Maximize your points & miles
We believe in full transparency. Here's exactly how Award Optimizer earns money — and how it affects (or doesn't affect) our recommendations.
Award Optimizer is free to use. We earn small commissions when you click affiliate links on our site and make a booking — at no extra cost to you. These commissions help us keep the site running, the data updated, and the tools free.
Affiliate relationships do not influence our award chart data, program rankings, or editorial content. We never rank a program higher because of an affiliate arrangement — only because the CPP math says so.
We are a publisher in the CJ Affiliate network (Publisher ID 101720496). When you click a booking button on our destination or blog pages and complete a reservation, we may receive a commission from these partners:
| Partner | What They Offer | Network |
|---|---|---|
| Hotels.com | Hotel search & booking worldwide | CJ |
| Expedia | Hotels, flights, vacation packages | CJ |
| VRBO | Vacation rental homes | CJ |
| Orbitz | Hotel & flight booking | CJ |
| Travelocity | Hotel & flight booking | CJ |
| CheapTickets | Discounted flights & hotels | CJ |
We are also a partner in the Travelpayouts network (Publisher ID 706871, Project "Awardoptimizer"). Partners include:
| Partner | What They Offer | Commission Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Klook | Tours, activities & experiences worldwide | 2–5% |
| Tiqets | Museum, attraction & event tickets | 3.5–8% |
| Kiwi.com | Flight search including multi-stop routes | ~3% |
| Aviasales | Cash flight price search & comparison | Revenue share via Travelpayouts |
We also use Skimlinks (Publisher ID 299634X1787430), a service that can automatically convert ordinary outbound links on our pages into affiliate links at the moment you click them. If a merchant we link to participates in the Skimlinks network, we may earn a commission on your purchase at no extra cost to you. Skimlinks may set cookies to attribute those purchases — see our Privacy Policy for details.
Affiliate links on this site are marked with rel="sponsored" in the HTML and typically appear as booking buttons (e.g., "Hotels.com", "Klook", "Tiqets") inside highlighted booking sections labeled Sponsored.
Award data, program rankings, and editorial analysis on Award Optimizer are never sponsored or paid for by any airline, bank, or travel company.
If you have any questions about our affiliate relationships, email us at hello@awardoptimizer.com.
Last updated: June 30, 2026.