make sure you'll get a clear invoice with the property, dates, total and your company details on it, and put a job number or site name on every booking so the cost lands against the right job. Offer2Stay supports invoicing for contractor stays, and companies with regular bookings can apply for a trade account, which sets the team up with rules on one account.
Tip: If tax or VAT treatment matters for the job, ask your accountant before a long contract starts rather than at year end.
Jobs rarely run exactly to plan. The crew grows for a fortnight, the finish date slips, or the work wraps up early. Before you accept any booking, ask the host what happens if you need to extend, and how much notice you'd need to give to leave early. Agree how extra nights will be priced while everyone is relaxed, rather than in a hurry later.
If you're not sure how long you'll need, it's often sensible to book the nights you're certain of and talk to the host about extending once you know more. It's much easier to extend a stay that's working than to move a crew mid-job.
Most crew booking problems come from the same handful of mistakes. The first is booking on bed count alone. A listing that 'sleeps eight' might do it with two double beds, a sofa bed and a bunk room — fine for a family, not for eight adults working long days. Always check how the beds are set up.
The second is ignoring the commute. A cheaper home further out looks like a saving until you add up the extra driving at both ends of every day. Over a few weeks that's a lot of working time and fuel.
The third is leaving the paperwork until afterwards. If you don't agree who books, how it's paid for and what invoice you need before the first booking, you'll spend far longer sorting it out later. And the fourth is not planning for change: assuming the dates and crew size are fixed when, on most jobs, at least one of them will move. Asking the host about extensions up front costs nothing and can save a stressful scramble.
Rather than ringing round or scrolling through dozens of listings, you can post one request on Offer2Stay with the site area, dates, crew size and budget — essentially the brief from step one. Hosts with suitable homes nearby can see it and send you a private offer, and you compare them in one place.
Posting is free, there are no guest booking fees, and you only pay when a host says yes. If you've already found a home you like, you can also send an offer on it directly: hosts set the lowest price they'll accept, so an offer at or above it books straight away.
Yes. Say so in your request — many hosts offer weekday-only stays for crews, because midweek nights are often the hardest for them to fill.
Yes. Offer2Stay supports invoicing for contractor bookings, and regular bookers can apply for a trade account.
Ask the host about extending before you accept, and agree how extra nights will be priced.
It's the most helpful thing you can do for rest, especially on longer jobs. If rooms must be shared, twin rooms are much better than shared beds.
Yes. Posting is free and you only pay when a host says yes to a price.
Find your stay. Let hosts make the offer.
Name your price for UK stays. Guests post what they need; hosts send private offers around the calendars they already run on Airbnb and Booking.com.