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Travel fares · Serviced apartments

Serviced apartment rate monitoring: long-stay prices by length of stay

Serviced apartment rate monitoring tracks the public price of furnished, serviced stays by length of stay, from one week to several months. The nightly rate falls as the stay gets longer, and taxes can change at fixed thresholds, so the stay length is the key of every observation.

Pay per GB · No subscription · Prices in EUR, excl. VAT

Illustration. The URLs and values are fictional; the connection string is the real grammar.
€2.00
per GB on ARC Fast, excl. VAT
−44%
at 1 TB (€1.12 / GB)
185+
countries, city targeting
Never
expires — no subscription

Written for

  • Corporate relocation managers
  • Serviced accommodation agents
  • Aparthotel revenue teams
  • Insurance claims-housing providers

The short answer

  • Shop length-of-stay bands, not single nights: 7, 14, 28 and 90 nights are the common breakpoints.
  • In the UK, VAT on the accommodation element of a continuous stay in a hotel or serviced flat is relieved from day 29 (HMRC VAT Notice 709/3). Prices around that threshold are not comparable without it.
  • The US FTC fee rule covers discounted extended stays at hotels but not corporate housing under long-term lease conditions; record which kind of offer you collected.
  • Service level is part of the price: cleaning frequency, utilities and linen change differ by operator. Store them as fields.

The problem

What goes wrong without the right IPs

Long stays are not bookable everywhere online

Some operators sell only shorter stays online and quote longer ones on request. A search for 90 nights that returns nothing is not a sell-out; record "not bookable online" as its own status.

Monthly rates and nightly rates mix

Some pages show a monthly price, others a nightly price with a long-stay discount, others a weekly price. Normalise to a total for the stay you searched, then derive nightly and 30-day figures.

Tax treatment shifts with stay length

UK VAT relief from the 29th night and Germany's reduced VAT rate for short-term accommodation mean the tax share of a price depends on how long the stay is. Store whether the price is shown with or without VAT.

Apartment types do not map to hotel rooms

Studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, with or without a full kitchen, are the units. Mapping them to hotel categories loses the information a relocation manager needs.

What to collect

What you can collect

Property and operator
Operator, building, address and city district; corporate clients choose by location first.
Unit type
Studio, one-bed, two-bed; size in square metres; full kitchen or kitchenette.
Length of stay
The nights searched. Every price is tied to one band.
Total and derived rates
Total for the stay as shown, plus derived nightly and 30-day figures computed by you.
VAT display
Shown with or without VAT, and whether a long-stay VAT treatment is stated.
Service level
Cleaning frequency, linen change, utilities, Wi-Fi, laundry, parking, each included or extra.
Terms
Minimum stay, deposit, notice or cancellation period, and pet policy.
Online bookability
Bookable online, on request only, or not available for that band.

How it runs

How a collection run works

  1. 01

    Choose stay bands and start dates

    Pick the bands your clients book (often 7, 28 and 90 nights) and a few start dates per month. Long stays overlap, so six start dates a month is usually enough to see movement.

  2. 02

    Shop each band on one exit

    Hold one sticky session per property and band, so search, unit list and price summary are the same visitor.

    Length-of-stay bands for one property
    import secrets, requestsBASE = "USERNAME_pool-arcfast_country-de".split("_country-")[0]def proxy(country: str, city: str | None = None) -> dict:    user = f"{BASE}_country-{country}" + (f"_city-{city}" if city else "")    user += f"_session-{secrets.token_hex(4)}_sesstime-10"    url = f"http://{user}:PASSWORD@proxy.arcproxies.io:8000"    return {"http": url, "https": url}BANDS = (7, 28, 29, 90)   # 28 vs 29 shows the UK long-stay VAT stepdef shop(property_url: str, checkin: str, country: str = "gb", city: str | None = "london"):    for nights in BANDS:        with requests.Session() as s:            s.proxies = proxy(country, city)            r = s.get(property_url, params={"checkin": checkin, "nights": nights, "guests": 1}, timeout=30)            yield nights, r.status_code, r.text
  3. 03

    Normalise and label

    Compute total, nightly and 30-day figures from the shown price, state the VAT basis, and attach the service-level fields. Never compare a 7-night nightly rate with a 90-night one without the band beside it.

  4. 04

    Feed housing decisions

    Relocation and claims-housing teams use the series to set per-city budgets and to check supplier quotes against public prices for the same band and district.

Setup

Recommended setup

Long-stay searches are few but heavy and stateful. Residential exits in the city where the client will live give the local market's view.

PlanRoleSessionTargetingPrice
ARC Fast
Rotating residential
Default for priced searches
Residential exits in the destination market, held for the search and price summary of one stay band.
Sticky, 10 minutes per property and bandCountry + city (e.g. London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam)
€2.00 / GB
€1.12 at 1 TB (−44%)
ARC Basic
Rotating ISP
Property and unit catalogue
Unit sizes, amenities and service levels change rarely; refresh them monthly on the cheapest pool.
RotatingCountry
€0.75 / GB
€0.59 at 1 TB (−21%)
ARC Fast — default for priced searches
http://USERNAME_pool-arcfast_country-gb_city-london_session-k3f9a1x2_sesstime-10:PASSWORD@proxy.arcproxies.io:8000

Prices are list prices in EUR, excl. VAT. Volume discounts apply automatically at checkout — full ladder on the pricing page.

