Expedia run their affiliate program through a company called Awin. Awin are currently showing 3% is paid on train tickets. The cashback sites go through Awin to track sales, so I'd expect them to pay 3%, unless they have a special deal with Expedia.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Special Offers Discussion
- Thread starter Mojo
- Start date
Expedia run their affiliate program through a company called Awin. Awin are currently showing 3% is paid on train tickets. The cashback sites go through Awin to track sales, so I'd expect them to pay 3%, unless they have a special deal with Expedia.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
BluePenguin
On Moderation
Well that is not a terrible return is it? I am more than certain you will get the £1 cashback from every booking you have made with Expedia. I am having a look at my bank statements for the last few months and can't see any mention of a £1 transaction being charged, I can only see all of the transactions for the tickets
BluePenguin
On Moderation
Ahh right. Quidco offered 5% for ages whilst TopCashback offered 3%. There is no mention of "rail" or "train" on either cashback sites so I am wondering whether Expedia suddenly decided to pull the plug.
Anyone fancy doing a cheap test purchase?
They don’t charge a booking fee. As someone else stated, for some reason they do a £1 pre authorisation to your card on bookings, but this doesn’t appear as a full transaction.
BluePenguin
On Moderation
That is interesting to know, so if I were buy trains tickets and not get any cashback for them would I be able claim it I were to point this out? I wouldn't be surprised if Quidco or TopCashback received the 3% from Awin and kept it for themselves, crediting me with nothing though.
ForTheLoveOf
Established Member
- Joined
- 7 Oct 2017
- Messages
- 6,416
All cashback on these sites is discretionary according to their respective terms and conditions - i.e. don't base a purchasing decision entirely on it, because there may be all sorts of problems getting the correct cashback (e.g. it not tracking, it tracking but being randomly declined, the amount being lower than it should be etc.).
I have had plenty of cashback rejected but equally well I have earned a fair amount from purchases I would have made anyway. So overall I'm happy.
If Quidco or Topcashback do not state there is any available for rail tickets when you click through to Expedia, then you probably would not have a case. I am guessing the cashback has been dropped as it was costing the payer money, as 5% was a pretty good deal! So it looks like the deals are:
Scotrail: 5% through Quidco on own journeys
Raileasy 'secret' site: 2.1% cashback with Topcashback
Transpennine Express: 4.2% for TPE purchases and 1% cashback for other purchases with Topcashback, and 2 nectar points per £1 spent
East Midlands Trains: 2.5% for EMT journeys, 1% for other journeys with Topcashback
Caledonian Sleeper: 2.1% with Topcashback
Stansted and Heathrow Express also have cashback deals with Quidco. Looks like for now I'll be using TPE, as nectar points are at least guaranteed.
Scotrail: 5% through Quidco on own journeys
Raileasy 'secret' site: 2.1% cashback with Topcashback
Transpennine Express: 4.2% for TPE purchases and 1% cashback for other purchases with Topcashback, and 2 nectar points per £1 spent
East Midlands Trains: 2.5% for EMT journeys, 1% for other journeys with Topcashback
Caledonian Sleeper: 2.1% with Topcashback
Stansted and Heathrow Express also have cashback deals with Quidco. Looks like for now I'll be using TPE, as nectar points are at least guaranteed.
andrewg70
Member
- Joined
- 29 Jun 2010
- Messages
- 54
The tokens are different from earlier this year!
Kite159
Veteran Member
Did someone finally notice that people would using vouchers from previous offers and hence not buying the latest local advert filled papers with the odd news item
Kite159
Veteran Member
Most likely someone who works in the newspaper promotions department for Johnston Press, certainly it's gotten harder to make use of that promotion as I had a few vouchers left over from a previous offer.
Affiliates were advised last week that Expedia would no longer be paying commissions on rail tickets as of, I think, Friday midnight.
Commissions for purchases made prior to the deadline should have tracked correctly, and should still be paid as normal.
How much commission do third party vendors get for a sale?
