The Best Affiliate Programs For Travel Blogs

For me, traveling is freedom.

If you are a travel blogger, I give you a standing ovation. Being a digital nomad, I understand how tough it is to blog while traveling. I also know that it’s even tougher to monetize your travel blog.

There are many travel bloggers who often get sponsorship for traveling (like free trips with all expenses covered), but not everyone is so lucky at the beginning of their blogging career.

Travel blogging is a popular & profitable niche that can generate great amounts of revenue using various monetization methods.

Some of the most popular monetization methods are:

* Today I will be telling you about some of the top travel blog affiliate programs.

This is a one of a kind list of travel affiliate programs & I hope you make the most out of it.

If you are already well-versed in the art of affiliate marketing, then read on for the complete list of affiliate programs for travel blogs.

Best Travel Affiliate Programs to Quadruple Your Blog Income:

1. Booking.com Affiliate Program

Booking.com is a popular name in the travel industry.

They also have an affiliate partner program that is open for anyone with a blog/website, an app, or a travel agency. As long as you can offer the best choice of accommodations, this program is for you.

Highlights:

Free & easy sign-up process.
Offers search box, deep linking, and banner integration options.
They have an offer-based, commission split model.

2. TripAdvisor Affiliate Program

When someone is planning a trip, they usually check out TripAdvisor for reviews, recommendations, and bookings.

Getting on this affiliate program will be valuable as you can source content from their website and link your readers back to the original content through your tracking link.

Highlights:

50% commission.
Deep linking to over 500,000 cities & hotels.
Tiered commission structure.
Monthly payout.

Note: Tripadvisor program is available via CJ. You can get free Commission junction training here.

3. Travala Affiliate Program

As cryptocurrency is gaining popularity, it is a good time to promote a travel website which accepts payment in cryptocurrencies. Travala is one such platform which offers crypto friendly bookings, and they offer a lucrative affiliate program where you can earn income in cryptocurrencies.

This program is free to join for everyone and the base program offers 5% commission on every travel booking done from your affiliate link. The best part, you will be getting paid in cryptocurrencies, which makes it another popular crypto affiliate program.

You can find the link to join Affiliate program of Travala at the bottom of their homepage.

4. Agoda Affiliate Program

With over a quarter million properties, Agoda definitely deserves to be in this mega list of travel blog affiliate programs.

Their in-house affiliate program is open for everyone to join (but it’s mandatory to have a website/blog).

The approval is a manual process & takes about 48-72 hours.

Highlights:

Up to 60% commission on margin.
Offers search box, text links & data feeds.
Use hotel power ads to increase your revenue by 3x.
Minimum payout $200.
Payout mode is direct bank transfer.

Note: Agoda’s affiliate program can also be joined using ShareASale.

5. Skyscanner Affiliate Program

Skyscanner is one website that I always use when checking the price of a flight.

If you have never used them, you should download their mobile app & I promise you won’t be disappointed.

For your travel blog, Skyscanner offers various options. The one that you might want to start with is the Travel Widget.

You can use this widget in your sidebar or around the content where you are more likely to have users take an action. This widget will redirect them to the Skyscanner site.

If you want to take it to the next level, you can hire a developer & use the Skyscanner travel API to build your own search functionality on your website or mobile app.

Highlights:

Offers white-label solutions for offering flight searches on your website.
One of the most popular travel affiliate program APIs.
Flight booking widget for your sidebar.
One of the best & most detailed reference systems to help you get started.
Supports flight bookings, hotel bookings, and rental cars.

6. AirB&B Referral Program

Referral programs & affiliate programs are two sides of the same coin.

In a referral program, instead of earning hard cash, you earn points (or other non-monetary value) which you can utilize to buy products on the same network.

Here is an infographic from Refferalcandy that explains the differences & similarities:

AirB&B has a very popular referral program that helps you to earn decent “money” by referring other users.

You can earn up to $72 for every successful referral & a maximum of $5,000 USD travel credit per account.

Highlights:

Easy to share referral link as a user will also get AirB&B credits worth $18.
A well-known name in the travel industry.
Good for travel income.

Note: You might want to have a look at other popular apps (such as Lyft, Uber, HotelsTonight) which also offer referral programs.

7. ShareASale

ShareASale is an affiliate marketplace where you can find top affiliate programs in any niche.

Many of the popular travel airlines, hotels, and services (such as Qatar Airways, Agoda, The Lalit Hotels, Riu Hotels, etc.) are available via ShareASale.

If you have never used ShareASale before, the navigation may be confusing at the beginning.

Highlights:

Payment via direct bank deposit.
Easier to reach minimum payout than in-house affiliate programs.
See the top performing affiliate programs in every niche.

8. Amazon Associates

Whenever I research or compile an exclusive niche-based affiliate program list like this, it is always incomplete without Amazon’s affiliate program.

Amazon is the top destination for online buying. They have an amazing reputation and will help you earn great amounts of money in no time.

Once you join the Amazon Associates program, you can link to any of the products listed on Amazon & earn money across the entire site.

What’s really cool about the Amazon affiliate program is you will earn money whenever a referred user purchases any product from Amazon. That is, it doesn’t just have to be the product you sent them to.

Highlights:

Highly reputed network.
Getting started is easy and you will find tons of guides & videos.
Numerous products related to travelers & traveling.
Higher commission as you start referring more users.

Tip: If you find it time-consuming to create links for individual products, you can use Viglink to make the process easier. You can learn more about Viglink here & join here.

Other popular travel website & services offering affiliate programs:

Hipmunk offers Network via ImpactRadius: Join here
Hyatt Hotels & Resorts via VigLink: Join here

If you have not joined any of the above-listed travel affiliate programs, then you should do that right now.

This list is currently up to date, but to make it complete, it requires your contribution!

Do let us know of any other popular affiliate programs for the travel niche that you would recommend to other travel bloggers. Make sure you use a link cloaking plugin to make your affiliate links user-friendly.

I look forward to reading your tips & insightful ideas in the comments section below.

If you find this list worthy, do share it on your favorite social networking sites!

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