The Skyscanner Flight Affiliate Program

Andrey Novoselov Andrey Novoselov
Updated:
Reading time:  5  min.
3568
0

Skyscanner is a platform for comparing airfares across dozens of agencies and hundreds of airlines. You can earn on clicks by joining the Skyscanner affiliate program and recommending the platform to your audience.

About Skyscanner

Skyscanner is one of the most famous travel search sites not only in the US, but around the world. On the site, travelers can compare prices for flights, hotels, and car rentals to find great deals and book them online without additional fees.

Skyscanner is a metasearch engine, not an online travel agency, as the platform does not sell flight tickets. The platform can be used to find the cheapest option for the desired destination and dates, after which the client should proceed to the supplier’s website (an online agency or airline) and book the flight there.

The company website is available in over 20 languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, and Japanese. Ticket prices are also available in multiple currencies, making Skyscanner a handy travel planning tool for travelers from around the world.

Additional features, such as fare charts, allow users to compare airfares for any chosen destination throughout the month. In addition to the classic flight search feature, Skyscanner offers a number of convenient features that users often mention in reviews:

  • You can find weekend fares for all available destinations by specifying a specific departure point.
  • You can search without having to enter specific dates or destinations, which makes this system very flexible.

These two easy-to-use search features set Skyscanner apart from most other flight search and booking sites. However, the Skyscanner product is not unique, as there are many strong competitors and alternatives on the market that outperform the brand in some ways.

How the Skyscanner Flight Affiliate Program Works

People often ask if Skyscanner has an affiliate program? The good news is that yes, an affiliate program exists. By joining the Skyscanner affiliate program, you will be able to earn on click-outs, which means:

  • You send your audience to the Skyscanner website
  • Your audience explores deals on Skyscanner
  • You receive rewards for clicks on the Skyscanner website (when they click to visit an agency or airline’s website)

The CPC model is not very common among airline affiliate programs, as usually, advertisers only pay for actual sales. Pay-per-click may seem attractive at first glance, but in practice, you may face some troubles:

  • Income depends on the quality of your traffic
  • Skyscanner only receives revenue from advertisers for quality traffic
  • If your traffic only clicks, but doesn’t end up buying anything, your bid may be lowered or you may be disconnected from the affiliate program

In reviews of the Skyscanner affiliate program, partners often write that a single click generates a lot of money only at the initial stages. Afterwards, the cost of a click drops dramatically. This is not true for all partners, but it is helpful to look at how much you can earn on the Skyscanner affiliate program after two to three months of work.

Partners can join the SkyScanner affiliate program through affiliate networks, such as Impact.com. If you already have an account on such platforms, you don’t need a new one. Simply send an application to join the Skyscanner partner program. Furthermore, you will be able to receive partner tools and monitor all statistics in your dashboard:

All applications for joining SkyScanner are moderated. It takes at least a couple business days and sometimes can take longer. To successfully pass moderation, your travel blog must already have some traffic, as well as unique content related to flights, and meet some other requirements specified in the rules at the time of application.

Terms of the Affiliate Program

Commission20-50%
Cookie30 days

The Skyscanner affiliate program commission rate is one of the topics most frequently brought up by curious affiliates. And no wonder, as the program does not offer a single fixed rate, but offers a flexible rate structure based on the partners’ performance.

The base rate, below which no active partner’s remuneration falls, is 20% of Skyscanner’s income. There is no exact amount of the Skyscanner affiliate commission, since Skyscanner itself receives different payments from advertisers. As a result, for one click-out on the Skyscanner website, you can receive anything from 40 cents to a dollar. The exact amount of remuneration also depends on your audience, what areas they are interested in, and how close they are to buying.

The more expensive destinations and the closer your audience is to buying a ticket, the higher your income per click will grow. In this case, it may be more profitable for you to work with programs that pay for sales. With that said, for quality traffic, it is worth trying the CPA model by joining the WayAway affiliate program or any other flight affiliate program.

50% revenue share
30 days cookie lifetime
$10 per sale of WayAway Plus
The WayAway Partner Program
Join Now

What Affiliate Tools are Available?

Skyscanner offers partners a wide range of affiliate tools, including:

  • Links
  • Banners
  • Widgets
  • White Label
  • API

This set of partner tools allows you to integrate Skyscanner into travel blogs as well as other projects. For example, using the Skyscanner API, you can create a relatively similar copy of Skyscanner itself or integrate the search for flight tickets into your mobile application.

Links, banners, and a search form are available to everyone immediately after joining the program. The API has a limited access. Skyscanner will check the purpose of your usage and manually approve access to their flight API.

Benefits of Joining the Skyscanner Flight Affiliate Program

Skyscanner is one of the most popular flight affiliate programs. According to reviews of the program, partners appreciate:

  • Recognizable and trusted brand
  • Large selection of affiliate tools
  • Long cookie lifetime

In addition, in reviews of the Skyscanner affiliate program, the large geographic range of the platform is often noted for both clients and partners. Thanks to this, you will be able to earn on the Skyscanner affiliate program not only with traffic from the USA, but also with traffic from other countries, such as Japan, Germany, Australia, and more.

A substantial drawback of the affiliate program is the uneven distribution of commissions per click, which can result in a significant drop after the first two to three months of work. For high-quality traffic, it is may be more profitable to work based on the CPA model instead of the CPC model.

Review of the Skyscanner Affiliate Program

Skyscanner is one of the most popular affiliate programs for earning money on flight tickets. The partnership offers attractive conditions, including:

  • CPC remuneration model
  • Advanced tools
  • Support 

In addition, Skyscanner cooperates with over 1,200 agencies, which makes the product unique for the consumer. Your audience will likely find a suitable ticket among the thousands of options. But there is one problem. For high-quality traffic, it is usually more profitable to work based on the CPA model, not the CPC model.

Skyscanner reduces the risk for affiliates by offering payments for clicks rather than sales. With this said, if Skyscanner and its suppliers do not receive sales after your clicks, your rate will be reduced or, as some partners mention in reviews of the Skyscanner affiliate program, you may be completely disconnected.

At the same time, Skyscanner does not accept low-quality travel blogs. Therefore, if you have a quality travel blog, it may be better to choose alternative flight affiliate programs, especially if your audience is:

  • Planning a trip (leisure or business)
  • Close to purchasing a ticket

In this case, it may be more profitable to work on the CPA model, which provides you with income based on sales. You can try the WayAway affiliate program and receive 50% of the income from the sale. For example, if a person bought a ticket for $1,000, your income for each program would be as follows:

  • Skyscanner – $0.40 to $1.00
  • WayAway – $14.00 to $17.00

For Skyscanner, the average rates are provided, which many partners mention in their reviews of the affiliate program. While some partners can receive higher rates, they are still not comparable to the income made from the sale.

Of course, not every click from your site leads to a sale, but in this case, you do not receive income in the Skyscanner affiliate program either, since the brand only pays for clicks to suppliers’ sites, which is only a small portion of your traffic. Therefore, you should try both options (CPC and CPA) in order to understand which format suits you best.

To earn income on each sale, join the WayAway affiliate program on the Travelpayouts platform without pre-moderation. A large selection of tools is available to all partners, including an affiliate link generator, a search form, a cheap price calendar widget, and more. Like Skyscanner, WayAway also compares prices across hundreds of agencies and companies to offer your audience the best possible flights.

50% revenue share
30 days cookie lifetime
$10 per sale of WayAway Plus
The WayAway Partner Program
Join Now
How to Use Flipboard to Boost Your Travel Blog Traffic