Detecting the Best Travel Affiliate Programs

You can choose some of the services below and start boosting your income:

• Flight tickets
• Hotel bookings
• Travel insurance
• Cars
• Tour activities
• Cruises
• And more

As you can see, there are many options for starting your online business. Having a travel webpage is not the only way you can take part.

Who Can Participate

Whenever you are joining a new program, you must check the participation conditions, as each travel affiliate program maintains different requirements for its participants.

There are many ways to earn money:

• Running a travel-related website or blog
• Doing SEO or being good at SMM (for example Instagram)
• Using email marketing
• Having skills in media buying

In addition, people without websites can buy ads in travel-related forums or in CPC programs and display their affiliate links to make a profit.

Travelers can even cut the costs of their trips by using their personal affiliate links. In addition, by sharing with friends, they can earn commissions.

Be attentive to the network’s rules, as some traffic types are forbidden. Most of the time, the use of iFrame, pop-unders, pop-ups, click-unders, and toolbars is prohibited. Furthermore, all programs forbid contextual brand advertisements on Google Ads and other contextual networks.

We have collected some of the top travel affiliate programs in every niche, including flights, hotels, car rentals, and so on.

Flight Affiliate Programs

We collect the best flight affiliate programs to give you an easy way to earn an income from your travel webpage. When visitors buy tickets by clicking the partner ads on your page, you, as the owner of the page, get commissions from either those clicks or from bookings.

You can include affiliate links in your articles to transfer visitors to flight search engines in order to receive a commission each time your visitors buy tickets. If you have a well-known travel brand or do not want to share your visitors with foreign websites, you can use White Label. In this case, visitors can access the form and search results without leaving your page.

What is a Flight White Label?

Through White Labels, you can build your own flight tickets search service without any prior knowledge or experience. This tool allows you to build a travel service on your own domain and with your own logo. The tool is only available through a few networks, but is only required by a few affiliates.

According to the experience of Guillaume Schaer, who creates custom White Labels for big online creators, this affiliate tool has a high conversion rate from click to booking because it caters to a motivated audience. Watch the “How to Earn on Flights? Expert Tips & WayAway Program Review” webinar to find out more about White Labels and how they compare to other tools offered by flights partner programs.

Visitors searching for cheap flights on the Internet are interested in buying from trusted travel brands, such as SkyScanner, Momondo, and so on. Therefore, building your own brand is a good idea if you already have an audience that trusts you or if you have the time and money to invest in building trust in your service. Otherwise, using White Labels may result in a lower conversion rate than other tools would.

Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts is one of the largest travel partnership platforms in the industry. While it offers various programs for partners, its key product is the WayAway partner program.

WayAway is a flight aggregator that provides users with the best rates on flight tickets and other travel deals. Developed by Travelpayouts’ experts, WayAway is the culmination of the team’s 10 years of experience in the travel industry. The aggregator features an innovative search that compares the airfares of all major airlines in the United States and around the world to find tickets for every taste and budget.

In November 2022, WayAway was chosen as #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt. Product Hunt is a place for tech lovers to share products and geek out about the latest mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech creations.

However, what makes WayAway stand out in the niche is that it allows users to earn up to 10% cashback on their bookings of flight tickets, hotels, car rentals, and other services with the WayAway Plus membership plan. This program sends actual cash (not points or miles) to users’ PayPal accounts.

With the WayAway affiliate program, you can earn up to 50% revenue share and $10 for each WayAway Plus membership plan sold through their link.

Commission Structure

Travelpayouts uses a CPA earning model for its partners. The more you sell, the higher commission you receive. Your revenue is 50% of Travelpayouts’ service margin. The revenue of Travelpayouts is 2.2% of the flight cost, so you can earn 1.1% of the flight ticket cost. For example:

Your profit can be transferred via your preferred channel: WebMoney, PayPal, or a bank transfer in dollars or euro. The minimum payout amount is $50 or €40.

Available Tools

• Deep links
• Responsive widgets
• Banners
• Promo Codes

You can use any tool to maximize your revenue. The ways in which you use the available tools will affect your income. We have detailed instructions on how to best use affiliate tools. Check these out!

