Own ABNB Stock? Here Is How To Collect 12% A Year On It

For Airbnb shareholders, here’s how to get paid a healthy income right now, which you keep no matter what, for agreeing to part with your stock at a price that’s even higher than today’s.

Airbnb (ABNB) has had a strong run, reporting 18% revenue growth in its latest quarter and raising its full-year outlook. The stock currently trades about 4% below its 52-week high, leaving many investors wondering if the best gains are in the rearview mirror or if new ventures will power the next leg up. For those holding the shares, this sets up an interesting proposition: a way to generate immediate income from your position by agreeing to sell at a profit, should the stock continue to climb.

12% annualized income on ABNB shares you already own, with 13% of upside room, by selling a covered call.

• You own (or buy) 100 shares of ABNB near today’s price of $149.92.
• Sell one call option on ABNB expiring 6/17/2027, with a strike price of $170, about 13% above today.
• Collect roughly $1,598 in premium up front per contract (each contract covers 100 shares), which you keep no matter what the stock does.
• That premium is about 12.4% annualized on the $14,992 of stock, income you earn just for holding.
• If ABNB finishes above $170, your shares are called away at $170. Counting the premium, your total return works out to about 28% annualized, but you give up any gains above the strike.

Either Way, The Premium Is Yours To Keep

If ABNB finishes below $170 on 6/17/2027, the call expires worthless, and you keep the full $1,598 premium and all your shares. That is about 11% over 317 days, income earned just for holding, and you are free to sell another call.

If ABNB finishes above $170, your 100 shares are called away at $170. You still keep the $1,598 premium, and counting it, your total gain works out to about 24% over the holding period (about 28% annualized), a healthy exit. The cost of the trade is that any gain above $170 is no longer yours. And if the stock instead falls, you keep the premium but still ride the shares down, cushioned only slightly.

So the whole trade comes down to one thing: how much of that upside are you really likely to give up, and would you be content to sell at that higher price?

Before You Sell That Call, Know What You Are Capping

The trade’s only real cost is the upside you cap, so the question is how much blue sky you’re really giving up. The bull case is that Airbnb is just getting started. Management recently raised its guidance for 2026, now expecting revenue growth in the “low to mid-teens,” up from 10.3% in 2025. New initiatives are gaining traction; management noted that top-line metrics for its new hotels business are “growing more than double that of the entire business,” suggesting a powerful new growth engine is kicking in. If that momentum continues, the stock could easily blow past your exit price, leaving you with a solid return but a dose of seller’s remorse.

On the other hand, that growth isn’t a straight line up. The company itself is guiding for growth in Nights and Seats Booked to “decelerate slightly” in the second quarter from the 9% pace seen in Q1. And while the push into hotels and other services is ambitious, it also means wading into fiercely competitive markets where Airbnb is the new kid on the block. If the path from here is more of a grind than a sprint, then collecting a guaranteed income now in exchange for capping gains you might not see anyway starts to look like a very savvy move. It’s also a way to get broader exposure to the consumer discretionary space more generally.

Ultimately, the decision comes down to your conviction in the company’s next act. The key variable to watch is whether the expansion into new categories like hotels can meaningfully re-accelerate growth. If you see that happening, you might want to hold on for the ride. If you’re content with a handsome, predefined profit, this is a strong way to get paid while you wait.

Turn A Stock You Own Into Income

You may not own ABNB, but you almost certainly own something that could be paying you. Our Covered Call Finder lets you type in a stock, or a few, and instantly see the income a covered call could generate on each, then dial the strike up or down with a slider to balance more income against more upside. It is the quickest way to see what the names in your own portfolio could pay.

Income From One Name, Stability From Many

Getting paid to cap the upside on a stock you own is a smart way to squeeze income from it. But a single covered call, and even a single-theme fund, still rides one slice of the market. What steadies a portfolio is breadth across sectors, where a rough stretch for one industry is offset by a good one elsewhere.

The Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio provides that breadth: roughly 30 quality, cash-generative companies spanning sectors, judged on the full picture of their fundamentals rather than one options setup, and re-balanced as conditions change. It carries a track record of outpacing a benchmark that combines the three major indices – the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap, and Russell 2000. Keep collecting premium on individual names, with a cross-sector core doing the heavy lifting.