Travelpayouts review: how I use it to monetize my travel blogs

There are several ways to make money with a travel blog. Display advertising and sponsored collaborations are well-known examples, but affiliate marketing can be just as interesting. One of the platforms that focuses entirely on the travel industry is Travelpayouts. With a single account, you get access to affiliate programs from dozens of travel brands and can earn commissions on hotels, flights, tours, car rentals and other travel products. I have been using Travelpayouts on my travel websites for around a year and a half and have tried several of the platform’s features. In this article, I explain how Travelpayouts works, which tools are available and which aspects I personally find useful, as well as a few things that are less convenient. I also take a closer look at Travelpayouts Drive, which can automate part of your affiliate marketing.

What is Travelpayouts?

Travelpayouts is an affiliate platform specifically designed for the travel industry. Instead of signing up separately for a wide range of affiliate programs, you can work with multiple travel brands through a single account. Travelpayouts currently includes more than 60 travel brands. These include well-known companies in accommodation, flights, tours and other travel-related services. For me, one of the biggest advantages is having everything in one place. You do not need to manage a separate account for every advertiser, and commissions from different advertisers are collected within Travelpayouts.

How does Travelpayouts work?

After creating an account, you first add a Project. A Project is the place where you promote affiliate products. This could be a website or blog, but also a social media account, YouTube channel, newsletter, app or another suitable platform. You can then join the affiliate programs available for that Project. Not every program accepts every type of traffic, and the affiliate tools available also vary from one advertiser to another. When someone makes a booking or purchase through one of your affiliate links or tools, it is linked to your account using your personal partner ID. Once the booking has been approved, you receive the commission associated with that affiliate program.

Sign up for Travelpayouts for free

Managing multiple websites with one Travelpayouts account

If you have several websites, you do not need to create a separate Travelpayouts account for each one. You can create multiple Projects within a single account. Each website has its own Project. This means you can view statistics for each website separately and choose which programs and features you want to use for each one. I find this especially useful because I can manage several websites without constantly switching between different accounts. You also do not have to use the same Travelpayouts tools everywhere. What works well on one website may not be the best fit for another. This is particularly useful if you have websites in different languages or with different audiences.

Which affiliate programs are available through Travelpayouts?

Travelpayouts is interesting because it is not limited to hotels or flights. The platform includes affiliate programs covering many different aspects of travel. Examples include:

• accommodation
• flights
• tours and activities
• car rental
• transfers
• travel insurance
• transport and tickets
• other travel-related services

Commission rates, terms and available tools vary by advertiser, so it is worth checking the details of each program rather than just looking at the brand itself.

Which tools can you use?

Travelpayouts offers much more than standard affiliate links. The tools available depend on the affiliate program, but the main options include affiliate links and deep links, widgets, banners, landing pages, White Label solutions, APIs and a WordPress plugin.

Affiliate links and deep links

The easiest way to use Travelpayouts is through affiliate links and deep links. This is also the feature I use most often. You can link directly to a specific hotel, tour or another page from a participating travel company. Travelpayouts adds your partner ID so that any resulting booking can be attributed to your account. Creating these links is straightforward, and you can later see which links generated clicks, bookings and commissions. For me, this is the most accessible way to use Travelpayouts: I simply add relevant affiliate links to my travel articles.

Widgets

Several programs offer widgets, such as search forms and other interactive elements that you can place directly in an article. Depending on the widget, you may be able to customise colours, default settings and other elements to better match your website.

Banners and landing pages

Some affiliate programs also provide banners and dedicated landing pages. Personally, I am less enthusiastic about banners. Travelpayouts itself notes that many visitors tend to ignore banners and that ad blockers may hide them altogether.

WordPress plugin

If you use WordPress, Travelpayouts also has its own plugin. It allows you to add various affiliate tools directly in WordPress, including tables with flight and hotel information.

White Label

A more advanced option is White Label. This allows you to integrate, for example, a flight search engine into your own website. Unlike a standard widget, visitors can view the search results on your own website rather than being redirected immediately to the provider’s site. You can create a dedicated flight search page and adapt parts of it to your own website.