Kayak Affiliate Network

The Kayak affiliate program has the following conditions:

• 50% commission on clicks, bookings, and ad revenue across each vertical, including flights, hotels, cars, and holiday packages
• 30-minute cookie lifetime

This means that you will be paid for every booking done via your affiliate link or widget made within 30 minutes of transferring a visitor to the official Kayak website. The Average Effective Cost per Click (eCPC) is $0.40, but varies based on your traffic quality.

Please note that Kayak has a GEO requirement, thus only purchases from Spain, Germany, France, the UK, the USA, and Brazil will be counted for commissions.

Who Can Participate?

The KAYAK Affiliate Network provides affiliate partners a chance to earn with various travel traffic sources. It is suitable for travel bloggers, owners of price-comparison sites, search engines, cashback sites, and many more.

Which Tools Does Kayak Offer?

Kayak partners can use banners, search boxes, links, White Label, and API. 

Skyscanner Travel Partner Network

Skyscanner is a search engine for flights, accommodations, and car rentals. It offers a flight search in over 30 languages for more than 50 countries around the world.

Skyscanner pays commissions based on revenue generated from brand partners. The platform gets a commission from partners when users buy flight tickets, book hotels, and rent cars, while affiliates receive up to 50% of Skyscanner’s commission.

Available Tools

• Widgets
• Text links (with generator)
• White Label
• API

Unlike Travelpayouts, Skyscanner does not offer White Label access to everyone. Moreover, the API is only available to selected partners with large travel projects. On the other hand, Travelpayouts’ data API is available without pre-moderation, but access to the Search API is only provided by request.

Wego Affiliate Program

Wego offers a CPA-model partner program for their flights, hotels, and activities booking service. Anyone can join this network, but a member must have a website to earn any money. You can use travel marketing affiliate tools to earn via traffic from over 60 countries. WeGo is also available in more than 40 languages.

Payment is made through PayPal or bank transfer. For PayPal, the minimum transfer amount is $100, while for bank accounts, it is $500. The two-month payout is made between the 15^th and 20^th. For example, if you are credited $100 in June, you will receive the payment sometime between the 15^th and 20^th of August.

Available Tools

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

The Wego API is a paid service. You must pay a $1,000 annual fee to gain access. The other tools are free. As with many competitors, you are not limited by the available banners. Thus, you can create your own and add your link.

Expedia UK Affiliate Network

Expedia is a travel partner program with not only a flight network, but also hotels, car rentals, and many other services. The platform also allows you to offer services in more than 25 languages in 33 countries.

Commission Structure

Expedia UK pays travel affiliates up to a 6% commission via their vendor, Partnerize, after the referred travelers complete their stay.

Available Tools

• Widgets
• Deeplinks
• Banners

Most of you know Expedia as a hotel website, but the company focuses on flights as well. Expedia is one of the biggest players in the US and Canadian markets, with over 500 airlines included in its search list. While the amount of available flights is less than half the amount shown on WayAway, Expedia is still an interesting option.

The following video will help you to choose the best travel affiliate programs to kick start your affiliate business.

Hotel Affiliate Networks

A webpage owner can get revenue from hotel bookings by working with major players in the market such as Travelpayouts, Booking.com, Agoda and so on. In your articles, you can include responsive widgets or search forms that allow visitors to search for rooms.

As with flight affiliate networks, hotel networks have White Labels. Here, the logic is the same – you can build your own brand, but you must have a strategy for developing your project and making people trust in your brand. If you don’t, the White Label can cause you to have a low rate of conversion.

Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts is a travel partnership platform, which gains access to over 100 travel brands, including well-known names, such as Booking.com, TripAdvisor, GetYourGuide, and many more. Once registered, you’ll gain access to various partner programs and tools to start earning by a CPA model. Tools are available in 59 languages.

Commission Structure

The Travelpayouts partners’ can earn up to 20% for each sale, but the reward depends on the terms and conditions of the partner program. You can find them in the brands’ cards in your Travelpayouts account. Immediately after you become a member, you can access more details and statistics in the member area.

