Is it possible to make money with Booking.com as an affiliate? Is this the best option out there or are there better alternatives?
This honest Booking.com Affiliate Program Review will help you know the pros and cons of this travel and booking affiliate program, and it will let you know if there were better alternatives out there.
Note: Affiliate programs don’t make you money no matter how great they are, unless you have the necessary tools and skills. Check out this platform that helped me increase my affiliate income with their training and tools.
Booking.com Affiliate Program Review Summary
- Name: Booking.com Affiliate Program
- Website:booking.com/affiliate-program/v2/index.HTML
- Cost to Join: Free
- Worth it? Yes, but …
Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 85 of 100
Summary: Booking.com has a good affiliate program as they offer lots of services and options in a big number of places, and in different languages, in addition to the generous commission, but the main issue is that the cookie duration is limited to the time of the session and your referral should book immediately in order to get you a commission.
What Is The Booking.com Affiliate Program?
Booking.com affiliate program is a program that allows publishers (bloggers, website owners, influencers, YouTubers, …etc.) to make money with Booking.com by placing banners and links that take their audience to the Booking.com website and book something, in exchange of a commission that these publishers get from Booking.com for every reservation.
And this is the same model how Booking.com makes money in the first place by bringing customers to the property owners, airlines, and car rental companies in exchange of a commission.
And the commission you get as a Booking.com affiliate is determined by your performance, but it ranges from 25% to 40% from what Booking.com earns on every booking customer you bring.
This video gives a brief explanation about the program:
Important Facts about Booking.com Affiliate Program
Offers Available
Booking.com is not about hotels only, but they also offer lots of property options for people to book such as villas, apartments, and even tree houses or cabins.
Even better, Booking.com is not only about properties, but they also offer the option to search for and book flights, experiences, airport taxis, and rental cars, which means that you can offer your audience lots of services as an affiliate and potentially increase your commissions.
Booking.com Affiliate Commission Rate
The rate of the booking.com affiliate commissions ranges from 25%-40% from what Booking.com gets on every reservation that was made through their website.
This depends on how many reservations you bring to them per month:
- 0-50 Reservations, you get a 25% commission.
- 51-150 Reservations, you get a 30% commission.
- 151-500 Reservations, you get a 35% commission.
- 501+ Reservations, you get a 40% commission.
Booking.com Affiliate Cookie Duration (The Worst!)
This is a bad thing about Booking.com affiliate program, which is the fact that the cookie duration is limited to only the session where your audience visit Booking.com, and they need to book within the same visit in order to get you a commission.
If they go from your site to Booking.com, and then leave it without booking anything, and they come back even an hour later and book something, you don’t get a commission.
This is really a negative point as many affiliate programs for booking sites offer a longer cookie duration, sometimes up to 30 days.
And outside the booking industry, some affiliate programs offer a 60-day cookie or even more.
Languages Available
Booking.com is a popular booking site and many people around the world are using it to book services and stays on daily basis.
The nice thing is that Booking.com is available in 43 languages, which means that you have a better chance in promoting it and getting a commission as the conversion rate will increase because of the language factor.
Cost to Join The Booking.com Affiliate Program
Booking.com affiliate program is free to join, however, in order to succeed with it, you need to grow an audience.
And to do so, the best way is to start an affiliate site, which is easy these days thanks to the tools and training in the last section of this review of the Booking.com affiliate program.
Booking.com Affiliate Payment Threshold & Hold Period
The affiliate payment threshold of Booking.com is 100 Euro ($110), which means that you need to collect at least $110 in commissions before getting paid, which is a bit high, especially for beginners.
Add to that the fact that the commission isn’t approved until two months have passed.
This is a very long period in my opinion.
Booking.com Affiliate Payout Methods
Booking.com pays affiliates either through PayPal, or through direct bank transfers in Euro & USD.
Make Money with Booking.com Affiliate Program in 3 Steps
1 – Create an Online Business & Grow an Audience
In order to make money with any affiliate program, you need to grow an audience first, and make them trust your recommendations, so that they buy products and services that you recommend as an affiliate.
And you can do that by starting an online business like a blog, a YouTube channel, a Facebook group, …etc.
But the best way by far, especially on the long run, is by starting a blog about a certain topic or niche.
Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do so, in the last section on this review you will learn about a place that will give you the tools to start one in few minutes without technical knowledge or coding.
And to grow your audience, you need to create content that is helpful to them on regular basis.
Let’s say that you make your website about places to go in NYC.
You would create articles that help people, either residents or visitors of NYC, find what they are looking for such as:
- Best 3/4/5 star hotels in NYC.
- Best vegan/seafood/Mexican/Italian restaurants in NYC.
- Best car rental companies in NYC.
- Cheap flights to NYC.
And so on.
And for each of these searches, you create an article telling people about the best 5-10 options available there.
2 – Join The Booking.com Affiliate Program
Now in order to be able to earn money with the Booking.com affiliate program, you need to apply to join their affiliate program, so that you get the tools that you need to use when promoting what they offer.
Applying to Booking.com affiliate program is easy through their website, and it is relatively easy to get accepted, but having a website like I mentioned earlier increases your chances to get accepted.
3 – Use The Tools Provided in Order to Take People to Booking.com & Make a Reservation
Booking.com offers many tools for affiliates to use, such as:
- Affiliate links: Unique links that take people to any page/offer that is listed on Booking.com, so that they can track the people you send from your site to Booking.com site.
- Banners: These are either vertical or horizontal image ads that you can embed to your website through an HTML code, and they will track people who click on them and go to book something on Booking.com.
- Map Widget: A map search tool that allows users to find accommodations near a specific area with a visual representation.