API

For websites with more technical capabilities, Travelpayouts offers several API solutions. These allow you to retrieve travel data and prices and integrate them into your own website or application. For most bloggers, this probably will not be the first feature they use, but it can offer a lot of possibilities for larger or more technically advanced travel websites.

Travelpayouts Drive: automating part of your affiliate marketing

One of the most interesting parts of Travelpayouts, in my opinion, is Drive. Drive is an AI-powered system that analyses your website content and visitor behaviour to identify additional opportunities to monetize your website. It can, for example, convert existing links into affiliate links, link relevant words automatically and add recommendations to your articles. You install a single Travelpayouts script on your website. After that, you can choose which Drive features you want to enable for each Project. I like the fact that you do not have to activate everything. Each feature can be turned on or off separately, so you can experiment and see what works best for your own website.

What can Travelpayouts Drive do?

Drive consists of several features that can be configured individually.

Automatically converting existing links

Drive can recognise existing links to travel companies and convert them into Travelpayouts affiliate links. These can even be ordinary links without any affiliate code. If you linked directly to a travel company in an older article, Drive can automatically turn that into an affiliate link. Drive can also replace links from certain other affiliate networks with Travelpayouts links. You can choose which brands this applies to and exclude specific pages. This is something you should think about carefully. If you have better terms through another affiliate network or directly with an advertiser, you may not want Travelpayouts to replace those links. Fortunately, you can disable this feature without affecting the other Drive features.

Automatically linking relevant words

Drive can automatically turn relevant words in an article into affiliate links. This feature is currently only available for English-language websites and pages. Drive analyses the content and determines which travel-related keywords are suitable for linking. You can see which pages have had links added and exclude specific pages if necessary.

Automatically adding recommendations to articles

Drive can also automatically insert recommendation blocks into articles, for example with hotels, tours, car rentals or other relevant travel products. The placement is determined automatically based on the content of the article and visitor behaviour. This feature is also currently only available for English-language websites and pages. I use this feature on my English-language website. What I like about it is that you can show readers relevant recommendations without having to create every block yourself. The blocks also blend naturally into the article, making them feel much less intrusive than traditional banner advertisements.

Smart previews

For existing travel links, Drive can display a small (smart) preview when a visitor hovers over or taps on the link. No additional links are added to the article. The preview simply gives visitors more information about what they will find after clicking the link. You can enable this feature for both desktop and mobile, or for desktop only.

Targeted Offers

Targeted Offers is one of the more noticeable features within Drive. Travelpayouts attempts to identify visitors who show a high intention to book. If such a visitor clicks on an empty area of the page, your page is opened in a new tab at the same position. In the original tab, a relevant website (such as a hotel or tour provider) is opened through your affiliate link. According to Travelpayouts, Targeted Offers is activated for a limited percentage of visitors and no more than once per month per unique visitor.

The feature may generate additional commissions, but it is worth considering whether you are comfortable with the experience it creates for your readers. Fortunately, you can disable Targeted Offers completely if you decide it is not a good fit for your website. Personally, I mainly use affiliate links and deep links within Travelpayouts, placing them where they are relevant in my articles. I have experimented with some of the other Drive features to see which ones work best for my websites.

Content Analytics: seeing which articles actually generate income

Another useful feature is Content Analytics. It allows you to see, on a page-by-page basis, how many visitors you have, how many clicks and bookings Travelpayouts tools generate and how much commission those pages earn.

You can see, among other things:

• which articles generate affiliate income;
• which Travelpayouts tools perform best;
• how many clicks and bookings there are;
• which page or tool generated a booking;
• how much commission each page earns;
• how different Drive features perform.

If you already use Drive, you do not need to install a separate script for Content Analytics. I find this particularly useful as a blogger because it gives you a much better idea of which articles actually lead to bookings. You can see not only that you earned affiliate income, but also which content and links were responsible for it.

Advantages of Travelpayouts

I have been using Travelpayouts for around a year and a half and there are several things I really like about it. Creating affiliate links and deep links is very easy. I also like being able to see at a glance which links generate commissions. Over time, this gives you a better understanding of which articles and topics actually lead to bookings.

