TroveStays All legal documents

Version 1.1 · Effective 2026-06-25 · Operated by Kindleye Limited (Hong Kong)

TroveStays — Creator Agreement

This Creator Agreement governs the relationship between you (the "Creator") and Kindleye Limited ("TroveStays") when you upload content to the TroveStays Platform and earn commission from bookings attributed to your content. It supplements the TroveStays Terms and Conditions (01-terms-and-conditions.md) — those Terms continue to apply to you as a User; this document adds the Creator-specific provisions and prevails in the event of any direct conflict on a Creator matter.

You are agreeing to a commercial contract. If you do not understand any of it, take advice. If you do not accept it, do not upload content for commission.

1. Becoming a Creator

1.1 To become a Creator you must:

1.2 To receive payouts you must additionally complete onboarding to Stripe Connect (an Accounts v2 account on Stripe's Express Dashboard). Stripe is the payment institution that holds your funds and operates the payouts; TroveStays is the platform that earns the commissions, calculates what you are owed, and instructs Stripe to pay you.

2. Independent contractor — what your relationship with TroveStays is and is not

2.1 You and TroveStays are independent of each other. Nothing in this Agreement makes you TroveStays's employee, partner, joint venturer, agent, franchisee, or representative. You do not work for TroveStays. TroveStays is not your employer.

2.2 In particular:

2.3 If you are based in Hong Kong, your relationship with TroveStays is intended to be that of an independent contractor and not an employee under the Employment Ordinance (Cap. 57) or a contractor in business under any other relevant statute. We have drafted this Agreement with that intention in mind.

3. The content licence you grant TroveStays

3.1 When you upload a post (photo, video, caption, hotel tag, or other material) to TroveStays ("Your Creator Content") you grant TroveStays, our affiliates, and our successors and assigns a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to:

3.2 This licence:

3.3 What TroveStays will not do. TroveStays will not (and will not permit any sublicensee to):

3.4 Attribution. Where it is reasonably practicable to do so, we will identify you (by your TroveStays display name and/or your linked social handle) in any marketing use of Your Creator Content.

3.5 Sponsored content and disclosures. If a third party has paid you, given you something of value, or provided a hosted stay in connection with content you post on TroveStays, you must disclose that fact clearly in the post itself. Failing to disclose a paid arrangement is a breach of this Agreement, a likely breach of the Trade Descriptions Ordinance (Cap. 362), and (depending on where your audience is) a likely breach of other consumer-protection laws.

4. Your warranties about Your Creator Content

You warrant to TroveStays, every time you upload Your Creator Content, that:

5. Commission — the economics

5.1 The basic rule. When a Traveller books a hotel through your post and the booking is confirmed by the Supplier and the Traveller's payment is captured, you earn commission on that booking.

5.2 How much. Your commission on a booking is thirty-five percent (35%) of the commission that LiteAPI pays TroveStays on that booking (recorded in our systems as commission.amount), converted to United States dollars (USD) at the foreign-exchange rate cached on the date the booking was made. We display your commission to you in USD on your earnings screen.

5.3 Self-bookings earn nothing. A booking that you make on your own account, or that our systems identify as you booking through your own post, does not earn commission. This is recorded as a "self-booking" flag and is not appealable.

5.4 Legacy bookings. Bookings that pre-date the introduction of the per-booking commission model on 20 May 2026 were under the previous "3% of selling price" model. We will honour those commissions on the rules under which they were earned, and you can see them separately in your earnings screen.

5.5 Holdback period. Newly-earned commissions are marked as "pending" for a holdback period of seven (7) days after the Traveller's check-out date. After that they become "available" and are eligible for payout in the next monthly cycle.

5.6 Payout schedule. We run payouts monthly, on the first day of each calendar month (UTC). At each run, we sum all "available" commissions for you and net off any clawback debt (see Section 6). If the net amount is at least USD 100, we instruct Stripe to transfer it to your Stripe Connect account. If the net amount is less than USD 100, it carries over to the next month.

