One way I make money as a full-time travel blogger is through affiliate marketing. Basically, every time someone makes accommodation bookings through my links I make a small commission. The affiliate solution I’ve been using for my blog over the last year is Stay22. In this post I will share my honest Stay22 review so you can decide if you add this tool to your affiliate strategy. This post contains affiliate links. When you make a purchase I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you. Find out more here.
What is Stay22?
Stay22 is a tech company based in Canada that uses artificial intelligence powered affiliate tools to help travel bloggers and travel creators earn passive income through affiliate commissions.
If that sounds confusing let me explain it in a different way. If you have a blog (aka a website) you can monetize by recommending products or services.
Let’s use the example of a travel blog. You can recommend in your blog posts the hotels you’ve stayed at and the activities you did during a trip you took.
To generate affiliate earnings all you have to do is to include the hotel affiliate links in your blog posts.
This way when someone clicks on your link and makes a booking you will receive commission for that booking.
Stay22 partnered with multiple booking platforms in the travel industry such as Booking.com, VRBO, GetYourGuide, or Hotels.com. This is good news for you because you don’t have to be a direct affiliate with each traditional affiliate network. You can just use Stay22 and get access to all these affiliate programs.
How I got started with Stay22
The best part is that Stay22 is a great tool for small blogs and large blogs alike. You do not need to hit minimum traffic levels before you sign up for Stay22.
I became their partner in May 2024, when my blog had only about 5K sessions per month. I was using Travelpayouts at the time as an affiliate tool for all the hotel links I included in my blog posts.
Even though my blog didn’t have that much traffic I was still expecting to see at least a few hotel bookings via Travelpayouts. But this was not the case. Even though I could see that people clicked on my accommodation links, I made $0 in hotel affiliate revenue.
I started to search for alternatives. So I did a Google search to look for other affiliate solutions for travel bloggers and that’s how I found Stay22.
I read a few reviews from other bloggers and I couldn’t believe their success stories with this platform. They were all saying how their hotel affiliate income grew over 100% (in some cases 1,000%) after switching to Stay22.
This sounded amazing to me, so I had to try it myself. I submitted my application online and soon after that I received the instructions on how to install the script on my blog. All existing and future hotel links are converted to affiliate links tracked through the Stay22 platform.
The installation process for Stay22
I am not a very tech savvy person, but I can follow simple instructions. After all, I built this entire blog myself without coding a single thing and without hiring any developer to help me.
I got the installation instructions via email and I also got a message from my assigned Partner Success Associate to make sure I have all the support I need to install the script.
The installation was the quickest and easiest thing ever. I used a plug-in to install the code in the right places on my blog. All I had to do was copy-paste the code in the plug in tool. It took me less than 5 minutes.
After I was done I emailed my Partner Success Associate and she confirmed that everything worked smoothly.
What I appreciated was that the script automatically converted all my existing affiliate links to Stay22 deep links so I didn’t have to manually change any link. All you have to do is to let your Partner Success Associate know that you were using Travelpayouts links to make sure you have the right script. This saved me a lot of time!
My results using Stay22
Ok, let’s get into the data now. My favorite! And probably what you’re most curious about too.
I made my first affiliate booking the day after I installed the script. It was only $1.97, but for me it was huge. After not having any hotel income until then, I had my first booking the day after I switched to Stay22.
I knew things would grow nicely from there. And that’s exactly how it was.
In June 2024, the first full month I was with Stay22 I made $191. Hello!!! This number already made my blog profitable. I was hooked.
In December 2024 I was already making over $500 per month.
And in March 2025 I had the highest affiliate revenue month ever. My overall earnings through Stay22 were over $1,630 and I had 148 total bookings. That’s roughly an 8.5X or 850% increase in revenue compared to June 2024. Mind-blowing results if you ask me! That’s a really significant increase in revenue.
Stay22 uses a combination of their Let Me Allez script, interactive maps, and traditional affiliate links to earn you money. I personally mostly use the Allez affiliate links and I had these incredible results.
I have a 7.2% clicks to bookings rate at the moment and I get, on average, 6 bookings a day. The average commission per booking I get is around $10.
I love that they track the data in real time so you don’t have to wait 24 hours to see your bookings for the previous day.
Stay22 also makes sure you never have broken links for hotels you recommend.
This is my personal experience with Stay22. You could see even better conversion rates, depending on the type of content you publish and how optimized it is for affiliate bookings.
My experience working with the Stay22 team
I love their customer service team. They are all real humans, not robots or AI. It’s so nice to be able to get help from a real human these days!
As I mentioned before, every blogger that signs up with Stay22 has a Partner Success Associate. They are your dedicated person that makes sure you have everything you need to succeed. They are also the point of contact for all the questions you might have or the issues you’re facing. I have a great relationship with my Partner Success Associate. She’s fantastic.
Her response time is very fast. Usually I get a reply in a few hours. And she always makes sure my questions are fully answered and my problems are solved.
I love how she always asks me for feedback. Stay22 is constantly trying to implement new ideas and new features to make sure we thrive as bloggers. And they make sure to use our feedback in what they develop next.
It truly feels like a two-way partnership.
My final recommendation
Stay22 is the best affiliate partnership I have. I do believe that they are the best hotel affiliate program out there.
Their tools work well, my conversion rates are high, and the affiliate revenue I make is constantly increasing. What else could I want from an affiliate partner? Not much, if you ask me.
I highly recommend you try Stay22 if you’re not using them already. It’s a great way to see your blog’s revenue go up significantly.
I also like that our incentives as bloggers and their incentives as a tech company are aligned. They make money if you make money. So they actually want you to succeed and grow your income because it helps them too.
You can use my Stay22 referral link to sign up. When you make 100 confirmed bookings I get a bonus and you get a $100 bonus too. It’s a win – win!
FAQs about Stay22
Do you need a minimum amount of page views to be accepted?
No, you don’t. This is great news for small blogs since you can apply as soon as you get some traffic. I personally applied when I had about 5K sessions per month.
Do you have to pay a fee to use Stay22?
No, it’s absolutely free to sign up and use the Stay22 affiliate tools on your blog.
Do you have to be based in the US or Canada to use Stay22?
No. Your geographical location does not matter. I am based in Romania, for example. You will get paid in your local currency.
What booking platform does Stay22 partner with?
Here are the Stay22 partners: Booking.com, Expedia, KAYAK, Hotels.com, TripAdvisor, Trivago, VRBO, GetYourGuide.
How do I get paid?
You can request a payout once a month if you reach the minimum payout amount. For example, for someone based in Romania, that’s $200 per month.
You will get the money deposited in your local bank account in your local currency.
After you request the payout you will receive the money in a maximum of 30 days. I usually get the payout after 21 days. This might vary depending on your country, bank, and payment method.
Can I use Stay22 and other affiliate programs?
Yes, you can. You do not have to be an exclusive partner with Stay22. So you can use other affiliate tools as well. However, you will quickly realize that Stay22 is the best one out there.
Ioana was born and raised in Romania, lived in NYC for 14 years, and is now back in Romania. She fell in love with traveling when she was little and used to visit her aunt in Vienna. Then in high school she was able to visit Siberia, Turkmenistan, Istanbul, and Tokyo through chemistry competitions. As an adult she started to travel solo once she turned 30 and visited 20+ countries so far. Ioana is a full time travel blogger and content creator with an audience of 75K+ people on Instagram. She loves to share travel recommendations and tips.