How affiliates sometimes use unethical behaviour to steal business?
Published: 15 Apr 2010 By Ashwin Kamlani, president & founder of Hotel Internet Help Inc. First of all, I think there are many people out there that have no idea what affiliates are, or how affiliates operate. So let’s begin with a brief lesson. For those of you who already know how affiliates work, please skip to the fourth paragraph. An affiliate is someone who re-sells somebody else’s inventory for a commission. So when you sign a net rate agreement with Expedia, your hotel can be sold on Expedia.com, Hotels.com, or literally tens of thousands of other websites on the Internet that re-sell Expedia’s inventory. The Expedia Affiliate Network (previously IAN, or Interactive Affiliate Network) is considered to be the most successful and most robust affiliate network in the online travel business. As of 2009, some estimate that over 30% of Hotels.com’s hotel-only bookings came through affiliates. These reservations usually arrive to the hotel under the name of TravelNow.com. So all of th
