MY MEMBERSHIP WITH TRIVAGO started in April 2007. Prior to my registration, I have some reservations of joining the site, thinking that it will only be a duplication of what I am doing with dooyoo and ciao which I occasionally post reviews. Most of these reviews were not really commercial products, but rather service-oriented ones like travels, theatre productions and attractions.

Having active profile in dooyoo (one year) and ciao (5 months) for a while, I reached the point as a member of these consumer sites to look for new excitement, challenges, and better incentive packages. In particular, dooyoo can only provide better rating rates and fair award scheme for the weekly crowns, while ciao recognises posting of photos to enhance my reviews, including a non-commercial category for my literary works (poetry).

There were only few members of these consumer sites decided to join trivago as indicated by the number of reviews posted in both sites. This was also confirmed when I tried to browse trivago site late last year. This was the time when the trivago (UK) portal is not yet finalised as an independent or separate domain. I will not discuss here how it was formed as patterned from its mother portal in Germany. Trivago (UK) is working independently but members are linked up to one mother trivago domain where you could navigate other portals being administered in Germany, France, and Spain. In other words, it is a 4-in-1 community site for a better e-travel database management and favourable to multi-lingual members or users.

For the past three months as a new trivago member and currently at the Level 4 status, I could proudly say that trivago has something more to offer especially for me who has the passion to explore other places around the globe and promoting my hobby in photography and webpage travel blogging.

Finally, I will explain why it offers new excitement, challenges and IT DOES PAY ME MORE than I imagined. The answers are found in the acronym which stands to the site name itself –TRIVAGO which means the following:


***T=RICKY BUT EASY. At first glance, the site is not user-friendly. It takes a while to really visualise where to start and what information to expect. Anyway, the homepage has a simple and recognisable icon and has recognisable links about the community, and other features and services that it has to offer. In general, being a travelguide and hotel review site, expect to have a search function for types of accommodation, attractions and their locations worldwide.

I did not automatically register but I tried to familiarise first the features/functions and navigate with the places where I have been already visited for the past years. Unfortunately, I was disappointed to find out that the site has 99.99% incomplete information about my home country. Well this disappointment turned into an opportunity which means I took it positively and convinced myself to take part in this dynamic community site and I will help the team build up my home country's attractions – promoting it in the long term.

Well I finally decided to sign-on and have a go of my membership. The registration takes few minutes and then I have my own profile page which contains information about me (age location, my mentor), including my membership status as Sightseer for Level 1. Other functions include: guestbook, bookmarks, tasks, option, statistics, operations and advanced operations which much easy to navigate.

Reaching Level 1, I can do the following: read only or browse for hotels and attractions; add photos, maximum of 5 for every hotel or attraction; promote the site by inviting friends; can create a link from the site to my personal websites or from my other memberships to forums/consumer sites; and can suggest and add web links pertaining to travel guides and tourist attractions.

It seems that these functions/tasks are easy to perform but believe it or not, IT IS TRICKY! It is tricky in the sense that it takes a while to familiarise what makes the posting easy and not to be rejected by the administrator level member. For example, uploading of photos is easy in principle but there are required fields to be filled-up and the right orientation to comply with to get the equivalent shares. Always bear in mind the issue of copyright and plagiarism which the site is strictly monitored. If I have to post photos, I have to sign a disclaimer statement that the images are taken by me or I have the rights to publish. The other issue is to find the link to the right region and city where the hotel or attraction is located and have the photos posted.

The other trickiness at Level 1 is to reach Level 2: Excursion which allows me to increase my involvement in the site and payment as well. I thought it will take a while reaching the next level. It is similar to ciao community points for coloured dots where there is a minimum shares to reach upper levels and get the corresponding traveller title. The second level requires only 250 shares and the promotion approvals from five members of higher levels.

There are several variations to reach this level. First, to post one review which have 250 shares and have it 100% KRB ratings from members. Second, if you miss a perfect share for posting the review, the other option is to upload 5 photos which give 100 shares each image with 50% KRB rating. In other words, 5 photos give this calculation: 100 (5) =500 x 50%=250 shares.

All of these figures are perfectly enumerated in the Statistics link which also provides the overall pay-out for all the activities/tasks performed.

So therefore, it is tricky to reach every level and to achieve additional functions/tasks that will give me more opportunity to earn more! By the way, I have a mentor which provides extra tips to making my activities easy to perform, aside from the FAQ section that explain everything about posting.

Overall, there are more 5 levels to aim for after reaching level 2. At my present, Level 4: Vacation Pro provides me the tasks that are manageable to work with and I am quite contented of what I am contributing to the site at the moment.

Level 4 is the starting point where I could really share my time to add hotels, attractions, photos, external reviews and weblinks and now I can also rate reviews which Levels 1 to 3 do not perform. Levels (5-7) beyond Level 4 require administrative responsibilities but it also offer more opportunities and higher shares. These administrative responsibilities dwell more on approval/confirming of photos, external reviews, weblinks, hotels, attractions and promote members with lower levels. As you could understand, the higher levels take more of management task to ensure that the information added or posted are accurate and follow the necessary requirements.


***R=EWARDING. This is to emphasise that the site offers more opportunities to earn more. The more tasks/activities perform in the site, my chance of getting higher pay-out is promising. Frankly, I do it not only to build my own travel database but of course gain financially.

Looking at my statistics for Level 4, I posted 6 reviews only, more than 300 photos, 83 partner/affiliate links, 17 hotels added, 19 new attractions, and recommended 68 weblinks.

These figures are also enhanced with my participation in the weekly challenge. At first I was not keen of joining considering that my geography with Europe and UK is not good at the moment. But few weeks ago, the challenges are manageable and enjoyable which also rewarding to perform. And recently, additional feature of rating photos is available which also gives me the opportunity to express my appreciation to members who posted stunning photos. It is also feel good to get extra shares from members who see my photos informative and appreciate my hobby in photography.

