Affiliate disclosure: which links earn the guide money

Who publishes the guide, and who pays it

masaimara.info is published and edited by Rainer Lang. It is an independent guide to Masai Mara, Kenya, not the website of the Maasai Mara National Reserve, Narok County, the Mara Conservancy, the Kenya Wildlife Service, any conservancy, or any camp, lodge or tour operator. More on the About page.

The guide’s only income is the commission that four booking programs pay: GetYourGuide, Viator, TourRadar and Booking.com, the last through Stay22. No business pays to be covered, and the guide carries no ads today. If ads are added, this page will say so from that day.

How to tell a partner link

A partner link is a link whose address begins with masaimara.info/go/. It sits on the name of a safari, a tour, a balloon flight or a lodge, including the safaris the budget finder lists. When you click it, this site answers with a redirect to that product on the partner’s site and adds two things to the address: the guide’s account id with the partner, and a tag that names the page you clicked on. That is how the partner knows a booking came through the guide. Every page that carries partner links says so in a line near the top.

The partners today:

GetYourGuide

Tours, day trips and activities, such as day trips from Nairobi and short safaris.

Viator

Tours, day trips and activities.

TourRadar

Multi-day safaris and tours, each run by the tour operator named on the listing.

Booking.com

Lodges, camps, hotels and other places to stay. These links pass through Stay22, a travel affiliate network: the guide’s account is with Stay22, which works with Booking.com.

In the address of a lodge or hotel link you will see aid=pikespeak. That is the publisher’s account with Stay22. It is named after another travel site of his and is used for this guide too. The tag that follows it names this guide and the page.

Further booking partners may be added; Safari.com is one that may be. This page will name each one from the day its links appear.

In the page code every partner link is marked rel="sponsored", the label search engines ask for on paid links.

Some pages also link straight to a GetYourGuide, Viator, TourRadar or Booking.com page, for example in the source list, to show where a price comes from. Those links do not go through /go/ and earn the guide nothing.

What the guide earns and what you pay

When you book after following a partner link, the partner may pay the guide a share of what it earns from the booking. The commission comes out of the partner’s side. The price is the partner’s price; the guide adds no fee to it, and if you do not book, nothing is paid.

The partner keeps track of the booking on its own site, under its own terms and privacy policy. What this site records when you click, and what the partner receives, is on the privacy page.

How safaris and lodges are chosen, and what is never paid for

• Bookable productsThe safaris, tours, balloon flights and rooms a page links for booking come from the booking sites the guide works with: GetYourGuide, Viator, TourRadar and Booking.com. A camp or trip those sites do not sell is named without a booking link, or not named.
• CoverageNo business pays to be covered, to be named or to be placed higher. Park authorities, conservancies, official sites and free places are covered and linked without any commission.
• AdsThe guide carries no ads and no sponsored articles today.
• Choosing a fewWhere a page picks a few safaris or lodges from a booking site, it says how it picked them.
• Prices, ratingsWhere the guide prints what a safari or a tour costs, it is the price the partner listed on the day named beside it; prices change, and the partner sets them. The guide prints no ratings and no review counts. The park and conservancy fees on its pages are official ones, set by the body named beside them.
• Official sitesLinks to park authorities, conservancies, airlines and other official sites are ordinary links. The guide earns nothing from them.
• Single businessesThe guide works with booking platforms only. It has no arrangement with any single camp, lodge or tour operator.

How to book without a partner link

You never have to use a partner link. Every page reads the same whether you click one or not.

• Spot it firstPoint at a link or press and hold it: a partner link shows an address that begins with masaimara.info/go/.
• Go there yourselfOpen the partner’s site or the operator’s own site in a new tab and search for the name of the safari or lodge. A booking made that way pays the guide nothing.
• Use the official linkWhere a park, a conservancy or a camp has an official site, the page links it as an ordinary link.

Questions about a link or a partner: write through the contact form.