Information on Affiliates for Support

Channel Specialists

Communicate with clients to help manage, streamline, and grow their partnerships within FareHarbor.

Reach out to: Go to #strategicpartners-affiliates and use the workflow Channel Support Question by clicking the lightning bolt to the left of the text field to post a question or tag their team @channelsupport.

Connectivity

Manage all live API connections for our clients who work with OTA’s (examples include Expedia, TripAdvisor/Viator, GetYourGuide and Google, Booking.com, Musement, Website Travel and many more).

Reach out to: @connectivity_team in #connectivity.

Strategic Partnerships

This team operates globally and handles both potential and existing API Partnerships as well as the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN).

Reach out to: Go to #strategicpartners-affiliates and use the workflows by clicking the lightning bolt to the left of the text field to post a question. Make sure to use the correct workflow form based on your question type (i.e. FHDN, API, Sites Update) or tag their team @strategic-partnerships.

Affiliate

An affiliate is any third-party that resells/refers customers to one of our clients’ activities. Any type of business can be an affiliate: a local business; a blog; a hotel concierge desk; a traditional travel agency; an online travel agency.

Affiliate Users vs Agents vs Desks

Users: For affiliate dashboards, it’s best practice to create 1 generic user login. Various reservationists booking under 1 Affiliate name typically share the same permission group, so it is unnecessary to create more than 1 user on an Affiliate Dashboard. Affiliates also oftentimes have higher turnover than Charters, so 1 generic login works best so that new staff do not need to have new logins created.

Agents: Within an affiliate dashboard, specific reservationists at an Affiliate Company can add their name under the ‘Agent’ line on the booking. This will allow affiliates to share 1 generic login to make a booking under the Affiliate name, but once the booking is created, it will also track the specific Agent who made the booking. The Charter can run reports on bookings made by specific Agents just as they can with Users on a Charter Dashboard.

Desks: If an affiliate has several locations, they can use 1 generic login to create a booking under the Affiliate name, but they can use the Desks feature to specify the location the booking was made from.

API

API stands for “Application Programming Interface.” It is a backend integration between two different platforms, which allows the two to communicate and share data back and forth. FareHarbor has API integrations with various activity resellers. They use an API to access availability data from FareHarbor and to push completed bookings back into our system. Learn more.

Channel Support

Refers to helping grow and support the partnerships between FareHarbor companies and the third parties with whom they work.

Charters

Internally, we call FareHarbor companies “charters” when referring to a company and their third parties.

Net Rates

The net rate is the final amount that a charter company will keep for themselves for a booking that was referred to them by an affiliate. Example: Hotel ABC refers a $100 booking to XYZ Tours for a 20% commission. XYZ Tours will end up earning their net rate of 80% ($80.)

Online Travel Agency (OTA)

Online Travel Agency: An online platform that features suppliers’ tours and activities for online customers to book.

Partner

In an affiliate partnership, the “partner” or “charter” is the company whose activity gets booked. So the affiliate refers to the booking, and the partner receives the booking.

Partner Program – former initiative

The Partner Program was a FareHarbor-run initiative that allowed charter companies to resell and be resold by one another, under one umbrella contract. As of September 2019, we are no longer opting charters into the program. If they’re interested in the Partner Program, they can join the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN). Learn more about the FHDN here

Additional Terminology on this page.

Overview

When a company requests to add affiliates on their dashboard, although some companies may prefer to manually enter third party bookings into FareHarbor, in order to reduce manual labor, FareHarbor offers a variety of ways an affiliate can make bookings on their own without having to contact the Charter company (FareHarbor client). We call this “booking directly” because the affiliate is able to book directly into the availabilities that the charter company sets on their dashboard.

Affiliate Dashboards

Affiliate uses a limited FareHarbor dashboard to book directly into a client’s calendar. An affiliate Dashboard also referred to as an affiliate portal, is an account in FareHarbor that an affiliate can log into and make a booking for a charter directly into their booking calendar. Learn more.

Affiliate Promo Codes

Affiliate uses a special “promo code” on a FareHarbor client’s website so that the booking tags that affiliate. Learn more.

ASN’s

Affiliate Short Name: Affiliate uses tracked booking links/buttons to resell our clients’ products to their own online customers. Learn more.

API integrations

Affiliate uses direct integration to pull availability + push bookings into FH.

Overview

An invoice sheet determines the commission that will be calculated per customer type on each item. At the time of booking, an affiliate can either collect full payment from the guest or the charter company can collect full payment. When Channel Specialists build an invoice sheet for an affiliate, they have the option to select ‘Owed to You’ (Billing) or ‘Owed to Affiliate’ (Referral) which essentially tells the invoice sheet how to calculate who owes who money.

Billing

If the affiliate collects full payment, the charter company will have to bill (or invoice) the affiliate for their portion. We call this a Billing Set Up and when Channel Specialists build the invoice sheet for the affiliate, they select ‘Owed to You’ because the booking should calculate the money owed to the charter.

Referral

If the charter collects full payment, the charter will have to pay the affiliate their commission. We call this a Referral Set Up and when Channel Specialists build the invoice sheet, they select ‘Owed to Affiliate’ because we want the booking to calculate the money owed to the affiliate.

