Updated: 10/17/2018 Oleg Lazhechnikov

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In fact, it is not the saving itself that occurs, but the return of funds, essentially cashback. The method has been known for a long time, but only in the last couple of years has it become convenient to use. Perhaps you even know about it, but brushed it aside, not wanting to figure it out and spend time on it, think about a couple of percent of the profit. On the other hand, you only need to delve into it once, and then the interest is returned without additional effort.

The essence of the life hack

Surely, you have seen on my blog, and on others too, various links: to tickets, hotels, insurance, etc. Many of these links are affiliate links, they contain a certain code that indicates who this link belongs to. And when purchasing through such a special link, the owner of this link receives a percentage of the sale. This is standard earnings on websites; absolutely all travel sites that contain information earn money this way. But no one is stopping you from getting your own link and taking this percentage for yourself. This is what I do myself, this is what bloggers do, we have all been buying through our links for a long time.

Of course, bloggers monitor the conditions of various affiliate programs, are registered on many similar sites, and know various subtleties and nuances. You don’t need to know this, you just need to register with and thereby have a dozen affiliate programs in one place, in one account. In your personal account you will see links to purchasing airline tickets, hotels, insurance, booking a car, purchasing a tour, and obtaining a travel SIM card. That is, one registration is enough to immediately gain access to everything that a traveler needs. Travelpayouts is an aggregator of a couple of dozen services.

How to save on travel

pros

If you want to get confused, you can register for an affiliate program for each service separately (that is, in Booking, in Agoda, in RoomGuru, in Cherehapa, in Economybookings, in Aviasales, in Skyscanner, etc.). But in my opinion, for the sake of a couple of trips a year, this does not make sense. Otherwise, you will have to deal with the interfaces of different personal accounts and then wait for the payment threshold. For example, the well-known Booking.com only pays amounts starting from 100 euros, which you will save there all year. Many affiliate programs are not at all suitable for website owners, because they do not pay a percentage of the purchase, but a few cents per click on a link, or they have a ban on purchasing using their personal link. Do you need it?

Still, the point of such manipulations is to save money without wasting time on it. Therefore, we need a simple way and now we have it (previously there was no such possibility). It is for this reason that I am writing this post, because my universal method requires almost no effort. I will briefly list what you will receive.

  • When purchasing an air ticket through Aviasales, about 1-1.5% of its cost
  • When booking a hotel on Hotellook about 3-5% of the booking amount
  • When purchasing insurance on Cherehapa 10% of its cost
  • When booking a car on Renatalcars.com about 3% from the reservation
  • When ordering a visa at Visatohome, the fee is fixed 270 rubles
  • When purchasing an excursion in Sputnik, up to 9% of its cost, in Tripster 8% of the cost of the excursion.
  • There are also package tours, other services that sell excursions and offer to book a car, airport transfers, and SIM cards.
  • Payment from 500 rubles to WebMoney or Yandex.Money

And, if in the case of Aviasales you can still turn up your nose, they say, Skyscanner or Momondo is better, then, for example, only works with Cherehapa, and this service is unique and there is simply no alternative to it. In any case, the whole point of my method is simplicity, that you get a dozen services at once in one personal account.

And a few more words about the hotel price comparison service Hotellook - it works on the same principle as RoomGuru, it gives official prices for hotels from Booking, Agoda, Ostrovok, Ozon, etc. I think everyone already knows how much more convenient it is to see prices for the desired hotel in all booking systems at once and choose where it is cheaper.

And finally, before I forget. You can distribute your links for booking hotels, air tickets, insurance, tours to your friends and acquaintances, thereby earning cashback on their purchases. Yes, to seriously engage in this, you need your own website or a popular group on a social network, but still, you also have this opportunity.

Minuses

There is only one drawback - there are many more services than Travelpayouts has. There are about 5 popular airline ticket search engines alone, and Travelpayouts presents only one - Aviasales. Thus, if you are used to using other services, you will have to be content with what you have, because it is impossible to aggregate everything. Although, as I wrote above, I do not see for myself an alternative to many of the services that are available on Travelpayouts.

By the way, it is not always worth comparing prices directly between services. I’ll give you an example comparison with Skyscanner, which I also use all the time. In it, the price of air tickets is sometimes lower, but only slightly, by 200-400 rubles, no more. I already somehow. So, if I buy tickets through Skyscanner, I will immediately save 400 rubles, and if I buy through a link from Travelpayouts, I will get 2,000 rubles back from the ticket, which is much more profitable in the end.

How to find your link in the service

You will not have links to Booking, Agoda, Ostrovok, Ozon and other booking services; everything must be done through Hotellook. The service gives you prices for each hotel in all booking systems at once, after which you go to the desired booking system.

All other links (insurance, excursions, car rental, etc.) should be looked for in “Campaign/Summary/Service Name/Promotional Materials/Link Generator/Ready Link”. But first you need to go to “Campaigns/All” and subscribe to the selected campaign.

I agree, everything looks a little confusing for the average user, but initially the system was tailored for website owners, for whom such personal accounts are quite familiar and understandable. In any case, you will need to spend a little time once to poke around through the sections (most of which you don’t need) and figure it out.

Refund in a few days for my purchase at TravelPayouts

Thus, tickets can be monitored in several services at once, and purchased on Aviaseels, if the cashback pays for this purchase.

Insurance

In any case, you need to take out insurance through Cherehapa (). Not only can you pay for everything on their website (yes, some insurance companies still haven’t made online sales of policies), but they also provide consultations on policies. You can ask any question, about how best to act in a given situation, about the terms of the insurance contract, etc.

For example, I bought Egor insurance from ERV for which I received 10% back.

Return — 687 rub.

Refunds from Cherehapa via TravelPayouts

Hotels

Unfortunately, Airbnb stopped their affiliate program, and the example of how I received a refund from their booking had to be removed. However, you can still get a refund on hotel bookings, which I use all the time.

I, like many people, often use Booking, for example, I read reviews there. But it is not necessary to book directly there. After searching on Hotellook, in my case, Agoda was the cheapest. I booked a hotel in Phuket on Kata Beach for 3 days, you can figure out how much the refund would be, for example, 2 weeks in advance. And I wrote about this hotel, in case you’re interested.

Return - 752 rub.

Cashback from a bank card

UPDATE. Everything flows, everything changes. Conditions for Corn cards have worsened. Therefore, I now only use a special travel credit card (follow the link for a bonus of 1000 rubles per card). It gives 2% on any purchases, 3-5% on air tickets and 10% on hotels on Booking.com.

This has nothing to do with Travelpayouts, but I must remind you of this again. What is cashback for bank cards? I paid for air tickets and insurance with a Corn bank card with cashback.

Cashback from the Corn card for air tickets - 3,000 rubles

Cashback from the Corn card for insurance - 206 rubles

P.S. As you can see, I saved 6843 RUR, without doing anything special, only once understanding the issue. Personally, such savings “out of nothing” make me happy. How much money have I saved over the years? :)

Life hack 1 - how to buy good insurance

It’s incredibly difficult to choose insurance now, so I’m compiling a rating to help all travelers. To do this, I constantly monitor forums, study insurance contracts and use insurance myself.

Life hack 2 - how to find a hotel 20% cheaper

Thanks for reading

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