Welcome my friend to this unbiased and honest Skyscanner affiliate program review!
Is this travel and booking affiliate program worth joining? Is it possible to join it in the first place?
Can you make money with Skyscanner.net without owning properties or rental cars?
If yes, then how?
And what alternatives are there if you couldn’t join the Skyscanner.net affiliate program for one reason or another?
These questions and more, I will be answering in this detailed review where I tell you what you really need in order to succeed with travel affiliate programs, whether Skyscanner’s or other booking sites’ affiliate programs.
Important Note: The absolute best affiliate programs won’t make you a dime if you don’t have the necessary skills and tools. If this was the case, then This platform can help you with getting all the required skills and tools that you need to succeed as an affiliate.
Skyscanner Affiliate Program Review Summary
- Name: Skyscanner Affiliate Program
- Website: www.partners.skyscanner.net/affiliates/affiliate-products
- Founders: Skyscanner.net
- Price: Free to join, but you need paid tools and a proper training in order to succeed. (More in the last section of this Skyscanner affiliate review)
- Worth it? Yes, but you need to read the last section.
Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 88 of 100
Summary: Skyscanner has a relatively travel and booking affiliate program, which allows you to make commissions if you bring customers who would book hotels, flights, and rental cars through the Skyscanner.net website.
The main downfall is the relatively low commission rate, but the good thing is that they offer many useful affiliate tools, in addition to the long affiliate cookie that lasts 30 days.
What Is The Skyscanner Affiliate Program?
The Skyscanner affiliate program is a travel and booking affiliate program that allows affiliates to earn money from Skyscanner.net without providing services or owning a property or a car, but through promoting what is already listed on Skyscanner website and app in exchange of a commission on every reservation they bring.
This is the same business model of Skyscanner.net where they make money from hotels, airlines, and car rental companies by bringing them customers.
And when you join the Skyscanner affiliate program and bring them customers, you get part of the commission that Skyscanner itself from the service providers.
This is like working as a sub-affiliate under the main affiliate, Skyscanner.net.
Skyscanner.net Affiliate Program Breakdown
What Offers to Promote As a Skyscanner Affiliate
Skyscanner.net allow their affiliate to promote any of the three types of services that are listed on the Skyscanner site and app, which are:
- Hotels.
- Flights.
- Rental cars.
This is a good collection of travel related services to promote as an affiliate, but some other programs like Tripadvisor’s affiliate program offer a much wider range such as rental homes and experiences.
But it is still better than booking sites that only offer one kind of products or services to promote.
Skyscanner Affiliate Commission Rate
Skyscanner’s affiliate program typically pays a commission that starts from 20% of their own earnings from every booking, and it could go higher based on the affiliate’s performance.
For example, let’s say that you bring Skyscanner a referral who makes a booking that costs $200, and that Skyscanner’s earning from that booking was $20, you would then get 20% of the $20, which is around $4.
This might be a little bit low when compared to many other travel affiliate programs that offer a 50% commission from their earnings.
Another thing, it is sometimes confusing to know how much you can earn with Skyscanner’s affiliate program, because they pay on click-out basis.
This means that they estimate the value of each referral you bring to them, calculate the commission, multiply it by the conversion rate of your traffic, and then they find out how much you deserve to get per click on your affiliate links.
This means that for the previous example, if you convert one out of ten referrals who click on your affiliate link and go to Skyscanner.net, regardless if they book or not, you get around $4/10= $0.4 per click.
The per-click payout depends on a quality factor that relies on your traffic’s quality, it could be higher or lower.
Skyscanner.net Affiliate Cookie Duration
The thing that I like the most in this Skyscanner affiliate program review is that the affiliate cookie duration is 30 days, which is relatively long compared to other affiliate programs in the travel industry, as some of them offer a cookie that is limited to the session of the affiliate link click.
And this is great in my opinion, because when it comes to travel and booking hotels and flights, it is a bit difficult to make people convert on the first visit to the booking site.
This long conversion window may help get you more booking commissions as your referrals might click on your link to check out the offers you promote, leave the Skyscanner.net site or app, and come back later within 30 days in order to complete their reservation, and you would still get a commission.
Languages Available
Skyscanner.net supports more than 30 languages for its users, which means that you can potentially promote products that are listed on it to people from many different countries who speak any of these languages.
And this would typically increase your conversions from the traffic you drive through your affiliate links to Skyscanner.
Skyscanner Affiliate Tools
Skyscanner.net offers different tools for the affiliates to use, which could increase conversions, such as:
- Text Affiliate Links: Unique deep links that you can generate to any offer on Skyscanner.net, which can be tracked in order to help recognize the referrals that went from your site to Skyscanner in order to book something.
