Mastering affiliate partnerships: A beginner’s guide

Working with affiliates is an excellent way to increase online bookings and sell your tours and activities in a variety of places to gain you more exposure across multiple channels. 

If you’re just getting started, it can feel like there are many moving parts to juggle when partnering with affiliates. This guide will provide a better understanding of the affiliate capabilities of FareHarbor and how we can help you set up and maintain affiliates for a smooth, easy experience. 

In this article, we discuss creating individual partnerships with affiliates. If you want to skip the negotiating and invoicing steps, join the FareHarbor Distribution Network to enjoy a single contract, automatic payouts, and hundreds of connections — an easier way to get affiliate bookings. 

In this article:

• How do I start an affiliate negotiation?
• How and when to reach out to FareHarbor
• Maintaining affiliates
• Working with affiliates FAQ

How do I start an affiliate negotiation?

If you’ve decided you’re ready to start working with affiliates, you might be wondering how to get this process started. First, you must choose the affiliates you want to partner with, then put together a solid contract. 

1. Determine who will be reselling your tours and activities 

You must determine who you’d like to work with, and most importantly, whether they are a good fit for your company. Depending on the activities you operate and where you’re located, this could be a hotel concierge, local travel agents, influencers, online travel agents (OTAs), and other businesses.

2. Agree on a commission, retail rates, taxes, and items to be sold

Commission is the payment the affiliate would receive for selling your items. This can be a percentage of the activity cost or a dollar amount. We recommend that you consult a tax professional to understand the local regulations around commission tax obligations. 

Keep in mind that retail rates can be increased or decreased for affiliates, to cover the commission or offer a discount to the customer. See this rate sheet template for examples. 

During this process you will need to determine if the affiliate will be reselling all of your items or only a select few, which is simple to manage using FareHarbor’s affiliate rules tool.

You also need to decide if the affiliate should receive commission on your tour add-ons, such as Go Pro Rentals, Gratuity, and Trip Protection, rather than just the tour cost.

3. Decide who will be collecting payment (and other payment considerations)

Once you know which items the affiliate will resell, you must determine who will be collecting payment, and how billing will be set up. You have several options:

• Referral invoicing: You process the payment from the customer and owe a commission amount to the affiliate. 
• Billing invoicing: The affiliate processes the full payment from the customer and owes you your net rates. 
• Net rates no invoicing: The affiliate processes payments outside of FareHarbor, with FareHarbor pricing adjusted to reflect the tour operator’s net rates (retail price minus commission). The affiliate then charges a credit card in FareHarbor for the net rate amount. 
• Referral deposit no invoicing: The affiliate marks that they used a separate system to collect their commission as a deposit from the customer, then saves or charges a credit to the FareHarbor book form for the net rate amount. 

See detailed descriptions of each payment relationship and what these all entail in the frequently asked questions at the end of this article.

4. Provide the reseller the best booking options based on the invoicing relationship and their website traffic

Based on how you want customers to book with the affiliate, you can ask if they are able to book online, book directly, or submit bookings separately. Get a better understanding of potential booking methods here.

5. Create and sign your affiliate partnership contract

Create a contract carefully outlining the information from the steps above. Once you and the affiliate are satisfied with the conditions, sign the contract and get the connection set up with FareHarbor!  

How and when to reach out to FareHarbor

Once you have negotiated your terms and established a contract that outlines the points we mentioned above, submit the new affiliate request to FareHarbor, which will tell us who you’re working with and other necessary details of the relationship.

For detailed instructions on how to fill out this request form, view the written guidelines here, and a video tutorial here. 

Next Steps

The Channel Support team receives your request and sets up your new affiliate on your Dashboard within 3-5 days (usually quicker!). We may reach out for additional context on your request. 

We will provide you and your affiliate the requested booking direct options and training on how to utilize the features. Once affiliates are given a booking direct feature, they will be able to start selling your tours and activities for you!

Working with FareHarbor’s Channel Support Team

Our Channel Support Team is here to help with your affiliate setup. Here’s a few ways we can support your business:

• Configuring the affiliate Dashboard connections
• Handling affiliate booking and invoicing problems 
• Managing price updates
• Creating new affiliate booking options

While we are happy to help ensure everything is running smoothly with your setup, certain tasks are not included in our regular responsibilities:

• Negotiating your contract with your affiliates 
• Creating and paying invoices on your behalf
• Requesting payment from your affiliates
• Applying payments on bookings 

Training for you and your affiliates

If you or your staff would like to be trained on affiliates, please reach out to channelsupport@fareharbor.com to schedule a training. We also provide affiliates with self-training materials that guide them through the process.

Maintaining affiliates

Now that your connections have been established, here are some tips on maintaining affiliates for the long term.

• In order to receive payments from your affiliate or to send payments to them, send invoices from FareHarbor on a monthly or biweekly basis. 
• Renegotiate your price and commission on a yearly basis, and consider performing invoice and commission auditing.
• Be sure to conduct reporting on your affiliate sales to ensure these relationships are still performing well. Determine if they are still making bookings for you and whether they have provided you with quality customers. You should also evaluate whether you can sell out certain tours without the help of affiliates and establish your affiliate rules accordingly.
• Verify that the items affiliates are selling have active calendars, live customer types, and current pricing.

