A staggering 148 million travel bookings are made online every year. 39% of those are hotel bookings and a whopping 65.4% of those are booked directly via a hotel brand website, mostly because of customer loyalty programs.
Frequent travelers will take advantage of rewards programs such as those offered by IHG, Hilton, Marriot, and many others. The downside for you is that some of these hotel affiliate programs exclude certain room bookings made by loyal customers.
Some hotel affiliate programs are suitable for event organizers catering to business travelers who need to make last-minute room bookings, while others are better suited to larger families requiring a room for more than 4 people.
There are a number of ways you can monetize a travel blog or website with hotel affiliate programs but the simplest and most powerful way is to recommend brands you have had personal experience with and don’t have any hesitation recommending them.
People search for hotels online for a variety of reasons, but the vast majority look for strong user reviews first, then they may price shop for hotel deals.
There’s no shortage of hotel rooms or niches for travel blogs to find an angle to promote hotel affiliate programs.
Even if you’re not involved in the travel industry, there’s ample opportunity to tie in hotel deals your audience could be interested in.
As one example, Christian blogs with a Spanish audience can recommend pet-friendly hotels every January to Catholics celebrating the Festival of Saint Anthony Abbot – the Patron Saint of Animals. The event attracts around 15,000 believers to Madrid every January to have their pets blessed.
Hotels generally pay less commission percentages to affiliates because of the high order values but combined with other travel affiliate programs, you can make significant earnings.
Hotel Website Ideas
- Monetize a family or parenting blog with travel guides for vacations with kids and list out the most family-friendly hotels.
- For pet website owners, you can recommend pet-friendly hotels for tourists who want to bring their dog(s).
- Bridal blogs can focus on romantic hotels and list out some of the most memorable places such as hotels located close to waterfalls or other romantic hotspots.
- Create a travel guide website for any local area listing out things to do, places to stay, and perhaps use coupon affiliate programs to give tourists and locals discounts to spa treatments, attraction tickets, restaurant deals, and more.
- Photography bloggers can monetize some of their content with hotels near picturesque locations.
12 Hotel Affiliate Programs
- Undercover Tourist
- Yotel
- Palace Resorts
- Bring Fido
- Lebua Hotels
- Oberoi Hotels
- Trip Advisor
- Loews Hotels and Resorts
- Wyndham Hotels
- Radisson Hotels Group
- Caesars Hotels
- Affilired Publisher Program
1. Undercover Tourist
Undercover Tourist is best-known for discount tickets at Disney Resorts. They also have a hotel booking engine that can be used to book official Disney Hotel rooms as well as car hire available to pick-up from Orlando airport.
The affiliate program pays commission on all sales made through your referral link.
Some hotels in the Disney Springs® area are operated by IHG and Hilton. If you’re an affiliate for either of those hotel brands, you could also partner with Undercover Tourist to provide alternative hotel deals. (Check other program terms first as some affiliate programs don’t allow you to promote competitors)
The only real difference is the included extras customers get by booking direct vs. booking the discount tickets. With Undercovertourist.com, there are some services excluded such as free dining nor can you add a Disney Dining Plan to the discounted rooms.
For family blogs focused on providing advice about saving on family vacations, Undercover Tourist could be just the ticket.
It’s not all Disney either. They’re also authorized resellers for a number of other family favorite destinations including Universal Studios, Legoland, and the Vail Ski Resort in Colorado to name just a few others.
Undercover tourist affiliates are paid a flat $1 fee on ticket sales and a 1% commission on hotel room bookings and car rentals with the cookie-tracking set for 30-days.
Apply to join the Undercover Tourist affiliate program here.
2. Yotel
The Yotel brand has compact rooms that make the most of smart technology and all their hotels are located in busy metropolitan areas where people often need short stays of two to three nights.
They also have YotelAir, which are hotels located inside airport terminals that can be booked by the hour. These rooms are better suited to people flying long-haul who may have some time to kill between arriving at an airport for an ongoing flight.
As an example, a business traveler could have a few hours in an airport before the next connecting flight. A YotelAir room could be booked for a couple of hours, which could be used for a quick rest, use the Wi-Fi to get some work done on a laptop, recharge devices, and take advantage of complimentary coffees. It sure beats hanging around an airport.