The payment period is the 11th-20th of each month through bank transfer, PayPal, and WebMoney. The minimum thresholds are $400 or €400 for bank transfer, $50 or $10 for PayPal, and WebMoney.

Available Tools

For hotels, Travelpayouts offers almost the same set of tools as it does for flights:

• Search forms;
• White Label;
• WordPress plugin;
• Mobile SDK;
• Text links (with link generator);
• Responsive widgets;
• Free API;
• Banners.

You can integrate to your website a special map with the low prices. This is a convenient tool for your audience, allowing them to find the best price in a specific location.

Expedia – Hotels.com and Trivago

Hotels.com and Trivago participate in the EAN (Expedia Affiliate Network). Trivago shutdown their own affiliate program on 31 March 2018. Learn more about the closure on this page. However, you can now join the Trivago affiliate program via the Travelpayouts partnership platform.

Via the Expedia affiliate network, you can only earn with Hotels.com. 

Hotels.com provides an opportunity to compare hotel prices as members of the Expedia Affiliate Network in more than 75 countries and 40 languages. However, the only way to partner with this program is through an intermediary that differs from country to country, such as CJ.com in the US or Awin in the UK.

How Much You Can Earn

Hotels.com offers money only for reservations. A commission on a reservation is around 3% to 4% of the room’s price. The exact rate depends on the conditions set by the intermediary.

If you have a Payoneer card, you can easily receive your payment. Moreover, the intermediary can also pay via bank transfer or cheques.

Available Tools

• Widgets
• Deeplinks
• Banners

As with the Booking.com affiliate program, here, you can use both White Label (completely your brand) and a co-branding scheme. In this case, your project’s logo will appear next to the official logo.

Booking.com

Booking.com is a well-known platform that is available in 43 languages and compares the prices of rooms in most countries across the world.

The Booking.com affiliate program is directly available on the official website and also in the Travelpayouts partnership platform. We offer clear conditions: you will be paid 4% for every booked hotel and have access to a set of affiliate tools. Our minimum payout is $50, which is lower than the in-home Booking.com affiliate program.

To boost the conversion rates on your blog, we’ve created a hotel search widget. This widget is translated into 13 languages. It’s unique and available only through Travelpayouts.

How Much You Can Earn

The network has a progressive model for rates and earnings. The more bookings you secure, the higher your rate and earnings will be. You can find more details in the following table:

Moreover, earnings are based on confirmation of the guest’s stay. Payments are made through bank transfer or PayPal, with a €100 minimum transaction requirement. Profit recognition occurs 30 to 60 days after the guest checks out.

Available Tools

• Search box
• Links
• Banners
• Co-branding
• Widgets

Unfortunately, Booking.com does not provide a White Label. You can use only the co-branding option, in which your logo is placed next to the official logo.

Hotelscombined.com

Hotelscombined.com offers a great deal to monetize your traffic in over 50 countries around the world with 40 languages available through the PPC model. You can join the Hotelscombined affiliate program via the Kayak affiliate network.

In terms of commissions, you’ll receive $0.50 to $2 based on the quality of your traffic. The cookie lifetime of the partner program is 365 days, which means customers who click on the search results will be included in your revenue throughout the duration of the cookie lifetime.

There is also a “Monetization Guarantee” for new partners. You can individually insure your profits, even if you don’t meet the minimum earnings level. Hotelscombined.com pays out once per month if your account contains at least $100 for PayPal or $500 for bank account transfer.

Available Tools

• Text links
• Deep links
• Banners
• Search boxes
• White Label
• Co-branding

APIs with data feeds are also available, but require prior approval. As we know from our partners’ experiences, it’s very difficult to obtain this approval. Usually, APIs are provided only for big projects.

Agoda.com

Agoda offers global choices and good prices through its database of 2.9M hotels and homes worldwide. In addition, the platform supplies personalization opportunities in 38 languages.

