Preferred Partner Program

Preferred Partner Program is Booking.com's tier-based program that gives participating hotels improved search visibility on the platform in exchange for paying a higher commission.

How it works

Hotels opt in and agree to a higher commission rate than the standard. In return, they get:

• Higher placement in Booking.com's default sort order
• A "Preferred Partner" badge on their listing
• Priority in some merchandising slots and promotional placements

Tiers

Booking.com has periodically expanded the program with additional tiers (often referenced as "Preferred Plus" or similar) for hotels willing to pay an even higher commission for greater visibility.

Trade-offs

• Pros — meaningful visibility lift, often translating to a measurable booking volume increase
• Cons — compressed margin per booking, and potential dependency: once a hotel is used to the increased volume from the program, opting out can cause a noticeable drop

Equivalent OTA programs

Other major OTAs run conceptually similar programs:

• Expedia — Accelerator (bid for placement on a flexible scale)
• Hotels.com — part of the Expedia program
• Most large OTAs offer some form of pay-for-placement above the base commission