Disclosure
How this site makes money
Short version: commission on bookings, paid by the booking partner, at no extra cost to you. Long version below.
The Strand Guide is reader-supported. When you book through links on our site, we may earn a commission from our booking partners — at no extra cost to you.
The disclosure
The Strand Guide is reader-supported. When you book through links on our site, we may earn a commission from our booking partners — at no extra cost to you.
What an affiliate link is
Some links on this site point to booking platforms and charter operators. When one of those is an affiliate link and you book through it, the platform pays this site a percentage of its own booking fee. That payment comes out of the partner's margin, not your pocket.
You pay the same price either way. Booking through a link here costs you exactly what booking direct on the same platform would cost. There is no markup, no surcharge and no special rate in either direction.
Which links are affiliate links
Every outbound booking link — the "Check rates" buttons and any link into a booking platform's listings — is an affiliate link. They are marked in the page code as sponsored links, which is what search engines and browsers use to tell them apart from ordinary references.
Links to other pages on this site are not affiliate links. Neither are links to public information like regulations or tide tables.
Current status
Affiliate partnerships are not yet active. Booking links currently point straight to the platform with no tracking attached, which means this site earns nothing from them today. This notice is here because the arrangement is expected to change, and it's simpler to disclose the model from the start than to bolt it on later.
What commission does not buy
It does not buy a recommendation. No operator can pay to appear on this site, to rank higher on it, or to be described more warmly than the trip deserves.
The plainest evidence is what's already written. This site tells you a half-day offshore trip is usually a bad deal, that a Gulf Stream run is the wrong call in August, that head boat seats beat a private charter for two people, and that some trips advertised as deep sea never leave sight of the high-rises. Every one of those costs commission. They're there because the alternative is a site that isn't worth reading.
How prices on this site work
Prices are published as ranges across Grand Strand operators, with their verification state shown next to the number. Unverified ranges say so. Verified ones carry the month they were checked. No price on this site is supplied by an operator or a partner as a condition of being listed.
Why you're being told this
Because the US Federal Trade Commission requires clear disclosure of material connections between a publisher and the products it recommends, and because you'd want to know. The disclosure appears at the top of every commercial page and in the footer of every page on the site, not only here.
Questions
If anything about this arrangement is unclear, ask. See also the privacy policy for what happens to data when you click a link or sign up for the fishing calendar.