The referral link that gets booked is not the generic one. Open the one unit your friend would actually stay in, pick their dates, and press Share while signed in: the link that comes out carries the unit, the dates and your six-letter code. Your friend lands on the same page you were looking at, and your 5% is attached before they have typed anything.
Most advice about sharing referral links on WhatsApp is written for companies running a program: how to word a campaign, how to automate replies. This article is for the other person, the one with a code and a group chat. It explains what each part of an Antlerzone referral link does, what your friend sees when it arrives, where attribution can silently break, and how to read the numbers on your Refer & earn page without fooling yourself. If you want the earnings maths first, start here.
What is actually inside a referral link?
A referral link is an ordinary booking link with up to four labels on the end. The labels are the whole mechanism, so it helps to know them.
| Part of the link | What it does | When it is there |
|---|---|---|
listing= | Opens one specific unit, not the list of all units | When you shared from a unit's page |
ci= and co= | Opens with the check-in and check-out dates already chosen | Only when you had dates picked in the search before you pressed Share |
ref= | Your six-letter code. This is what credits you | Only when you were signed in to the guest portal |
| (nothing else) | There are no hidden tracking tags; the code is the tag | Always |
The third row is the one people miss. If you press Share while signed out, the link works for your friend, but it carries no code, so you earn nothing from it. The portal adds your code only for a signed-in guest. Before you send anything, check that the address ends in ref= followed by six characters. If it does not, sign in and share again.
Your code is fixed for life. It uses 31 letters and digits with the confusing ones removed (no 0 or O, no 1, I or L), because codes are often read aloud or typed from a phone screen. That is also why typing the code at checkout works as a backup: it is short enough to say in a voice note.
Why send the unit link instead of the booking page?
Because the friend's job gets smaller. A generic booking page asks them to choose an area, scan dozens of photos, pick dates and compare. Most people who open a link in a group chat give it about ten seconds. A unit link answers the question they were about to ask, "which one and how much", before they ask it.
Here is the sequence your friend experiences with a unit link that includes dates:
- The chat shows a preview card. For a unit link, the card is built from that unit's main photo, cropped square, with the unit name and a line such as "From RM__ / night, 2 bedrooms, up to 5 guests" taken from the listing itself. We switched previews to the real unit photo on 14 October 2026; before that, shared links showed a logo.
- They tap it and land on that unit, with the dates you chose already filled in and the total for those nights showing.
- They check in with the same flow as every other guest. Direct does not mean skipping steps: it is the same eKYC, the same smart-lock code, the same parking registration.
A practical detail: our server keeps a generated preview image for a few hours, and chat apps keep their own copy once they have fetched it. If you share a link, then the unit's photos change, an old chat can keep showing the old picture. A new message with a fresh link is the fix; there is nothing to repair on the guest's side.
What should the message say?
Short, specific and honest. The link carries the data; your words carry the reason to trust it. A message that works looks like this:
This is the unit I mentioned, same dates you said. If you book direct with my code you get RM20 off your first direct booking (room RM150 and above). Type the code at checkout if the link ever asks: XXXXXX
Three choices in that message are deliberate:
- It names the discount with its condition. The RM20 applies to a first direct booking where the room is RM150 or more. Saying so up front stops the awkward moment when a RM90 one-night stay does not qualify.
- It repeats the code in plain text. A code typed at checkout is proof on its own, so it survives every way the link can break (see below).
- It does not oversell. If your friend has an Agoda or Airbnb discount that beats our direct price, let them compare. A friend who books direct because it was cheaper for them books direct next time too, and that repeat is where your commission grows.
Where can attribution quietly break?
The code is remembered in your friend's browser for 7 days, and the last link they click wins. That is the same window and rule Shopee uses, and it means four ordinary things can cost you a referral.
| What happens | Result | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Friend waits more than 7 days after clicking | The link no longer counts | Ask them to type the code at checkout |
| Friend clicks on their phone, books on a laptop | The laptop never saw the link | Typing the code at checkout still credits you |
| Friend uses a private window, or blocks site storage | A private window forgets the code when it closes; a browser that blocks storage never remembers it | Typing the code at checkout |
| Friend clicks someone else's link after yours | The later link wins | Nothing; that is the rule for everyone |
Two more cases are not bugs but you should know them. A code that does not exist is dropped on the spot, so a mistyped link never sits in anyone's browser for a week. And your own bookings never earn you anything: if the person paying owns the code, nobody is credited. That is why booking your own stay "through your link" for the RM20 does not work.
The takeaway is simple: always put the code in the text of the message as well as in the link. The link is for convenience; the typed code is the insurance.
How do I read clicks, visitors and bookings?
Your Refer & earn page shows four counters, and they measure different things. People often read "clicks" as "people interested". It is not.
| Counter | What it counts | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | Every time someone opened a page with your code on it, including the same person reloading or reopening it | Mostly noise. It goes up fast and says little |
| Visitors | The number of different browsers that opened your link | The honest reach figure: roughly "how many people looked" |
| Bookings | Paid direct bookings stamped with your code | What matters, whatever its state |
| Eligible commission | Commission on stays whose check-in day has arrived and that were real stays | The money you can withdraw once the total is RM50 or more |
Read them as a funnel. Imagine you shared with a 40-person group chat and the page shows 112 clicks, 23 visitors and 1 booking. The 112 is not a failure; it is a few people opening the link five times each. The real numbers are 23 browsers and 1 booking. That is about 4% of the people who looked, which is a normal result for a link in a big group chat. A message sent to three specific friends who said "we are going to JB in November" will convert far better than a link dropped into 40 people, even though its click count looks tiny.
The same page lists every booking you brought in with its status: waiting until check-in, confirmed on check-in day, or cancelled with RM0 if the booking was cancelled, unpaid or a no-show. You can filter by year and export the list as a CSV or PDF, which is handy if you want to keep your own records at the end of the year. Withdrawals open at RM50 of confirmed commission and are paid by bank transfer after admin review.
Which friends are worth sending a link to?
Honestly, the ones who already planned to come. Referral income here is not a volume game; at 5% of a room rate, a typical two-night stay pays in the tens of ringgit, not hundreds. The best use of the link is a specific conversation: a colleague asking where to stay for a Saturday trip across the Causeway, a family planning the school holidays, a cousin travelling to Desaru. Group chats where nobody asked produce clicks and no bookings. If you are organising a whole group, the maths work differently, and this guide to group trips covers it, including the one arrangement that earns you nothing.
A last honest note: referring is not a job. Nothing here replaces income, and nothing stops your friend from booking the same unit on another platform if the price there is lower. What the link does well is remove effort for a friend who already trusts you, and pay you a fair share for it. The full terms and how to get your code are on the affiliate page.