Best Airbnb Affiliate Program Alternatives

What Happened?

On March1^st, Airbnb informed affiliates that it will be shutting down its affiliate program on the 31^st of March 2021.

That means, all reservations or listings made after March 31^st would not be paid for affiliates.

Airbnb Affiliate Program Alternatives

Previously, affiliates could earn money through Airbnb Associates on:

• Accommodation of guests
• Listing of new accommodation options

There are not many affiliate programs on the travel market that pay for both of these actions at the same time. Therefore, in our list of Airbnb Associates alternatives, some programs only pay for one of these actions.

Nevertheless, earning on one customer twice – both for accommodations and for new listings is rare, so this segmentation of programs should not negatively affect your income.

Hotellook Affiliate Program

Hotellook is a metasearch engine that compares the prices of different providers, such as Booking.com, Agoda, and others.

If your audience is interested in apartments and other private houses, then Hotellook will be able to completely replace Airbnb, offering thousands of options in most countries around the world.

You will earn up to 50% of Hotellook’s earnings (an average of 4.92% of the accommodation price).

Affiliates also gain access to an extended list of tools, including widgets and API.

The Hotellook affiliate program offers a long cookie lifetime of 30 days, which means you will earn on any bookings that were made thanks to you within the month you refer the customer.

Hotellook is a beneficial solution for customers, as many other accommodation options are available on the site. This variety of choices will give your audience more options and possibly help them find a more suitable accommodation option.

The Hotellook program is available through the Travelpayouts partnership platform without pre-moderation. In the Travelpayouts, you will find more than 100 travel affiliate programs of trusted brands, including Booking, TripAdvisor, Hotellook, Hostelworld, and others. Travelpayouts invite you to cooperate with only those brands that offer transparent terms of the program and pay reward in a timely manner. Join Travelpayouts to earn on accommodations and other travel services.

Vrbo Affiliate Program

Vrbo is one of the biggest Airbnb competitors and offers services very similar to Airbnb for both guests and hosts.

Here you can check out the differences and similarities between these platforms in 2023.

In the Vrbo affiliate program, you will earn on both guests and hosts. Vrbo offers up to 2% for every traveler you refer who rents.

With the large inventory (over 2,000,000 properties in more than 190 countries), an extended list of tools (including API), and real-time reporting, the Vrbo affiliate program is one of the best alternatives to the Airbnb affiliate program.

Vrbo also participates in local services, such as:

• Stayz
• Abritel.fr
• FeWo-direct

You can join the above affiliate programs to monetize your local traffic, however, the accommodation list is the same for all of those services.

Homestay Affiliate Program

Homestay offers quality rooms at wallet-friendly prices in over 160 countries.

This platform is much smaller than Airbnb (offering around 50,000 properties). However, it offers some unique listings and lets you earn a ~30% commission on each reservation.

Homestay manually selects the affiliates. To join, you will need to pass through the moderation process. Among the affiliates of Homestay are HotelsCombined, Hometogo, or Routard. You can also join in on the official website.

Hotel Affiliate Programs

Hotel affiliate programs, such as Booking.com, Expedia, and others, may also be great alternatives for the Airbnb affiliate program.

Platforms such as Booking.com were previously focused mainly on hotels. However, the post-covid trends of 2021 changed the game. Now, many hotel platforms offer private vacation rental options. Below is a list of best hotel affiliate programs that can partly replace Airbnb Associates:

A full list of the best hotel programs can be found in Travelpayouts’ brands directory.

When choosing a hotel affiliate program as an alternative to Airbnb Associates, remember that Airbnb customers want to stay in private, one-of-a-kind vacation rentals. You may see a drop in revenue if you send the same audience to hotel bookings. To avoid losing conversion rates and maintain a similar sales volume, you can:

1. Use deep links that direct to specific options that suit your audience and perfectly substitute Airbnb options.

2. Preset your filters, for example, to show only apartments on the advertiser’s websites:

Use widgets in addition to links as partner tools. The average conversion rate of widgets from clicks to bookings is 2.1% in the Accommodation category (in comparison, for partner links, the conversion rate is 0.62%). Widgets make the customer journey shorter, attract the attention of readers, and help visitors compare several options and choose the best one.

Choose an Airbnb affiliate program alternative depending on what type of traffic you have, what your audience is interested in, and what affiliate tools you need. You can also join partner programs with which you can earn money not only on hotels, but also on other travel services. For example, this is possible with the Expedia UK and Tripadvisor partner programs. On these sites, travelers can book hotels as well as tours and activities. The cookie lifetime for these partner programs is several days. So, if a user follows your link to the hotel page and books a tour the next day, you’ll receive a reward.

In the Travelpayouts partnership platform, you will find more than 100 travel brands, including Booking, TripAdvisor, Hotellook, Hostelworld, and other offers. Join the Travelpayouts to earn on accommodations and other travel services.