- Banners: Image ads that you can embed anywhere on your site and they would lead who click on them to Skyscanner and would track them as your referrals.
- Search Widgets: These are search boxes that you can embed directly on your site, and people would use them to look for services while they are still on your website, and when they find something, they go to Skyscanner.net in order to make a booking, and you would get credited for that reservation.
Skyscanner.net Affiliate Program Cost to Join
Skyscanner’s affiliate program is free to join, but there are some requirements that you need to fulfill, which might cost you money.
For example, you need an affiliate site in place in order to be able to use the tools provided for you as a Skyscanner affiliate.
And creating and maintaining an affiliate site would cost you a small monthly fee and a basic training to learn how to work on it.
Don’t worry if you don’t have any experience with websites, as in the last section of this review of the Skyscanner.net affiliate program, I will tell you about a place that helped me create multiple affiliate sites without any technical knowledge thanks to the tools and support they provide at a very low cost.
Skyscanner Affiliate Payment Threshold & Hold Period
It is not clear how much the minimum affiliate earnings should be before getting paid.
It probably depends on the affiliate network where the affiliate program is hosted and managed.
And when it comes to the hold period, Skyscanner doesn’t hold affiliate commission for a long period since they pay on click-out basis.
Skyscanner Affiliate Payment Methods
As mentioned earlier, Skyscanner’s main affiliate program is hosted on Commission Junction, which means that you can get paid through their payment methods, which are: direct deposit to a local bank account, a check, and a direct deposit to a Payoneer bank account for non-US affiliates.
Make Money with The Skyscanner Affiliate Program in 3 Simple Steps
1 – Grow a Loyal Audience
This is the first step to succeed with any affiliate program, including the Skyscanner affiliate program.
You must first grow an audience that would trust you and take by your advice and recommendations.
And although there are many ways to do so, but the most sustainable and efficient way is by starting a simple niche affiliate blog or website, where you work on helping a specific group of people who have something in common.
And in any case, you would probably need a website in order to increases your chances to get approved as an affiliate for Skyscanner.net, and so that you can use the tools they will offer you.
If you have no experience with websites, then no problem!
In the last section of this Skyscanner.net affiliate program review, I will lead you to the right place where you can create an affiliate site with ease and without any technical knowledge, and they will provide you with the training and support to maintain it.
After you start your site, the way to grow an audience is by helping them through creating helpful content that answers their questions on Google.
For example, if you decide to make a website about travel and tourism in Bangkok, then your audience would search on Google stuff such as:
- Best restaurants in Bangkok
- Best hotels in Bangkok
- Best area to stay in Bangkok
- Cheap flights to Bangkok
And so on.
And for each one of these searches, you would create a helpful article on your site, listing the best 5-10 options available in Bangkok.
2 – Join The Skyscanner.net Affiliate Program
In order to be to use the affiliate tools and make money as a Skyscanner affiliate, you need to join their affiliate program by applying to it.
And since they have more than one option to join, you need to decide which is best for you and go for it.
But typically, you need your affiliate site in place before applying to join the Skyscanner affiliate program.
After you apply, Skyscanner’s team will review your application and approve it if your site is in accordance to their requirements and terms.
3 – Use The Skyscanner Affiliate Tools to Promote Their Offers
After getting approved to become a Skyscanner.net affiliate, you can now get the tools that you would use in order to promote what they offer.
For example, if you create a list-based post on your site, promoting the top 5-star hotels in Bangkok, then you would use the Skyscanner affiliate links to take people directly to each one of the hotels you found on Skyscanner.
Or, you can embed the search widgets, which would allow your site’s visitors to search for flights, car hires, and hotels while they are still on your website, and when they find something that they want to book, they go to Skyscanner.net to book it.
And with these three easy-to-follow steps, you can make money with the Skyscanner.net affiliate program.
Skyscanner.net Affilitae Program Support
Skyscanner has an affiliate support team that can help you if you need any help.
The tools are easy to use, but there’s also a guide on their site on how to use the search widgets, in addition to the fact that the affiliate program hosted on an affiliate network is hosted on Commission Junction, which is a reliable network.
Pros & Cons of The Skyscanner Affiliate Program
Pros:
- The website is available in more than 30 languages, which can increase conversions.
- A well-known and trusted global booking site.
- Offers different services to promote as: hotels, rental cars, and flights.
- Useful affiliate tools that help increase conversions, such as: affiliate links, banners, and search widgets.
- Click-out based commissions, which means a shorter hold period.
- Hosted on CJ, which is a reliable affiliate network.
- A relatively long affiliate cookie duration of 30 days, compared to most of the travel and booking affiliate programs that don’t offer such as long period.