Yotel’s hotel affiliate program is managed by Partnerize.com with details only available to approved affiliates so the commission rates and cookie tracking aren’t available on the site.
Sign up to the Yotel affiliate program here.
3. Palace Resorts
Palace Resorts are your go-to destination for 5-star Caribbean Vacations in Mexico and Jamaica. The resorts have plenty for the whole family and it’s also suitable for honeymooners as all the resorts are about creating memorable experiences, rather than just a fun vacation.
Some of the all-inclusive offers include credits to spend on the resort, which can be used for anything from spa treatments to swimming with dolphins, snorkeling, and spending on excursions to popular destinations in the areas surrounding the resorts.
The affiliate program for Palace Resorts pays 4% commissions on completed vacations, uses 45-day cookie tracking and is managed by Commission Junction with affiliate support provided by the Ariadna Communications Group and creatives are provided to help with your marketing.
Sign up to CJ.com to join the Palace Resorts affiliate program. (If you’re already a registered publisher with Commission Junction, login and search for Palace Resorts or use the merchant ID: 4626091)
4. Bring Fido
Thousands of people every month are searching for pet-friendly hotels, Bed and Breakfasts, lodgings, restaurants, and campgrounds.
Pets are considered a part of the family and there are some who’d prefer to travel with their pets, rather than book a pet sitting service or put their furry friend into a dog or cat boarding facility.
Check out some of these search terms showing the number of people searching for these types of rooms and cabins…
BringFido.com is the website to refer your audience to for pet-friendly hotels or vacation rentals with fenced backyards for some quality off-leash time, or even to find upmarket hotels that have spa facilities for the pampered pooch.
The affiliate program for BringFido.com pays a flat $5 per booking and they have pet-friendly hotels, vacation rentals and Bed and Breakfasts in 14,000 cities around the world.
This is another example of using hotel affiliate programs to monetize a non-travel website or blog.
Join the BringFido.com affiliate program here.
5. Lebua Hotels
Lebua Hotels and Resorts are located throughout the Asia Pacific including Thailand, an exclusive resort in New Zealand and the State Tower Hotel in Bangkok, which was voted Bangkok’s best hotel by TravelandLeisure.com in 2019.
The State Tower hotel by Lebua is Bangkok’s highest sky-rise offering exquisite dining experiences and the rooms are massive. A standard room is a huge 710 square feet. Any rooms anywhere else that size is considered a suite.
The affiliate program is managed by Affiliate Window, pays 5% commission and uses 30-day cookies.
As the brand is focused on delivering exceptional culinary experiences, this is likely to go down well with food bloggers who could introduce their audience to the world’s best culinary destinations and recommend hotels to stay at with fine dining experiences included.
Sign up the Lebua Hotels affiliate program here.
6. Oberoi Hotels
Oberoi hotels operate in Dubai, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mauritius, and Morocco with a total of 25 properties, each catering to luxury vacations in picturesque destinations.
The three most prominent regions for sales are India (60%), the US (10%) and the UK (5%) so if your audience are in those locations and interested in luxury travel, this could be a good brand to partner with.
Commissions are 6% on verified bookings, and the referral period is 30-days.
Sign up to promote Oberoi Hotels on Shareasale.com here or on Affiliate Window here.
Alternatively, see the Affilired.com Publisher Program here as Oberoi are part of the Affilired.com Network.
7. Trip Advisor
Trip Advisor is one of those sites that needs no introduction. They’re prominent in search engines for most hotel and travel-related queries and it’s often used by people to get inspiration and advice before booking a hotel, which conveniently for us affiliates, the TripAdvisor affiliate program only pays on hotel bookings.
They give you the promotional material, a 1-day cookie, and 50% commission of what they’re paid when a booking is made.
They claim to have conversions over 40% so pay attention to your affiliate newsletter for tips and use their marketing material to get your commissions rolling in.
Definitely take advantage of being able to deep-link to any of half a million hotels with dedicated landing pages.
Sign up or login to Commission Junction to join the Trip Advisor affiliate program
8. Loews Hotels and Resorts
Loews has 20 hotels located in the US and Canada, two of which, the Loews Kansas City Hotel and Live! by Loews in St. Louis, Missouri are later additions since 2020.
