Site information
Affiliate Disclosure
Last updated
Some of the outbound links on this site are affiliate links. If you book or buy through one, we may receive a commission from that company. It costs you nothing extra, and the price you pay is the same as going there directly.
That is the whole arrangement. The rest of this page is about what it does not change, which matters more.
Which links earn a commission
Affiliate links are marked in the page code with rel="sponsored" and appear under headings such as "Related tools". They point to travel services that sit alongside a stay: eSIM providers, luggage storage and delivery, private transfers, and activity booking.
- eSIM: Airalo, Saily, Yesim
- Luggage storage: Radical Storage
- Private transfers: Kiwitaxi
- Activities, tickets and tours: Klook
- These are managed through the Travelpayouts partner network.
What commission does not change
- Which properties appear on this site. Accommodation profiles are chosen by research value, not by whether a booking link earns anything. Most of them earn nothing.
- What we publish about a property. Restrictions, fees, and unclear policies are written up whether or not the property is monetisable.
- What we say about a partner. Where a partner is the weaker option for a particular trip, we say so. Our eSIM guide states that one partner runs on a network that is weaker in remote onsen areas, because that is true and our readers go to those areas.
- The order things are listed in. Nothing is ranked higher for paying more.
We do not take payment for inclusion
No accommodation provider has paid to be listed, to be described in a particular way, or to have a caution note removed. If that ever changes, it will be labelled on the page itself, not buried here.
Booking links to accommodation
Links to official property pages, and to Japanese booking sites such as Rakuten Travel, Jalan and Ikyu, are reference links. They are there so you can verify what we wrote against the source. They are not affiliate links.
Why this arrangement
Researching a property properly takes hours, and the useful parts, such as bath rules and pet fee discrepancies, are exactly the parts a booking site has no reason to publish. Commission on adjacent travel services is what pays for that work without charging readers or letting properties buy coverage.
If a commission ever conflicts with telling you something accurate, the accurate version wins. A site that recommends the wrong hot spring hotel to a tattooed traveler has no reason to exist.
Questions
Email aedafiliate@gmail.com if you want to know whether a specific link is an affiliate link, or how a particular property came to be listed.