Affiliate Disclosure

Why we use affiliate links

aMaldives is a free resource. Running a detailed Maldives travel guide — researching resorts, updating prices and transfer times, hosting photography, and keeping everything free for readers — costs money. Affiliate commissions are the main way we fund that work, alongside occasional display advertising.

Without affiliate revenue, we would have to either charge readers, publish paid promotional content disguised as editorial, or stop updating the Site. We think affiliate links are the most reader-friendly option because the commission comes from the booking partner's margin, not from the price you pay.

Partners we may earn commissions from

Where relevant, we link to the following partners, all brokered through the Travelpayouts affiliate network under partner ID 257186. This list is indicative and may change as we add or remove programs:

• Accommodation: Hotellook (Travelpayouts, which aggregates Booking.com, Agoda, Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo and others into one price-comparison search). When you book through Hotellook you complete your reservation on the partner of your choice.
• Flights: Aviasales and Kiwi.com (Travelpayouts) — metasearch engines comparing fares from airlines and OTAs.
• Activities and day trips: Klook (Travelpayouts) for guided tours, snorkel trips and liveaboard day trips; Tiqets for attraction tickets.
• Airport transfers: GetTransfer.com (Travelpayouts) for Malé airport ground transfers.
• Travel essentials: Airalo (Travelpayouts) for Maldives eSIMs; VisitorsCoverage (Travelpayouts) for travel insurance; AirHelp (Travelpayouts) for EU flight-compensation claims.
• Affiliate network: Travelpayouts (travelpayouts.com) handles attribution and commission payment for all the partners above.

We also use Google AdSense to display ads. Ad revenue is separate from affiliate commissions and the ads shown are not editorially endorsed by us.

Direct sponsorships and partner placements

In addition to affiliate links and AdSense, we occasionally run direct sponsorship placements from partners we believe are genuinely useful to Maldives travellers — for example a Maldives eSIM provider, an airport transfer service, or a resort group running a seasonal campaign. These placements are paid for by the partner, either as a flat sponsorship fee or as a reseller arrangement where we sell their product directly.

Every direct sponsorship placement on the Site follows the same rules:

• It is visibly labelled — you will see a “Sponsored” or “Partner offer” tag on or beside the placement. We never disguise sponsorship as editorial.
• It carries a rel="sponsored" attribute on the outbound link — the W3C and Google's correct signal for paid placements.
• It is never inside an editorial recommendation. Sponsors cannot appear inside our “Best of” resort roundups, individual resort or guesthouse review pages, the About page, or any legal page. We build sponsorship into dedicated slots (hero banners, sidebars, between sections of non-review content), not into our rankings.
• It does not influence our editorial choices. A sponsor cannot pay to be added to a “Best resorts” list or to outrank another resort in our recommendations.
• We turn down sponsors whose product we do not think is worth our readers' money — even if they offer good rates.

If a placement you are looking at confuses you about its commercial nature, please tell us — we will fix the labelling or pull it down.

How we choose what to recommend

Our approach is simple. We write about resorts, islands, atolls and activities we believe are worth your time and money. When we recommend a resort or a booking partner, the recommendation is based on:

• First-hand knowledge of the Maldives — our founder is based partly in the Maldives and operates a liveaboard vessel there;
• Direct research into each resort: location, transfer logistics, villa inventory, house reef quality, dining and meal plans;
• Aggregated guest reviews across multiple platforms;
• Price and value relative to similar resorts in the same atoll;
• Whether the resort genuinely suits the reader segment we're writing for (honeymooners, families, divers, budget travellers, and so on).

If two booking partners offer the same resort, we will generally link to the one that historically gives our readers the best combination of price, cancellation terms and customer service — not the one that pays us the highest commission.

What affiliate links do not do

• They do not increase the price you pay — rates are the same whether you use our link or go direct.
• They do not share any personal information with us. All we see is an anonymised tracking record if your booking qualifies.
• They do not influence whether a resort gets a positive review. We have published critical assessments of resorts we earn commission on, and we will continue to.

Sponsored content and paid placements

From time to time we may publish sponsored content (for example, a paid review commissioned by a resort) or run paid placements. Whenever we do, the content will be clearly labelled as “Sponsored” or “Paid partnership” at the top of the page. Sponsored content is rare and is always marked distinctly from our editorial reviews.

Your feedback

If you ever feel we have recommended something that didn't live up to the review, we want to know. Email hello@amaldives.com and we will investigate and update the relevant page. Reader trust is the only reason this site works at all.

Regulatory compliance

This disclosure is provided to comply with the United States Federal Trade Commission's Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (16 CFR Part 255), the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's guidance on influencer and affiliate marketing, the UK Advertising Standards Authority's CAP Code, and equivalent regulations in other jurisdictions where our readers are based.

For more, see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.