Join the Agoda affiliate program via the Travelpayouts affiliate network to receive the following benefits:

• Clear commission conditions – You will be paid 6% for every hotel booking
• Cookie lifetime — One day (attribution is measured on a last click basis)
• Extended set of tools – Widgets, banners, and links, including a link generator

You may choose how to join Agoda (via the home affiliate program, the official Agoda webpage, or through Travelpayouts). We are official partners offering you a reliable solution to earn on hotel bookings.

Earnings and Getting Paid

In this travel partner program, you will receive commissions for completed hotel stays. The commission model is progressive and offers up to 7% commissions on revenue. 

The method of payment is via direct bank transfer with a minimum of $200 required before the transfer can proceed.

Available Tools

• Text links
• Banners
• Search boxes
• Data feeds
• Widget

The program has only one widget: Hotel Power Ads. It is a convenient tool for presenting offers from hotels offers on your travel website.

Tripadvisor

Thanks to Tripadvisor, webmasters can make use of tools to secure bookings worldwide. However, there is no direct way to participate. You can join only through CJ (Commission Junction), Awin, or Travelpayouts. With that said, the program offers travel-related services in 43 markets and 22 languages.

Commission Structure

Affiliates are paid 50% of Tripadvisor’s revenue when a user creates an eligible click-out from a search result in the Hotels section. In addition, Tripadvisor pays 8% of the cost of completed bookings in the Experiences section or for tours and attractions in the Things To Do section (with the exception of virtual/online experiences).

Available Tools

• Text links
• Banners
• Widgets

The Tripadvisor affiliate program has a content widget that automatically generates interesting travel offers for readers.

Marriott

With over 8,000 properties across 139 countries and territories, Marriott offers any type of hotel for any type of tourist. Partners are paid for completed stays and vacation packages. From each checkout, partners can earn 4-6% of revenue. For purchased vacation packages, the revenue is 3%.

A selection of text links and banners (of varying themes and sizes), several data feeds/product catalogues, search widgets, and content links are available for partners in the travel affiliate network.

This offer has a narrow focus. To partner with it, you should have an affluent audience, as Marriott hotels are usually expensive. In addition, contextual advertisements with the brand are prohibited, so earning via traffic arbitrage is difficult.

This program can serve as an auxiliary to another network, to offer direct bookings on the official website. Some of your visitors might wish to book directly. In this case, the Marriott partners program is a great solution for monetizing such traffic.

Within Marriott’s wider affiliate program, you must join the regional affiliate program. For example, Marriott.com in the US and Canada, Marriott.co.uk in the UK and Ireland, etc.

Cruise Affiliate Programs

Nowadays, many travelers seek out unique activities or experiences, such as cruises, when planning a trip. Cruise affiliate programs are not only great opportunities that offer your audience interesting and thrilling experiences, they are also a great way for you to earn commissions in the travel niche. Cruise partner programs help you to provide extraordinary offers for your audience.

For example, let’s say you have an informative article about travelling to the UK or Australia, and you have already offered hotel bookings, flight tickets, and car rentals as many of your competitors do. To stand out and attract a larger audience, you can also offer cruises to the UK or boat trips in Australia via a cruise ship affiliate program.

Cruise Direct

Cruise Direct is one of the most famous cruise affiliates programs. You can offer limitless cruises all over the world to your audience via this cruise affiliate program. Thanks to their 45-day cookie lifetime, you are able to generate profit even though, statically, most visitors buy cruises more than one month after visiting a cruise website.

How Much You Can Earn

Your piece of this cruise pie is 3% of the gross sale. Do not underestimate the size of that number. The average price of a cruise is $1,000, so if a family of four books a cruise, you will receive $120.

Cruises.com

Cruises.com includes many different destinations with a wide selection from river cruises to lengthy and luxury cruises. In addition to offering many cruises around the world, this platform allows you to supply shore cruises for your audience.

You can only join the Cruises.com affiliate program via special page. As for the commission, you will receive 3% from online bookings and 2% from bookings via phone.

Cruisecompete.com

This cruise booking affiliate program is a bit different than the previous offers. It is a cruise search engine that allows users to find the best offers available online by searching through offers on various websites and displaying the results that the visitor needs.

