Appi Travels Review 2.0: Travel recruitment, now with bitcoin gifting
Appi Travels launched in 2016 and combined travel booking with pyramid recruitment.
The company is still headed up by Danny Gauthier, who previously launched the Ultamex and Wealth Podium pyramid schemes.
Sometime in the second half of 2017 Appi Travels modified their compensation plan.
A BehindMLM reader recently noted the change, prompting a new Appi Travels review.
Appi Travels Products
Appi Travels still has no retailable products or services.
Appi Travels affiliates are given access to a travel-engine operated by an undisclosed third-party merchant.
Access to marketing tools and courses is also provided.
The Appi Travels Compensation Plan
Appi Travels affiliates pay a fee to sign up. Commissions and bonuses are paid when they recruit others who do the same.
Recruitment Commissions
Appi Travels affiliates receive a direct recruitment commission per affiliate they personally recruit:
- recruit an Explorer affiliate ($75) and receive a $25 recruitment commission
- recruit a Traveler affiliate ($250) and receive a $100 recruitment commission
- recruit a Navigator affiliate ($550) and receive a $250 recruitment commission
A 100% match is also paid on recruitment commissions to the first upline (the affiliate who recruited the recruiting affiliate).
Residual Recruitment Commissions
Residual recruitment commissions in Appi Travels are paid out via a perpetual 1-up compensation structure. This structure is tracked via a unilevel team.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliate’s unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
Every second affiliate recruited into the first level of the unilevel team is passed up to an Appi Travel affiliate’s immediately upline (the affiliate who recruited them).
This is true of the entire unilevel team, with every affiliate passing up commissions earned from every second affiliate recruited.
Residual commissions paid out are the same as direct recruitment commissions:
- Explorer affiliates generate a $25 residual commission
- Traveler affiliates generate a $100 residual commission
- Navigator affiliates generate a $250 residual commission
Appi Fund
Appi Fund sees Appi Travels affiliates able to participate in cash gifting.
- Explorer affiliates buy in for $25
- Traveler affiliates buy in for $100 and
- Navigator affiliates buy in for $250
Appi Travels gifting payments are tracked through a 2×2 matrix.
A 2×2 matrix places an Appi Travels affiliates at the top of a matrix, with two positions directly under them:
These two positions form the first level of the matrix. The second level of the matrix is generated by splitting these first two positions into another two positions each (4 positions).
Positions in the matrix are filled when new and existing Appi Travels affiliates make their own gifting payments.
Payments made by the two level 1 affiliates are passed up. Payments generated on the second level of the matrix (4 positions) are retained.
The sum total of these payments is determined by what affiliate tier an Appi Travels affiliate has bought in at:
- Explorer affiliates receive $75 plus a new matrix position
- Traveler affiliates receive $300 plus a new matrix position
- Navigator affiliates receive $750 plus a new matrix position
Travel Points
All three Appi Travels affiliate memberships generate travel points:
- Explorer generates 250 travel points
- Traveler and Navigator generates 500 points
Travel points can be put towards purchased travel through the Appi Travels booking engine.
Appi Travels affiliates also receive a 100% match on travel points generated via direct and residual affiliate recruitment (only on passed up affiliates).
Joining Appi Travels
Appi Travels affiliate membership costs between $75 and $550:
- Explorer – $75
- Traveler – $250
- Navigator – $550
The primary difference between the above membership tiers is income potential via the Appi Travels compensation plan.
Conclusion
As with the original business plan, Appi Travels still has nothing to do with travel.
Hardly surprising coming from a company that markets itself as “an automated real-time ATM cash machine”.
Q) Do I need to refer new affiliates?
A) YES. You most certainly do! All affiliates must treat this like their very own business because it is your own business.
If you become an affiliate of Appi Travels and don’t share and refer others, you will not make any commissions.
As the above, taken from the Appi Travels FAQ, spells out, the name of the game is still affiliate recruitment.
What Appi Travels has since added to its compensation plan since launch is cash gifting.
Billed as “Appi Fund”, Appi Travels affiliates pay a gifting fee and then receive gifting payments from other affiliates.
Affiliates are now able to receive 100% donations from other affiliates.
The pseudo-compliance ruse is that gifting payments will enable Appi Travels affiliates to “travel the world for free”, however from a regulatory compliance perspective what gifting payments are used for is irrelevant.
Ever suckers for financial ruin, it seems Nigeria is currently the only market keeping Danny Gauthier’s scamming alive.
So much so that when Appi Travels launched its cash gifting component, Gauthier was in Nigeria to personally market it.
Today Alexa estimates that Nigeria makes up 88% of traffic to the Appi Travels website.
As with pyramid schemes, the longevity of cash gifting scams hinges on affiliate recruitment.
Once that slows down, the majority of Appi Travels affiliates will find themselves in stalled matrices.
