Travel affiliates have lots of opportunities to ‘score’ by selling package tours; Virgin Vacations, together with official NFL events packager NFL On Location, have joined the fray by offering travel affiliates a niche revenue-producing opportunity.

As every football addict knows, the NFL plays one game annually in Europe, and this year’s contest is slated for London’s Wembley Stadium on October 25th, where the New England Patriots will battle the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Now in its third year, the International Series, as the game is officially known, is quite popular among both British ‘American football’ enthusiasts as well as American gridiron fans.  But because Virgin Vacations is now the ‘official’ tour packager for the event, the game arguably takes on a similar distinction for travel affiliates because they can sell this game as a travel package through Virgin Vacations’ travel affiliate program.

Here’s ‘the line’ on this special and customizable tour package offered by Virgin VacationsNFL On Location:

  • The core package, which is priced from $1,899 per person out of New York, provides travelers with game tickets, access to the NFL’s pregame Fan Festival, round-trip airfare (on Virgin Atlantic Airways, of course), four-star hotel accommodations for 4 nights in London, and a host of other features.
  • Packages can be further customized: for example, travel affiliates can up-sell their customers to the ‘Diamond Package’, which offers VIP seats on the 50-yard line, add additional night at a London hotel, or offer a three-course meal and bar service at the Bobby Moore Club.

The NFL Package is one of many terrific tour packages proffered by Virgin Vacations, which is highly regarded in the travel trade as offering long-haul tour packages of exceptional quality to destinations served by Virgin Atlantic Airways around the world.  In TravelDividends’ opinion, Virgin Vacations should also be complimented for offering one of the better tour operator travel affiliate programs in the business.  Here’s a partial list of the features and benefits of their travel affiliate program includes:

  • Commission structure: 1-50 sales = 3%, 51-100 sales = 4%, 101+ sales = 5%
  • Guaranteed commissions after 5 days
  • Monthly commission payments via direct deposit
  • Auto approval to the program
  • 30 day cookie period
  • Real time tracking

Additional information about Virgin Vacations tour affiliate program, as well as parent Virgin Atlantic Airways’ airline travel affiliate program, can be found at Affiliate Future, their affiliate network of choice.

Virgin Vacations and Virgin Airlines are two great examples of travel companies that not only are respected leaders and visionaries in their respective segments, but are also strong supporters of the travel affiliate marketing industry.  TravelDividends believes that their competitors should take note of this latter fact, and if they don’t offer travel affiliate programs as part of their distribution strategy, now is a good time to revisit their thinking on this matter.

What are your thoughts on Virgin Vacations, the broader tour operator industry and the role that travel affiliates play in this sector?  We’re interested in your thoughts and insights…feel free to leave a comment or send us an email. Thanks.