Is Travelpayouts a Scam?
Travelpayouts is the largest travel affiliate network in the world, which unites 240,000+ publishers and over 60 advertisers.
We have worked in the travel affiliate market since 2011 and currently have reached the following milestones:
- 240,000 affiliates from over 70 countries already trust us
- Over 60 travel affiliate programs, including trusted brands such as Booking.com and GetYourGuide
- $23,000,000 – the total payout since 2011
- $37,500 – the top monthly payout in 2019
Travelpayouts is a platform where advertisers can generate sales and webmasters can earn commissions from each sale. If you are still not a part of the network, join right now.
You can take a short virtual tour and learn more about our office in Thailand. We’re happy to meet face-to-face with each of our affiliates, just write to our support team to arrange a meeting. You can meet our team online as well in the cycle of the articles on our blog.
We regularly participate in conferences, such as ITB in Berlin and Affiliate Summit in Las Vegas. We will be glad to meet everyone.
Our affiliates regularly share firsthand experiences on our blog. For example, you can find out the experiences of Mike Clegg, Miguel Angel Perez Oña, and Matt Morelli. On our YouTube channel, you can watch the keynote of our affiliate Jaseel Seethintakath from India.
Is It Possible That Travelpayouts Won’t Pay You the Income You’ve Earned?
Every month, we pay thousands of webmasters. There has not been a single month in our entire history in which we did not make payouts. At the moment, we’ve paid our affiliates more than $23,000,000.
On our homepage, data related to previous payouts are automatically updated every month. You can use that data to monitor our general statistics.
However, on the Internet, you can find reviews that claim Travelpayouts doesn’t pay its affiliates. Cases of non-payment do happen, but only when the affiliate has violated the rules. We never block payments without reason.
We carefully investigate each rule violation and stay in touch with our affiliates. Being on the line with us is the best way to quickly solve an issue.
Among the most common reasons for blocking payment is contextual advertising that involves bidding on the brand. Most advertisers on the Travelpayouts network prohibit affiliates from bidding on official brands.
Another common reason that affiliates are blocked is that they are attracting bots instead of humans. Advertisers pay only for actions made by real people.
If you do not break the rules (which are always provided ahead of time and very clearly laid out), you are not in the risk zone and have nothing to worry about. However, we’re always here for you to clear up any issues. If you have any controversial aspects of your campaign, feel free to write to us before running the advertising campaign to ensure a lack of preventatives.
Our team is committed to common sense. A deliberate violation of the rules, which did not lead to serious consequences, may result in a warning without blocking. Nevertheless, the rules in Travelpayouts exist for the comfort of all parties. It is obligatory for affiliates and advertisers to follow them.
The rules are established beforehand to help avoid any trouble.
Why Do Some Affiliate Programs Have an Unclear Commission Rate?
In 2019, we updated the dashboard to make the statistics more transparent. However, by reading Travelpayouts reviews, we know that some affiliates hold the view that some affiliate programs offer unclear commission rates.
This is most often associated with specific affiliate programs, in which the remuneration is determined not by a fixed commission, but by a share of the advertiser’s income, such as Musement, and you can earn 50% of the advertiser’s income.
Such a reward scheme stems from the advertiser receiving different levels of income from various sales and it’s impossible to fix a single rate for all sales. For example, advertisers can earn 2% on the order value from one sale and 8% from another. In both cases, affiliates get 50% of the advertisers’ income, but, in the first case, this payment will be 1% of the order value for the first order and 4% for the second order.
As an affiliate of our affiliate program, you can be rewarded for the different actions. For example, some gates in the Aviasales affiliate program pay commissions for sales, while some pay commissions for clicks in the SERP. Both actions are reflected in the statistics, so be sure to look at not only the final income, but also for what action it’s accrued.
For our part, we carefully monitor all sales and conduct regular reconciliations with the advertisers. Our team is constantly working on improving the dashboard, so if you have ideas on how to improve statistics, send your suggestions to our product manager, Alex Yanchuk.
Why Are Some Purchases Not Counted?
Travelpayouts uses cookies to link sales to the affiliates who generate them, as described in more detail in our knowledgebase. Sales are not lost, but can be credited to another source in some cases.
The general principle of affiliate programs in Travelpayouts is the “last cookie wins”. This means that the one who attracted the client last receives the commission. For example, if the customer you drive to advertiser’s website doesn’t make a purchase, you may experience:
- During the cookie lifetime, the customer will return to the website and make a purchase, thus the cookie for this sale will be accounted to you.
