I’m a big fan of being able to purchase through my own affiliate links. Its not the discount I care about. I want to use my credit card in a real time situation and be sure my affiliate sale got tracked.
Don’t be surprised, this “fail to track” glitch happens more often than you may realize. Especially with new affiliate programs, new product releases, even new product releases on established tracking software.
Don’t take THEIR word for it, that they put through some test orders. Usually test orders are done with an artificial credit card number and they do not test every aspect of an ecommerce system.
For example, I announced a product to my readers and sales started going through. I was getting email confirmations, but when I checked the real time stats they read zero sales.
Several phone calls were required to get things straightened out. They tried to blame me. They said it was the way I was redirecting the url. Lame excuse. It was their software all the way along and they fessed up to the fact later on.
The sad part is, I had to prove with email confirmations how many sales I actually generated.
Lesson to be learned, don’t take their word for it. Prove it to yourself with a live credit card, before you tell your friends.