Connect

One connection string per market

The country, city and sticky session are tokens in the username. Change the token, change the market; keep the session handle, keep the IP.

sticky · Germany · 10 min
http://USERNAME_pool-arcfast_country-de_session-k3f9a1x2_sesstime-10:PASSWORD@proxy.arcproxies.io:8000

Swap _country-de for any market you quote. The full grammar is on the residential proxies page.

Illustration

What 400 properties in six cities, weekly costs

An illustration with round numbers — your pages, payloads and retry rate will differ. The arithmetic is the real price ladder.

Assumptions

Properties
400
Stay bands
4
Start dates per run
6
Runs
weekly, 4 per month
Weight per search
400 KB
Bandwidth per month
≈ 16 GB

On ARC Fast

€32.00per month, excl. VAT

16 GB bought in one purchase at €2.00 / GB (list price).

The same 16 GB on ARC Basic: €12.00 at €0.75 / GB. Move down as soon as the cheaper pool holds up.

Long-stay prices move slowly; a fortnightly run halves this with little loss of signal for budgeting.

Bandwidth never expires, so a bigger single purchase is only ever cheaper per GB. See the ladder.

In depth

Serviced apartments, in depth

Long-stay VAT and why 28 nights is a breakpoint

HMRC's VAT Notice 709/3 includes serviced flats, other than those for permanent residential use, among the establishments treated like hotels. For a continuous stay of more than 28 days, VAT is charged from the 29th day only on the part of the payment that is not for accommodation, and at least 20% of the remainder must be treated as facilities. The rule does not apply to holiday accommodation.

In Germany, the reduced VAT rate applies to letting rooms held for the short-term accommodation of guests, while services that do not directly serve the letting are excluded. Whether a price is shown with or without VAT, and for which stay length, is therefore a field to collect, not an assumption.

This is how the rules affect your data, not tax advice; operators and agents should take their own advice on how a specific stay is taxed.

Which fee rules apply to extended stays

The US FTC Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees lists discounted extended stays at hotels among covered short-term lodging, while long-term rentals and corporate housing under long-term lease conditions are not covered. An aparthotel's 28-night rate and a corporate housing lease are different products for compliance purposes, and your data should say which one each row is.

Mandatory cleaning fees, common on apartment stays, are part of the total under the FTC rule; the resort fee tracking page covers how to collect them.

Serviced apartments, rentals and hotels: what you are comparing

ProductTypical unitWhat changes the price
Serviced apartmentStudio to two-bed, kitchen, weekly cleaningStay band, district, service level
AparthotelStudio with kitchenette, hotel-style receptionStay band, day of week, events
Short-term rentalPrivate home or flatHost pricing, cleaning fee, minimum nights; see vacation rental data
Hotel extended stayHotel room, long-stay discountDiscount ladder by nights

Who relies on serviced apartment price data

  • Corporate relocation managers setting per-city housing allowances for assignees; long-stay discounts are one lever of the hotel dynamic pricing behind these rates.
  • Serviced accommodation agents checking supplier quotes against public rates for the same band.
  • Aparthotel revenue teams positioning their length-of-stay discounts against nearby operators.
  • Insurance claims-housing providers budgeting temporary accommodation for displaced policyholders.

Public, logged-out pages only: negotiated corporate rates and portal prices behind a sign-in are outside this collection. The method for comparing booked and public prices is on the corporate travel benchmarking page.

Works with anything that takes a proxy URL

  • Python requests / httpx
  • Playwright
  • Scrapy
  • Docker
  • n8n

FAQ

Questions

Something not covered? Write to contact@arcproxies.io.

What is the difference between a serviced apartment and an aparthotel?

A serviced apartment is a furnished flat with housekeeping, usually in a residential building and sold by the week or month. An aparthotel combines apartment-style units with a hotel-style reception and is often sold by the night. Both are priced by length of stay.

Which stay lengths should I monitor?

The bands your clients book, typically 7, 14, 28 and 90 nights. In the UK, also check 29 nights, because VAT relief on the accommodation element of a continuous stay starts from day 29.

Why do 90-night searches often return nothing?

Some operators sell only shorter stays online and quote longer ones on request. Record those cases as not bookable online rather than sold out.

Can I target the city the assignee is moving to?

Yes, if the city is in the targeting list, for example London, Amsterdam or Frankfurt, using the city token on the residential pools. For other destinations, country targeting is the closest available point of sale.

Are negotiated corporate rates included?

No. This is public, logged-out collection. Negotiated rates in corporate portals or behind a sign-in are out of scope; compare them against the public series instead.

Sources & review

Last reviewed by the ARC Proxies team. Prices are read from the live catalog at build time.

  1. [1]HM Revenue & Customs: Hotels, holiday accommodation and VAT (VAT Notice 709/3)
  2. [2]Bundesministerium der Justiz (gesetze-im-internet.de): Umsatzsteuergesetz, § 12 Steuersätze
  3. [3]US Federal Trade Commission: Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees: Frequently Asked Questions

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