- Deals Finder: A tool that allows users to find discount deals on accommodations listed on Booking.com in certain places.
- Booking.com Search Box/Widget (Image below): This is the same search box that people use on Booking.com website to look for something, but you can also embed it on your website so that your site’s visitors use it directly to search for something, and after that, they will go to the Booking.com website to book what they have found.
Assuming that you created list-based articles as in step one, you need now to get affiliate links from Booking.com to every option that you listed in your articles, and tell people to click on it to reserve.
Or you can place the Booking.com search widget on your site and allow people to use it to find what they are looking for by themselves, and then they would be redirected to Booking.com website to book.
And when anyone goes from your site to Booking.com and books something, you get a commission that is 25-40% of what Booking.com earns from the service provider themselves.
And with these three simple steps, you can earn money as a Booking.com affiliate.
Pros & Cons of The Booking.com Affiliate Program
Pros:
- A global known website and that many people trust and are willing to book through.
- A wide variety of options to book through Booking.com including different kinds of properties, flights, and car services.
- Available in 43 languages, which helps increase your conversion rates.
- Great affiliate tools available, including the search widget which allows your audience to search services from your website and then go to booking.com in order to book them.
- Generous commission structure that increases your commission per sale/booking as you bring more reservations per month.
- Two payment methods available, direct bank deposit in USD and Euro, and through PayPal.
- Available for affiliates from most countries, unlike other travel and booking affiliate programs that are open to affiliates from selected countries.
- Booking.com affiliate program is available as an in-house affiliate program through their website directly, and through AWIN and CJ affiliate networks.
Cons:
- Although Booking.com offers lots of options such as tree cabins and villas, but it is not as popular in this field as other booking sites and apps such as Airbnb for example.
- The cookie duration is limited to the session itself, and if your referral doesn’t book immediately after they click on your link and go to booking.com, you don’t get a commission even if they go to book an hour later.
- Some other booking sites offer a higher commission to their affiliates, even up to 50% of their earnings.
- No wire transfer is available for commissions, only direct bank transfer in Euro or USD, or PayPal transfer.
- The payout threshold is a bit high (100 Euro or around $110).
- The hold period before releasing a commission is two months, which is too long.
Alternatives to The Booking.com Affiliate Program
There are many alternative travel and booking affiliate programs for the Booking.com affiliate program, which you can find in different ways for finding affiliate programs, but here are three recommended ones to join:
- Tripadvisor Affiliate Program: Tripadvisor offers a big number of services including cruise trips, road trips, restaurants, experiences, packages, in additions to hotels, flights, and rental cars. The commission rate is 50% of what they get on each booking, and affiliate cookie duration is 14 days.
- Agoda Affiliate Program: Agoda specializes in booking properties such as hotels, homes, villas, …etc., flights and airport transportation. Agoda pays affiliates 5% of the total booking value, but the problem is that like it is with Booking.com, the cookie duration is limited to the same session your referral stays on Agoda.com after clicking your affiliate link.
- Skyscanner Affiliate Program: Skyscanner pays affiliates 20% or more of its earnings on every booking that the affiliate brings, and the percentage might go higher for top performing affiliates. They also offer great tools like the search widget, they offer hotels, rental cars and flights. The cookie duration of Skyscanner’s affiliate program is 30 days.
Booking.com Affiliate Support
Booking.com has a support team for their affiliates, and they have good tools and easy to navigate affiliate dashboard.
This is in addition to the fact that they are easier to accept affiliates from most of the countries, in addition to the fact that their affiliate program is hosted on all over the world, add to that the fact that you can join it either through their website or through affiliate networks like Awin and CJ.
Conclusion – Is Booking.com Affiliate Program Worth it?
The affiliate program of Booking.com is a good one as it is easy to join, it offers good affiliate tools and easy dashboard, and they have a commission structure, in addition to wide variety of offers to promote as an affiliate.
- Name: Booking.com Affiliate Program
- Website:booking.com/affiliate-program/v2/index.HTML
- Cost to Join: Free
- Worth it? Yes, but …
Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 85 of 100
But the main downfall of the Booking.com affiliate program is the 0-minute cookie duration.
This means that if you send someone through your link to booking.com website or app, they should book within the same visit, or you won’t get a commission.
This is in addition to the high payout threshold of 100 Euros and the 2-month commission hold period.
The Best Affiliate Program WON’T Make You a Dime, Unless ….
Unless you have the necessary skills and tools, you can’t make money with any affiliate program no matter how great it was.
And this applies to the Booking.com affiliate partner program as well.
When I started with affiliate marketing, I had access to the most rewarding affiliate programs, but I couldn’t make money because affiliate marketing is a real business that requires skills and tools in order to succeed with it.
But this all changed when I found an amazing online platform and community that gave me all what I needed to do affiliate marketing the right way, such as:
- The detailed, step-by-step affiliate marketing training.
- The best tools for affiliate marketers to find opportunities for making money.
- The website builder and hosting tools so that I create and maintain affiliate sites without technical knowledge or hassle.
- And most important, the amazing and supportive community of more than 2 million entrepreneurs who are willing to help you whenever you ask for help.
And much more.
And all of that for an affordable monthly fee that doesn’t come with hidden fees and surprises.
And this great platform is called Wealthy Affiliate.
This is the right place to go in order to make money with affiliate programs like the Booking.com affiliate program, or any other travel and booking affiliate program.
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And you will also see how you can start with the FREE Starter plan at the beginning to try it before paying anything.
I hope that you found this Booking.com affiliate program review helpful in finding all what you need about this program and how to make money as a Booking.com affiliate.
If you still have any question about anything mentioned in this review, please, let me know in the comments’ section below and I will be happy to help you out 🙂