Another major advantage is having many different travel products within a single platform. You do not have to manage separate accounts, payments and statistics for every affiliate program.

If you have multiple websites, you can manage them all from the same account. Each website has its own Project, and you can decide which programs and Drive features you want to use for each one. This is particularly useful if you manage websites with different audiences or in different languages. You can experiment with different features without having to enable them across all of your sites.

The range of available tools is another advantage. You can keep things simple with affiliate links and deep links, or expand into widgets, automatic link conversion, recommendation blocks, Targeted Offers, White Label solutions and APIs.

Disadvantages and things to keep in mind

Travelpayouts has a lot of features, but that does not necessarily mean every feature is useful for every blogger. Because there are so many programs, tools and settings, the dashboard can feel a little overwhelming at first. It takes some time to figure out which programs you actually want to use and which Drive features are suitable for your website.

I also would not recommend enabling every Drive feature without thinking about it first. Automatically replacing existing affiliate links, for example, may not be desirable if you have better terms through another network. Fortunately, this feature can be disabled independently of the others. Targeted Offers is another feature that deserves some thought because it opens a travel provider’s website in another tab for certain visitors.

Finally, some interesting Drive features (including automatic keyword links and recommendation blocks) are currently only available for English-language websites. If your website is in another language, that naturally limits some of the functionality.

How does Travelpayouts pay commissions?

Travelpayouts collects earnings from the different affiliate programs within your account. Payments are generally made automatically once a month. There is a minimum payout threshold, which depends on the payment method you choose. This means you do not have to request payments separately from every participating travel company.

Signing up for Travelpayouts

Creating a Travelpayouts account is free. During the sign-up process, you create your first Project and indicate where you intend to promote travel products. If you have a website, you can add it to your Project and verify it. Once that is done, you gain access to the dashboard and can explore which affiliate programs and tools are relevant to your website.

If you would like to try Travelpayouts yourself, you can create a free account through my referral link. New Travelpayouts partners who sign up through this link can currently qualify for up to $100 in additional bonuses. I explain how those bonuses work below.

Sign up for Travelpayouts for free

Bonus when you sign up through my Travelpayouts link

If you sign up as a new Travelpayouts partner through my referral link, you can currently qualify for up to $100 in additional bonuses. The $100 is not paid immediately when you register. Instead, it is divided into three milestones:

• $25 when you sign up through the referral link, add and verify a website and install the Travelpayouts script. This bonus becomes available once you have earned enough confirmed commission;
• $25 when you have earned your first $100 in qualifying commissions;
• $50 when you have earned a total of $1,000 in qualifying commissions.

That means you can earn up to $100 in bonuses on top of the affiliate commissions you generate yourself through Travelpayouts. According to Travelpayouts, there is no time limit for reaching these milestones. If you want to start affiliate marketing with your travel blog or try Travelpayouts alongside your existing affiliate programs, you can create a free account and begin with just a few affiliate links. You can always add more tools or Drive features later.

Sign up for Travelpayouts for free

Is Travelpayouts worth it for travel bloggers?

I think Travelpayouts is particularly interesting if you promote several types of travel products and would like to manage them from one platform. You can start very simply with affiliate links and deep links and later add more advanced features such as widgets, Content Analytics and Drive. My own experience with Travelpayouts has been generally positive, although there are other affiliate solutions that currently generate more income for me. Even so, I continue to use Travelpayouts. I particularly like how easy it is to create affiliate links, the overview of different travel programs and the ability to use different features for different websites.

I would therefore not see Travelpayouts as a platform that necessarily replaces every other affiliate program you use. Instead, I see it as a useful addition to a travel blog’s affiliate strategy. It costs nothing to create an account, and you can start small. Try adding affiliate links to a few relevant articles and then check your statistics to see what works and what does not. From there, you can always explore more of the tools Travelpayouts has to offer.

Which features are ultimately most useful will depend on your website, your audience and the travel products you write about.