New Travel Affiliate Program

Type of commission structure?

[ricsorceror]

Hi there.

I am in the process of setting up a travel affiliate program. Pretty much following along the lines of Orbitz, Hotwire, etc.
I just wanted to find out which would be more valued by affiliates:

1.) A Percentage of sales commission rate
or
2.) A straight CPA per sale

Please let me have your thoughts.
Thanks

[eljefe3]

Percentage of sale as sometimes people will book a few weeks stay for a cost of 5K which should earn the affiliate good $$.

A cost per sale can't be very high from the merchant standpoint or you will go broke paying out $25 commission on a $39 cheap motel.

[ricsorceror]

I’m not saying that if we offer a CPA rate that it would be the same rate across all products. Obviously that would be very costly.
Under this light does the Percentage of sales offer still sound the most appealing?
For those of you in the industry, what Percentage of sales would be compelling whilst still competitive?

[cornwall]

The converse of the $25 per booking is trying to excite the readers of this forum with say $4 a booking as Accor have been doing recently. It may make them a lot of money, but hardly likely to get recruits for their program

I, like most readers of this forum, have tried many, if not all, of the programs on offer.

If I new one comes along, I will look to see if it is even worth considering, against what I already know of percentage paid, average commission per booking, etc

If it gets past that stage, I then look at other factors like:-
How likely I am to get paid ;) - an lone email address does not fill me with confidence.
What is the conversion rate likely to be - varies wildly
How do they pay you and how often.
Do they offer phone support to the punter, and how confident would the punter be to make a booking through that system

On top of that there is an inertia factor. In other words the new package has to be markedly better than what I already havefor me to even consider testing.