Best Affiliate Programs for Travel Bloggers
Affiliate programs – I love to hate them, but when they pay out, they help me maintain and keep creating free travel content for my audiences. Firstly, affiliate programs are NOT paid partnerships. Brands like to slide into your Inbox pretending to be a great honor to work with them, but you have to see if for what it is– passive, commission-based income. You are advertising a brand for free until it can make a sale. It is not a get rich quick strategy.
As such, I recommend choosing brands that you personally vet and have a good track reputation.
It is tedious work to implement affiliate links into my blog, so I hate when an affiliate program makes changes forcing me to update all my links, when I have at least a thousand blog posts.
Entering into an affiliate program is like a marriage – most have a payout threshold you have to meet to dispense your money and you want to make sure they are established to last years into your blog. I also do not like affiliate programs that threaten you with having to make a sale in # number of months or they’ll delete you — it’s straight up telling you- don’t invest time into them unless you have a strong audience for them (Commission Junction has these and I seldom use them)
Over the years I’ve only worked with a few well-known affiliate programs. Only a few perform well for travel content and I only share services I personally vet or know are well-vetted mainstays by fellow bloggers and travelers. I don’t take on many new affiliates. The two affiliate programs I list below I use in tandem. They work differently.
Stay 22 : Stay 22 makes the jobs of researching, changing and maintaining your hotel booking links less tedious and painful. Pools hotel affiliate links into one space where you can track them and automatically replace the broken ones. It detects your existing links and its script transfers it to your Stay22 affiliate code. Takes 40% commission but it helps me avoid the pain of programs shifting platforms and it has additional AI widget features that help readers discover hotels they are interested in vs specified by my blog. It houses Agoda, Booking.com, Expedia and this helped tons when Agoda booted me from their program for not making enough sales and when Booking.com closed its affiliate program. Stay22 has been the safety net. It’s a MUST for all Travel Bloggers. Sign up for their blogger referral program.
Recently, it added Amazon and YouTube. The latter is the gamechanger: their AI researches the hotels in my videos. On my Shinsekai red light video, during my neighborhood walk showing love motels, I suggested links for hotels I posted hotel rates for, talked about in passing or were in my video background. The surprising part was I didn’t even know they had listings on Booking.com or Agoda! Stay22 bridges the gaps so I’m not losing money. They also have a new feature with Amazon. I’m not sure how it fully works yet, but it doesn’t seem like they are link switching my Amazon links over. Join now!
Travel Payouts: Vast library of travel affiliate programs to work with housed under one roof so you can grab affiliate links from one place. This is easier than signing up for individual programs and accessing them separately. I haven’t found as much traction with them though, because I’ve been too lazy to convert my existing links. Instead, I use them for testing smaller affiliate programs whose service I used, but don’t have enough content to make it worthwhile to sign up for the individual affiliate program. Unlike Stay22, Travel Payouts doesn’t have an AI script that allows you to effortlessly switch your links to their program. TP requires you to use their TP affiliate codes. So if you’re on a program they partner with, you have the option to either, stay a partner with that program or switch your existing affiliate links to TP to work through the TP’s program. The one thing I notice many content creators use them for is their generous blogger referral program– many new creators or Instagrammers who don’t have a blog, make money simply referring bloggers to them. Join TravelPayouts Now.
Get Your Guide works with creators in exchange for comped activities, which helps with creating content. They offer 8% on any bookings made, $2 on any apps installed and they have a lot of activity bookings for each destination. They have a creator referral program. They are worthwhile to sign up for even if you choose to work through Travel Payouts. They can have a high threshold for social media creators on their sponsored activities. I often do my own research and reach out to local operators directly. Join Get your Guide.
Booking.com USED to be a good affiliate program until it folded, leaving a lot of bloggers sending free traffic to Booking.com links throughout their blog. Some bloggers used it as their content strategy, building posts around “best places to stay in ____.” This is why it’s important to choose reputable and stable affiliate programs. They can pull the rug out from under you at any time, even some of the best brands. Good news for Booking.com affiliate partners: Stay22, still has a partnership with them and you can recover your losses with their LinkSwitch program.
Safetywing: Every travel content creator buy travel insurance. It’s a given. Safetywing is an economical insurance for travelers and nomads. The main advertising focus of their affiliate progam is to get fellow travel content creators to sign up for its affiliate program. Rather than promoting to travelers, they’ve made a big play for content creators. I don’t jive with their ethics. They have a good product that many bloggers swear by, but I can’t tell if the blogger actually likes.
WorldNomads Every travel blogger should have a preferred trip insurance service they use. World Nomads has been my longtime trip insurer – I’ve been with their affiliate program for a long timetoo . However, they broked my trust twice when they switched platforms (this caused a mass exodus of bloggers who liked them). This upended all the links I placed for them and til today i’m still finding broken widgets and links that is sending them free traffic! I don’t share them as much as I did and when I do, I share them through a special plugin called pretty links, where I can replace their link when they change their platforms.
Mint Mobile Wireless Plan ( USA )| Unlimited 5G Cheapest and fast mobile plan for U.S. travelers. Best value if you commit in 6-12 month terms. They have e-Sim options if your phone is compatible. Love it.
A2Hosting is my current hosting company; was recommended to them by Dev folks. Pretty reliable. I host my blog and portfolio sites on them. Customer support is good when there are troubleshooting issues — it’s faster when you call and can have a tech deal with your issue right then vs when you email. Sign up for A2hosting Affiliate Program to give new customers a huge sign up discount bonus of their first year.
Impreza Theme, is the Themeforest theme for WordPress that I use and it is sold through Envato marketplace. They have an affiliate program that is where many bloggers find WordPress themes and plugins of all prices.