- Someone else brings the customer back to the advertiser’s website, such as another blogger. In this case, your cookie is replaced by the new one and the commission would be accounted to the last affiliate.
This works both ways. You can also overtake someone else’s cookie and get the commission. There is only one exception, the FlixBus affiliate program, which uses the Customer Lifetime Value attribution.
We always arrange the maximum possible duration of a cookie lifetime (sometimes up to 365 days) with our advertisers. However, no one can guarantee that your cookie won’t be interrupted by another source of traffic, such as another affiliate website or the official newsletter.
The best way to avoid situation is to continuously interact with your audience. For example, subscribe blog readers to your newsletter and continuously remind them to make purchases through your affiliate links.
Loss of sales is also possible for technical reasons that, in some cases, are not dependent on Travelpayouts. For example, if the accounting system fails on the part of the advertiser. We constantly monitor the accuracy of accounting and solve all problems as soon as possible. If you encounter any problems, our support superheroes are always here to assist you.
If the terms of the advertiser do not prohibit purchases from your own affiliate link, you can always use the service yourself without prearrangement and hidden check the purchase tracking. However, it isn’t obligatory to do so. The stability of sales accounting is our main concern as well.
Why Is My Income So Low?
It’s possible to earn five-figures per month through Travelpayouts. This is how much our top affiliates earn each month. The highest monthly payout in 2019 was $37,500 and the top income for a single sale was $720. Hard workers always succeed in affiliate marketing and only you hold the keys to the kingdom.
Sometimes revenue from one sale is below the affiliates’ expectations. Those expectations, as a rule, are based on the cost of the order and the commission rate, but there are some exceptions:
- For some purchases, advertisers receive a fixed fee instead of a percentage of the cost, which does not depend on the total value of the order.
- In the case of product-line expansion, advertisers sometimes add services from suppliers who do not pay any commission to their services, such as tickets of low-cost airlines.
The low cost of the order is another reason for earning a low income on a single sale.
In the dashboard, you can find all the affiliate programs rates. In most affiliate programs, we share data on the average checks. All of this information should help you plan your potential income in advance.
Is It Possible to Join All Programs Presented on the Dashboard?
On the dashboard, you will find all available affiliate programs. Most of them are available for affiliates to join. However, advertisers sometimes temporarily or permanently suspend their affiliate programs. When this occurs, we always mark these programs as inactive on the dashboard and help current affiliates transfer their traffic to other programs. For example:
A number of affiliate programs at Travelpayouts are available by prior moderation. If moderation is unsuccessful for you, but your project meets all the requirements of the advertiser, please send a second application, where you describe your project in more detail.
If the affiliate program is active and your project meets all the requirements, your request will be approved.
If you believe the advertiser unfairly moderated your request, please write to us.
Does the Adblock Plugin Block the Affiliate Tools?
In our tools, we toe the line to avoid blocking. For example, do not use advertising words like “promos” or “ads”. Most of the time, AdBlock and similar plugins do not block our tools. However, sometimes blocking does occur.
Most often, AdBlock blocks creatives, such as personally customized banners. To avoid this from happening, we recommend using non-standard banner sizes and avoiding the use of advertising words in the banner name. For example, banners with the name “ads.png” and a size of 468×70 pixels will, in most cases, be blocked by AdBlock.
We’re proud that AdBlock does not regard our tools as advertising, as they bring additional value to users of the site. For example, the Map widget in the Hotellook affiliate program.
Learn how to get around ad blockers in this article.
Why Should I Choose Travelpayouts Instead of the In-House Affiliate Program?
Travelpayouts is an affiliate network in which more than 60 affiliate programs are available in various categories:
- Flights
- Accommodation
- Package Tours
- Insurance
- Car rental
- Transfers
- Bus transportation
- Tours & Activities
- Bike & Scooter rental
- Cruises
- Train tickets & passes
- Travel compensation
- Parking
- SIM-cards
- Food & Dining
You can join all the programs through one interface, get detailed statistics, and receive a single payout for all programs. In addition to the convenience of the single dashboard, our affiliates can also make use of:
- Professional support
- Unique affiliate tools that are not available in the direct affiliate programs (such as, the search widget in the Booking affiliate program)
- Training materials
In most Travelpayouts affiliate programs, the conditions are no worse than those of the in-house affiliate programs, but you also get a complete list of benefits.
If you are missing a program or functionality, we’re open to all offers.
We appreciate your confidence in Travelpayouts and our entire team is working to meet the highest expectations of each of our affiliates and advertisers.
Pose your most daring questions in the comments or to the support team. We’re here for you and are happy to answer any of your questions. If you are still not a part of the network, join right now.