Working with affiliates can certainly give your business a leg up, but make sure you are putting in the work to maintain these relationships and do what makes the most sense for your business.

For more detailed information, check out these frequently asked questions about the topics mentioned in this article.

Working with affiliates FAQ

What are the affiliate booking options?

Read about the various affiliate booking options here.

What is a rate sheet?

A detailed breakdown of pricing that should be inputted within FareHarbor. Please note, the most important aspects of the rate sheet are the retail rates, commission, and expected net rate. Click here for a rate sheet template.

What is a commission? 

A commission is the financial incentive that a tour operator offers to an affiliate for any bookings the affiliate makes for them.

For example: If there is a 20% commission, this means that if Hotel ABC refers a $100 booking to XYZ Tours, XYZ Tours will owe Hotel ABC a commission of $20.

What is the difference between a partner and an affiliate?

• Partner: A company whose tours you are reselling.
• Affiliate: A company that is reselling your tours.

Can I use my existing Dashboard to make bookings for other companies?

Yes, you can use the existing Dashboard as long as they have a matching processor currency! In this case, you will become the affiliate, and the other company the tour operator. This is a great way to make a little extra cash on the side, earning commission for referring customers to other tour operators.

Who does FareHarbor integrate with via API?

You can find a list of current API partners here. 

How do I report on affiliates? 

You will want to run a booking source report to see detailed information on the bookings your affiliates and partners have created as well as a breakdown of any money owed.

What are the types of payment relationships with affiliates? 

• Referral Invoicing Relationship: You, the tour operator, are processing the full payment at the time of booking, owing a commission amount to the affiliate.
• Billing Invoicing Relationship: The affiliate (or reseller) is processing the full payment outside FareHarbor, owing you, the tour operator, your net rates. Please Note: Payment is being processed in the affiliate’s own POS system.
• Net Rates No Invoicing Relationship: The prices on a booking are set at a rate discounted by the affiliate’s commission percentage. Usually, it is set up so that the net rate for a booking must be charged to a card (usually the affiliate’s company credit card) in order to complete the booking. This type of setup makes the assumption that the affiliate has collected the payment in full from the customer in their own system outside of FH.
• Referral Deposit No Invoicing Relationship: The affiliate would be using a separate system to collect their commission as a deposit from the customer. They would first show that they collected that invoice price amount themselves, and then save or charge a credit card to the FareHarbor book form for the net rate amount. If saving it, the tour operator would charge the net rate upon check-in.

What are affiliate permission groups?

Permission groups allow affiliates with affiliate Dashboard access to view and make bookings on your booking calendar. 

By default, affiliates cannot cancel bookings. If you need them to cancel their own bookings, please reach out to channelsupport@fareharbor.com to change permissions.

• Affiliate – Can See Prices: Affiliates are able to see total and invoice amounts when creating bookings. 
• Affiliate – Cannot See Prices: Affiliates can only see the expected invoice amount when creating bookings. They cannot see retail pricing. 
• Affiliate – External API: Allows API partners to push through cancellations made in their system according to your cancellation policy. 
• Affiliate – API: Allows API partners to push through cancellations made in their system according to your cancellation policy. API partners can push through the expected net rate to FareHarbor. This only applies to Expedia, Get Your Guide, Tripadvisor (Viator) and Google.

Can my affiliates create invoices?

Affiliates are unable to create invoices. You will need to generate the invoice from your FareHarbor Dashboard for your affiliate to pay the invoice or for you to pay them.

Follow these steps to create an invoice. 

Are invoice payments automatic?

Currently, commission (or invoice) payments are not automatically issued within the FareHarbor system. The generation of invoices is controlled by the tour operator. Payment of invoices will need to be settled outside of FareHarbor using any financial transfer system. 

For US Clients only: You can use FareHarbor to pay invoices. Please reach out to channelsupport@fareharbor.com to enable the feature. Please note that a 1.9% + .30 bank transfer fee is incurred by the person receiving the funds. 

If you prefer invoicing be handled automatically, we highly recommend joining the FareHarbor Distribution Network.

Can I make specific fields non-commissionable? 

Yes you can! If you would like for any gratuity, upgrades or add-ons to not be commissionable, just let us know so we can make the necessary adjustments.

How do I know which of my partners are API connected to FareHarbor?

If the partner is Viator, GetYourGuide, Google or Expedia, please reach out to our Support team and we will get you an answer.

Otherwise, see if they are added to your affiliates list with an API permission group. That permission allows them to access your specific Dashboard if they have an established API connection with FareHarbor. You can find your affiliates list in the section Network under “Affiliates”.You can also generate a booking source report to check if they are sending you bookings via an API User.

I have an affiliate that is not already connected to FareHarbor via the API; what do I do?

The point of contact of the affiliate company should reach out directly to strategicpartnerships@fareharbor.com to check compatibility and requirements.

My affiliate lost their credentials to access their affiliate Dashboard or their password email expired.

Retrieve the email entitled “Your FareHarbor Account Info” to find your URL and username.

Next, use the provided credentials to access the Dashboard login page and click above “Forgot your username or password” to receive a new email.

We hope this beginner’s guide to affiliates has been helpful! If you’re looking for a low-risk, high-reward affiliate program, the FareHarbor Distribution Network simplifies affiliate relationships with one contract, automatic payouts, enhanced visibility, and more!