Travelpayouts Review 2024: Can You Make Money? (2024)

Travelpayoutsis a trustworthy affiliate network for bloggers, influencers, and content creators in the travel industry.

However, there are still a few downsides to the network that you should know about.

Dig into our Travelpayouts review to learn what we love (and don’t love) about the platform, plus insights on:

• Which travel brands you can work with
• How to find the best travel deals to promote
• How to become a Travelpayouts affiliate

Let’s dive in.

What Is Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts is a travel affiliate network owned by Go Travel Un Limited, which operates various other brands in the travel niche — including WayAway, Aviasales, Jetradar, and Hotellook.

The network connects 120 of the world’s biggest travel brands with 370,000+ travel bloggers, social media influencers, and content creators.

Since 2011, Travelpayouts’ affiliate partners have earned over $53 million in commissionsthrough affiliate programs across nine top-level travel categories:

• Accommodation
• Transfers
• Car, motorcycle, and bike rental
• Cruises
• Flights
• Package tours
• Tours and activities
• Train and bus tickets
• Travel insurance

Like what you’ve heard so far? Let’s talk about the brands you can promote with them.

What’s Good About Travelpayouts

Travelpayouts has a lot going for it. Let’s check out the positives in more detail.

Reliable Payments

Travelpayouts reliably makes payments every month, and their partners can pick from three different payment methods:

• Bank transfer to foreign currency account (USD or EUR)
• PayPal
• WebMoney

Payments are automatically issued between the 11th and 20th of the following month, although the exact date (and the minimum payout amount) varies depending on your chosen method:

Access to 120 Trusted Travel Brands

Travelpayouts claims to work with 120 trusted brands in the travel industry, although we can only see 62 available affiliate programs on our Travelpayouts dashboard.There may be exclusive programs that have to be unlocked for you by your affiliate manager.

While Travelpayouts may seem lacking compared to larger generalist networks, it still stacks up reasonably well if you’re only looking for travel affiliate programs.

For instance, CJ Affiliate has 290 programs in its travel category, but many are regional variants rather than unique brands.

We’ll take quality over quantity any day of the week, and Travelpayouts’ advertisers are a who’s who of high-profile travel brands. Star attractions include:

• Booking.com
• Tripadvisor
• Viator
• Vrbo
• Ticketmaster

But it’s not all big names. There are plenty of smaller brands in more obscure travel niches, such as Drimsim– which sells universal SIM cards for travelers – and Compensair, a service that helps customers get compensation for flight delays and cancellations.

We’re confident that any travel blogger or influencer will be able to find plenty of relevant programs on Travelpayouts.

Dive into our curated selection of 15 Inspiring Travel Blog Examples

Great User Experience

Travelpayouts is one of the best affiliate networks for user experience. Many other affiliate platforms look like they were built back in the days of Windows XP, but Travelpayouts has a pleasingly modern design and UX, making it a joy to navigate.

At the top of your affiliate dashboard, you’ll see a bar containing your balance and affiliate incomeinformation.

You’ll also see links to the Travelpayouts blog, affiliate resource center, and affiliate link generator (more on that later).

Below the top nav bar is a table with basic data on the affiliate programs you’ve joined, including impressions, clicks, and payout information:

To the right of the table sits a feed featuring Travelpayouts’ latest blog post links and news on individual affiliate programs. If an advertiser changes their commission rate, removes pre-approval, or shares sales data, you’ll find it here.

Want a more detailed breakdown of all your performance? You can use the Reportssection in the left-hand menu to filter results by date, affiliate program, device type, and user country.

This menu also contains other helpful links:

• Your affiliate programs
• Financial information (balance, payments, and payment details)
• Unique affiliate tools (like banner ads and widgets)
• The Travelpayouts Academy (more on this later)
• Bonuses, such as discounts and free trials on third-party affiliate tools

Honestly, it’s a delight to use such an intuitiveaffiliate network. Even first-time affiliate marketers shouldn’t need more than a few minutes to get to grips with the layout and menu options.