Referral Deposit

Referral Deposit implies that the affiliate will collect their commission in the form of a deposit at the time of booking and the guest will pay the remaining amount to the charter when they show up for the tour/activity.

The main benefit of Referral Deposit is that no payouts are needed after the tour or activity takes place. The affiliate will receive their commission from the guest by telling them they have to pay a ‘deposit’ to hold their spot on the tour/activity. The ‘deposit’ will actually be a commission.

The affiliate will process the ‘deposit’ outside of FareHarbor and then make the booking in FareHarbor. When the guest shows up for the tour/activity they booked, the charter will open their booking and see that an amount is “Due”. At that time, the charter can charge the guests card the day of so that the booking is paid in full.

Loop in the Channel Specialist team and they can get this set up!

FareHarbor Connect and FHDN are now merged under the FareHarbor Distribution Network (FHDN). While the program names are merged into one, the program’s Dashboard setup, commission, contracts will remain separate.

The FHDN is FareHarbor’s affiliate program, which is designed to help streamline how our clients manage their affiliate relationships by finding affiliates, automating contracts & invoicing, and managing commission payments. FHDN does not replace clients existing affiliate relationships, it is supplementary! There are two booking methods through the FHDN: Referral Links & API Bookings.

FareHarbor clients must be using Stripe as a payment processor to join the FHDN. All FH clients should be encouraged to join as long as they are operating in the following currencies:

• USD – and have a US bank account connected to their Dashboard
• CAD – Canada with either a Canadian or US Bank account connected to their Dashboard
• EUR
• GBP
• CHF
• SEK
• PLN
• DKK
• NOK
• NZD
• AUD
• There are many clients that we work with that may be physically located in one country (i.e., Mexico, Costa Rica, Aruba), but their Dashboard/Processor Location is US, and their currency is USD. Those clients technically are able to join the FHDN. We do not necessarily want to encourage this for countries where we do not have many clients (because there will be little reselling opportunities and a negative FHDN experience for the client). However, for countries where we have 5-10+ clients with US Processor Location and USD currency Dashboards, that could be a great FHDN market.

Invoicing Basics

• A FareHarbor client can only use FareHarbor’s invoicing features if they have affiliates with invoice sheets set up on their dashboard.
• The type of invoice sheet assigned to an affiliate is what determines the total on an invoice
• The client has to “opt-in” to email FH invoices (Channel Specialists can opt them in).

Total Sheet

What the end-user sees. Total sheets are how you calculate the total price for booking — the price that the charter charges the customer.

Invoice sheet

Calculates who owes who money. Invoice sheets determine how much each party is owed for an affiliate booking, and who that money is owed to (affiliate and charter).

Example

• Rates in Booking Total are Determined by the Total Sheet assigned to the affiliate
• Invoicing Rates under Booking Notes Determined by the invoice sheet assigned to the affiliate

Add an Affiliate (reviewing the Zendesk macro)

Our Channel Specialists will assist a client in adding their affiliates onto their Dashboard so they can “tag” bookings as coming from a specific affiliate. This makes it easy to run reports and generate invoices on their affiliate bookings.

Once affiliates are added and set up appropriately by the Channel Specialists, a booking can be tagged on a book form as coming from that specific affiliate.

• Affiliate name (i.e., hotel name/company name):
• Commission Percentage (The percentage per customer type the affiliate will receive for bookings they refer. The client can also provide the rates versus a percentage).
• Who will be collecting payment at the time of booking? (If a card is entered in FareHarbor, the Charter is collecting payment. If payment is being collected outside of FareHarbor, the affiliate is collecting payment. Affiliates cannot charge cards on a book form with the money going to the affiliates bank account).
• Do you want the affiliate to make bookings directly into FareHarbor? (This means, will the affiliate be booking through an affiliate dashboard, affiliate promo code, or ASN link? Or will they be calling the Charter to make bookings?)

Update Affiliate Rates

• Which affiliate(s)?
• Are you wanting to update the rates they book at or the commission rates? If so, please provide the new set of rates per item.
• When should these rate go into effect?
• Who should our team contact once the rates have been updated?
• Note: If a client is updating their online, direct, or base rates, please ask if they want their affiliate rates updated as well!

Set Up Clients who are wanting to Resell each other

• What is the other companies name?
• Will there be any commission involved? If so, what is the commission?
• Before we can set you both up to resell one another, we will need confirmation to add each of you as affiliates on each other’s dashboard. Our Channel Specialists will send an email to you both confirming the partnership. They will need each of you to respond confirming the partnership before they can set it up.

Troubleshoot an Affiliate issue

• Invoice(s)
  • Before we can figure out what is wrong, the client needs to provide us the Booking ID(s) that are showing up incorrectly on the invoice, in addition to what the invoice total SHOULD be on each booking (or at least 1 booking)
  • FAQ
• Affiliate Booking(s)
  • Example of booking(s) ID’s that are wrong.
  • Explanation of what is wrong (ie booking total, invoice total, etc).
  • What should the booking show
  • Who should the Channel Specialists contact once it’s adjusted