How we make money
The short version
This website is funded by affiliate commissions. If you book a ticket, a hotel, a transfer or a rental car through a link labeled "Ad", the provider pays us a small share. The price for you stays exactly the same. You pay no surcharge, and you get no discount for avoiding our link either.
Selection, order and assessment are ours alone. A provider cannot buy its way in.
Why we do this at all
Research takes time. For an article about twelve museums in one city, somebody spends a day on official websites, cross-checks opening hours, verifies prices, works out walking routes and throws half the list back out. That work has to be paid for somehow.
There were three options: a paywall, ad banners, or affiliate commissions. Our focus is the third, because it keeps the content free and costs you nothing; on top of that there are a few advertising slots, including ads from Google, which help pay for running the site without dictating the editorial part. The price of that choice is a conflict of interest, and rather than talk it away we put it on the table: we earn more when you book. That is why the rules below exist.
How you can tell we earn something
- Every link and every block that can earn us a commission carries the word "Ad". It sits right on the link, or at the top of the block, visible without scrolling.
- Teasers on the home page and on overview pages that lead to such an article carry the label too.
- Links without that label earn us nothing. We often link to the official websites of museums, cities and transport operators; we make no money from those.
We deliberately use the word "Ad" rather than "recommendation link" or "affiliate link": under German case law, only the plain German terms "Anzeige" and "Werbung" count as adequate labeling, and paraphrases do not. Every language version of this site carries the equally plain word in its own language.
How an affiliate link works technically
An affiliate link first leads to a short address on our own domain, for example tourism.com.de/go-hotel. From there our server redirects you to the provider and attaches an identifier that credits the click to our website and to the article you came from.
There are two reasons for this. First, it shows us which articles genuinely help our readers. Second, it lets us swap a partner out in the admin panel without rewriting hundreds of articles in twelve languages.
What data this produces and how long we keep it is set out in section 8 of the privacy policy.
Who we work with
Each category has exactly one default partner. We do not switch from article to article to whoever pays most at the moment.
For what | Partner |
|---|---|
Tours, tickets, guided visits | GetYourGuide |
Hotels and other stays | Trip.com |
Airport transfers | Kiwitaxi |
Rental cars | Discover Cars |
Rail and long-distance coach | Omio |
Compensation for flight problems | AirHelp |
eSIM for abroad | Yesim |
Travel insurance | see the note below |
Some of these relationships are direct, some run through the networks Travelpayouts, Awin and CJ Affiliate. The list changes when a partner stops delivering in a country or a better one becomes available; the current version is always the one on this page.
Travel insurance is a special case. We are not an insurance intermediary within the meaning of § 34d GewO, so we are not allowed to recommend a policy to you or calculate a premium. We only write about what to watch for in the terms, and link to providers so that you can compare for yourself.
Our rules
- A place goes on the list because it fits. Not because there happens to be an affiliate program for it. We regularly name museums, beaches and viewpoints that earn nobody anything.
- Every recommendation has a drawback, and it is in the text. The hotel with the best location is usually also the loudest. If we name no drawback, we did a poor job of researching.
- We do not write about things we could not verify. Better one sentence less than a second-hand number.
- The size of the commission steers nothing. Not the order, not the length, not the position in the article.
- Not a travel agency. You cannot book anything on this website. The contract is always between you and the provider, and they are the ones responsible for cancellation, refunds and complaints, not us.
What we turn down
- Paid placements without a label, in any shape or form.
- Text links that somebody wants to pay us to insert into existing articles.
- Tools that automatically turn every brand name into a commission link. We place every link by hand.
- Scripts that track you across websites so that we end up a cent better off.
- Advertising for travel services in Russia. Article 5n(2) of Regulation (EU) 833/2014 prohibits it, and it also matches our position on Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.
- Anything that has nothing to do with travel.
What this means for you
Nothing, except that you ought to know. You can use any link, or go to the provider directly; the price is the same. If you find our work useful, booking through one of our links is the simplest way to support it, and it costs you nothing.
If you notice anything that breaks these rules, write to us at moc.liamg@ed.moc.msiruot. We will look into it and tell you what we changed.
Read on
- About us and Our editorial process: who makes the articles and how they are checked.
- Terms and advertising: the contractual version of this page.
- Privacy policy: what data a click produces.
- Travel resources: all the partners at a glance, sorted by category.
Last updated: 03.09.2026
The legally binding version of this page is the German one.