The platform shares a commission of 3% for any cruise service booked via your website. You can join the cruise affiliate program via their website without an intermediary.

Other Travel Partner Programs

In the travel industry, there are not only flight and hotel services, but also cruises, activities, car rentals, and local players. Such services are worth exploring as additional income sources for webmasters.

Eats & Retreats Travel Affiliate Program

Eats & Retreats is a well-established platform for booking anything from budget to comfort villas in South East Asia. The service has been operating since 2001 and connects travelers with over 1,200 properties throughout Sri Lanka, Bali, and Thailand.

To sign up, contact the company’s representative, who will help you through the setup process. Once registered, you will obtain a unique tracking code and further implementation instructions.

Available Tools

• Text links
• Image/banner links
• Widgets (depending on partner size)
• White Label (depending on partner size)

How Much You Can Earn

• 6% commission on all bookings with no minimum requirements (unlike popular providers with multiple tiers and lower commission rates). Additionally, the commission is calculated on the booking value, before taxes.
• Sales range anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000, meaning you can easily earn $1,000 or more per commission.
• The cookie window is 60 days (double the industry standard of 30 days).

Car Rental Affiliate Programs

Another travel-related service you can offer to your visitors is car rentals. This is mostly for individual travelers who prefer to move inexpensively and relax inside a city or to move freely between cities. To earn more in the travel niche, you must expand the number of services that your website offers. Therefore, car rentals are a necessary option.

Skyscanner has both a flight and car rentals partner program with many opportunities. However, Rentalcars.com is one of the leading, most trustworthy options. It is a member of the Priceline Group, which includes other travel giants, such as: Booking.com, Kayak, and Agoda. With over 60,000 locations, Rentalcar.com is a very prestigious resource for your travel website. The service is also available in 43 languages.

Rentalcars.com

The more bookings you secure, the more you will earn. Therefore, your piece of the pie depends on your productivity and agreements.

You can join the Rentalcars.com affiliate program via the Travelpayouts partnership platform.

Excursions

GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide provides visitors with great options with 23,000 products throughout 2,300 cities. The platform allows visitors to search for excursions in 16 languages.

Moreover, you will start with a share of 8%. Depending on the quality of your service, that share may rise up to 10%.

Payment transfers are possible only via bank account on the 5^th of each month. The minimum transfer amount is €50, £50, or $50.

You can join the GetYourGuide affiliate program via the Travelpayouts partnership platform.

Viator

Viator is a service that allows travelers to find and book more than 300,000 unforgettable experiences, such as wine tastings, tours for coffee lovers, cooking lessons, sightseeing tours, and many more. The Viator partner program is great for blogs with content related to any subject. It doesn’t matter if you write about museums, sightseeing tours, food, or anything else. Viator products complement all sorts of content perfectly.

Until the end of 2022, partners on the Travelpayouts partnership platform can earn 10% from each sale with Viator. Join the Viator partner program via Travelpayouts.

Lonely Planet

For travel guides and materials (both printed and digital), Lonely Planet publications are among the best to offer your visitors. Lonely Planet shares travel guidelines for destinations based on the experiences of professional travelers.

This type of offer can enhance your earnings. To promote this service on your website, you must join an affiliate provider, such as Commission Junction (Asia Pacific) or Awin (UK or USA). Commissions are 15% of the final price.

Working with the Lonely Planet affiliate program is convenient, as Lonely Planet is a very powerful, well-known brand. In many destinations, it has almost no competitors or analogues.

Local Players

A webmaster in the travel industry can receive additional profits by joining local players, such as transfer/taxi services, local tour guides, exchange offices, and so on.

To find local options, search for the destination on Google. Sometimes, you must search in the local language.

There are more options on how to earn money from a travel blog:

How to Choose a Travel Affiliate Program

In the travel market, there are many partner programs with different options. However, to find the best choice, you must determine what you need and what you want to offer your visitors. In the process of choosing, consider the conversion rate and network tools. In addition, check the quality of the travel products offered to your visitors. Poor-quality products will not bring you revenue even if the earning rate is high.

Therefore, try to partner with various programs to determine which are the best for you.