Affiliate disclosure &
editorial firewall.

The plain version

HauntBound is a curated directory of haunted travel destinations. Today we make money one way — affiliate commissions. The other two are planned, and we say so rather than implying they are already running:

1. Affiliate commissions from a small set of booking partners (listed below). When you click a link on HauntBound and book a tour, ticket, or stay, the partner pays us a small commission. You pay the same price either way.
2. Reader-supported newsletter for our most engaged audience (currently free; paid tier coming late 2026).
3. Direct sponsorships from haunted-tourism operators — not yet running. There is no sponsored placement anywhere on the site today. If that changes, every one will be labelled "Sponsored" on the page it appears.

Programs we participate in

Three programs are live and earning today:

• Stay22 (live since 19 July 2026) — lodging. This is our largest program by far. It powers both the "Book a room at [venue]" link on hotel and inn pages and the "Find a place to stay near [venue]" search that appears on most other venue pages. Stay22 routes to online travel agencies; which one you land on is their matching, not our choice.
• Viator (a Tripadvisor company; live since 19 August 2026) — haunted walking tours, ghost tours, museum tickets, and other bookable experiences.
• GetYourGuide (live since 22 August 2026) — same category as Viator; either or both depending on inventory at a given venue.

Two more are built but switched off, pending approval, and currently earn us nothing: FareHarbor and US Ghost Adventures (via Awin). If you see a link to either today, it is an ordinary link we have not been paid for.

On Booking.com: we ask Stay22 to exclude it, for editorial-fit reasons — routing readers to a generic OTA when a haunted hotel has its own booking system tends to give a worse experience (higher rates, weaker cancellation terms). That exclusion is not reliably honoured by Stay22's router, and we have verified links reaching Booking.com despite it. We would rather tell you that than let a stale claim stand. Where a venue takes direct bookings, we link direct.

The editorial firewall

Our editorial decisions are independent of our affiliate relationships. Specifically:

• Inclusion is not for sale. We don't accept payment to add a venue to the directory, to remove a venue, or to alter its content. Every venue in the catalog gets there through editorial vetting.
• Ranking is not for sale. The "HauntBound Picks" homepage rail and the editorial guides (e.g., the haunted-hotels-you-can-stay-in list) are ordered by editorial scoring algorithms — historical depth, sources cited, image quality, family-fit, and editor verification. We don't bump a venue up the list because they're an affiliate partner.
• If we feature a venue with no affiliate program, we still feature it. We don't preferentially recommend venues that pay us. Several of our top picks have no affiliate relationship at all.
• Sponsored content is clearly labeled. If a haunted-tourism operator pays for a featured slot or a sponsored newsletter mention, the placement is labeled "Sponsored" — never integrated into editorial rankings.
• Direct booking takes priority over affiliate booking. When a venue has its own booking system, we link directly to it. Affiliate links are a fallback for venues without direct-booking infrastructure or for tour aggregators that don't operate as booking-direct.

How to identify an affiliate link

Every page that contains affiliate links carries an inline disclosure box above the affiliate links themselves. You'll see something like:

Some links on this page may earn HauntBound a small commission when you book — at no extra cost to you. Our editorial picks are independent.

We mark every outbound affiliate link with the HTML rel="sponsored" attribute, which is the standard signal to Google's search algorithms and a courtesy to other crawlers. If you ever want to bypass affiliate routing, you can usually copy the link, identify the destination domain, and visit it directly.

FTC compliance

Our disclosure architecture is built to comply with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255, last updated July 26, 2023) and the Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule (effective October 21, 2024). Specifically:

• Disclosure is "clear and conspicuous" — visible at the same time as the affiliate link, without scrolling or interaction.
• Plain-language disclosure ("we may earn a commission") instead of jargon ("affiliate link" or "#partner").
• This page (linked from the footer of every page on the site) provides the full version of the disclosure.
• Affiliate links work by setting a partner cookie when you click. What that means for your data, and every other third party this site loads, is set out on our privacy page.
• We never publish reviews or testimonials we have a material connection to without disclosing it.
• HauntBound is operated under Firefly Hollow Enterprises LLC (Michigan, USA). Affiliate income is reported on Form 1099-NEC and Schedule C as required.

Questions, corrections, or disputes

If you have a concern about a specific affiliate link, a venue's placement in our rankings, or a sponsored placement that doesn't appear to be properly labeled, email [email protected]. We respond to every editorial-integrity concern.

For partnership inquiries (venue claim, affiliate, sponsored placements): [email protected].