Airbnb sold out for Mardi Gras?

A balcony on the route is the thing people picture, and those are the first to go and the last to reappear, booked as much as a year ahead.

But the route is long, and "on the route" covers a lot of ground beyond the famous stretch. St Charles Avenue runs for miles and the Uptown end is a completely different market from the Quarter: quieter, more residential, more actual rentals, and considerably less expensive. For most people that is a better trip anyway, because the Uptown parades are where locals watch.

If you are setting a search, set one on the area you would love and one further up St Charles. The second one is the one likely to produce a result.

Most Central Business District and French Quarter properties require a four or five night minimum across Mardi Gras. This catches people out constantly: they search for the two nights they want, see nothing at all, and conclude the city is completely full.

Sometimes it is. Often the listings exist and the search is being filtered out by stay length. Before you assume there is nothing, rebuild the search with the longer stay and see whether the map fills in. If it does, your alert should use those dates too, otherwise it will faithfully report nothing for weeks.

Because the city books so far ahead, on assumptions made a year in advance, Mardi Gras produces a steady stream of released rooms. Groups shrink, plans change, and people who block-booked in August let go in January.

The local advice has long been that persistence pays and that rooms open up as the parades begin, which is really a description of a cancellation market. That is exactly what an alert automates: instead of ringing round and refreshing, you get told when something comes back.

Set the alert to run through to your dates rather than for a couple of weeks. On Pro you can set the end date up front, and every alert can be extended in one click before it lapses.