Agoda Affiliate Review - Scam?

Hi all,

I tried searching for reviews/information on Agoda's affiliate program but couldn't find much info on here/anywhere else, or the info appears to be several years old.

That being said, I hope that some of you with experience in this line may be able to advise.

Basically, I joined Agoda, Booking.com and TripAdvisor's affiliate programs about 2 months ago to try and monetize my small travel site. On average, I get about 2,500 visitors a month and about 6-7 (up to 15) clicks daily to either of the 3 sites mentioned above.

Now, Booking.com and TripAdvisor appears to be tracking the clicks (I see some activity in their reports, at least). However, with Agoda, I often see 0 clicks daily even though Jetpack's stats tell me that I have, say, 6 clicks on my Agoda links.

That being said, I also realized that Agoda's team does not bother to read in detail any e-mails that their affiliates send them regarding problems like these. I received the same answer (copy pasted) when I asked about 2 entirely different things. This makes it very fishy.

I hope that some of you may advise me on:

1) Is it my problem or Agoda's? I realize that Jetpack's stats may not be the most accurate but why the discrepancy? Would be great if someone could share their Agoda affiliate experience and whether or not they are trustworthy.

2) For a small site, would you recommend sticking with hotel affiliates? (considering that active cookies period have been reduced/removed entirely) If yes, which ones would you recommend? I've seen a few people move on to hotels.com and at the same time, read from some old posts that hotelscombined.com is a scam. My main problem is Agoda not tracking clicks, Booking.com being almost impossible to make money from (no cookies) and TripAdvisor bringing in cents...Unfortunately for my travel destination, Agoda and Booking.com have the most hotel variety.

Thanks in advance.

If you have travel site I can suggest try work as affiliate with flight booking system.

Hi there

First thing first. I tried several travel affiliate programs and I can say that (with proper traffic) Hotels Combined is THE BEST affiliate program. Never tried Agoda cause it looked pretty much same as any other (booking, expedia etc...)

Also with 2500 visitors/month to your travel blog you probably wont earn anything with hotel affiliate programs, it is just not possible. Or if you earn anything this is going to be less than $10/month (tell me if I am wrong). You need targeted traffic to earn money or you need 100 times (at least) more traffic to your blog to earn something. Even if each article on your blog is hotel review and if you optimized all of your outgoing links you wont earn much with 2500 UVs per month.

If Agoda is not responding just leave them, and stick to programs that count your clicks. Booking counts clicks and bookings.

Hotels Combined likes leads (they pay per lead) from countries like AUS, UK, USA...If you have "cheap traffic" (India, Arab countries, Pakista etc...) stay away from Hotels Combined (especially if you dont have a lot of traffic). You can earn with low quality traffic but they will pay $0.3 per lead instead of $1.5-ish (USA leads).

I am now with Booking.com and Hotelscombined.com aff program and I send cheap traffic to Booking.com. This way I get less traffic to HotelsCombined but they pay 5 times more per lead (since I dont have cheap traffic any more) so I have tripled my earnings in a last couple of months.

So, in front of you is a long and winding road, and you will succeed only if you grow your traffic significantly.

Hey man,

Firstly, thanks for taking the time to reply.

It was really insightful and helped a lot. You were absolutely spot on in relation to many points you made.

I agree that Booking.com counts clicks but for me, another 8 clicks to Agoda went uncounted just yesterday.

I will start looking at hotelscombined.com but will stick with Agoda for another week or so, just to see if anything changes.

Once again, thanks for the advice and if anyone has anymore experience in relation to Agoda, please share

Sorry not sure what the rules are about bumping an old thread like this....

I'm looking into using a hotel affiliate but I've heard hotelscombined.com kicks if the traffic is too quality (which mine might be as its coming from youtube) and agoda does a lot of skimming

Could the agoda skimming be overcome by using them through affiliate window?

hotels combined is an excellent affiliate program speaking from experience

Not sure if bumping an old thread like this is allowed, but just thought I’d ask a question in case any other hotel affiliates read it. I’ve signed up with booking.com, TA, and Hotels Combined to try their affiliate programs. I’m building a niche travel site but am struggling to work out how to safely get hold of hotel images. Booking.com has a datafeed but they are quite strict if you use it (eg, you must use their description, you can only link to them, not price comparisons).

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get round the photo issue, or is it more a case if having to contact hotels for permission then use their?