It is indeed a financially rewarding. Believe it or not, my pay-out is equivalent to my one-year payment from dooyoo and twice I got from ciao. However, payment terms and schedule is something that I have not dwell with since I am still on the process for the request thru Paypal service which is not difficult to open an account. I dont know what will happen next, but trivago does arrange the payment from 6-8 weeks for a minimum pay-out of 15 pounds and depending on the disbursement period.


***I=NTELLIGENTLY STIMULATING. Again, performing these various tasks/activities are really stimulating – using my knowledge and skills in computer will work well. For example, performing the partnerlink or weblink allows me to use my knowledge in marketing! I did a strategy that trivago is promoted through my personal travel blogs.

Instead of writing reviews about my travels, I created my own websites that contain all my travel journals, including with images. With basic knowledge in webpage design, I successfully link my blogs to trivago which also add extra shares to my account. The weekly challenge is also provides the venue to share your knowledge with other members.


***V=ERY CHALLENGING. As I said earlier, it is a tricky business which is a challenge for me to perform much more tasks I can do to gain more pounds. It is a challenging membership which pushes me to collect more travel magazines, brochures and flyers wherever I go to get more information on various attractions.

The other challenge is to get more images of these accommodations and attractions, to some extent, not quite easy especially for attractions that cameras are not allowed. So far, everywhere I go, I always bring my camera (which I do prior to my membership) and much I can do to extend my arms from the car just to get a shot of the place or a historical building along the way.


***A=DDICTIVE BUT ENJOYABLE. I am addicted for the past 3 months now and I think the enthusiasm still growing at a high rate. Most of the time, I do my tasks during late hours and during weekends and even holidays. So instead of going out to spend, I just face my laptop and update my personal blogs that link to trivago, upload photos and search more weblinks, and once in a while participate in the community forum.

I really enjoy it at the moment and this is the reason why I reached my level 4 in a short period of time and earned money – equivalent to a round trip ticket to Berlin with easyJet.


***G=LOBALLY E-TRAVEL GUIDE. This is a travel resource portal for guests or for the on-line public but being a member this site offers me the opportunity to share my travel experiences and my hobby in photography. This site is showcasing my previous travel experiences and the photos taken during those travels. Specifically, this is a good venue where I could promote, advertise and market the places that I have visited, especially my current residency in Northern Ireland and of course my home country, Philippines.


***O=VERWHELMINGLY A DYNAMIC COMMUNITY. This is a diverse community that provides not only for reviews of hotels and attractions and travel guide information, but a community that encourages each member to take part in managing its database. It is not only for the trivago database but my OWN travel database that I am sharing with the rest of the members and users.

There is always competition in a consumer site. But in trivago, there is a different competition atmosphere compare to dooyoo and ciao or even helium. I do compete by being a hardworking member through achieving the required activities for each level promotion, and at the same time to earn more shares for higher monetary value. I do compete by joining the weekly challenge and take part on it by aiming the highest possible shares in performing for such challenging task. There are NO LOSERS here which other consumer sites have. Everyone is a winner for doing the same tasks or activities to achieve the higher level and at the same time building up my own database.

The trivago competition is beyond other consumer sites are doing. It is more than of having 'exceptional' rating reviews or being 'top' read among reviews on the same topic; having the highest number of reads per week; or received the highest community points; and received yellow crowns every week or diamonds every month. It is a site that recognises my effort for performing every task allowed in my level into KRB shares and then to 'pounds'. This is not just posting and rating hotels and attractions or posting photographs but it is a site that pays me for every thing I share with the site.

For example (as I already mentioned earlier), my photographs are being paid and being rated; my suggested hotels, attractions, restaurants, anything with tourist added value are being compensated; my private travel blogs/journals and forums memberships linked to trivago are also rewarded; and most importantly, inviting friends to the site is a 'life time' bonus reward – which means I will get a 'non-stop' 30% shares from the total accumulated shares of my invited friends.

The trivago site is not a 'popularity' community. I am popular because I do a lot of activities in the site, NOT because I post a review everyday; or read, rate and post comments other members' reviews; or I have a long list of members in my COTs or Buddies and trusted members; and NOT even being a respected senior and pioneer member of the site.

There is always 'transparency' on what I am receiving (pay-out) which is publicly available – that means anyone has access to my earnings! It might be too confidential part of my profile, but I realised it is a strategy of trivago to show for both users and members that the site is really paying generously!

I am a new member with one invited friend (which I don’t know her personally), with one mentor, one supportive senior member, and most importantly, I have the whole trivago community team that encourages me to assist them building up the database and my own as well. Having this credential, I already achieved a LEVEL 4 status for just 3 months. Others are more hardworking members than I am by achieving this level within a month!

After reading this, you might be thinking that there is no 'downside' of the site that every thing is going well with the members. Well, there are problems and issues exist among members and the site itself (such like approvals of hotels and attractions are little slow which requires rigorous checking by senior members), but these things are OVERSHADOWED by the benefits derived from being a member!


***CONCLUDING REMARKS. FINALLY, honestly I do more things in the site from my previous memberships with other consumer sites. It is worth taking especially that the site provides a portal for the places that have visited in the past, and the places where I want to see and spend my vacation in the future, and most importantly the site that appreciate my photographs.

For the record, my membership turns 3 months on 4 July 2007 and I already received an earning that is equivalent to what I have received from dooyoo for my one-year membership (June 29, 2006). This means that my trivago earning is enough to give me a round-trip ticket to Berlin, or 1 ticket of a famous West End production with a round trip to Lutton(London) from Belfast by easyJet.