Good Hotel Affiliate Program?

I am looking for a solid hotel affiliate program to complement a travel section of one of my sites. Can anyone recommend ones they have had a good experience with (or ones to stay away from...pm me these)? Any advice would be appreciated.

Also, looking for a solid travel insurance affiliate.

 

I'd definetaly go with WCT, http://www.wctravel.com/

Have been with them for 2 years now and their payout rates, service level, reporting tools are all great. Really don't have anything bad to say about these guys.

I've also tried Travelnow.com, but the reporting tool is none existing, payout rates are less, service is actually quit good, but nonetheless overall less than WCT.

WCT=Travelocity.com
Travelnow=hotels.com

 

Thanks.?click=1 sale

 

Wow, I never even thought of a Hotel Affiliate Program.

 

Hi again Dan,

Actually hotels and other travel type affiliate programs are pretty hot, but of course also competitive.

I have heard IAN.com is good and includes Travelnow, hotels.com and several others all in one program. tfbpa seems to have tried both and prefers wctravel.com though.

 

Which affiliates allow you to customize your ads towards specific destinations? I think this is an important factor in conversion.

Also how do you drive traffic to your website? Adwords campaign?

 

depends on the area of the world.
in europe i would recommend:
activehotels.com - for UK
bookings.org - for benelux and northern part of europe
venere.com - for italy and mediterranean

 

Wctravel.com is great, especially their affiliate section/reporting area.

 

Idolw made some valid points and is quite right. Especially like Bookings.

World Choice Travel and IAN are better for north american oriented sites.

 

Does anyone know whether they allow you to customize your ads as far as specific departure areas and destinations? For example if you have a page on New York - you may only want to show deals departing from New York, etc?

I would prefer not to just post a banner....

Thanks in advance.

 

I use WCT and there good for small to large scale websites. They give you room to grow if you have time ad programing skills you can make a heck of a travel site.

 

What is considered a good payout rate?

 

Bookings.com seem to be ok.

They allow you to customise right down to specific hotels if necessary. You can also choose cities, countries etc

 

Do you mean booking.com? [ Bookings.com is a parked domain]
Is it easy to be their affiliate?
As for WTC, I'm affraid cannot meet their requirements (eg You are confident your minimum sales will include no fewer than 40 hotel or airline bookings per month).

 

I have been an affiliate with WCT since the late 90's. I can say their back-end team is second to none. Be prepared to work hard at doing up your sites if you want to make money out of the affiliate system. They do have XML interface for those who can use it, but I am never a fan of XML.

I do know many successful WCT affiliates, having met them during the regional meetups and conferences.

As for Travelnow, I dump them for WCT..

 

Absolutely try Commission Junction - they're the leading network for travel affiliates. Especially in the hotel niche, the Commission Junction network offers an incredible line up of affiliates.

Commission Junction is partnered with booking engine affiliates that include HotelClub, Hotels.com, Priceline, Travelocity, Expedia, TravelWorm, and more.

Specific hotel group affiliates range from Intercontinental Hotel Group, Accor Hotels, Westin Hotels, & the Sheraton Group to Best Western. Very recently IHG (largest hotel chain worldwide) which includes Holiday Inn, Hilton and others released a product version of their affiliate links allowing you to advertise specifically for ANY single hotel in their entire chain (4,000+ in total) with distinct tracking links, pictures, etc. avaliable for each hotel.

Vaction style affiliates like Marriott's Vacation program are also avaliable in addition to European hotel booking sites like "hotelopedia." Hostel affiliates like HostelWorld are avaliable if you're looking to target the college or student market. Finally, top notch indidual hotels are avaliable (e.g. Wynn Las Vegas affiliate program).

All of these offer top creatives and promotional deals and coupons are open to affiliates. For these reasons I believe the Commission Junction hotel recourses are the best open to affiliate marketers and hope you will find this helpful. I really believe that they will help suit your needs in this area. Let us know how it goes!

Best & Take Care!

 

How do you start with WCT if they have "40 hotel or airline bookings per month" restriction?
I'm interested mostly in promoting cruises and hotels...
I want to switch from art.com affiliate program to WCT.
For some reason art.com stopped helping affiliates, most of their datafeed files are empty and thousands of visitors from my website are not considered to be 'unique' anymore

Any help with WCT would be appreciated!

 

tfbpa Thanks for WCT info.
But I guess If you sign up with Expedia thru CJ one can have all options like hotels and cruises as well besides the airbookings. (BTW hotels.com I suppose is owned by Expedia)

 

You can also have these options with both Travelnow/IAN/Hotels.com and WCT/Travelocity.com, but if you prefer to just use banners instead of a complete website with hotel/cruise/air content, CJ is doable.

As for help with WCT, just send them an email and they will respond in a day or two.

 

Having been with WCT for more than 8 years, what I can say is they filter out affiliates who signs up "for fun". If you have decent traffic into your site, I am quite sure you can fulfill their requirements of the minimum nos. of bookings. If you are concern about the requirements, but are serious about joining them, send them an email, tell them the situation and see what they say.

At least with WCT, I get my commissions, unlike the others. And like they say, we build your brand, not ours, which is very very true.