Some hotels have conference rooms and other executive suites for business users, while others are pet-friendly family hotels. All the hotels are consistently voted 4+ by users on TripAdvisor.com.
The Loews hotel’s affiliate program is open to international affiliates, but the hotels are only in the US and Canada.
The program uses 30-day cookie tracking and pays up to 15% commission on confirmed bookings, but only in select Loews Hotels. Check the program terms for a list of hotels you won’t earn commission on.
Sign up to the Loews Hotels affiliate program here.
9. Wyndham Hotels
The Wyndham Hotel Group is one of the big five hotel chains that you’ll want get familiar with as across all brands, there’s potential to earn commissions on any of 790,000 room bookings.
Some of the better-known brands include Days Inn, Ramada, Super 8 and of course, the obvious Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.
The brand is international with all the popular travel destinations covered and each of their brands cater to different staying preferences, such as upscale hotel rooms, more spacious suites for larger families or groups as well as budget-friendly convenient stays of one or two nights.
The Wyndham Hotels affiliate program is managed by Commission Junction and pays a 3% commission on consumed bookings, which just means you’re paid the commission once your referral has used the room.
That’s the same on most hotel affiliate programs because it avoids chargebacks on any cancellations.
There is a downside to this and that’s the cookies as they are only session-based, so your affiliate links will only count as a confirmed referral when the booking is made in the same session as they clicked your link.
On the plus side, the affiliate team engages with their affiliates, provides ongoing promotions and there is the advantage of consumer awareness as your site visitors are likely to be familiar with the brand.
Apply to join the Wyndham Hotels affiliate program.
10. Radisson Hotels Group
The Radisson Hotel Group has 8 major brands representing different tourism markets they cater to, which is common in the hospitality industry, especially the hotels market. Marriot Hotels and the Hilton brand have the same approach and both of those have similar hotel affiliate programs you can join too.
A breakdown of what brands are part of the Radisson Hotels Group and which audience they cater towards are published on the brands’ page of RadissonHotels.com
Get familiar with the brands as you can promote any of them, but it’s unlikely you’ll want to promote them all because they are for different audiences and purposes.
For example, the Radisson CollectionTM are all exceptional hotels with the highest star ratings, while the Park Inn by Radisson is more suited to short-stays of 1 to 2 nights.
Commission Junction manages the affiliate program for the Radisson Hotel Group. They pay affiliates a 5% commission for each room booked and provide you with a 30-day tracking cookie.
To apply to join the Radisson Hotels affiliate program, log in to CJ.com and search for merchant ID 3070943 for the Radisson Hotels.
You’ll also find related links for separately managed affiliate programs to join including Country Suites by Radisson, which have larger rooms suited to bigger families.
11. Caesars Hotels
For those already using online gambling affiliate programs to monetize gaming-related websites, partnering with Caesars could be a good choice as you can promote any of 32 hotels in the Caesars family of casino resorts, each with various deals you can use to help encourage bookings.
As a Caesars Entertainment affiliate, you’ll be paid a 5% commission on each room booked and used through your referral link, which is to any of their 32 hotels.
The affiliate program is managed by Impact Radius and you can deep-link to any hotel and use some of their pre-done marketing material to help encourage bookings.
They also offer tickets to Las Vegas shows and if any your referrals buy tickets to those shows, you’ll also get a 10% commission on those sales too.
Apply to join the Caesars Hotels affiliate program here.
12. Affilired Publisher Program
Affilired.com is a performance marketing company that’s already partnered with over 200 travel-related programs, many of which are hotels.
They work with other publishers as strategic partners to help their clients, who are all on other affiliate networks including Webgains.com, Cj.com, Shareasale.com, Tradedoubler.com and some country-specific programs for promoting hotels in Spain, as one example.
As the travel industry is competitive, you can take advantage of Affilired’s 10-year experience in helping travel companies grow through affiliate marketing.
The team works closely with their affiliates to help their clients grow so if you feel your site or experience can benefit the team and likewise, them be a benefit to your business, reach out for more details about the Affilired.com publisher program.
