Hello there Sea Changers. Welcome back to my series of program lists to assist those of you looking to fund your sea change with affiliate marketing. Today we will journey into the travel niche with my 10 best hotel affiliate programs to book in 2021. Travel is a large niche and one that certainly attracts a high volume of online sales and with over 33000 people entering the web search “book hotel online” per month, I have decided to deal with these affiliate programs separately.

Keeping that in mind, as I run through them I am conscious that as this is potentially such a large niche, that the number of affiliate programs to choose from may be just as large. So how have I picked my best 10? Well… I really just wanted to give you a good cross section of what is out there so I did some searching around and checked a few out and chose them by looking at:

• What they offer
• Commission rates
• Payment terms
• Cookie duration
• Application processes
• Affiliate/Marketing materials provided

Before we start however, let’s have a look at what I mean by the term ‘hotel’ and how it can be incorporated within an affiliate marketing website…

What do we mean by Hotels?

Basically, I have looked into this travel based sub-niche based on the subject of hotels room bookings etc. There are so many variations of hotels and in fact, quite a number of ways that they can be booked. So for this post I have tried to cover a good cross section across some of the sub niches such as:

• Budget hotels
• Luxury hotels
• Last minute hotels
• Resorts
• AirBnB
• Hostels

And of course anything else that you may incorporate when you think of hotels.

What can affiliate marketers promote?

There are essentially no real barriers to what affiliate marketers can promote when it comes to hotels. There are however some things to be aware of as you run your eye over affiliate program possibilities that may suit your site. These are:

1. Know your audience, some purchasers are looking for specifics (such as room size, facilities, restaurants etc.) whilst others are hoping to just get a good room on a budget. Choose your affiliate sites accordingly.
2. Purchasers of high end/expensive hotel rooms and resorts will not take risks if they don’t trust you or your affiliate site. Make sure the programs you choose are reputable and have good recourse options if the purchaser is not happy.
3. Those looking for wedding packages etc. will need to know that they are going to get everything as promised so as not to jeopardize their big day.
4. Those traveling with children will generally want them to be safe and entertained.

That said, stats show that people will spend money on travel online if it can make their lives easier so as long as you are solving problems, then you are on the right track. And to give you a boost, let’s have a look at 10 programs that I have found below:

1. Booking.com

Let’s start with one of the many multi-booking sites that are available online these days in Booking.com. Booking.com provides access to over 2,555,094 properties such as hotels, resorts, houses, villas and so on ranging from budget to extreme luxury lodgings.

They are a well-known brand and provide a decent membership program for its members that provides access to ‘secret’ deals and properties designed to keep them returning to the site. They also provide a great online community program allowing people to discuss their visits and talk about the hotels and places they have been – which is priceless information for affiliate marketers when writing those all important hotel reviews.

And, for those of you in a non-hotel specific travel niche, or looking for travel affiliate programs in general, Booking.com can also assist with all of your flight, car rental, tours and airport transfer needs. Oh, and you also earn a commission if you can convince a property owner to join the booking.com stable.

Commission Rate:

• 25 – 40% (dependent upon the number of booking referred per month)
• 50 € for each property that you refer to Booking.com

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: Not stated

Application required?: Yes – Basic personal and website information required.

Marketing material provided: Banners and fully customisable text links.

Join the booking.com affiliate program here

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2. Hotels Combined

Hotels Combined is a hotel booking ‘comparison’ website designed to find the best hotel options based on the criteria entered by the user These criteria include:

• Destination
• Date range
• Property type
• Price range
• Star and guest ratings

These sites work by comparing the cost options from a large array of hotels and booking sites (as per above graphic) and displaying a number of options from each of the sites.

Users can then choose their option and book directly from the relevant original booking site.

Commission Rate: Variable – this program uses a pay-per-lead model which is directly impacted by how well your users convert to valid bookings from the compared booking providers.

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: Not stated

Application required?: Yes – Basic personal and website information required

Marketing material provided: Data feeds, text links, banners, API and deeplinks, search box widgets and White Label

Join the Hotels Combined affiliate program here

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3. agoda

agoda is another multi-hotel site aimed predominantly at the budget travelers. It boasts up to 2,000,000+ plus properties worldwide at heavily discounted prices.

As with most others listed here, visitors are able to search on location, property type, and date range. And like booking.com, they are also accommodate other travel type niches with flight and hotel transfer booking options.

