Some travel books, magazines, and fewer Web sites contain disclaimers to the effect that the authors accept no “freebies” or discounts from suppliers of travel services they mention. The assumption is that free or reduced-rate transportation or other travel services for travel writers are given in exchange for implicit or explicit promotional consideration.
Because I can’t say I receive no discounts and write about nothing in which I have a financial interest, and because it’s required in the USA by Federal regulations, here’s a full disclosure. Making a living as a freelance writer or self-employed consultant tends to require diverse sources of revenue. I apologize in advance if this is necessarily lengthy. My goal is openness and honesty, not fine print. If you have suggestions for how I could improve these disclosures, please let me know.
I wrote the “Practical Nomad” books a royalty basis: my publisher (originally Moon Publications, today a division of the Hachette Books Group) paid me 15% of the wholesale price of each copy of my books that wass sold. Typically the wholesale price is 50% of the retail list price, so my royalty was usually 7.5% of the price you paid for a new book. The publisher and the bookstore each get a much larger cut than the author, even on books sold at a substantial discount from the list price. All rights to these books have reverted to me, so the original publisher is not authorized to print any more copies or license any rights to the works in these books.
For most of my career, writing hasn’t paid my rent. (The first advice I give would-be travel writers is, “Don’t quit your day job!”) Since 2006, I’ve been paid a monthly consulting retainer and have had some of my business-related travel expenses reimbursed by the Identity Project, a nonprofit civil liberties and human rights organization carrying out research, education, and litigation to support and defend the rights to freedom of travel and movement. I was already doing much of this work at my own expense, and would be doing it, to the extent my finances and time commitments permitted, whether or not I was getting paid to do so. I’m also an unpaid (except for occasional reimbursement of expenses) policy analyst for Travelers United (formerly the Consumer Travel Alliance), a nonprofit, nonpartisan educational and advocacy group which was founded by two of my fellow travel journalists and is one of the member organizations of the Consumer Federation of America.
I was a full-time employee of Airtreks.com from 1998-2006, and I remained a paid affiliate of Airtreks.com until 2015. Feel free to ignore what I have said about them if you think that it was motivated by self-interest. I have had no involvement in the operations or management of Airtreks.com since 2006, and I have received no payments or benefits from them since 2015.
At one time, as an employee, I had options on Airtreks.com stock, but they expired long ago, unexercised and under water. I don’t currently own shares in any individual travel companies, or any mutual funds that, so far as I know, have any substantial percentage of their assets invested in primarily travel-related companies.
I don’t currently have any paid ads on this site, but I have in the past, and may do so again. In some years, I earned more form ads on this site than from royalties on my books, although neither has ever been my primary source of income. When there are ads on this site, I get paid by companies that advertise here, either directly or through advertising brokers and affiliate networks. They pay me to display their advertising, not to recommend them, and I regularly turn down offers to pay for my endorsement for one or another product or service that I don’t really believe in. (On the other hand, I continue to recommend at least one company that I think offers good value, but that turned me down without explanation when I applied to join their affiliate program.)
I hope that it’s obvious which portions of my Web site are paid advertising, and which are my opinions. If it’s not clear, please let me know. If you have a problem with a company I recommend or mention, or that advertises in my books or on my Web site, please let me know about it. I haven’t chosen all the ads that have appeared on my Web site — some of them have been chosen by advertising brokers and networks — but I have blocked ads from some companies that I recommend against, even if they were the highest bidder for the advertising space on my site.
I don’t use cookies on this Web site (unless you sign in as a subscriber to manage your newsletter subscription, or choose to store your information as a cookie when you make a comment on my blog), but some of the advertisers on this site try to set “cookies” on your computer, as they do on all sites on which they advertise. If you accept those cookies, they may use them to correlate your visit to this site with other sites you visit, or to track your browsing in other ways. If you don’t want that, set your Web browser not to accept cookies — that’s what I generally do when I browse the Web. (Click here for more about my privacy practices.)
While I was employed at Airtreks.com, they subscribed to the Amadeus, Sabre, and Travelport computerized reservation systems (CRS’s), which I’ve written about extensively. It should be clear to anyone who has read what I have written that it is not intended or likely to me mistaken for an endorsement of any of these companies or of any other CRS.
As a travel writer and, in the past, as a travel agent, I’ve occasionally been given free or reduced-rate transportation (although far less than most people might think) on various airlines. This has more often been as partial compensation for having sold tickets or potentially selling tickets on those airlines than in any expectation that I’ll give them a favorable write-up in my books, Web site, or blog. Some of these airlines have known that I was a travel writer as well as a travel agent, but others probably didn’t know I was a writer, or cared only about my status as a travel agent. (For what it”s worth, An IATAN travel agent ID card is much more valuable than a press pass.) I don’t feel compromised: I’m not writing comparative reviews of airlines, and I’ll let you make your own judgments about which ones to fly with. I have airline preferences, when the price is the same, but in general I choose whichever is cheapest. Were I to make recommendations, I’d pan some airlines that have given me free tickets and praise some others that I’d have to pay to fly.
