Stay22 is the affiliate platform that has made us the most money from blogging in recent months.
We tested Stay22 against six other affiliate platforms we use, and it’s the only one that’s become a reliable earner for us. It’s now our highest-earning affiliate tool.
We’re Charlie and Luke, UK travel bloggers, and we’ve spent years juggling affiliate platforms, Awin, CJ, Skimlinks, GetYourGuide, Expedia and Impact, most of them underwhelming. This is our honest review of Stay22: what we’ve earned (in real numbers), the pros and cons, and exactly how it stacks up against the rest.
We signed up to Stay22 in December 2025. I was sceptical and put off signing up for a long time, given poor performance from many other affiliate platforms over the years. I didn’t want to add another platform to manage, but eventually decided to see how it went. I only wish I’d signed up earlier!
What is Stay22?
Stay22 is an affiliate tool built specifically for travel content. Instead of joining lots of separate hotel programs, it aggregates the big booking platforms (Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo and GetYourGuide among them) and lets you add accommodation links and an interactive map to your posts. When a reader books through them, you earn a commission.
The pitch is simple: it turns the “where should I stay?” question, which every destination post triggers, into booking-intent clicks.
Is Stay22 Worth It? The Short Answer
For a travel blog, yes.
If your content sends readers to book stays and activities, Stay22 is the first affiliate tool we’d set up. It out-earns every other platform we use, mostly runs itself once it’s in, and pays per hotel booking (worth far more than a typical affiliate click).
It’s less useful if your content rarely touches accommodation, and as a UK blogger you take a small hit on USD payouts.
It also is a great way to monetise hosted hotel or accommodation stays. Our guide to How to Get a Complimentary Stay as a Travel Blogger explains the mechanics of how to secure complimentary stays with hotels and brands.
What We’ve Actually Earned with Stay22
Since signing up on 24th December 2025, Stay22 has earned us $1,397 (roughly £1000) across 183 bookings. Over about seven months that’s an average of around £140 a month, though it swings with the seasons. In a recent month it was our single highest-earning affiliate platform, earning $500.
We’re sharing rounded figures rather than screenshots because affiliate income swings month to month with seasonality and traffic, but the trend has been a steady increase, especially as we’ve added more referral links throughout our most read blog posts.
👉 Do you want to start earning from your content like we did? Sign up through our referral link to earn $100 once you reach 100 bookings!
The Stay22 Features We Use (and one we turned off)
Stay22 is the most clever affiliate platform we’ve used thanks to its great features, many of which use AI to make it more efficient for you as a blogger and influencer.
- The Map — The interactive accommodation map is the workhorse. We embed it in destination guides so readers can see what’s where and check their own dates without leaving the page. Check out our Burgau travel guide for an example.
- Nova — This AI predicts when your readers are likely to book something, and surfaces a relevant booking offer at the right moment. We leave this on.
- LinkSwap — Automatically replaces old or dead links with higher-converting ones, so posts keep earning without manual upkeep. This is the quiet hero for a blog with years of back catalogue.
- Auto-converting Booking.com links — Existing plain links become affiliate links without redoing them by hand.
- Spark (we turned this off) — Spark auto-inserts affiliate links across your content. In theory handy, but for us it dropped links in irrelevant places, so we switched it off and place those ourselves. Worth knowing if you like control over your links.
How We Make Money with Stay22
The tactic that works best for us isn’t scattering links, it’s dedicated intent. We write “where to stay in [place]” sections and guides, drop the map in at the exact moment a reader is deciding, and let the booking-intent traffic do the rest. A single hotel booking commission is worth far more than most other affiliate actions, so even modest, high-intent traffic adds up.
We’re still experimenting with different post types and ways of using Stay22 links, so this is just our learnings so far.
