How to choose where to stay with a group of friends (a 5-step method)

Choosing where to stay with a group of friends should take an evening. In practice it takes three weeks, forty links and one friend who quietly gives up and says "book whatever". The problem isn't the group — it's that nobody gave the decision a process. Here is one that works, in five steps, and most of them take minutes.

Step 1: Lock the basics before anyone shares a link

A link shared before the group agrees on dates is a link shared twice. So settle three things first: the dates (or at least the weekend), the budget per person per night — say it out loud, because everyone is silently assuming a different number — and the rough area. City centre or countryside, near the slopes or near the station. Ten minutes of this saves a week of comparing places half the group could never say yes to.

Step 2: Collect the links in one place, not in the chat

The group chat is where links go to be scrolled past. Whether it's a hotel on Booking.com, an apartment on Airbnb or a house on Vrbo, a link dropped at 23:40 is unread by 9:00. Put every option in one shared place instead — a note, a spreadsheet, or a tool built for it — so the pile is visible, comparable, and nobody's find gets buried under Tuesday's memes. One rule keeps it honest: if it's not in the list, it's not in the running.

Step 3: Cut the pile down to real contenders

Now be slightly ruthless. Anything over budget, out of the area, or too small for the whole group goes — it was never really an option, it just looked nice. What's left is your shortlist, and it should be small: four to eight real contenders is plenty. A shortlist of fifteen is just the group chat with a nicer haircut.

Step 4: Vote head-to-head, not with a poll

Here's where most groups reach for a poll, and polls are exactly how the loudest opinion wins. Everyone can see the count, so votes pile onto whatever is already ahead, and the quiet half of the group never really weighs in. Head-to-head voting fixes this. Show two stays side by side — this one or that one — and even your least opinionated friend can answer honestly. A few quick rounds and a genuine group favourite emerges instead of a socially convenient one. This is what we built VoteStay for — it launched this July, it's free with no signup: one person starts a party, shares a six-letter code in the chat, everyone pastes their links and votes them head-to-head until a leaderboard shows the winner. You can read how the voting works, but honestly, it's hot-or-not for holiday homes.

Step 5: Book the winner the same day

The moment there's a visible winner, book it. Group accommodation has a short shelf life — places that sleep eight go first — and every day between "we've decided" and "it's booked" is a day for someone to reopen the debate. A winner the whole group watched win gives the person with the card all the cover they need. Pay, drop the confirmation in the chat, and enjoy being the group that decided in one evening.

What if the group is split?

It happens: two stays, two camps. Don't relitigate — look at the gap. If the vote was close, either option makes the group happy, so let whoever is actually booking break the tie. If one place won clearly, the split was noisier than it was real. And if someone truly can't live with the winner, that's useful information you'd never have gotten from a poll — better to hear it now than at check-in.