Extensive Affiliate Help Resources

Travelpayouts offers one of the most extensive sets of publisher help resources of any affiliate network.

For troubleshooting, useful guides, and FAQs, visit the Help Center for Partners, accessible via the Help menu in the top nav bar:

If you’re looking for more advanced support and strategies, check out the Travelpayouts Academy.

Here, you’ll find 60+ free online lessons split into five top-level courses, covering:

• The basics of earning money with Travelpayouts
• How to get the most from your affiliate partnerships
• SEO tips to boost your affiliate revenue
• How to earn money as a content creator
• How to monetize your content through the WayAway affiliate program

It’s a treasure trove of information based on Travelpayouts’ vast expertise within the travel industry. Even experienced affiliate marketers might learn something.

Their help system only has one flaw: You can’t getinstant answers from a real human. The best you can do is use the Submit a request function at the bottom of the help center menu.

Still, this is hardly a unique issue; most affiliate networks make it nearly impossible to speak to a support agent. And given the quality of Travelpayouts’ educational resources, you shouldn’t have to reach out too often.

Deep Links to Specific Pages

I love the intuitive way Travelpayouts has approached affiliate link creation. This process is made straightforward through two main avenues:

Create a Link button:Situated at the top nav bar, this button lets you create a standard affiliate link in seconds.

Tools Tab Option:For those who want to dive deeper into customization or leverage ready-made links, the Tools tab provides a slightly more detailed option.

Both options let you create a “deep link” that directs visitors to a specific page on the website you’re promoting.

This is very useful if you want to highlight a particular product or service, as you can send visitors to the relevant page instead of simply linking to the company’s homepage.

No Entry Requirements

Some affiliate networks have a rigid approval process you need to go through when signing up.

That’s not the case with Travelpayouts. Anyone is allowed to make an account and instantly access the platform.

Dozens of Programs With Instant Approval

Many affiliate programs on the network will approve you instantly.

Some of the brands that offer instant approval include:

• Airalo
• Kiwitaxi
• Economy Bookings
• Tiqets
• BikesBooking

Between the instant signup and instant approvals, you’re currently mere seconds away from accessing dozens of great travel programs.

Where Travelpayouts Is Lacking

While it’s a great platform overall, there are a few areas in which Travelpayouts could be better.

Limited Payment Methods

As previously stated, you can only receive payment by bank transfer, PayPal, or WebMoney.

While any affiliate will likely be able to use at least one of these three, it would be nice to have some PayPal alternatives that offer lower fees, such as Payoneer or Wise.

Basic Search Functionality

The Travelpayouts search feature is mediocre.

The results page does display useful information on commission rates, cookie lengths, and fixed cash rewards.

However, not all brands will be relevant to your audience – which is where the Travelpayouts’ affiliate program search filters come in.

You can use the category bar to filter by travel sub-niche.

The slider icon at the right of the search box pulls up even more filter options, including:

• Types of affiliate tools (like widgets and banners)
• Acceptable channels (desktop, mobile, and app)
• Languages
• Target countries
• Instant enrollment

However, Travelpayouts doesn’t offer the granular filtering of larger affiliate networks like Impact and ShareASale.

This means you can’t filter by affiliate income-related details such as EPC, conversion rate, or average payment time. That makes it harder to make an informed decision about which advertisers to work with.

When you’ve found a brand you’re keen to work with, you can still pull up useful information about their affiliate program, such as the requirements to join, the affiliate tools they offer, average order value, news about the program, and a link to apply.

Limited Support for Non-English Languages

If you’re not an English speaker, you may have a harder time navigating the site, reading help documents, and contacting support.

However, this is true of many other affiliate networks, and I’m mentioning it more so you’re aware of it than to knock Travelpayouts for not offering more non-English language services.

Relatively Small Number of Advertisers

As I mentioned, 120 brands isn’t a large amount compared to some other affiliate networks.

However, considering this is a travel-focused network, it’s honestly not a huge deal. They’ve got many of the major travel brands, and the smaller brands cover a surprisingly wide array of travel sub-niches. No matter what travel service you want to promote, Travelpayouts likely has you covered.