Stay22 vs Other Affiliate Platforms
Here’s an honest comparison of the affiliate platforms we actually use. Note: affiliate terms and rates change often, so check each platform’s current details before you rely on them.
| Platform | Best For | How You Link | Our Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stay22 | Accommodation + activities across many providers, with a map | Map widget, auto + manual links | Our highest earner by a clear margin. The one we’d keep above all the others. |
| Skimlinks | Auto-monetising existing links across lots of brands | Site-wide script, automatic | Good and easy to use, with a wide range of brands. The catch is that commissions tend to be low. Best as broad, passive coverage. |
| Awin | Big range of brands, some travel | Manual links, dashboards | Plenty of choice, but it’s never really earned for us. |
| CJ (Commission Junction) | Big brand advertisers | Manual links | Established, but a poor performer for us. |
| GetYourGuide | Tours, activities, experiences | Manual/partner links | Handy for activities, but a modest earner for us (and now available inside Stay22 anyway). |
| Expedia | Hotels and flights | Links, widgets | Hasn’t performed well for us. |
| Impact | Brand-direct programs (e.g. gear) | Per-brand links | Fine for specific brands, but a poor performer for us overall. |
Skimlinks is a decent, easy all-rounder for passive coverage, but the commissions are small. The rest have never really earned their keep for us. For anything accommodation-led, which for a travel blog is most of it, Stay22 out-earns everything else we use, comfortably. Affiliate terms and rates change often, so check each platform’s current details before relying on them.
Who Stay22 is (and isn’t) For
Best for: travel bloggers and creators whose content sends people to book stays and activities. Less essential if: your content rarely touches accommodation, or you’re purely product/gear-led.
Stay22 Pros and Cons
Pros:
- It’s our highest-earning affiliate platform, comfortably ahead of the rest.
- One tool covers loads of providers (Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, GetYourGuide), so you are not juggling a dozen separate programs.
- The interactive map helps readers: they can check their own dates without leaving the page, and it converts well.
- Mostly passive once it’s set up: Nova and LinkSwap keep older posts earning with no manual upkeep.
- It can turn your existing plain Booking.com links into affiliate links automatically, so your back catalogue starts working without a rewrite.
- Hotel bookings pay more per action than most affiliate clicks.
Cons:
- The biggest con is that commission rates are around 30% of the total commission paid by the booking provider. It takes a share of the commission, so per booking you earn a smaller slice than going direct with a site like Booking.com (in practice, better conversion tends to make up for it, more below).
- Earnings and payouts are in US dollars, so as a UK blogger you take a small currency hit.
- Commissions stay “pending” until guests actually travel, so income lags and the odd booking cancels.
- It rewards booking intent, so you need a steady flow of readers actually planning trips before earnings start to come in.
Does Stay22 Take Too Big a Cut?
Stay22 sits between you and the booking sites and keeps a share of the commission. Book direct with Booking.com’s own affiliate program and you’d earn roughly 4 to 8% of a booking. Through Stay22 your slice is smaller once they take their cut. On paper, going direct pays more per booking.
In practice, three things usually tip it back in Stay22’s favour:
- Conversion — The map and auto-links convert far better than a plain link. Booking.com’s direct program even uses session-based tracking, so if a reader doesn’t book in one sitting you earn nothing. A smaller slice of bookings that actually complete beats a bigger slice of ones that don’t.
- Coverage — Stay22 earns whether your reader books on Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com or Vrbo. A direct link only pays on one website, so you lose everything that goes elsewhere.
- Less faff — Direct programs are increasingly selective, slower to pay, and each one is another login and threshold to manage. (We’ve struggled just to log into Booking’s own partner platform).
That’s why, even giving up some commission, Stay22 is still our highest earner. If you do want the bigger direct slice, the easier route is through a network like Awin or CJ rather than Booking’s own portal, and it’s worth testing on a few pages. But for us, the convenience and the conversion win.
How to Get Started (and the referral bonus)
👉 You can sign up to Stay22 here.
That’s our referral link. Stay22 runs a creator referral program, if you sign up through us and reach 100 confirmed bookings, we earn a referral reward and you get a $100 bonus at that milestone. It costs you nothing, and we’d only ever recommend a tool we use and rate.
Our Verdict: Is Stay22 Worth It?
Is Stay22 worth it? For us, easily. We’ve tried most of the big affiliate platforms and Stay22 is the only one that’s become a reliable earner without eating our time. If your travel content sends people to book stays and activities, and most travel content does, it’s the first tool we’d set up.