Booking.com - Hotels from "The new guys on the block"

[tlukec]

Hi,

Since joining this forum I've become Booking.com's Affiliate Sales Manager Australia/NZ. After 9 years at Viator the product I represent has changed but the offer's still a good one. (I wouldn't be here if it wasn't!)

I believe Booking.com's Hotel Affiliate Program provides the industry's HIGHEST conversion rates and supports leading growth rates thanks to:

- NO Booking fees.
- NO Cancellation fees (generally up to one day prior to arrival)
- Guests pay at the hotel.
- Hotels love our "Commission on Gross" Agency model - we get great availability, bookable up to 10:00pm on day of arrival.
- Best Rate Guarantee.
- 66,000+ hotels in 16,000+ destinations in 80+ countries.
Used by 1 million unique visitors EVERY DAY.
- 1-800 telephone reservations &service from 3 global call centres in 22+ languages!
- Telephone business is credited to your partnership when reference ID quoted.
- 1 million+ REAL reviews by staying guests
- Easy to use customer interface.
- Comprehensive reporting and tools in Affiliate Centre. White label, Co-Brand, XML options all supported.
- Dedicated local support (me!)

Take a look at the site and see for yourself. We were the only global Online Travel Agent experiencing real international growth year on year in Q109.
Commissions starts at a 25% split of Booking.com's commission, rising to 40%.

Regards,
Luke Crosthwaite
(It's good to be back!)

[El Craigo]

Hi Luke,

A number of travel sites (Escape Travel, Student Flights, Travelzoo to name a few) are offering CPL packages, with competitions to fill their database.

Are you planning a similar activity in the future?

regards,

Craig

[tlukec]

Hi Craig,

No plans for that kind of thing at present. We're 100% focused on converting visitors into bookers, and striving to constantly increasing that conversion percentage!

Cheers,
Luke

[El Craigo]

Hi Luke,

What networks are you on, and what is your current conversion %?

Craig

[tlukec]

We do it all by direct sign ups through our own platform Craig. See the partners link at booking.com
Conversions vary, and I don't want to appear misleading as it depends on how qualified the traffic is, but partners tell me they're very satisfied to see a higher ROI than that of other hotel programs.

[bcl]

Conversions must vary between affiliates and I also find they vary depending on the day of the week but I will say that I am very happy with the conversion rate I am seeing from booking.com compared to some other programs.

Back end reporting is good too. It's a welcome change to have a merchant that pays for phone bookings/orders.

Gayle

[trad]

Originally Posted by tlukec

Commissions starts at a 25% split of Booking.com's commission, rising to 40%.

Can you explain how is commission raising ? Depends on number of reservations or something else ?

[fintan]

Hi Luke

Could you give me a quick guide as to how you track telephone bookings?
What is your commission structure, as you don't have it on your affiliate website?
How long is the cookie duration?
Is bank transfer the only payment method?
Is euro the only payment currency?
Why is payments between 30 & 60 days of the month-end?

Thanks
Fintan

[tlukec]

Originally Posted by trad

Can you explain how is commission raising ? Depends on number of reservations or something else ?

Hi Trad, you're right. It's based on the number of bookings:
0-50 25%
51-150 30
151-500 35
500+ 40

[tlukec]

Hi Fintan,

The commission structure is laid out in our T&Cs which are available to read/download as part of the sign up process. The details are also in my post to Trad just a minute ago.
Bank transfer is the only method, and currently Euros.
No cookie because we think the question is "Who gets the business if that visitor has been to 1,2,3 booking.com partnerships?" (Also many people seem to block cookies).
The longer payment window is because the hotel is collecting the payment from the customer (Which both the hotel and the customer love and are a big factor for our higher conversion rates).
We receive payment from the hotel by the end of month AFTER the guest stayed. (Note that our payment to affiliates is NOT dependant on those hotel payments to us - we guarantee that revenue to our partners.)
Cheers,
Luke.

[bcl]

Originally Posted by tlukec

Hi Fintan,
No cookie because we think the question is "Who gets the business if that visitor has been to 1,2,3 booking.com partnerships?" (Also many people seem to block cookies).

The affiliate ID stays in the URL - same as with viator.com
Both ways have got pros and cons.
This method means that if the customer bookmarks or emails the link to a hotel, your affiliate ID goes with it. I think this method is also less vulnerable to adware and immune from cookie-stuffing.

Telephone bookings - there is a reference ID at the very bottom of the pages.

I've had bookings show up on my reports for both mailafriend and callcentre.

[fintan]

Originally Posted by tlukec

Hi Trad, you're right. It's based on the number of bookings:
0-50 25%
51-150 30
151-500 35
500+ 40

Do you give details on what percentage each hotel pays you so we can chose to promote the higher earning hotels?

What if an affiliate referred customer comes back in a few months time and makes another booking, do we also receive commission from that customer?

Thanks
Fintan

[tlukec]

Jim, the commission we receive from the hotel plus your percentage of it are both spelt out - per reservation - in the booking stats behind your log-in. We receive a base commission from each hotel but they also have the option of increasing this temporarily to help boost their ranking on the page (Note that they can NOT buy their way to the top though!) Hotels can log in and alter this extra commission at any time they wish, so it's constantly changing. On our percentage commission model for distribution partners you stand to benefit whenever they do this. We use an algorhythm to rank hotels based on a number of criteria including commission, availability, customer review scores etc. So our ordering of hotels on the page is a useful guide - for example there's not much point cherry picking hotels based purely on commission if they never have rooms available for booking!

Repeat business to your partnership (with your affiliate ID) will generate commission again for you.

[fintan]

Thanks, makes sense.

[tlukec]

Sorry, I called you Jim! Put it down to jetlag - i'm in London!
Cheers,
Luke.