This will see them unable to steal back what they spent on matrix positions, in addition to losses incurred through the initial affiliate fee.
Appi Travel’s use of bitcoin suggests Gauthier has upped his scam game,.
The use of bitcoin will all but guarantee Gauthier’s victims will be unable to recover wide-spread losses when the time comes.
Update 22nd March 2019 – Appi Travels recruitment in Nigeria has completely collapsed.
Throughout the second half of 2018 Danny Gauthier reworked and added to the compensation plan. In March 2019 BehindMLM published its second updated Appi Travels review.
Update 2nd July 2022 – Appi Travels has collapsed. As of June 30th, Danny Gauthier has pulled the company’s website offline.
Just got word that these ass-hat scammers are now recruiting in another of Africa’s poorest city/ countries: Freetown, Sierra Leone.
They ran into a crypto friend of mine, who alwayscontacts me whenever he hears about people peddling “crypto”(sic) or other “opportunities.”
The culprit trying to recruit appears to be some low-life white dude from North Highland, California, hiding behind a common and victim-targeting religious guise, whose FB Profile labels him as follows:
<<<for Police Purposes, Oz(?)
Wow. I looked a little more into this so-called “Apostle” Alex Gubin character.
He has some whacky website as an apparent Leader of “The Glory International Ministry”
SEE: NOLINK://thegloryinternationalministry.com
Looks like a $19.95 web design, and just a straight-up “pay-for-us-to-pray-for-you” money grab scam specifically to prey upon “international” God fearing victims. Disgusting.
I’ve engaged Mr. Gubin, who, after some time and discourse, stated that he “would pray about it (Appi travel)” (this is an extremely condensed summary).
It seems POSSIBLE that he, himself, may have been mislead.
Although, his involvement or exit will be the true litmus test.
And his name is now on the radar for any such similar schemes in the near future.
Hopefully, Mr. Gubin’s involvement in this cash gifting scheme and any such other schemes comes to an abrupt halt.
If this outcome becomes evident by his immediate actions, than this will make me happy, and I may be able to dismiss his actions, and his having no apparent history in the “behind MLM” side of these schemes as his being simply zealous in his personal religious beliefs.
Furthermore, I’m willing to chalk it up to being a novice “mistake;” provided he renounces the scheme, and avoid involvement in future cookie-cutter similar schemes. In such case, no harm, no foul.
Although, actions always speak louder than words.
As annoying as the conversation was (details withheld), I’m kinda glad I engaged him, and am willing to temporarily give him the benefit of the doubt, pending no further egregious participation in future scams.
#industry-internal-self-regulation(?)
Hey, have you heard of anyone not getting their product? How about not getting paid as promised? I didn’t think so because the program is solid and growing like a weed.
The only business coming out of Nigeria is pure BS. There might be the largest contingent of people so far, but that is because of how people joined and grew.
I would imagine you are like the typical person sitting writing reviews and trashing other people’s deal … you personally couldn’t make any company work because you sat on your butt waiting for the money to fall from the sky.
I make money in most programs over the years because I don’t sit waiting for it to happen … I make it happen.
^^ What does any of that have to do with Appi Travels’s fraudulent business model combining pyramid recruitment bitcoin gifting?
So you’re a serial scammer. Here’s a cookie?
If you want to discuss anything but Appi Travels pyramid recruitment with bitcoin gifting model, you’ll be marked as spam.
Some guy just asked me to join this so I guess it is still going strong.
(Ozedit: derail waffle and abuse removed)
Over the years I have been in several companies which people call pyramid schemes at the end of the day they are the same losers who come asking for money when you are earning it.
To some extent some I have had to show them the whole process from enrolling to withdrawing. Funny at with drawing, they beg for cash.
Now bottom line I don’t see any sensible material in what ever that review negativly mentions about appi yet it’s true people and I are earning every day. And even cutting down costs on travel.
So before you even critisize a system, come up with yours and even though you do, u don’t have to critised another because u need market. Signs of total failure.
I can tell u this, u can call me a scummer too, but appi is the deal, with or with out you.
I make $200 every single day. Because I made it my business. Figure out how concrete yours. Not interested!
So in summary; You are a serial-scammer and, as long as you’re able to steal money, couldn’t care less Appi Travels is an illegal gifting scheme.
Thanks for sharing.
What a load of rubbish! Appitravels is growing from strength to strength despite the Covid19 pandemic!
Surprisingly, you would expect the Company to crash as the travel industry came to a grinding halt! On the contrary, as that side of the Company is temporarily on hold the other side which is the Affiliate Marketing is growing from strength to strength!
Why? because Danny has succeeded in providing what people need, honesty and transparency. (Ozedit: derails removed)
Travel has never been the focus in Appi Travels. First it was a cover for pyramid recruitment. Now it’s cover for a bitcoin gifting scheme.
People don’t need to have their money stolen by gifting scammers. Nor is there anything transparent and honest about gifting scams.