Building Trust in the Age of AI: How I Monetize with Stay22

*This is a sponsored post. As always, opinions are 100% my own

When asked what I do for a living, I always receive the same two reactions.

The first is something along the lines of “that’s awesome!” or “living the dream!” – some generic type of excitement and surprise that comes when people realize that it is, in fact, possible to travel the world and make money from doing so.

The second part, however, is always the same five words, often laced with a sense of disbelief or even confusion. And those words are: “How do you actually make money?”

I do believe that there are many people who are genuinely curious about the different revenue streams and what possibilities are out there that allow for this sort of freedom lifestyle. But at this point in time, the terms ‘travel blogger’, ‘content creator’, and ‘influencer’ have been around long enough that even your grandma probably has her favourites. We all have a rough idea of how it works, meaning the real root of the question is: do you actually make enough money?

It’s a valid question, because as an outsider looking in, I run my business very differently than many other content creators. In a world of press trips and sponsored posts, I am quick to share that I pay for 95% of my travel myself, and my social channels are pretty bare of sponsored content. 

And that’s on purpose. 

Since the start of running my business, I promised that honesty would be my number one priority; that I would share the good and the bad, and only promote things that I genuinely enjoyed and believed in. 

More often than not, that means turning down sponsored opportunities because they don’t align. To some, that may seem like a bad decision and missed opportunities, but the truth is that my pickiness and honesty in my business have always been my super power, perhaps even more so in these days of AI. 

Because with that honesty comes trust, and trust means people are confident and willing to book my recommendations. Stay22(opens in new tab) allows me to monetize those links meaning I earn an income just by sharing the places I love.

Why I Switched to Stay22

Stay22 is an affiliate program for bloggers and website publishers, like me, to monetize accommodation suggestions. Now, if you are familiar with affiliate marketing, you know that this is nothing new. Hotel and accommodation affiliates have been around for years. I personally have been using them since 2014 when I decided to take my travel blog from an online travel journal to an actual business.

However, what makes Stay22 stand out, from my point of view, are the options. Before I signed on with Stay22 I was signed up to multiple affiliate programs for hotels to better recommend properties and neighbourhoods I had personal experience in.

However, in my desire to be specific in my hotel recommendations, I found that not all hotels I wanted to share with my audience were listed on the same platform. This led to multiple hotel affiliate partners on multiple platforms. Not only was this annoying to go back and forth between platforms to create links, but being spread out across multiple platforms also meant that, during quieter months, I’d have irregular payouts.

Stay22, on the other hand, supports multiple suppliers on a single platform. If the hotel I want to share isn’t listed on Booking.com I can likely find it on Expedia, Hotels.com, or Agoda. It’s all under one streamlined platform that allows me to easily make the links, track performance, and get paid on time. 

How Stay22 works

Let me start by making it clear that I am NOT tech savvy, by any means. But with Stay22, you don’t have to be.  Switching to Stay22 was easy, all I had to do was copy and paste a lightweight script called Let Me Allez (LMA) to my site and – ta da! – my links were swapped. All in less than five minutes. 

Once installed, the LMA script enables:

• LinkSwap: which automatically converts my links. The best part? No more broken or outdated links! This script automatically fixes 404s and old redirects to ensure I’m always earning.
• Spark:(opens in new tab) Which helps identify missed affiliate opportunities and inserts appropriate hyperlinks without altering my writing. 
• Nova:(opens in new tab) Works by identifying user intent and, if and when appropriate, delivers an offer to those specific readers. 

As for adding new links, it’s quick and easy with the Allez Link Generator. I just find the property I want to link to via one of the supported partner websites, paste the link, enter a campaign-ID (optional) for better tracking and hit generate. 

Finally, it’s easy to track progress via the dashboard. One quick glance and I can see total revenue, number of transactions, average commission, and even the most recent bookings.

If you are a blogger, check out Stay22 here.(opens in new tab)

How I Implement Stay22 in My Business Model

As mentioned above, affiliate links have always been a big part of my business. I’m primarily a solo female traveller, and I know how important it is for women to find accommodation that makes them feel safe, so I’ve always been quick to recommend the properties and neighbourhoods that I, myself, have felt comfortable in. 

I use Stay22 links in all of my travel guides when I talk about where to stay in different cities. It allows me to make suggestions based on my own experiences, and also make a little extra money (at no additional cost to the booker). 

Additionally, I sometimes share these links on my social channels. I don’t typically do a lot of accommodation-specific posts, but if I stay somewhere that I think is unique and others might enjoy, then it’s probably worth a share(opens in new tab). 

When I do this, I set up DM automation so if people comment a specific word on the post, my Stay22 link for the property will automatically be sent to their DMs. Again, I don’t do this a lot, but it’s a nice option to reach a different audience than my blog.

Finally, I have a ‘trusted resources’(opens in new tab) page on my website which I share with regular followers who want to support me when booking their own travel. Again, my honesty over the years has built a solid level of trust among my followers, and I regularly get messages from some of them asking me to share my affiliate links with them so they can book their own travels – even outside of using my own recommendations. I regularly use Booking.com myself, so I have my Stay22- powered booking.com link on my resourced page.

My Success with Stay22

Despite using hotel affiliate links for over a decade, I only joined Stay22  in September 2025, meaning that I’m still relatively new to the Stay22 program. However, in the 11 months I have been part of the program, I have made over $11,000 USD, with the average booking earning me $13.33 USD in commission. 

While most of the hotel bookings I’m getting are still through Booking.com, I’m also seeing a few each month from Expedia – which was not a platform I had partnered with before. In addition to these new bookings, the fact that I am saving so much time when creating and updating links is a huge bonus. Running a travel blog is a lot of work, and I’m a big fan of any tools that can make the process smoother. 

While my previous hotel affiliate set-up wasn’t exactly streamlined, it was still successful, so I was hesitant to switch. However, given that I’m seeing similar results with a process that is 100x easier, I absolutely should have switched sooner. 

If you are a blogger or publisher looking to get started with Stay22, I’d love for you to use my referral link here. We’ll both get a cash bonus – when you reach 100 confirmed bookings, you’ll get $100 extra.

If you are a traveller looking to support me, I’d love for you to use my Stay22 affiliate link when booking accommodation; you can find it here.