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14 best vacation affiliate programs for travel bloggers

14 best vacation affiliate programs for travel bloggers

2020-02-28
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If you dream of providing people with great vacations and becoming a real influencer in the travel niche, find a profitable vacation affiliate program. Plenty of tourists look for travel advice on affordable services, and you can introduce them to trustworthy travel companies and monetize your website at the same time. Keep reading to learn how to join the best vacation affiliate offers.

What is affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a strategy of monetizing traffic on your blog. There are three main participants in the process: an advertiser willing to reach out to more customers, an affiliate known as a publisher, eager to promote the advertiser’s product on their own website, and a customer who is supposed to make a purchase through affiliate’s link and bring them commission.

What is affiliate marketing

Each publisher can join one or several affiliate programs directly or through affiliate networks that usually include plenty of programs and a wide range of products in a single interface.

Best vacation affiliate programs

To plan a great vacation, you need to consider many components such as accommodation, transportation, activities and entertainment and more.

Some of the companies are able to provide customers with such a great service that the latter book with them again and again. Why don’t you help readers have an incredible vacation by introducing the world’s leading service providers and generate a tangible commission at the same time? Curiously, 35% of affiliates make over $20,000 per year – that is a decent result. Look through the following list of vacation affiliate programs and maybe you will be willing to join a few of them.

Transportation

Transportation is the start of every dream vacation. The most reputable travel affiliate programs can offer a variety of different options to help tourists get around easily. They help choose the safest and fastest routes, cheap flights, best airlines, alternative aerial options, ground transport, etc.

Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts is a CPA (cost per action) travel affiliate network that offers a wide range of reputable affiliate programs. By partnering with Travelpayouts, you’ll can count on the following commission rates:

Category Commission
Flight tickets 1,2–3%
Accommodations 3–6%
Car rentals 4–10%
Bike rentals 4%
Transfers 4–7%
Bus tickets 3–6%
Train tickets 3–6%
Excursions 3–12%
Seaside cruises and yacht rentals 3,5%
Compensation for delayed or canceled flights 5 Euros

Tools to bring you closer to success:

  • Widgets;
  • White Label
  • Links
  • Plugin for CMS WordPress
  • API
  • Banners
  • SDK

Pros:

  • Largest travel affiliate network in the world!
  • A comprehensive set of offers so that you can provide readers with all the services they need: transportation, hotels, insurance, tours and more
  • A $50 threshold for payouts
  • Multiple payment options
  • Easy to join and track your success in your personal account

Cons:

  • You will share the commission with the network
  • The affiliate program is only available in English and Russian

Become a Travelpayouts affiliate.

Expedia

Expedia is a giant in vacation affiliate marketing as it features 400+ bookable airlines, over 500,000 hotels and 260,000 properties around the globe. It includes travel search engines and travel fare aggregators. Apart from transportation and accommodation, the platform offers numerous holiday packages, cruises, leisure activities and many others.

You can make from 3% up to 11% on each completed sale. The exact percentage depends on the service you promote. The highest revenue is possible in the case of Expedia Premium Plus hotel transactions. Tools to choose from:

  • Search forms
  • Text links
  •  Banners
  •  API
  •  White Label

Pros:

  • Famous and reliable brand
  • It features services in more than 25 languages and in 33 countries
  • Low minimum payout – $50

Cons:

  • Not all products are eligible for commissions
  • Seven-day action referral period
  • A rigorous selection process in the format of personal counseling with the applicant

Become an Expedia affiliate.

Wego

Wego is another search engine for travel deals around the world. The platform focuses on flight booking at the best price and delivers price comparisons for all hotels and flights worldwide. For the majority of products, Wego pays according to CPC model (cost per click). It will let you make from $0.05 up to $0.40 per click for flight tickets and from $0.20 up to $0.80 per click on the hotel ads/links on your blog. So, you don’t have to wait for a completed sale to get your money. However, when dealing with flights, you’ll get the commission of $5–$50 on each successful booking. The vacation affiliate offers for promotion:

  • Banners
  • Customizable search boxes
  • API($1,000/year)
  • Widget
  • Text links
  • White Label

Pros:

  • Easy to join
  • Big selection of travel-related programs
  • PayPal is available
  • CPC model

Cons:

  • A high payout threshold: $100 if using PayPal and $500 in the case of bank transfer
  • Earnings might be lower than with other affiliate programs

Become a Wego affiliate.

