Christian
You are correct that it is the end of month validation which is critical (and you can imagine how infuriating it is as an affiliate to see merchants who regularly validate on the 2nd or 3rd of the month - like we don't know what you're doing guys
However as an affiliate I prefer merchants who validate at least once a week as (particularly if there is a large pending commission - and I had one recently for a merchant which was almost 100 quid yet I had to wait for three weeks to find out whether it would be validated or not) - it helps to plan my cashflow if I know which transactions I
am going to be paid for.