About Waribiki Alert

What Waribiki Alert is

Waribiki Alert is an independent English guide to travelling Japan for less. We list current travel discounts: rail and bus passes, ferries and boats, airport access deals, hotel and ryokan discounts, regional tourism coupons, attraction passes, onsen transport bundles, experiences, ski lift passes and rentals. Every listing gives its dates and links to its official source.

We look for deals in all 47 prefectures. The homepage always shows how many deals are live and how many prefectures they currently cover.

We write for two groups:

• Visitors: short-term tourists. Many rail passes and airport tickets are only for them.
• Residents: people who live in Japan. Some prefectural and national campaigns are open to everyone travelling in Japan.

Every deal is tagged with who can use it, so you can check before you click through. We also publish plain-English guides, for example on the JR Pass versus regional passes, IC and ski lift cards, and how to choose a ryokan. You can sign up for our free email digest of new and ending-soon deals.

Waribiki Alert is a GaijinDev project, operated in Japan by Aaron Chanthavong.

How we verify deals

A deal is listed only if we can verify it on an official source: the prefecture, municipality, government agency or operator that runs it, or the official page of the business offering it.

For each deal we:

1. Record the official source. Every listing links its official source page, plus any other official pages it relies on, such as the per-prefecture pages for a multi-prefecture campaign. You'll find them on each deal page under "Official sources".
2. Write the details in our own words. We summarise the amount, dates, eligibility and conditions in plain English. We don't copy official text, photos, flyers or logos.
3. Record the dates. Each listing has a start date and an end date. If there's no fixed end date, we say how the deal ends, for example "ends when the budget runs out". Each deal page shows when we last checked it.
4. Review new deals before publishing. New finds start as candidates. A candidate is published only after review, and flagged candidates or duplicates of existing listings are left out.
5. Keep the site about travel. Campaigns that aren't really about travel, such as general shopping cashback, are removed.

Checks on every update

We aim to update the site every day. Each update:

• removes expired deals. A deal whose end date has passed comes off the site.
• checks every official source link. If a source page doesn't load, the update stops and nothing is published until we fix it. A few official sites block automated checks; we check those by hand, and a "page not found" from them still stops the update.
• checks the data. Missing details, an end date before the start date, or a deal with no end date and no explanation also stop the update.
• flags open-ended deals that haven't been re-checked for 30 days, so we re-verify them.

Campaigns can change or end early, often when their budget runs out, and sometimes before we can update the page. Always confirm the details on the official source before you book. We can't apply for, book or claim any deal for you.

If you spot something wrong or out of date, email aaron@gaijindev.com and we'll correct it.

Independence

Waribiki Alert is independent. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for any prefecture, municipality, government agency, railway, airline, ferry or bus company, hotel, ski resort or other operator whose deals we list. When we describe a government programme, we say who runs it.

No one pays to be included in the deal directory. Prefectures and agencies never pay us to list their programmes.

We are not a travel agency. Waribiki Alert is an information service. We don't arrange, book, broker or take payment for transport, accommodation or tours, and we are not a registered travel agency (旅行業者). You book directly with the provider.

Advertising, sponsorship and affiliate links

This site contains advertising, and we label it on the item itself, not just in the footer.

• Sponsored placements are paid advertising space. They're labelled 広告 · Sponsored and are visually separate from the deal listings. In our emails, a sponsor block is headed Ad · 広告 · Sponsored by followed by the sponsor's name, and any issue that carries one says so at the start of the subject line or preview text. Sponsors can't change how we describe other deals or government programmes. Their offers must be travel-related and accurate, and they follow the same pricing rules as everything else we publish.
• Affiliate links: we don't use any at the moment. If we add them, each link will be marked PR · 広告 (affiliate link) right next to it. A page that contains them will say so before the first link: "This page contains ads: links marked PR · 広告 earn us a commission. / 本ページは広告（アフィリエイト）を含みます。" If you book through an affiliate link, we may earn a commission from the partner. You pay the partner's price, which may differ from the official seller's price, so always check the final price before booking. Affiliate partners don't pay to have deals included, don't review deals before they're published, and commissions don't affect which deals we list or how they're ordered. Deals for government subsidies and coupons always link to the official source, never to an affiliate.
• Prices: we don't show "was/now" or strike-through prices unless the comparison price is the official seller's own published standard price, and we name the source. We don't use claims like "cheapest", "best price" or "No.1".

For details, see our Disclosure page.

Contact us

• Questions, corrections and privacy requests: aaron@gaijindev.com
• Sponsorship: see Sponsor Waribiki Alert or email aaron@gaijindev.com
• Operator: Aaron Chanthavong, operated in Japan. Address: disclosed without delay upon request.