Kiwitaxi

Kiwitaxi is a great online vacation rental affiliate program for arranging transportation around the globe. They provide tourists with drivers to and from airports in some of the largest cities in more than 100 countries. The service is remarkable for a customized approach offering plenty of options for all kinds of tourists such as families with small children, VIP clients or customers with heavy luggage, to name a few. The platform accepts online payments and allows the pre-ordering of a transfer.

The publisher normally gets 50% of the platform’s commission and up to 80% revenue share in the high season. Use the following tools to succeed:

  • Widgets
  • Links
  • Banners
  • White Label

Pros:

  • Strong brand
  • 30-day cookie period
  • Six diverse payment systems are available

Cons:

  • Narrow niche
  • Service is more expensive than regular taxis, so you need to find your audience

Become a Kiwi affiliate.

Hotels

The best hotel affiliate programs feature a wide range of opportunities for various budgets, needs and wants. They are able to offer hotels with many facilities around and in the sightseeing areas. By joining such a program, you’ll be able to cater to many of your readers.

Booking.com

Booking.com is one of the leading hotel booking platforms. The platform caters to customer needs by accumulating their reviews on each stay and rating the hotels accordingly, so you can be sure of the service quality. On Booking,com, you can select the best offer for your price range, star rating requirements and desirable distance from various important areas of the city/resort.

Affiliate commissions depend on the total number of bookings, so you can get from 25% to 40% revenue share. The approximate income of an affiliate is $7–$25 per booking. Ready-use-tools:

  •   Banners
  •   Search boxes
  •   Widgets
  •   Personal dashboard
  •   Deep links
  •   Deal Finder
  •   Co-Brand tool

Pros:

  • High brand recognition
  • A wide range of accommodation options for any kind of tourist
  • Affordable prices
  • Multiple tools

Cons:

  • The cookie expires as soon as the user closes the browser
  • Two-month pay cycle
  • A $100 payout threshold

Become a Booking.com affiliate.

Agoda

Agoda is another great hotel booking service, also offering flight tickets, airport transfer and more. It is remarkable for sending notifications if the pricing of the chosen hotel changes. Another interesting feature is huge discounts for anonymous hotels that become visible only after the booking is made. The affiliate usually gets a 4% commission which can increase according to the number of bookings made during the month. For example, if you manage to generate 1,000 bookings monthly, you’ll get a 7% reward. The set of tools to provide good traffic:

  • Widgets
  •  Multi-lingual data feeds
  • Search boxes
  • Text links
  • Customizable ads
  • Image links
  • Coupons
  • Banners

Pros:

  • Strong brand
  • Clear and easy-to-use tracking software
  • Many types of traffic are permitted
  • More bookings from your website – more rewards

Cons:

  • Payouts are available via bank transfer only
  • 1-day referral period
  • You should make no less than $200 to withdraw money

Become an Agoda affiliate.

Preferred Hotels & Resorts

Preferred Hotels & Resorts offers access to the best resorts in the USA, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Central, Western and South Europe. Users can book both hotel and apartment residence, choosing from over 700 hotels in 85 countries worldwide. The last-minute deals allow saving up to 30% of the initial price. The average booking value is $600, and the advertiser offers a 3% commission for each completed booking. Tools for high productivity:

  • Banners
  • Text links
  •  Flash links

Pros:

  • Long cookie period up to 30 days
  • Banners are frequently updated
  • A high average booking price

Cons:

  • You need to target a particular audience
  • The program is only available through other networks

Become a Preferred Hotels & Resorts affiliate.

Sandals Resorts

Sandals Resorts is a chain of hotels and resorts in the Caribbean, featuring the best offers for romantic vacations, honeymoons, weddings or just a niche stay with your family or friends. The commissions start from 4%, depending on the type of travel product – whether the visitor books a luxury suite, a budget room or private candlelight dinners. Tools to make visitors click:

  • Banners

Pros:

  • 60-day cookie period
  • A wide range of top-quality colorful banners
  • Real-time reporting
  • A high average order cost, resulting in high affiliate rewards

Cons:

  • Available only through affiliate networks
  • You need to find an audience who can afford five-star hotels
  • A poor choice of promotional tools

Become a Sandals Resorts affiliate.

Activities

Activities are an undeniable part of every trip. There are many companies offering a chance to save up on tickets by purchasing a city pass, as well as providers of unique tours and excursions that your readers won’t find anywhere else.