For what it’s worth, airlines currently still in business that have given me free or discounted tickets include Aeroflot, American Airlines, British Airways, China Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Ethiopian Airlines, JetBlue (despite my previous criticism of and investigative reporting about JetBlue), Korean Air, Malaysian Airways, Qatar Airways, United Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic. I’ve probably forgotten a few others, especially those from years or decades ago. I’ve paid the same price anyone else would have to pay, equally or more recently, for other flights on most of these airlines. Some of these (e.g. Malaysian and Aeroflot) I’d choose, and some of these (United) I’d go out of my way to avoid, all else including price being equal. I’ve gotten occasional free Southwest Airlines tickets for my travel on on business for Travelers United, as part of the airline’s in-kind charitable contribution to that organization. I’ve also been given occasional discounted or free space-available (standby) travel on United Airlines thanks to a friend and sometimes fellow traveller who worked in their San Francisco maintenance base. Some travel agents, including retail agencies (Exito Travel) and wholesale consolidators (Mill Run Tours and others), have sold me airline tickets at their wholesale cost, as a sort of “professional courtesy discount” from their regular retail prices. Most of the time I pay normal retail prices for airline tickets.
I have sometimes gotten discounts on hotels, most often at upscale places where I wouldn’t otherwise stay. Most of the hotel discounts I have gotten have been offered to all qualified IATAN card-carrying travel agents, not just to me. I am no longer an IATA card-holder, although I was one for many years. Hotels don’t usually know that I’m a travel writer, much less what, if anything, I write about their particular hotel. I’ve also occasionally gotten free beds in Hostelling International hostels where I’ve been giving travel seminars — but where I would have stayed, and which I would recommend, anyway. I paid full price for my life membership in Hostelling International, and I’ve never been paid more than my expenses, or provided with anything more than a free place to sleep and/or commemorative souvenirs, for speaking at an HI hostel or HI event. In general, I try to avoid identifying myself as a travel writer, lest that distort my experience and how travel service providers treat me. I mostly recommend local hostelries of the sort that don’t give discounts, or pay commissions, to travel agents or travel writers. I rarely if ever write about specific hotels; if I chance to mention one that gave me a discount, I’ll let you know. The same goes for car rental companies: like all card-carrying travel agents, I often get offered discounted car rental rates. It happens with all the major companies, and I honestly can’t remember which were the ones that most recently gave me discounts. There are differences in service, but to me, car rental companies are about as fungible as airlines flying the same schedule, maybe more. I make my choice almost solely on price.
As a member of the Bay Area Travel Writers, I’ve gotten a lot of free lunches at Bay Area restaurants and hotels that host BATW meetings. I’ve also eaten lots of forgettable (and, yes, some memorable) free food at other travel industry functions, both as a writer and a travel agent. I get swag along with brochures and press releases: tchotchkes, pens, tote bags, flash drives, candy, the occasional bottle of wine. And I’ve gotten free admission to conferences, industry and other events, museums, and other attractions as a published travel writer with a press pass.
I sometimes get my travel expenses reimbursed by the sponsors of my talks, and occasionally get paid small honoraria. My opinions are not for sale, and while of course I consult with event organizers about what topics they want me to address, I do not and would not allow them to dictate what I say about those subjects. When I’m invited to speak, it’s generally by people and organizations who want me, and who trust me, to speak my own mind.
I don’t require people to identify themselves in order to post comments on my blog, and I often don’t know who the people are who send me feedback by e-mail, review my books in their blogs, or post reviews or comments on Powells.com, Amazon.com, or other book sites. Of course, I encourage people I know, and people I don’t know who like my books, to post favorable reviews and comments. I and my publishers sometimes give book reviewers free copies of my books. But I have never paid anyone or provided anyone with any compensation or consideration whatsoever in exchange for a favorable comment or review, and people who get free review copies are free to write and publish critical reviews.
Finally, a few publishers give me complimentary copies of books, CD’s, or DVD’s (sometimes at my request, sometime unsolicited), slightly reducing the amount I spend on compiling my library of travel references and keeping the 100-page resource guide in The Practical Nomad: How to Travel Around the World up to date. I’m grateful for their assistance. But I don’t list any resources that I wouldn’t be willing to pay for; I don’t list some that I was sent for free; and my highest recommendation goes to some of those that are most expensive and for which I paid full price.
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This page published or republished here 5 April 1999; most recently modified 12 January 2024. Copyright © 1991-2024 Edward Hasbrouck, except as noted. ORCID 0000-0001-9698-7556. Mirroring, syndication, and/or archiving of this Web site for purposes of redistribution, or use of information from this site to send unsolicited bulk e-mail or any SMS messages, is prohibited.
