Expedia is huge, they have high prices, and thus pay good commission. Incidentally, they also own Hotels.com making them larger still but really just competing with themselves. Using Expedia is one way to be different as whitelabels on their hotel search are not as common as Booking.com and HotelsCombined.com. Expedia’s brand recognition also gives it considerable strength, so a co-branded option with them might also be good. Some would say that Expedia is one of the most recognizable travel brands in the world.
Booking.com has been around for a really long time. They have awesome content, meaning they have a huge amount of hotel properties and they have very competitive pricing. They offer a good partner program, they pay per booking, and there is a detailed partner website. It’s quite easy to customize a whitelabel site from booking.com so getting started is fast and simple.
The biggest drawback is that most booking.com bookings are “book now, pay later” which means that cancellation rates are above average and revenue is not realized until after the guest has stayed at the hotel and paid, as opposed to HotelsCombined, where revenue is generated and realized immediately. Booking.com is owned by Priceline which is the world’s largest travel company.
Commission: Vague. Their website states the following: “We guarantee to pay commission on all realised bookings, according to a commission split model. The percentage is related to our commission, so you will enjoy the maximum benefit when we improve our commission terms with hotels. The model is performance related, the more bookings a partner does, the more the partner earns.”
We used to use HotelsCombined and were very happy with them. They are a meta-search engine, meaning that they search a number of hotel booking sites and try to find the best price for the hotel in question. From the customer’s standpoint, this is a very helpful solution.
HotelsCombined pay per lead generated, which means that you are earning even if your visitors aren’t booking anything. However, the lead value fluctuates according to your user’s behavior. So if your guests are booking the hotels they find with HotelsCombined, your lead value goes up. A recent problem with HotelsCombined, however, is that they are so widely used that many travel sites are starting to look the same.
Commission: Between USD $0.50 and $2.00 per lead.
Hotels.com is quite popular and has a lot of properties. They have an intuitive UI and their site is easy to use. However, joining them as an affiliate is not the easiest of tasks, as you have to select a certain market area and then sign up with a third-party affiliate network like Tradedoubler before you get started.
Commission: 5.5% commission per booking. This varies depending on your market and is not exactly clear on their site.
Joining the TripAdvisor Travel Affiliate Program enables you to partner with the world’s largest and most trusted travel community. Leverage our brand to enhance your existing travel programs, earn additional revenue, and provide your users with access to 30+ million reviews, plus 500,000 city and hotel pages.
Commission: 50%
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