San Francisco, Benidorm and now Barcelona! This week I shall be venturing abroad on my THIRD affiliate incentive that gets me off this broken island this year. I love this job!

The latest trip is the highly anticipated CAP Euro Casino Conference that is taking place this weekend at the five star Hotel Princesa Sofia.

I shall be flying from Leeds tomorrow afternoon courtesy of Jasper and Claire of Jackpotjoy. They held the incentive ‘Go to CAP Euro on us‘ which I noticed had no replies on the forum at least.

All I had to do was register for the promotion and then refer real money players to the gaming site. For every player referred I got one entry and as Jackpotjoy is one of my most popular merchants on ShopCodes I had good odds.

There’ll be a few faces in Barcelona that I’ll recognise around the parties and bars. As well as Jasper and Claire, Matt Wood is attending; Hayley and Sammy from buy.at and fellow discount coder Barry will be working their way through San Miguel amongst the networking activities.

It should be good fun. I don’t do anything in the gaming sector aside from what I do on ShopCodes but maybe it will inspire me to turn my ‘Ca$$$h for Beer‘ domain into a site that will earn me cash for beer.

p.s. If you don’t already promote Jackpotjoy, you’re missing out on a trick as you get a nice monthly 30% revenue share bonus from them. Jasper has hinted at exciting times ahead and that they’re changing from being Jackpotjoy Affiliates.

Many thanks to John from Prezzies Plus who is sending me a Slanket. The blanket with sleeves is a hit in America and is already selling out of pre-order stock.

“The necessity of vouchers has really increased over the last three or four months,” says Hero Grigoraki, Client Services Manager, of Webgains.

In a recent television interview at the a4uExpo Manchester roadshow, Hero discusses the role of voucher codes in marketing.

“Recently because of all the credit crunch fears and the financial downturn there’s a lot more people now looking for vouchers looking for the best prices out there.”

That’s good news for me and my ShopCodes but with the impression that it is ‘easy money’ there does seem to be a lot of new voucher code sites appearing. Hero validly points out that it’s not just a case of shotting up some codes and that maintaining such a code site is really hard work.

“It is not an easy thing. A lot of people think ‘Ooh I can hook up some codes and put them up there’. But it is a lot of work and a lot of attention to detail to make sure you are representing the merchant correctly. It actually creates lots of problems to the customer service for the merchant if it’s not accurate, so you need to be aware of it as an affiliate.”

Hero will be on a panel at the forthcoming a4uexpo (London 14-15 October) with affiliate Chris Frost, Richard Clark, Marketing Manager of the Dixons group and Martin from the agency Equator.

They will talk about voucher site implementation, how you can resolve and raise issues and showcase how they can be addressed.

“This is a very powerful tool. Merchants shouldn’t be scared of it, provided it is well planned and well executed.”

You can watch the full interview from Chris at affiliates4u.tv.

I made a last minute decision to make the relatively easy Transpennine trip for the a4uexpo Manchester Roadshow and glad I did.

A very good turnout filled the Vodka Revolution bar and I got to meet up with some old friends and new faces amongst the crowd.

There wasn’t a free bar but R.O.EYE had a kitty to get the cocktails flowing. I only had to put my hand in my pocket once and that was because I was one of the first there.

I’m convinced Mark from Existem was deliberately trying to get me drunk as he went to the bar and got three trays of vodka shots. No wonder I’m already on my fourth coffee of the morning.

Highlights for me …

Meeting up with Liane from LinkShare who I last saw in a San Francisco diner in January, as she then worked for the US arm of the company. With another Summit trip to win next year, I’ll be proactively promoting their merchants to stake my claim.

Chatting to Jess from dgm who I couldn’t quite persuade to get her to update my site for me but she’s volunteered to send me lots of information to save me some pain.

We talked a lot about JD Williams and how I’m still clocking up lots of sales for them but they don’t generate me any money. It would be Christmas for me, if JD Williams got back into affiliate marketing in some form.

Aside from them, I do very little on the dgm network, so it’s another that I’m going to just blitz and add more merchants. I’ve shied away from them in the past because I don’t like their interface but it sounds like there’s improvements on the way.

Finally, the evening ended talking to Existem new girl Hannah who even brought her mum and dad. Bless.

All in all it was a brilliant night. It cost me approximately £100 for the train and nice stay at the ABode (who kindly gave me a breakfast to go). That cost is more of an investment though and if you’ve not been to a network event before, please do.

There’s plenty coming up. The next stop for my dancing shoes is Barcelona for Cap Euro 2008.

Until then, it’s time for another coffee.