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Affiliate Disclosure

WhatWhereVacay is funded primarily by affiliate commissions. This page explains how that works, which programmes we participate in, and what it means for you.

What is an affiliate link?

An affiliate link is a regular link to a third-party site (e.g. Booking.com, GetYourGuide, Airalo) that includes a tracking parameter identifying WhatWhereVacay as the referrer. If you click an affiliate link from WhatWhereVacay and complete a qualifying booking or purchase on that third-party site, WhatWhereVacay earns a small commission. You pay exactly the same price you would have paid going directly to that site — the commission comes out of the merchant's marketing budget.

How we mark affiliate links

Every outbound affiliate link on WhatWhereVacay is marked with the HTML attribute rel="sponsored" and opens in a new tab. This is the W3C-recommended way to disclose monetised links and helps search engines treat the link correctly. If you hover over any affiliate link, you'll see it routes through one of the major affiliate networks (e.g. awin1.com) before redirecting to the merchant — that's the click-tracking handshake.

Which programmes we participate in

WhatWhereVacay currently participates in affiliate programmes through:

  • Awin — including Booking.com, Hostelworld, Trip.com, GetYourGuide, Omio, FlixBus, World Nomads, Airalo and others.
  • CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction) — including Hotels.com, Expedia, Skyscanner, Viator, and others.
  • Direct programmes — including SafetyWing, Heymondo, Holafly and Agoda.
  • Amazon Associates — when we link to specific travel gear in our practical-guides section.

Our active partners can change over time as we add or remove programmes. The list above reflects our current state.

Does this influence what we recommend?

We aim to be transparent about this: yes and no.

  • No, in the sense that we will never recommend a hotel, tour, eSIM or insurance provider that we wouldn't use ourselves. Our editorial choices come first; the affiliate relationship comes second.
  • No, in the sense that our comparison pages (/hotels, /flights, /buses) always show the full range of providers we know about, regardless of which currently pay us highest commission. You can pick whichever provider you prefer.
  • Yes, in the sense that you will tend to see brand-name providers (Booking, Expedia, GetYourGuide, etc.) more often in our content than smaller niche providers. This is partly because they have larger inventory and partly because they have affiliate programmes that let us earn from referring you. Where we know of a smaller provider we genuinely think is better, we will recommend it — but in many cases the big names also offer the best deals.

What if you don't want to use affiliate links?

You don't have to. If you prefer not to use the affiliate-tracked link, simply hover over it, note the underlying merchant URL after the affiliate redirect, and type it into your browser directly. You'll get exactly the same product or booking experience without the affiliate tracking. We won't be sad — we'd rather you visit, even if we earn nothing on the specific booking.

What we don't do

  • We don't run intrusive ads. WhatWhereVacay has no display advertising, no banner ads, no pop-ups, and no autoplay video.
  • We don't accept paid placements that aren't clearly labelled. If we ever publish sponsored content, it will be marked as "Sponsored" in the title and at the top of the post.
  • We don't share personal information with affiliate partners. When you click an affiliate link, the affiliate network records the click and may set its own cookies on the merchant's site — that's between you and them, governed by their privacy policies.
  • We don't track you across the web. WhatWhereVacay uses Google Analytics 4 with consent-required loading for our own site metrics; we don't use any cross-site tracking.

FTC compliance (for US visitors)

This disclosure is provided in compliance with the United States Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides, which require clear and conspicuous disclosure of material connections between an endorser (us) and the seller of a product or service (the merchants whose links we share). This page, combined with the rel="sponsored" attribute on every affiliate link, satisfies that disclosure requirement.

EU consumer protection (for EU visitors)

Under the EU Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (Directive 2005/29/EC) and national consumer-protection laws, online content monetised through affiliate links must be clearly identified as such. We mark every monetised link individually and provide this page as the cumulative disclosure required.

Questions?

If you have any questions about our affiliate relationships or how we make editorial decisions, please contact us. We'll do our best to answer transparently.

Last updated: 28 May 2026.