Don't Use HotelsCombined.com Affiliate Program - Scammers

good old bhw i was about to research this company and start up a site and send traffic to them.
thanks to the op you saved me the research time to find out they were dodgy.

Actually, I would have to disagree with most of the opinions expressed so far.
I have been with hotelscombined for over a year and yes, I have been paid always in full and in time.
Exept the first time when I reached the $100 payout minimum. At that point my account was suspended because of no conversions. I was mad as hell since the traffic was totally legit. I contacted the support and managed to arange a XX day period where they would freeze my account but wouldn't close it just so we can see what would be the conv. at the end. It was fine and I got my account reestablished. Been getting paid ever since.

See, the thing is that when you are a new affiliate with not a particularly large site I actually do understand this kind of behaviour (not that I agree with it).

Share the word, stop the scam.
The behavior of this company is unethical and disgusting!

On complaintsboard add "/complaints/sisko-hosting-hotelscombined-scam-c650348.html"

I do not have any experience with them so i can not say much about them.

Thx for the heads up!

I have sent them quite a bit of legitimate traffic recently let's hope I get paid.

I'm sorry but also my website has brought a great job to hotelcombine and when it came time to pay they have suspended the account without leaving even a chance to review the work done so masked the truth. They said there were not made reservations when we know we made ​​reservations and we wrote this to them but it was more convenient not to give us access anymore to the account and not face the truth - therefore i must say to all that hotelcombine are SCAMMERS.

I guess they will be stopping operation very soon now. Sorry to hear all the victim stories here.

Our affiliate program would never do such bad things. Search wd,cm and find affiliate program.
Our commission ratio is 15%.

wholesale AF said:

Our affiliate program would never do such bad things. Search wd,cm and find affiliate program.
Our commission ratio is 15%.

Click to expand...

+1 for shameless plug on shit list.

I just open a new account here in the forum just to write my opinion about HotelsCombined.
If you ask me they are Scammers... let me explain,
End of November i start a new account with them for my travel site.
I drive real traffic to my website spending 130$ in 5 weeks with Google Adwords and i see that January they raise my lead value to maximum ( i think 1,14$/lead).
So what that means ? That i have make some good Bookings with Google Adwords, right ?
So i was happy to see that end of January 2013 i have 105$ in my account.
1 week after my lead value drops to 0,60$/lead so i start paying again Google Adwords to make some serious leads and bookings.... i say to myself that its ok to spend more in the beginning so i will have more customers in the future and anyway i will have the first payment from HotelsCombined in the end of the month.
I send a email to the customer service to ask about my Bookings during December and January to see how many bookings i make so that i will raise my lead value again.
What happen ? instead to receive a booking report for my account they just close it!!!!!!!!!
And here the email they send :

[FONT=&amp]As part of our continued commitment to our suppliers and Affiliate Partners, HotelsCombined conducts regular traffic audits on all Affiliate accounts. Our suppliers provide us with booking conversion data which we use to determine the conversion rate for each Affiliate Partner's traffic. We do this to ensure that quality traffic is delivered to our suppliers and maximum Lead Value is maintained for all Affiliate Partners.[/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]Unfortunately, during our last review we identified an issue with the traffic originating from your account. Specifically, we analysed leads tracked through your account so far and found that none of your leads converted into bookings for our suppliers.[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]We cannot charge our supply partners for such leads. As your account generated no booking revenue, as per our [/FONT][FONT=&amp]Affiliate Agreement[/FONT]
Clause 11, please consider this to be your Affiliate Account Closure notice effective immediately. Your remaining unpaid balance will be forfeited.
[FONT=&amp]Please reply to this email if you wish to discuss further. [/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]Regards,[/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]HotelsCombined Affiliate Support[/FONT]



So what to hell is that ? i drive serious traffic to them, i pay a lot of money for quality trafic with Google Adwords, they RAISE my lead value last month so it means that i make bookings for them and they close my account because i reach the 100$ threshold ???
I try to talk with them and send them 2 times email and ask about the booking report for my account but the didn't send me anything!
Just this useless email :

[FONT=&amp]Thank you for your prompt reply.[/FONT]


[FONT=&amp]It is essential to ensure that maximum traffic quality is maintained for our program and all business requirements are achieved. As your account generated no booking revenue, we have to keep your account closed as mentioned in the Affiliate Agreement[/FONT]

Clause 11.
[FONT=&amp]You are more than start over with a new account and rejoin our affiliate program. Please make sure you comply with the [/FONT][FONT=&amp]Affiliate Agreement[/FONT]
and focus your marketing efforts on hotel booking generation, rather than qualifying lead generation.

[FONT=&amp]Feel free to contact us at any time. We will be more than happy to help out.[/FONT]


Hope to get some answers here in the forum...i really don't know what to do with them.
Should i try again and open a new account ? i loose already important time and money because of them.
I will be more than happy if HotelsCombined will give me a serious answer here in the forum.

I have used one of their competitors, booking.com

They never respond to any emails. Who knows if they will pay out?


Just adding this in case people are looking for a hotelscombined alternative and don't want to get screwed over again.

i think only agoda is paying
but lot of competitor

hotels combined big scam my account recently clossed

Regarding the issue, here is what you get before you meet the threshold minimum:
Dear Affiliate,
Our system has identified an issue with the traffic your account has been referring to HotelsCombined and we need to review this in greater detail.

Specifically, it seems your visitors fail to convert to bookings for our hotel suppliers. While we conduct our full-scale investigation, your account has been placed in a "suspended" status. During this time, you won't be able to log into the Affiliate Control Panel, and our Accounts Department will not be able to process any of your payments.

If our investigations reveal that your traffic was invalid, as per our Clause 11, we will be forced to close your account, and all your remaining unpaid earnings will be forfeited. If we find that a portion of your user traffic was affected, or our investigation determines that you were not engaging in any activity that contravenes our agreement, we will deduct any pro-rata invalid earnings from your account and reopen it for you.

If our investigations reveal that your traffic was, in fact, valid, we will reinstate your account without penalty. Any commissions generated while your account was suspended will still be tracked/credited to your account. We apologise in advance for any inconvenience caused, this is a necessary step we have to take to ensure the high standard of our Affiliate Program is maintained and all our partners are not disadvantaged in any way.

Please reply to this email if you would like to discuss this issue further.

Regards,

HotelsCombined Affiliate Support




I think is SCAM and everyone should avoid joining this affiliate program. Hope I helped in any way

I really appreciated your effort in sharing with us your experienced with HotelsCombined.com affiliate program; There's no smoke without fire, so I believe that this affiliate program is a scam.

Hotel Combined is COMPLETELY A SCAM !

All my earnings frozen by them before a year !
Don't join with their scam.

They look like a blatant copy of agoda. Why don't you guys promote Agoda instead?

I will put them on my blacklist!!! Thanks..

joshweaver9 said:

If you guys who are looking for a new affiliate program, are still looking, shoot me a PM.

I will set you up with a White Label Travel Site. Pays out % of sale.

Click to expand...

Hi,
I am new here and can't PM you. Can you help me with with a White Label Travel Site affiliate program?