Commission Rate: Up to 7% based on number of bookings per month

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: Not Stated

Application required?: Yes – Basic personal and website information required

Marketing material provided: Agoda verified Badge Text Link, Image Link, Search Box, Banner, Hotel Maps and Lite API.

Affiliates can also make their own bookings (or via their agent if booking offline) by using the ‘Make My Booking’ feature.

Join the agoda affiliate program here

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4. AirBnB

In terms of booking online accommodation, I am sure most of you would be aware of AirBnB. This is the platform where visitors can rent homes of every way, shape or form directly from the owners of the property. And there is so much to choose from starting with a single bedroom at $20 a night up to a luxury villa at $10k. For affiliates, this opens a massive range of potential opportunities whether you are discussing them by dwelling type, location or novelty arrangements.

As an added bonus, the site now also offers access to reviews and suggestions to match properties such as activities, local restaurants and local experiences making it a great site for those specialty travel niches or sites.

Commission Rate: Not stated – as per most in this niche, commissions increase based on number of visits booked. Commissions can however be earned in two ways:

1. Per visit booked
2. Per property referred to AirBnB

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: Not stated

Application required?: Yes – basic personal and website information required as well as outline of promotional plans

Marketing material provided: Ad banners, text links

Join the AirBnB affiliate program here

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5. WOTIF.com

Wotif.com is an Australian site that started out offering last minute deals for hotels around the country (I actually visited their site when they were starting out – it had 4 desks and a printer). It has since evolved into a worldwide entity providing discounted and last minute deals to hotels and resorts all over the world.

As with some of the other sites above, they also provide access to flights, activities, car rentals and cruises. They also deal in travel and holiday packages and for the affiliate marketers, access to hotel reviews and ‘must see’ lists providing great content for your own travel related posts.

Commission Rates:

• Hotels – 3%
• Flights – 1%
• Car Hire – 5%
• Packages – 3%
• Activities- 8%

Payment Terms: Monthly.

Cookie Duration: Not stated

Application required?: Yes – basic personal and website information required.

Marketing material provided: Text links, widgets, banners and API.

Join the Wotif.com affiliate program here

6. Marriott

Should you be more interested in promoting a particular hotel chain, then you might want to check out the Marriott chain of hotels and resorts. They offer a large range of properties from budget to luxury levels including the Marriott and Sheraton brands as below:

This a great site for any hotel or travel niche and especially good for those looking to cover business travel as the site offers a range of options in this area including:

• Meetings and events
• Conferences
• Business facilities
• Long term lodgings.

There is also great coverage for those in the family holiday market.

Commission Rate: Not stated

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: 7 Days

Application required?: Yes, Marriott’s affiliate program is managed by Partnerize. You will be required to apply for an account then for the Marriott affiliate program. You will need to enter personal and website information as well as promotional plans and platforms to be used.

Marketing material provided: Text links and banners, Data Feeds/Product Catalogs, Deals & specials

Join the Marriott affiliate program here

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7. Sandals

If your site has anything to do with 5 star, adults only, all-inclusive luxury resorts, then you need to add Sandals to your portfolio. This is a perfect site for any adult holiday related niche such as:

• Holidays for two
• Honeymoons
• Luxury resorts
• Child free vacations
• Naughty escapes and so on

There is probably not enough on offer to sustain a travel related affiliate site on its own however the fact that it offers all-inclusive luxury makes it a perfect high ticket option for just about any site within this niche – especially if you are writing about honeymoon or adults only destinations.

Commission Rate: Starting at 4%

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: 60 days

Application required?: Yes – The Sandals affiliate program is managed by CJ Affiliate. You will be required to apply for an account and then for the Sandals affiliate program. You will need to enter personal and website information as well as promotional plans and platforms to be used.

Marketing material provided: Banners, Text Links, Free trip incentives

Join the Sandals affiliate program here

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8. Beaches

Ok, so I am probably just being lazy here, but if you are writing about resorts and have included Sandals on your site, then you might as well add Beaches as well. Beaches is a Sandals company and has everything that Sandals has, but for families and kids as well. They offer a range of 5 star luxury resorts with activities for the entire family.

Oh, and as these are all-inclusive resorts, affiliates can write about family holidays that will not blow out in terms of cost once the kids find all of the activities on offer. The Beaches affiliate program is the same as the Sandals one outlined above:

Commission Rate: Starting at 4%

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: 60 days

Application required?: Yes – The Beaches/Sandals affiliate program is managed by CJ Affiliate. You will be required to apply for an account and then for the Beaches/Sandals affiliate program. You will need to enter personal and website information as well as promotional plans and platforms to be used.

