Stay22 Review: I Made Nothing Until One Change (Now $40K+)

This post is sponsored by Stay22 and includes my referral link. The experience, opinions, numbers, and complaints are all mine.

I signed up for Stay22 back in 2021. Then I spent over a year making basically nothing with it.

Not because Stay22 didn’t work, but because I was using it WRONG!

One change later (and I mean ONE), it’s earned me over $40K across my sites and turned into one of my most reliable income streams. It quietly earns while I’m eating khao soi in Thailand or bouncing down some dirt road in Central America.

This is my honest Stay22 review: what I got wrong, what fixed it, what I actually earn, and the stuff that still annoys me.

Quick Verdict: Is Stay22 Worth It?

If you write about places people sleep, yes. Easily.

• Use it if: you write destination guides, itineraries, or where-to-stay posts.
• Skip it if: your content rarely mentions accommodation. No hotels, no bookings, no money. Simple math!

My one piece of advice (and this is kind of a spoiler alert):
Install the Stay22 script on day one. Don’t be like me.

What Is Stay22? (In Plain English)

Stay22 is an affiliate platform built for travel creators. Instead of applying to a pile of booking sites one by one, you get one account that covers Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda, Vrbo, Kayak, and Trip.com.

The clever part? It sends each reader to the booking site they’re most likely to use, based on where they are. So if a reader in Australia clicks your Vrbo link, Stay22 sends them to Stayz, the Australian version, instead of a site they’d bounce off of.

Reader books. You earn. Stay22 keeps a cut. Everyone’s happy.

My First Year: Doing It the Hard Way

When I started, I made every single Stay22 link by hand. Copy the hotel. Generate the link. Paste it into the post. Repeat until your soul leaves your body.

And that was just the new posts. Hundreds of older posts still had plain or old hotel links sitting there earning nothing. My hotel links were also scattered across other affiliate programs, so nothing was in one place.

The result? A dashboard so quiet you could hear crickets. (This means like zero dollars btw!)

The fix was there the whole time: Stay22’s script, which does all of this for you automatically!

So why did I wait over a year to install it? Honestly, I can’t remember. Probably a mix of ADHD, being lazy, and putting it off because I didn’t truly understand everything…

The One Change: Installing the Stay22 Script

In February 2023, I finally installed the Stay22 script. The email I sent my VA that day was basically one big all-caps celebration: NO MORE MAKING LINKS!

Here’s what the script does once it’s on your site:

• Converts plain hotel links automatically. Drop in a regular Booking.com, Expedia, or Vrbo link and it becomes an affiliate link when a reader clicks.
• Catches your old posts too. Every forgotten hotel link from years ago suddenly starts working for you.
• Handles cloaked links. If you use shortened or redirect links, you can set it up to pick those up as well.
• Sends readers to the right booking site for their location, like the Australia example above.

And here’s what that looked like on my end:

See that flat line and then the wall? That’s the day it went live. Months of nothing, then overnight, Stay22 was running on every page of my site.

Same content. Same traffic. One script.

What I’ve Actually Earned With Stay22

I’m sharing real numbers because that’s what I’d want from a review. Vague “it’s been great!” reviews drive me nuts. Your results will depend on your traffic and content, but here’s mine: over $40K earned across my sites. The breakdown:

• This blog: Around $18K+ from about 1,400 bookings
• My West Coast travel blogs: About $22K+ from about 1,600 bookings
• Average per booking: About $13

Almost all of the money on this blog came after the script went in.

Is it retire-on-a-beach money? No. Is it money that shows up every month without me thinking about it? Yep. And that’s my favorite kind of income!

In short: these days, Stay22 brings in around $1,000 a month across my sites. All because I switched on a script and kept writing travel articles.

RELATED: 11 Travel Jobs That Got Me Here

What Years of Stay22 Data Taught Me

The script is the on switch. Manual links alone barely moved the needle for me. If you only take one thing from this post, take this.

Time does the heavy lifting. My earnings didn’t jump once and plateau. They kept climbing. 2025 was roughly triple 2024. Older posts keep earning, and every new post adds to the pile.

It’s seasonal, so don’t panic. My West Coast blogs spike every summer and go into hibernation mode in winter. If you write about a destination with a travel season, your Stay22 income will follow it. A slow January doesn’t mean anything is broken.

It’s a volume game. About $13 a booking won’t change your life on its own. Thousands of them add up. On this blog, each click to a booking site earns me about 10 cents on average, so traffic matters.

How I Get the Most Out of Stay22

None of this is complicated. That’s kind of the point.