Cons:
- The affiliate program that is hosted on CJ might make it difficult for some affiliates to join.
- Despite offering hotels, flights, and rental cars, but some other booking sites offer a wider range of services including trips, packages, experiences, cruises, …etc.
- There’s an approval process to become a Skyscanner.net affiliate, which means that you might not get approved.
- The commission is relatively low.
- The commission is per click-out, and it relys in value on a quality factor that Skyscanner decides for every affiliate, which might cause low payouts.
- The main affiliate payment methods are direct bank deposits and checks, which might not be suitable for some affiliates.
Skyscanner.net Affiliate Program Alternatives
If your application was rejected by Skyscanner or Commission Junction, then don’t worry! That’s not the end of the world as there are many other alternatives.
You can find many travel and booking affiliate programs through the different free tools and methods listed here, but here are three of them:
- Tripadvisor Affiliate Program: Tripadvisor is one of the most popular websites when it comes to finding what travelers and tourists need, as they offer lots of services for you to promote as an affiliate, such as: hotels, flights, rental cars, cruise trips, experiences, and more. They pay a 50% commission from their owning earnings on every reservation you bring to them, and their affiliate cookie lasts for 14 days, and they provide you with many affiliate tools.
- Agoda.com Affiliate Partner Program: Agoda is mainly specialized in offering hotels and homes to book, which is a little bit limiting for affiliate, but they offer homes at different scales, which might help increase conversions as you can target more segments of people based on their needs. The main issue is that their cookie lasts only for the session after your referral clicked on your affiliate link.
- Booking.com Affiliate Partner Program: Booking.com is a very popular booking site that offers many products that affiliate marketers can promote such as: hotels, attractions, cars, flights, and airport taxis. They pay 25-40% commission from their own earnings, depending on the affiliate’s performance, which is fine, but the main downfall is that their affiliate cookie, like it is with Agoda.com, lasts only during the session after your referral clicks on your affiliate link.
Conclusion – Is The Skyscanner Affiliate Program Worth it?
Skyscanner’s affiliate program is a good one as it offers a wide range of products to promote as an affiliate, and they offer good tools for affiliates to use, in addition to the relatively long cookie duration of 30 days, which could increase conversions. Add to that the fact that they support more than 30 languages.
- Name: Skyscanner Affiliate Program
- Website: www.partners.skyscanner.net/affiliates/affiliate-products
- Founders: Skyscanner.net
- Price: Free to join, but you need paid tools and a proper training in order to succeed. (As mentioned earlier in this Skyscanner.net affiliate review)
- Worth it? Yes, but you need to read the following paragraph.
Overall OnlinePassiveIncomeGuide.com Rating: 88 of 100
However, the main issues of the Skyscanner affiliate program are: the low commission rate, the difficulty in joining for some affiliates as it is listed on Commission Junction, and the limitation in the affiliate payment methods.
These together might limit your earnings potential as an affiliate for Skyscanner.net, compared to some other travel and tourism related affiliate programs, or even affiliate programs in other industries.
You Can’t Make a Dime with Skyscanner’s Affiliate Program, Unless ….
Unless you were armed with the necessary skills and tools that affiliate marketers need in order to succeed, you won’t be really making a life-changing income with the Skyscanner affiliate program, or with any other affiliate program.
I had an access to many great affiliate program when I started years ago, but couldn’t make a real money because I didn’t have what it takes to make a sustainable income in this field.
But this all changed to the best after I found this amazing place and community that provided me with all of what I needed to make my efforts worth it.
And this place is an online platform and community that is called Wealthy Affiliate.
This where I found all what I need in order to become a successful affiliate marketer, such as:
- The step-by-step affiliate marketing training.
- The best tools for affiliates to find opportunities for making money with Skyscanner and other sites.
- The easy-to-use website builder that helped me create many affiliate sites without any technical knowledge
- The amazing web hosting with the premium support so that you need to handle the technical issues.
- And best of all, the very supportive community of more than 2 million like-minded entrepreneurs who would help you whenever you ask for help.
And much more.
And you can join this platform today and get all of that for a very affordable monthly fee.
Even better, they offer a free plan to try it before paying anything, which would give you access to the first level of the training (10 lessons).
So, if you are serious about making money with affiliate programs like the Skyscanner affiliate program, and you want someone to take you by the hand in your journey, then check out my review of Wealthy Affiliate in order to learn more about this amazing place, and you will find out how you to get started with the FREE plan at the beginning.
I hope that I fulfilled my promise in giving you an honest and detailed Skyscanner affiliate program review, and that you now know how to earn money with it.
If you still have any question regarding anything I mentioned in this review, please, let me know in the comments’ section below and I will be happy to help you out 🙂