Marketing material provided: Banners, Text Links, Free trip incentives

Join the Beaches affiliate program here

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9. Hostelworld

The backpacker industry is huge and one that doesn’t appear to be going out of fashion as young and old around the world don the backpack and live a life of apparent poverty in the world’s hottest tourist spots. If this is something that you have based your niche around, then check out Hostelworld.

This site is a must have if your site has anything to do with budget travel or backpacking and not only contains access to hostels all over the world, but great content on budget activities, ‘must sees’ and city guides. They also arrange hostel group memberships for further discounts – something that you can highlight in your posts as an added bonus.

Commission Rate: Not stated but paid on a per booking basis

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: 30 Days

Application required?: Yes, basic personal and website information required. Applicants must run a travel or budget website and not work with or promote any other hostel provider.

Marketing material provided: Banners, Ads and copy, Text Links, Last minute specials

Join the Hostelworld affiliate program here

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10. travelpayouts.com

Now technically, travelpayouts.com is not a hotel booking site as such. However should you wish to set up your site up with a range from a few different brands or companies at once then you can do so here. Travelpayouts.com is an affiliate marketing platform that provides access to a good range of hotel and travel related affiliate programs all in one place including:

• AirBnB
• Booking.com
• Carrentals.com
• Hotellook
• Jetradar

This site is probably large enough to fill a basic travel niche site on its own but also to provides access to some of the bigger players without having to join each program individually via their own platforms. Travelpayouts.com also appears to offer better commission rates and cookie duration than if you had applied directly via the main company page.

Commission Rate: 1.5 – 6%

Payment Terms: Monthly

Cookie Duration: 30 days

Application required?: Yes – Basic personal and website information required. you may also need to apply for individual programs within the site itself.

Marketing material provided: Banners, Text Links, Data Feeds

Join the travelpayouts.com affiliate program here

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Amazon Associates

Now, the sites I have covered above are obviously to do with Hotels and bookings. Should you wish to add another dimension to your site then you might want to add some links to hotel related accessories via Amazon. Amazon provides access to a good range of hotel related products and has a fairly good affiliate program as well. So if you wish, join the Amazon Associates program, locate the relevant products/pieces within Amazon itself and you can post links on your own site as per below:

Amazon’s commission rates are not too bad and some prefer this avenue due to the sheer amount of traffic and trustworthiness that comes with a company site of this size. Unfortunately as far as I can see, they do not offer hotel bookings apart from links to a large array of hotel booking apps.

How to find your own affiliate programs

As stated earlier, by outlining the sites above I have really just tried to give you a good cross section of the types of programs that are out there by listing the really good ones in each ‘category’. That does not mean that you cannot find affiliate programs that better suit what it is that you are trying to do within this space – especially as I could never even begin to cover every hotel related requirement or sub niche in the one post. Luckily for us, there is a simple way to find these programs online.

All you need to do is enter “affiliate: niche type” into your search engine (substituting ‘niche type‘ for whatever product it is that you are choosing to sell).

There are hotel related affiliate programs for everything else that we have listed at the top of this page as well – you will just need to have a look around until you find one or two that suit your site. Once you have completed your searches, you can look through and find programs that:

• Relate to your niche/problems that you are solving.
• Have quality products – your brand can be severely damaged if you promote poor quality products.
• Have solid payment and customer service arrangement.
• Pay decent commissions.
• Have good testimonials covering commission payouts and quality of product.

In most cases, you will need to apply for the program before you are allowed to promote their products – don’t take this step lightly or you will be rejected. Affiliate programs will generally want to know:

• Your website name.
• Traffic levels.
• Why you want to join – (so I can make money by selling your hotel rooms is unfortunately not generally a good enough answer).
• How you plan to promote their products.

Conclusion

So… There are 10 of the best hotel affiliate programs to book in 2021. I hope it has been helpful for you as you commence your own travel based affiliate marketing business and as usual, please do not hesitate to comment below if you have any questions, need some advice or have any experiences to share. Oh, and especially comment if you have any experience with these, or any other programs as well.

Do you want further assistance with any of the above or need help to build your own travel based website?

Are you looking for a comprehensive training platform that can give you step by step training, 24/7 support, tools to develop and host your very own website, ongoing assistance with SEO and social media and access to some of the best affiliate marketing minds on the planet, then click on the following link to read more about Wealthy Affiliate.

Until next time

Have fun

Paul

Note: If you make a purchase from this page, there is a very good chance that I make a commission from it – these commissions do not increase your sale price.