How to Boost Your Travel Affiliate Income with Travelpayouts (Review)
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which earn me a small commission from bookings at no extra cost to you. Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
As a full-time travel blogger and blogging coach, I am always on the hunt for the best tools and resources to make my job flow a little better.
Enter, Travelpayouts for travel bloggers.
Why apply for dozens of affiliate programs separately when you can join the most trusted and popular travel affiliates (such as Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Viator, Busbud, etc) all under one house?
That is, in a nutshell, why Travelpayouts is so easy to monetize your travel experiences as a travel blogger and content creator—you have all the best affiliate travel programs at your fingertips!
But that’s not all! There are a handful more pros to using the platform versus applying to each affiliate program individually (more on those details below!).
I have been using Travelpayouts since late 2020 and in this review, I will spill the tea about why I wish I had discovered it sooner.
Read more below to learn everything you need to know about the Travelpayouts affiliate network and why you should sign up ASAP (like, yesterday).
A Complete Travelpayouts Review for Travel Bloggers
What Is the Travelpayouts Partnership Program?
Without getting too technical here, Travelpayouts is simply an affiliate partner network through which you can apply to the most in-demand travel affiliate programs.
Unlike other affiliate networks, Travelpayouts is ALL about travel.
This gives you—as an aspiring or established travel blogger and travel content creator—the wonderful opportunity to easily monetize your travel content by promoting hotels, car rentals, tours, and so on—basically, the travel you already do!
Thanks to the Travelpayouts Partnership Program, you can find and apply directly for travel affiliate programs across the travel spectrum:
- Activities & Tours (Viator, GetYourGuide, Tripadvisor, Klook, etc)
- Hotels & Accommodation (Booking.com, Vrbo, Trip.com, etc)
- Flights & Rental Cars (Kiwi, DiscoverCars, RentalCar.com)
Plus cruises, insurance, travel packages, and more! And all under one dashboard, so you don’t have to apply to each affiliate program separately.
Essentially, Travelpayouts is the middleman between you and these renowned travel brands.
Currently, there are over 110+ travel affiliate programs you can join under the Travelpayouts partner network.
Here are even more fancy stats about Travelpayouts:
- 10 years in the travel niche
- 395,000+ partners
- $49M+ total payout since 2011
- $13M+ paid out to partners in 2022
How Do You Use Travelpayouts to Make Money?
Let’s break down how Travelpayouts and affiliate marketing work:
- 👩💻 As a travel blogger or content creator, you can sign up for Travelpayouts. It is particularly enticing for new bloggers/creators as there is a no-entry threshold. Anyone can join, even if you are just getting started (which means you can monetize faster!).
- ✅ Once in your dashboard, you can search and apply to multiple programs, like Booking.com or GetYourGuide.
- 🔗 After you get approved for each program you apply to, you can begin to create tracked links, banners, or widgets.
- 💻 Then, you can take those links/widgets and share them with your audience! Integrate them into your travel blog guides, Instagram Stories, YouTube descriptions, or wherever you create content.
- 💰 Once a reader/follower clicks and books the activity/hotel/rental/etc through your links/widgets, you will earn a commission.
- ♻️ And that’s it! Rinse and repeat. The more opportunities (guides/content) you can place links/widgets in, and the more your audience grows, the more passive income you can make.
As you can see, affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to earn money as a travel blogger because you can naturally promote the type of travel you already do and love.
This is why Travelpayouts, in particular, is so great. It just makes affiliate marketing for travel bloggers easy.
Back when I started blogging, I was applying left and right to programs that didn’t make sense for me or my audience. It also gets so tedious to set up multiple different accounts and try to keep track of affiliate earnings.
With Travelpayouts, all your travel affiliate earnings are in one place.
🌟 Plus, you can track the performance of each affiliate program, review program terms and commission rates, and get all the support and extra tools you need thanks to their customer service, valuable blog posts, and the Travelpayouts Academy where you can learn (for FREE) how to improve your affiliate marketing strategy—yes, again, all of this in one place! Now you see why I wish I had joined it sooner?!
Honest Pros & Cons of Using Travelpayouts
Travelpayouts Pros
To recap, here are the main pros of using Travelpayouts as a travel blogger or content creator.
- Low entry threshold: Skip the wait line. Some programs will require an approval process while others you can join immediately.
- High commissions: Travelpayouts is the middleman, so they’ve negotiated good terms for their partners. In most cases, commission rates are on par with the rates offered by the affiliate program if you were to apply directly and separately.
- Diversity of programs: From hotels to rental car sites to tours and activity providers, Travelpayouts hosts over 100+ travel affiliate programs.
- A single wallet for withdrawing money: This is probably my favorite feature, as it cuts out a lot of unnecessary work and maintenance for you. You can quickly accumulate earnings and withdraw it all into the same account conveniently through PayPal, WebMoney, or by setting up your bank account.
