Auto Europe - AW link puts a premium on quotes

**retrolink** · 25-08-04

I noticed the other day, while looking for car hire in Cyprus, the Auto Europe AW link puts a large premium on the prices quoted.

For example

Car: VW Polo, 4dr, A/C, Manual, 14 days

Going through AW link: £384.11
Going directto Auto-Europe.co.uk: £332.65

A 'premium' of over £15%.

Even when you take into account the maximum commission that affiliates receive, this is a large 'premium' to pay. I don't know if these higher prices for affiliates have always existed, but I did find that it is possible to circumvent the 'premium' by deep linking to the standard car hire page - I haven't confirmed that the tracking still works properly for this yet.

The prices going direct to Auto-Europe are quite competitive, but going through the standard AW link is sure to put people off!

**Graham@Buyagift** · 25-08-04

Hmmm I recall Amazon did something similar, with prices being lower for new customers (not cookied) than current customers (cookied). They soon stopped this if I recall correctly.

Graham

**retrolink** · 25-08-04

Rather than talking about an additional 'premium' being added when going through an AW link, I should have said that the discount that Auto-Europe apply is not as high...

**angelabx** · 25-08-04

That's not good.

They make the customer pay the affiliate commission then.

If you go through a link on say Espotting say do they load that too to cover the PPC costs? They're paying 61p per click on 'car hire'. Would be interesting to know.

The link does say aff=espotting so perhaps it is the same?

I know they also have a private programme - would be interesting to know if it's just AW bookings that get hit.

**Lee_Owen** · 26-08-04

Do some merchants actually do that? That seems disgraceful! especially if you like to offer your visitors something worthwhile rather than allow them to be ripped off and never return to your site for that so called 'offer'.

**retrolink** · 27-08-04

I have to say that I was very surprised. It does limit how much you can promote them....

**retrolink** · 22-09-04

and now I've finally got a reply from AW saying:

"Unfortunately this merchant is no longer interested in operating an affiliate programme on our network and will be closing."

and AW also say that Auto-Europe stated that they have 'no record' of a valid commission I put through! I gave them the reference number and they say it doesn't exist. It's gone through on my credit card!!

Seems to speak volumes for Auto Europe's affiliate scheme. I would suggest that if you promote them on another network in the future, be very very cautious....