Becoming quite popular in the UK are sites where, when making a booking through them, you are able to earn a certain amount of cash (fixed or a percentage) from a series of merchants. The provisos are that you must use links from their site, some require a payment and some prevent you earning points for the reservation provider. They can take several months to pay out, but the funds are sent to your bank account on  monthly basis normally.

My Favourite is www.quidco.com (sponsored link)

They charge an annual fee of £5 which is taken off your first earnings so there is no payment up front.

Notable (for travellers) amongst their companies are:

Accommodation – Intercontinental Group (7%), Accor (up to 16%), Hilton (6%), Marriott (4%), Radisson (7%).

Flights – BA (2% on Club Europe flights, 0% everything else), KLM (£4 for Amsterdam flights, £6 Europe, £10.50 long-haul), Virgin Atlantic (2%), bmi (1% codeshare, 2.5% others), Lufthansa (2%), Singapore (1%) and Qantas (2%). Personal favourite is Swiss (£4 shorthaul, £6.50 long haul and £8 Business class). Usually applies only to base fare – excluding taxes.

Travel Agents – these vary depending on the different elements booked. For example Expedia.co.uk offers 7.25% for hotels but only 1% for flights. E-bookers gives 1.4% for flights and 10% for hotels.

You can track your earnings easily on the site, and several sites generate confirmation emails of your earnings. My worst experience has been Best Western who have taken several months to post a transaction despite the best efforts of Quidco.

The Second largest is TopCashBack (sponsored link)

There is no annual fee and a wide range of payout methods – gift vouchers as well as bank transfers.

Accommodation – Intercontinental Group (5.05%), Accor (10.1%), Hilton (7.07%), Marriott (5.15%), Radisson (7.07-3.09%), Best Western (5.15%)

Flight Searches – a weekly search on fly.com (via the TopCashBack site) earns 5 pence.

Flights –  KLM (£4.12 for Amsterdam flights, £6.18 Europe, £10.81 long-haul), Virgin Atlantic (2.02%), bmi (1.03% codeshare, 2.57% others), Lufthansa (2.06%), Singapore (1.03%) and Qantas (2.06%), Swiss (£4.12 shorthaul, £6.69 long haul and £8.24 Business class). Usually applies only to base fare – excluding taxes.

Travel Agents – these vary depending on the different elements booked. For example Expedia.co.uk offers 10.1% for hotels but only 1.01% for flights. E-bookers gives 1.91% for flights and 10.1% for hotels.

Summary

TopCashBack is the better option as the rates are mostly higher and there is no annual fee. I propose to give them a try for the next couple of months to see if they are better than Quidco.