• Link hotels where people are deciding. Where-to-stay articles and sections (at the start and end of blog posts), itineraries, and “where we stayed” notes. That’s where readers are ready to book.
• Plain links work, with one catch. The script converts regular hotel links on your site, so for most bloggers, just paste the normal link and move on. (If you have a VA or writers, tell them too. It saves everyone hours.)
  The catch: the script only runs on your site. If your content gets republished somewhere else, like a syndication partner, plain links there earn nothing. That’s why I now make links with the Link Generator for anything leaving my site, plus newsletters and social.
• Running more than one site? Think about how you split them. I keep this blog on its own account. My West Coast blogs share one. Separate accounts make it easy to see what each site earns. But each account has its own payout, so you wait longer to hit the minimum and request payouts more often.
• Put hotel links in all your travel content. Not just where-to-stay posts. My top Stay22 earners are beach and things-to-do posts, like my St. Lucia beaches and Krabi beaches guides, because people book whenever they’re planning. Stay22’s Page Analytics shows you exactly which posts earn. (Pro tip: add your domain under Settings, then Company Information, or every page shows up as “unknown.” Ask me how I know.)

Stay22 Tools, Quickly Explained

It’s all one script, but it runs a few different tools. Here’s the quick version:

• The script: The foundation. Install it once and everything below runs through it.
• LinkSwap: Turns the hotel links already in your posts into Stay22 links. It also patches broken links and old redirects, so years-old posts stop leaking money.
• Spark: Spots hotels and destinations you mention and adds relevant booking links. It doesn’t rewrite your content or replace your links.
• Nova: Spots when a reader is about to book and opens a relevant offer in a new tab. It’s not a pop-up, so it doesn’t get in your reader’s way, and it’s a quiet money maker.
• Link Generator: For anywhere the script can’t reach, like newsletters, social, and syndicated content.
• Maps: Interactive maps that show live places to stay around a destination. I don’t use them myself, but if your readers love a map, they’re there.

Here’s Spark doing its thing on my Mount Fuji post. I never linked Kawaguchiko Lake. Stay22 did.

Stay22 Pros

After years of using it, here’s what Stay22 gets right:

• Set it and forget it. Once the script is in, you basically never think about it again.
• One account, lots of booking sites. No juggling five dashboards.
• Your old posts start earning. This one is huge if you’ve been blogging for years.
• Readers land where they already book. Less bouncing, more bookings.
• Support actually answers. Real humans who dig into problems with you. They’ve customized my script more than once.

Stay22 Cons (Yes, There Are Some)

• Payouts aren’t automatic. You have to go in and request them, once every 30 days, with a $100 minimum for PayPal, ACH, or e-check ($500 for wire). Then it can take up to 30 days to land. Garrett handles ours, and I can confirm he finds it annoying every. single. time.
• You don’t see the actual commission rate. You see what you earned, not the percentage each booking site pays. I’ve made peace with it. Mostly.
• Small amounts per booking. About $13 each for me. Without steady traffic, it’s slow going.

Who Should (and Shouldn’t) Use Stay22

It’s a great fit if you have destination content, you mention hotels naturally, and you want income that doesn’t need babysitting.

It’s not for you if your blog has no place for hotel and travel links; there’s nothing to convert.

Brand new blog? Sign up anyway and install the script now. The earlier it’s running, the more every post earns over time. Trust me, I learned this one the slow way.

READ MORE: How to Make Money While Traveling: 73 Travel Jobs

How to Get Started With Stay22

1. Sign up for Stay22. It’s free.
2. Add your website.
3. Build your script in the Script Builder. It’s a few clicks.
4. Paste it into your site’s header.
5. Keep linking to hotels like normal. The script handles the rest.

That’s it. No… really!

Stay22 FAQ

Is Stay22 legit?
Yes. They’ve paid me over $40K across my sites.

How much can you make with Stay22?
It depends on your traffic and how much accommodation content you have.

Do you need the Stay22 script?
Technically, no. You can make links by hand. But my data says the script is where the money is.

How do Stay22 payouts work?
You request them from your dashboard once you hit $100 (PayPal, ACH, or e-check) or $500 (wire). You can request once every 30 days, and the money can take up to 30 days to arrive.

Can you use Stay22 on more than one site?
Yes. I run it across multiple blogs.

If you already write about travel and hotels, you’re leaving money on the table without it. Don’t wait a year like I did!!

👉 Sign up for Stay22 free here

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Final Thoughts: Don’t Be Me