In this case the vendor is Expedia. In affiliate terms, Expedia is also the advertiser, and the website that their advert is viewed on is the publisher. In the examples here, Quidco and Topcashback fulfil the role of publisher.
The link between the advertiser and publisher is the affiliate network or agency - in this case AWin, formerly Affiliate Window, which is part of a company called Zanox.
The terms offered by the advertiser to the publisher, via the affiliate network, are variable - there’s no fixed percentage.
Do the Johnston Press and the Trinity Mirror tokens still look the same?
The Johnston Press and Trinity Mirror tokens are the same in design. However the tokens in the Teesside Gazette that I bought (Trinity Mirror) are smaller and narrower than the ones in the Yorkshire Evening Post (Johnston Press). I suspect this is by design, though only comparing across two titles am not sure if this is universally the case.
route:oxford
Established Member
- Joined
- 1 Nov 2008
- Messages
- 4,949
With Virgin Money Back:-
Trainline (New Customer) - 2.8%
Trainline (Repeat Customer) - 0.9%
East Midlands (Other Operators) - 0.9%
East Midlands (Own Services) - 2.3%
Rail Easy - 1.9%
Train Genius - 1.9%
Virgin Money Back looks like just like Topcashback and Quidco, just not as good with the rates.
Kite159
Veteran Member
I would suspect you will have more luck with using older tokens at stations where the ticket office isn't run by Northern, as those staff might not be so clued up with the offer & vouchers changing. I wonder if you could buy the rover from a completely random station by saying "Northern Only Day Ranger". One for @causton to see if he gets a spare few minutes?
Cheers, I might be using a non-Northern station anyway.
You can use it from any station served by Northern, it doesn't have to be operated by them.
causton
Established Member
The rover should come up at any station but it is whether Northern would notice and complain if anyone issued one! I wouldn't want to do it myself but as said above if you go to someone who at least knows what a rover is they will probably issue it no questions asked 
Kite159
Veteran Member
The rover should come up at any station but it is whether Northern would notice and complain if anyone issued one! I wouldn't want to do it myself but as said above if you go to someone who at least knows what a rover is they will probably issue it no questions asked
It will probably flag up if Northern runs a report at where the "£10" rovers were sold from and if there is an oddity of say 30 getting issued at a random non-northern served station it might get noticed. Although what Northern could possibility do is another matter (send a strongly worded letter to the operator of that station for the ticket office not to sell these tickets?)
Last edited by a moderator:
Puffing Devil
Established Member
- Joined
- 11 Apr 2013
- Messages
- 3,167
20% of F&F Railcards until 22nd May with code FMH20
BluePenguin
On Moderation
Thank you for the list. Now that Expedia is not available it is good to know that what the alternatives are
Speaking of which, do you or anyone else know how to navigate to the secret Rail Easy site with a cashback site? I have a feeling that removing the 3 letters from the sub domain and replacing them with www will break the cashback tracking.
Go to the 'secret' MSE site, then open another tab and then go onto Topcashback and click through RailEasy through them. That will track your click through, but order through the original tab.
CaptainHaddock
Established Member
- Joined
- 10 Feb 2011
- Messages
- 2,716
Just received an email from VTEC about a summer seat sale. Annoyingly (and clearly deliberately) they've chosen the dates to clash with the World Cup - travel between 18 June and 20 July, book by end of this Thursday (May 31).
I can't link to it as the T&Cs say "The promotional tickets offer can be accessed by the recipient of this email only" but if you're registered with VTEC check your inbox!
I can't link to it as the T&Cs say "The promotional tickets offer can be accessed by the recipient of this email only" but if you're registered with VTEC check your inbox!
Silver Cobra
Member
Not really surprising that I haven't received that email (I didn't receive one the last time VTEC ran this kind of seat sale either). There's still time for it to arrive, but I'm not keeping my hopes up.
Hopefully LNER won't run seat sales in this manner, as it does seem rather unfair that it's completely random whether you get one of these emails or not.
Hopefully LNER won't run seat sales in this manner, as it does seem rather unfair that it's completely random whether you get one of these emails or not.