Musement

Musement is the platform that allows for fast and easy activity booking. The platform features a wide range of expeditions, tours and covers the whole array of entertainment – from museums to nightlife – offering 25,000 products across 1,070 destinations. The program is accessible through affiliate networks and features a 50% revenue share. It features the eCPC (effective cost-per-click) model and pays $0.21 per click. Available tools:

  • Content Links
  • Banners
  • Keywords

Pros:

  • Manually chosen activities with great ratings and positive reviews
  • 30-day cookie lifetime
  • No need to sell the product, just provide the clicks
  • Available in different languages
  • Not a wide selection of tools
  • Lower-income potential compared to CPA offers

Become a Musement affiliate.

Tiqets

Tiqets is a ticket provider for booking tours, sights, and activities around the globe. It includes over 4,500 products in 250 cities in 50 countries. The platform is available in various languages. Tourists will benefit from an opportunity to buy tickets at the last minute and show them on their phone without needing to print it. The affiliates get a 6% commission on each booking and $0.02 per click on any ad on the platform. Tools at your disposal:

  • API
  • Banners
  • Widgets
  • Links

Pros:

  • 30-day cookie lifetime
  • High conversion ratio
  • API is available among other tools

Cons:

  • Strict requirements for affiliate websites

Become a Tiqets affiliate.

Eating Europe

Eating Europe was developed to book food tours and provide customers with an authentic atmosphere. This highly rated and reputable company focuses on areas, and excellent family businesses, with lots of history and tradition. The affiliate partners get a 6% commission for each booking. Tools to use free:

  • Text links
  • Banners
  • Product Links

Pros:

  • 25 different tours and cooking classes across nine destinations
  • 30-day cookie duration
  • Many positive reviews

Cons:

  • You can join the program through affiliate networks only
  • Strict requirements for affiliates

Become an Eating Europe affiliate.

Car rentals

Car rental platforms are able to provide appropriate vehicles for businesses and tourists. If you run the travel blog and write about vacations, consider promoting car rental services to introduce your visitors to some of the best service providers in the niche.

AutoEurope

AutoEurope allows users to hire a car at the best rental rates. The service covers over 20,000 pickup locations in 180 countries around the world. The customer has the opportunity to compare prices of various companies and place an order at any given moment, 24/7. The app offers a 5.6% commission on bookings made for European car rentals and a 2.4% reward for other destinations. Free tools to facilitate promotion:

  • Direct links
  • Deep links
  • Customizable White Label booking engines
  • XML data feeds
  • Banners

Pros:

  • Full reporting
  • Affiliate manager support
  • Guidelines and other helpful materials for successful promotion

Cons:

  • Seven-day cookie lifetime
  • Low commission (2.4%) on destinations in non-European countries

Become an Auto Europe affiliate.

Holiday Autos

Holiday Autos makes it possible to order various types of cars in 30,000 locations worldwide. It became the first platform to provide fully inclusive pre-paid car hire. The affiliate is paid a 7% commission on each booking. Since the average car rental costs around $185, the affiliate revenue reaches $14 per booking. Tools to work with:

  • Banners
  • Exclusive offers

Pros:

  • Over 30,000 locations worldwide
  • Pre-paid car hire
  • The advertiser approves cash-back, content or voucher websites

Cons:

  • 1.5% cancellation rate on bookings
  • A poor choice of tools

Become a Holiday Autos affiliate.

Rentalcars.com

Rentalcars.com allows users to compare the prices of 900 car rental providers in over 60,000 locations. The customers can make a booking for either leisure or business. There is a great choice of vehicles for any taste and budget, including luxury cars, minivans and more.

The company offers a 40% profit share on all completed car and ground transportation bookings. The affiliate revenue can reach $50.00, $75.00 or $100 for the completed journey. Tools to promote effectively:

  • XML feed
  • Banners
  •  Links

Pros:

  • A great choice of service providers
  • High affiliate revenue

Cons:

  • Promotional tools are not numerous
  • You should wait for five days for the approval of your application
  • Payments transfer to registered bank accounts only, no PayPal

Become a Rentalcars.com affiliate.

How to find the best vacation affiliate programs

The first thing to pay attention to is the commission rate. Certainly, high revenue is desirable, but the payout terms cannot be ignored. Whether you prefer an online payment system rather than a bank transfer, what minimum threshold you can manage, how long you are ready to wait for the payout – all these nuances are meaningful.

Besides, choose the reputable program that includes trustworthy and popular services corresponding to your website’s topic. And, consider joining a few programs at once to test them and see which one is more profitable for your audience.

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Thank you for such Amazing Blog, It was Structured with Perfection.

by socio-labs
2020-11-12