- Extra perks: Travelpayouts offers regular promotions from brands like double commissions in addition to free webinars by professional bloggers, which you take advantage of for free.
- Takes less than 2 minutes to sign up and get started: Best of all, it’s SO easy to get started!
Here’s a gift 🎁 — use my personal code “BRI” to receive a bonus of $25 on top of your first payout! Sign up here and don’t forget to use my promo to claim this offer.
Travelpayouts Cons
This wouldn’t be an honest review without my thoughts on how the partnership program could improve!
There isn’t a downside to using Travelpayouts, but my main takeaway or “con” is that the platform UX could be more robust in terms of reporting.
– Lack of reporting robustness (compared to direct programs)
Generally speaking, the analytics and dashboard of Travelpayouts give you all the info you need such as:
- Program (i.e. Viator, Booking, etc)
- Action Date (date of purchase/conversion)
- Description (title, customer country, device used)
- Sub ID (this is the identifier you give to the link/widget so you can track its placement)
But I have used all of the individual platforms by Booking, GetYourGuide, and Viator, and the native programs offer additional insight into your conversions (just slightly).
The tools are a bit more comprehensive-feeling on the individual platforms in my opinion as well. But they offer the same functionality.
Again, I think the UX for partners could be improved, but I recently was notified they were working on a redesign. So that’s exciting! 😉
– Potential income reporting vs actual payouts
I meticulously keep track of all affiliate earnings so I can match the previous month’s commissions with the next month’s actual payout (just in case there is an error). Oddly, my reports show a significantly lower number of potential earnings reported versus actual earnings that have been deposited into my account each month. (Not that I’m complaining! Better this way than the other way around, right? Lol.)
– No earnings from in-app purchases
Most affiliate programs have this structure or some type of limitation. However, that means if you have a mobile-ready audience (such as an Instagram following), then you might not convert as well if you encourage them to use the partner app (such as Booking, Viator, etc.) If you can, offer them a guide or a link where they can book directly through the partner website itself, rather than on the app version.
How Much Can Travel Bloggers Earn with Travelpayouts?
How much you will earn from Travelpayouts depends on a number of factors, but here are the main three:
- Your monthly traffic volume
- Your content & affiliate strategy
- The affiliate partner’s commission rates
According to Travelpayouts,
“On average, our partners earn $15 per accommodation booking, about $6 per flight bought on WayAway, $23 per car rental booked on Discover Cars, etc. So, your potential earnings depend on how many sales you make.”
The real answer? It all depends.
My main blog generates around $100+ per day from affiliate marketing, but that pulls from both my Travelpayouts account and other affiliate partner programs that I joined prior to joining Travelpayouts. (If only I knew what I know now!)
My second travel blog’s passive income is growing as its traffic grows, which is so exciting!
Don’t forget you can use my promo code “BRI” to receive a $25 bonus on top of your first payout!
💰 Sign up for Travelpayouts here 💰
Also, while traffic size does matter, it’s not linear.
I know some travel bloggers who make more money with less traffic simply because of their strategy and the way they built their content around affiliate monetization.
As for how you actually get paid by Travelpayouts, that’s simple too. As a partner, you can withdraw earnings in one of three ways:
- Bank card
- PayPal
- WebMoney (WMZ)
Note as well that you’ll receive your first payout once you reach your first $10 in earnings. And there are no hidden transfer fees!
The Travelpayouts Partnership Program is really a game-changer, especially for newer bloggers. But even so, top bloggers still choose to use the platform for its ease of use!
Here are a few success stories from Travelpayouts partners!
- Megan and Aram, the creators of VirginiaTravelTips.com, earn over $60,000 per month from their travel blog(s), including affiliates through Travelpayouts. While those 5-figures are inclusive of ads and other forms of income. Even so, that’s such a wild figure, but it just goes to show you what’s possible as you scale!
- Kieran monetizes his website and mobile app about Ibiza through Travelpayouts. Event ticket affiliate sales account for over 85% of his site’s income.
- Maggie and Michael, the founders of TheWorldWasHereFirst.com, managed to turn their blog into a full-time job.
My Final Thoughts — Is Travelpayouts the Best Travel Affiliate Network?
What’s certain is that Travelpayouts offers something no other large affiliate network does: Focus.
Unlike so many affiliate networks out there, Travelpayouts is truly dedicated to all things TRAVEL.
If you are a travel blogger, it only makes sense to get inside and make use of their tools and resources so you’re not scrambling to keep track of and connect with new travel brands.
As I mentioned, my only regret is not joining Travelpayouts sooner! If you are just getting started or even if you’re already established, Travelpayouts has tons of travel affiliate programs you won’t find easily elsewhere.
Give it a go, and let me know how you like it! And, as always, drop your questions in the comments below!
Use my promo code “BRI” to receive a bonus of $25 on top of your first payout!
✨ Click here to sign up for Travelpayouts ✨
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