Are travel creators facing a disconnect between their influence and their income? 

Most affiliate programs cut off commission eligibility after 7-14 days, yet travelers typically book accommodations about 29 days after engaging with content. The timing gap means creators who inspire travel decisions rarely capture the resulting transaction value.

This insight comes from Plannin.com, a platform launched by Randy Schartner and Andrew Loewen to address the disconnect by permanently connecting creators to their audience’s bookings, allowing them to earn a 5% commission on every transaction their followers make through the platform—for life.

“It creates a truly recurring model that allows you to build a travel business instead of just being somebody who’s always sending leads somewhere,” says Andrew.

Plannin.com emerged in November 2022 from the founders’ extensive travel industry expertise. The brother-in-law duo previously built HotelsByCity, a network of 100 niche travel websites they sold to Priceline in 2008. After the acquisition, they developed Priceline Partner Solutions into a $1.5 billion operation generating approximately $45 million in EBITDA with a team of just 70 people.

“We looked at our business background and what we’ve done in the B2B space for travel, and we saw how big the opportunity was,” explains Randy. “We felt that why can the creator not be the new business?”

Andrew Loewen (left) & Randy Schartner (right)

How Creators Implement the Platform

For creators, using Plannin involves three key components: setting up a profile, sharing recommendations, and promoting their profile to their audience.

Creators can upload their travel recommendations and content to a personalized profile on Plannin. The platform connects with major travel providers, including Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, and GetYourGuide, pulling in their rates while maintaining the creator’s branding.

Plannin has also developed a dashboard where creators can track key metrics, including traffic, user signups, follower counts, products sold, and earnings. 

“They can log in and they could see how much traffic they sent, how many users signed up, how many followers they have on the platform,” explains Andrew. “They could see what products they’ve sold and how much they’ve earned. They could see their next payment.”

To help creators integrate Plannin into their existing content strategy, the company recently launched an AI tool that automatically processes creator videos to generate travel guides. 

“We use AI to read that video and say, ‘Okay, what did they talk about in this video? They talked about three hotels, four restaurants, and two experiences,'” Andrew describes. “We match those to our database and automatically generate a travel guide from that video.”

The Traveler Experience

For travelers, Plannin functions as a social network centered around travel transactions. Users can follow their favorite creators, browse their recommendations, and book directly through the platform.

Plannin also offers exclusive benefits for users, including access to better pricing on hotels and experiences. 

“We want the creator to earn on their audience’s bookings for life and to give their audience a unique look into recommendations they have in one place,” explains Randy.

The platform aims to become a comprehensive resource where travelers can see a creator’s hotel experiences, cruise recommendations, and travel guides in a single location. Unlike anonymous reviews on other platforms, Plannin emphasizes trusted recommendations from creators users already follow.

As Randy puts it: “One recommendation from the right person is worth more than a thousand anonymous ones.”

Success Stories and Practical Results

The effectiveness of Plannin’s lifetime value model is demonstrated by early success stories like Chris Raney of Yellow Productions. 

Since joining in February 2024, Raney has built a base of over 2,600 users on the platform through consistent but moderate promotion. Most notably, his commissions in the first two months of 2025 equaled all of his earnings from the previous ten months combined—illustrating the compounding nature of the lifetime value model.

As Randy and Andrew share, Raney continues to receive bookings from users who signed up as far back as 200 days ago, reinforcing the value of the platform’s approach to long-term monetization.

“The neat part about the lifetime value is that the average time from when someone signs up on Plannin or when for an account it takes about 29 days for a booking to happen,” Randy explains. “And so most platforms won’t pay you anymore because the session and the cookies expire. [Raney] is getting bookings from people that signed up 200 days ago, 150 days ago, 30 days ago.”

The data also reveals that consistency is key to maximizing results. “When you post once, you get a small amount of business. But if you post regularly, the amount of business you start to get per post grows quite dramatically,” notes Andrew, revealing that this compounding effect occurs because the audience becomes more familiar with using Plannin as the creator’s booking platform.

What Types of Creators Succeed

Not all creators achieve the same results on Plannin. During their first year of operation, the founders gained insights into which types of creators most effectively convert influence into bookings.

While the platform attracted more creators than initially expected, the conversion rates varied significantly. 

“We realized very quickly that a lot of creators don’t have the influence that we thought they had or that maybe they think they have in travel, in making that final booking,” Randy admits.

The company’s data shows that niche travel creators focused on specific cities, regions, or travel styles tend to perform better than generalists.

“We do see that the people focused on travel in a specific niche or a specific city or region seem to do better,” says Randy. “I think there’s more engagement. People trust them with those recommendations and their opinions on different hotels and experiences, just more so because that’s what they do in many cases for a living.”

This insight has led Plannin to be more strategic in their creator outreach, focusing on creators with demonstrated conversion power rather than simply high follower counts.

Getting Started with Plannin

For creators interested in joining Plannin, the process begins with an application. The company has a vetting process that evaluates potential creators based on their social media presence, content quality, and travel focus.

“You definitely have to have visible socials that are not private. We look for creators ideally with a travel component to their socials,” Randy explains. 

While creators don’t need to be exclusively travel-focused—lifestyle content can also work well—having some travel element is important. 

Once approved, creators can begin uploading their recommendations and creating travel guides on the platform. Plannin offers various incentives for new creators, including integration bonuses based on user signups, to help bridge the gap until commission revenue begins flowing.

“For us to go and incentivize some creators to start and try the platform, we often do some type of integration bonus, whether it’s based on user signups or if it’s just a flat amount,” notes Randy. “Just something to give them that ‘Okay, we believe in you, we believe in what it’s going to do for you, and we’re willing to pay it forward, pay upfront to have you joined.'”

The Value Capture

With secured funding rounds in May 2023 and September 2024, Plannin is positioned for growth. The platform already hosts over 1,000 creators, several hundred of whom are actively engaged, and is expanding its features and inventory options.

The company plans to develop tools for additional creator types, including bloggers and podcasters, and add more community features to enhance user engagement. “I think building more interactive and engagement tools within our part of the funnel will be the next phase,” says Andrew.

For the creator economy at large, Plannin represents a potential shift from the limitations of traditional affiliate models to true lifetime value, offering a glimpse of what sustainable monetization could look like in other vertical markets.

As Randy advises creators: “Research the idea of recurring revenue model businesses and the value of that recurring revenue and long-term value of a customer to them. It’s not just an ad deal, not just a link deal. It’s your audience and your customers. Figure out how to monetize them while showing them and giving them value.”