MapTrip (maptrip.ai) participates in several affiliate programs. This page lists every program we are currently part of, explains how affiliate links work, and describes how we make sure commissions don't skew our recommendations.
What an affiliate link is
An affiliate link is a regular URL with a tracking parameter. When you click one and complete a qualifying action on the partner's site (booking a hotel, buying an eSIM, signing up for a VPN), the partner pays us a small commission. You pay the exact same price either way — the commission comes out of the partner's margin, not yours.
Per FTC guidelines (US) and CMA guidance (UK), we mark every affiliate CTA on the site with a disclosure such as "We may earn a small commission if you buy via this link, at no extra cost to you."
Where commission applies right now
We split this into two groups so it's clear which links earn us anything and which are pure recommendations.
Active commission partners
Clicks that end in a completed booking or purchase on the following do earn us a commission.
- Trip.com — hotels, attractions, trains, airport transfers, and international travel insurance across China and beyond. Approved May 2026 (Alliance ID 8232414). Most outbound booking links on city POI pages and the trip planner's "book this leg" CTAs route through this program.
- Airalo — eSIM data plans. Our first application to the Impact.com program, in May 2026, was declined pending audience growth; the program invited us back and approved us in August 2026. The tracking link went live on the site on 28 August 2026. Commission is 10–15% with a 30-day attribution window. Two reader discount codes went live on 29 August 2026 and are valid through 31 March 2027: MAPTRIP gives any Airalo customer up to 10% off, and MAPTRIPNEW gives new Airalo customers up to 15% off. Our links apply the code automatically at checkout, and a sale made with either code is credited to us in full. Every Airalo link on the site carries the commission disclosure beside it.
- ExpressVPN — VPN for keeping Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, and similar apps working inside China. Applied via Impact.com (Express Technologies Ltd) and approved 2 September 2026. The tracking link went live on the site on 3 September 2026. Commission is US$13–36 per new subscription depending on plan tier (the contract also lists a 30% tier), with a 30-day attribution window. Every ExpressVPN link on the site carries the commission disclosure beside it.
Recommended, no commission yet
Brands we genuinely recommend in the survival module and pre-trip guides but where we currently earn nothing — either because the affiliate program declined us (most do require a track record of traffic before approving new applicants), because an application is still in review, or because we haven't applied yet. When we mention these, the link goes to the brand's plain homepage. No tracking, no commission.
- Holafly, Saily, Nomad — alternative eSIM providers we mention alongside Airalo. We have not applied to their programs.
- NordVPN, Astrill — VPN alternatives mentioned alongside ExpressVPN. We have not applied to their programs.
- SafetyWing, VisitorsCoverage — travel medical insurance for visitors to China. We have not applied to their programs yet; insurance CTAs currently route through Trip.com Insurance (which is monetized via the Trip.com Alliance ID above).
How to tell at a glance
Anywhere a brand mention is followed by an explicit "Affiliate · we may earn a commission" label (the small underlined caption on outbound CTAs), commission applies. Anywhere the link goes to a plain brand homepage with no such label, we earn nothing on that click — it's pure recommendation.
Implementation-wise, each partner's tracking link is loaded from an environment variable. When a program is paused or hasn't approved us yet, the env var is empty and the affiliated CTA falls back to the plain homepage. The one exception is the T-14 pre-trip email, which hardcodes the Airalo coupon link because an email can't read our environment; the commission disclosure sits in the same sentence as that link. The eSIM guide also prints both coupon URLs as plain, unclickable text under the Airalo CTA, so that readers arriving via an AI assistant can still type the code in by hand. We don't silently route through partners we haven't disclosed.
How we choose what to recommend
Recommendations and commercial partnerships are decided independently. A brand can show up in our guides without ever being a paying partner; a paying partner can be quietly dropped if we stop liking the product. The bar to be recommended at all:
- Trip.com consistently has the broadest China inventory and English-language support, including domestic trains and high-speed rail that Booking.com / Hotels.com don't carry. (Active commission partner.)
- Airalo is the dominant prepaid eSIM marketplace and has the simplest China data plans for short-stay visitors. (Active commission partner. Our eSIM guide named Airalo's unlimited plan the top pick on 16 August 2026, twelve days before the program approved us; the verdict did not change when the commission arrived. The same guide also carries the negative traveler reports Airalo has drawn.)
- ExpressVPN is the easier pick for a short trip: as of August 2026 travelers on r/chinalife and r/TravelChina give it mixed but mostly-working reports through the firewall sweeps, and new users get a 30-day money-back guarantee. Our VPN comparison still ranks Astrill — a brand we earn nothing on — as the most consistently reported inside China. (Active commission partner.)
- Travel insurance is genuinely necessary for China travel — public hospital walk-in costs for foreigners add up quickly without coverage. (Trip.com Insurance is the monetized option; SafetyWing/VisitorsCoverage are unmonetized alternatives we mention.)
What affiliate income does NOT change
- We do not let partners write or edit our guides. POI rankings, vlog curation, and visa/transit advice are independent of any partnership.
- We do not boost a POI's ranking because it has a Trip.com booking link. Booking links exist for almost every paid attraction and hotel category, regardless of how we rank them.
- We do not collect personal information from affiliate partners. The tracking link only tells the partner that a click came from us; we don't see who you are or what you bought.
Opting out
If you'd rather not contribute commission, simply navigate to the partner's homepage manually instead of using our outbound link. The pricing and inventory you see will be identical.
Questions
If you spot a recommendation that looks like it was driven by commission rather than merit — please tell us. That's exactly the kind of feedback we want to hear. hyg520csh@gmail.com