If a friend booked with your link and nothing appears on your Refer & earn page, the usual cause is one of eight things: they booked on Airbnb or another platform instead of direct, they used a different browser or device, the click was older than 7 days, someone else's link came later, or the booking was cancelled before check-in.
This article lists all eight in the order worth checking them. Each one comes from how our system behaves, not from guesswork, and we say plainly where the system cannot help you.
If you have not read how the commission works yet, start with how much a referral can earn. The short version: you earn 5% of the room subtotal your friend paid, counted once they check in.
How does the system decide that a booking is yours?
Two things can prove a booking is yours, and the system needs one of them at the moment your friend pays.
The first is a click. When your friend opens your link, their browser gets a visitor ID and the system records a click with your code on it. When that same browser pays for a direct booking, the system looks for your click and checks that it is no more than 7 days old. The click row is the proof. A code that was never clicked in that browser does not count.
The second is a code typed at checkout. If your friend types your 6-character code in the referral box when they pay, that code is the proof by itself. No click is needed. It also beats any click that was recorded earlier, which matters for reason 5 and reason 6 below.
If neither is present when the payment goes through, the booking is not linked to you, and nothing can be added to it later by the system on its own. Everything below is a way of failing to have one of those two proofs, or of having it and then losing the commission because of what happened to the stay.
The 8 reasons, in the order to check them
| # | Reason | Quick check |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The friend booked on Airbnb, Agoda or Booking.com, not direct | Did they pay on our booking page? |
| 2 | You were the person who booked | Was your own account the booker? |
| 3 | They never opened your link and never typed your code | Did they use the link, or just search the name? |
| 4 | Their click was older than 7 days | How long ago did they first open it? |
| 5 | They clicked on one device and booked on another | Phone to laptop? |
| 6 | Another referrer's link or code came later | Did they open someone else's link in between? |
| 7 | The booking was cancelled, a no-show, or never fully paid | Check the status |
| 8 | It is simply still waiting for check-in | Has the check-in date arrived? |
1. Did your friend book direct, or on an OTA?
The referral system lives on our direct booking page. A booking made on Airbnb, Agoda, Booking.com or any other platform never passes through our checkout, so there is no click to match and no code box to fill in. That booking will never earn you a referral commission, however it was found.
This is the most common surprise. A friend says "I booked that unit you told me about", and they did, but through the app they already use. Ask them where they paid. If it was an app that is not ours, the commission was never possible, and the only fix is for the next booking to go through your link.
2. Was the booker you?
Self-referral never counts. If the account making the booking is the same account that owns the code, the system ignores the code. This applies when you test your own link to see whether it works, and when you book for a relative using your own account.
If you book for a family member, the cleaner route is for them to make the booking from their own account through your link. Then it is a different person paying and the link works as intended.
3. Did they actually use the link or the code?
A friend who hears "go look at that homestay" and then searches the name on their phone has not used your link. No click is recorded, so there is nothing to match.
Ask them to open your link first and book from that page, or to type your code at checkout. Your code is six characters, and it never contains the digits 0 or 1, or the letters O, I and L, because those are easy to confuse on a phone screen. If your friend typed one of those, it was a typo. Capital letters are not an issue, since codes are read in upper case.
4. Was the click older than 7 days?
The window is 7 days, and it runs from your friend's most recent click on your link. A friend who opened your link, thought about it for a fortnight, and then came back through a search engine has no click inside the window, so the booking is not linked to you.
There are two honest ways around this. Ask them to open your link again the day they are ready to book, which resets the clock. Or ask them to type your code at checkout, which does not depend on any click at all. For how to phrase this when you send the link, see how to share a referral link on WhatsApp so friends actually book.
5. Did they click on one device and book on another?
The click is recorded against the browser, not against the person. If your friend taps your link on their phone and then books later on their laptop, the laptop browser has no click, so the system finds nothing.
This is the situation the typed code solves. A code entered at checkout works on any device, because it is the proof, not the click. If your friend is likely to switch devices, tell them to keep your code in the message and type it in when they pay.
6. Did another referrer get there first?
Attribution follows the last click within the window, the same way a shopping affiliate cookie works. If your friend opened your link on Monday and a different person's link on Wednesday, then booked on Thursday, the booking goes to the Wednesday link.
The one thing that beats a last click is a code typed at checkout. If your friend types your code, you get the booking even if someone else's link was clicked after yours. If they type someone else's code, the other person gets it. There is no splitting between two referrers, and there is no way for the system to know about a promise made in a chat.
7. Was the booking cancelled, a no-show, or not fully paid?
This is the reason that looks like the system lost your commission, when in fact the stay never happened.
The booking row stays in your list, but its state turns to cancelled and its commission shows as RM0 when the status is any of these:
- cancelled, in any form: cancelled by the guest, by the host, or by the platform
- no-show
- payment not completed
- awaiting payment
All of those mean no stay took place, so no commission is due. An earlier version of the rule only recognised the single word "cancelled", which let "cancelled by guest" bookings keep showing a commission and let no-shows turn confirmed once their check-in date passed. That has been corrected, and the state is now read live from the booking every time you open the page.
If a booking is cancelled and then rebooked, the new booking is a new booking. It earns a commission only if it is linked to you by one of the two proofs above.
8. Is it just waiting for check-in?
Sometimes nothing went wrong. The commission is confirmed on the check-in date, not on the payment date. Until then the booking sits under Waiting, and its amount counts toward your pending total, not your withdrawable total.
One more case belongs here. If a booking has a status the system does not recognise, it stays in Waiting rather than being paid. That is deliberate: the rule is never to pay on a guess. If a booking sits in Waiting long after check-in, that is worth telling us about.
What if all eight check out and it still does not show?
Then say so, because there is one limit we want you to know about. Linking a booking to a referrer is done on a best-effort basis right after payment. If that step fails for some technical reason, the guest's booking is protected and goes through normally, but the commission link is not created, and the system does not retry it later on its own. We built it that way on purpose, because a guest who has paid must always see a confirmed booking.
So if your friend definitely booked direct, used your link or code, was inside 7 days, and the stay is real, and the booking is still missing, send us the check-in date and the unit name by contacting us. We cannot promise what the answer will be, but we can look at the booking record.
How to make sure the next one counts
- Send the link and the code together, so there are two proofs, not one.
- Tell your friend to book from that link on the same device, and within a week.
- Do not book for friends from your own account.
- After they book, open your Refer & earn page the same day. A paid booking linked to you should show up under Waiting.
When the page shows the booking under Waiting, you can stop worrying: the only thing left is the stay itself. Once it is confirmed, here is how to withdraw the commission.
You can read how the programme works and join from the Antlerzone affiliate page.