Affiliate Disclosure

What an affiliate link is

Some links on this site may be affiliate links — currently on our Travel Toolkit page, where a few genuinely useful travel tools and services run partner programs we may join. Where a link can earn us a commission, it is labeled at the link. If you click a labeled link and then sign up or make a purchase, Handled Money may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

This costs you nothing extra. The price or terms you receive are the same whether you use our link or go to the company directly. The commission comes from the company's marketing budget, not from your pocket.

How we disclose

We follow the Federal Trade Commission's guidance on endorsements and disclosures. In practice, that means:

Pages and emails containing affiliate links carry a clear disclosure before or near those links — not buried at the bottom
Affiliate links are identified so you always know when a link may compensate us
This page stays current as our relationships change

Editorial independence

Our recommendations are not for sale. The rules we hold ourselves to:

We recommend only what we genuinely believe serves our readers — whether or not a commission is attached
Commission rates never determine what we cover, how we rank options, or what we say about them
We will decline — and have no hesitation ending — any partnership whose incentives conflict with our readers' interests
If the best option for you pays us nothing, that's still the option we'll point to

Our ethics on rewards content

Credit card affiliate programs can pay well, which is exactly why this line matters: we will never encourage debt, overspending, or unnecessary card applications to generate commissions.

Our Travel & Points content assumes balances are paid in full every month, and we say so plainly and repeatedly. If a rewards strategy doesn't fit your current financial season, we'd rather you skip it — commission or no commission. Our Financial Education Disclaimer covers this in more depth.

A deliberate line on card links. We keep credit-card application affiliate links out of our paid products and educational materials entirely. A card referral pays us when you open a card — the very action our education helps you approach carefully, or skip. When we offer card options, they live on a single gated page reachable only after the readiness education, presented as options rather than rankings, with no “best card” claims and full disclosure. Never inside a workbook, never mid-lesson.

Current affiliate relationships

Affiliate links currently appear on our Travel Toolkit page, covering travel tools and services only — no credit-card programs. As relationships change, we update the list below and the “Last updated” date above.

[FOUNDER — list active programs, e.g., AwardWallet, travel-insurance comparison, fare-alert service, travel-money provider, eSIM provider]

Questions