I noticed that more and more travel bloggers seem to offer travel advisory services and benefit from special rates when traveling themselves. Some of them, I am sure, bring substantial business to hotels but others I suspect generate only little volume, at least to the individual hotel or chain.

Therefore I am curious to know how to qualify with luxury hotels for earning commission on bookings and receiving special travel agent rates? Is there typically any accreditation or threshold you have to reach? Would anyone be able to book a few trips for friends and family and start earning commission right away?

Please know that I am not looking to replicate this myself (my day job keeps me busy) or give anyone ideas, I am just genuinely curious how this works. I also hope this topic will be deemed sufficiently suitable for the luxury hotels forum, as I value your opinion, understand that some of you are trade professionals yourselves and assume the rules may be different for luxury properties than for other segments.

Thank you for anything you can share!