Hotels Combined, a hotel metasearch engine owned by Booking Holdings, started sending Emails to their affiliate partners this morning. Email titled “Important Update on Your HotelsCombined Affiliate Account” said that their AFFILIATE PROGRAM is canceled untill further notice due to Corona Virus (COVID-19).
The mail goes as follows;
In light of the current situation with COVID-19 and the impact it is having on the OTAs and hoteliers, we have made the decision to temporarily suspend our affiliate relationship with you until further notice.
As of today, we will not be attributing any referral traffic received to your account, and you will not be paid for any such traffic. We suggest that you pause sending traffic to HotelsCombined as soon as possible.
Hotels Comboned is not sure when will they re-open their affiliate program but they say:”Once we get more clarity on this rapidly evolving situation, we expect to re-open the network to you and to continue to work on growing revenue together. “
Alternative to HotelsCombined affiliate program could be Booking.com affiliate program which is the best paying hotels affiliate program at the moment. Even though Booking is the owner of HotelsCombined, we are sure they won’t stop their affiliate program at the moment because they pay per stayed booking, compared to Hotels Combined (pay per lead).
Owners of leading hotel chains in USA warned that half of the hotels in the country could close this year.
Chip Rogers, chief executive of the American Hotels and Lodging Association, said the economic impact of the pandemic on the hotel industry was already bigger than “September 11th and the 2008 recession combined.”