Travelpayouts Reviews

You’ve read our opinion on Travelpayouts. But what does everyone else think?

Turns out lots of people love Travelpayouts, with the travel partnership platform boasting a 4.2-star rating on Trustpilot — higher than any major affiliate network.

This Travelpayouts affiliate found the network a cinch to use and appreciated the wealth of educational resources, which definitely chimed with our experience:

Source: SiteJabber.com

Next up, this guy didn’t have anything badto say about the affiliate network, but found they weren’t generating many clicks or sales:

Source: SiteJabber.com

And finally, this furious affiliate was seething when their commissions were withheld…

Source: SiteJabber.com

…but reading the response from Travelpayouts, it sounds like this was simply down to the customer not paying for their booking, coupled with a status-related glitch at the advertiser’s end:

Source: SiteJabber.com

These are about as generous as affiliate reviews get, so Travelpayouts is clearly doing something right.

How To Become a Travelpayouts Affiliate

Travelpayouts’ signup process is blessedly simple. To get started, smash the big blue “Get Started” button at the top of the homepage:

From there, you’ll be asked a series of questions about your promotion methods, website/social channels, audience size, and location.

Once you’ve been approved, you’ll need to activate your account and set up payment details.

After everything is set up, you can create your first Travelpayouts project.

Creating Your First Travelpayouts Project

Projects are your opportunity to discuss where and how you plan to promote the brands you partner with. Think of them as your elevator pitch to individual travel affiliate programs.

Best of all, once you’ve created a Project, you won’t need to fill out the same information every time you join a new affiliate program.

To get going, hit the Create Project button on the intro popup.

First up, Travelpayouts asks which methods you’ll use to promote travel brands. Choose from one of three options:

1. Content creation, including affiliate websites, social media channels, messaging platforms, and blogs.
2. Booking travel for clients, either as a travel agency or individual agent.
3. Other methods, such as cashback services and coupon sites.

Bear in mind that if you plan to leverage more than one monetization method, you’ll need to create a separate Project for each.

Because authority websites are our whole thing, we’re going to walk through option #1: content creation. The steps will look slightly different if you choose one of the other promotional methods.

Next, tell Travelpayouts about all the relevant channels you’ll be using to promote brands (including website and/or social media URLs):

Got more than one website or social channel? No bother! Add multiple URLs using the +Plusicon:

Now, Travelpayouts wants to learn more about your promotional methods: what language is your content in? Which countries do you target? And how much traffic (or how many viewers, followers, or subscribers) do you have?

It’s important to note there’s no minimum threshold for joining the Travelpayouts affiliate network. So don’t fudge the numbers here; honesty is the best policy!

Finally, give your Project a name and hit Save Project.

Don’t worry if you want to add new sites or update your traffic info down the line, because you can edit your Project by clicking View my Projects in your affiliate dashboard…

…then hitting the pen icon next to the relevant Project:

Completing Your Travelpayouts Affiliate Account

Having created your first Project, you’re (nearly) all set to connect with some of the best travel affiliate programs on the market. But first, you need to verify your account using the Activate your account link at the top of your dashboard:

Once you do this, Travelpayouts will send you an email. Just click the verification link to complete your affiliate account setup.

Once verified, click the Add your payment details link in your dashboard to provide your payment information.

And that’s it! You’re all set to join some of the manyaffiliate programs on the Travelpayouts network.

Summing Up

If you have or want to start a travel blog, YouTube channel, or social media account, joining Travelpayouts is a no-brainer.

It works with some of the biggest travel brands and covers almost every travel sub-niche. The application process is quick and easy, and our only gripes — like the limited payment options — are relatively minor.

But joining the Travelpayouts affiliate network isn’t a license to print money. To make it work, you need a high-converting affiliate website that generates a consistent stream of travel traffic.

That’s where we can help.

We’ve been building (and selling) successful 6-figure blogsfor over 10 years.

To help you do the same, we compiled our best tactics into a free authority site training course. In this training, you’ll learn 7 secrets that make new websites 83% more successful.

Join the free training now.