5.7 Currency. All payouts are in USD. We do this so that you receive one consistent payout in one consistent currency regardless of how many different currencies your bookings were priced in. Your bank may convert USD into your local currency on receipt; any conversion fees imposed by Stripe or your bank are outside our control.

5.8 No payout while KYC incomplete. If your Stripe Connect KYC is not complete, or if Stripe has restricted your account, payouts will not be sent. You will see the outstanding requirements in your Creator-payouts screen.

5.9 Our right to change the commission rate. We may change the commission rate or the payout floor prospectively on thirty (30) days' notice by in-app banner or email. Bookings already prebooked at the time the change takes effect continue under the then-current terms.

5.10 Annual statement. At the end of each calendar year we will make available to you a summary of payouts made to you in that year. That summary is provided to help you with your own tax filing — see Section 7.

6. Refunds, clawbacks, and adjustments

6.1 What happens if a booking is refunded. Hotel bookings can be cancelled or refunded after the Traveller has stayed (or was supposed to stay). When a booking is refunded — whether in whole or in part — the commission attributable to that booking is recalculated:

6.2 Symmetric adjustments. If LiteAPI later notifies us that the commission on a booking has been increased (for example because the Supplier confirmed a higher commission than originally booked), we will record the additional amount on your account and pay it out at the next monthly cycle.

6.3 If you leave with an outstanding debt. If you close your account or stop being eligible for payouts while a clawback debt is outstanding, we may (a) defer closure of your account until the debt is netted off available commissions, or (b) invoice you for the amount and recover it as a debt under Hong Kong law. We will not impose interest on a debt during the first sixty (60) days after the invoice is issued.

6.4 Acceptance of set-off. You expressly authorise us, and Stripe acting on our instruction, to set off clawback debt against amounts otherwise payable to you. This authorisation is intended to be reasonable in the circumstances under the Unconscionable Contracts Ordinance (Cap. 458).

7. Taxes

7.1 You are responsible for your own tax. You are responsible for declaring and paying any tax, levy, social-security contribution, or other governmental charge owed in any jurisdiction in respect of the income you receive under this Agreement, including (without limitation) Hong Kong profits tax / personal assessment under the Inland Revenue Ordinance (Cap. 112) if and to the extent it applies to you.

7.2 TroveStays is not your tax agent. TroveStays does not act as your tax agent, does not file tax returns on your behalf, and (subject to clause 7.3) does not withhold tax from your payouts.

7.3 Withholding where required. Where TroveStays is required by law in any jurisdiction to withhold tax on a payout to you, or to report your payouts to a tax authority, we will do so. We will tell you that we have done so and (where the law allows) we will give you the documentation you need to claim any credit available to you.

7.4 VAT / GST / consumption tax. Where you are required by law to charge VAT, GST, or an equivalent consumption tax on the services you supply to TroveStays (which we do not generally consider you to be supplying for VAT purposes — you are paid commission as a Creator on the Platform), you are responsible for accounting for it. If you are VAT-registered, you must give us your VAT identification number before invoicing us.

7.5 Annual statement. As noted in clause 5.10, we make an annual payout statement available to help you with your own filing. The annual statement is not a tax certificate.

8. Sanctions and anti-money-laundering

8.1 You warrant and undertake that:

8.2 We may suspend or terminate your account, suspend payouts, retain commissions, and disclose information to regulators or law-enforcement bodies (including by filing a Suspicious Transaction Report) where we are required by law or where we reasonably believe it is necessary to do so for compliance with this Section 8.

9. Acceptable use and the video quality bar

9.1 You must comply with the Acceptable Use Policy (05-acceptable-use-policy.md). Breach of the Acceptable Use Policy is breach of this Agreement.

9.2 The video quality bar. Video uploads are checked automatically against the following standards. We may refine these from time to time; the current standards are:

9.3 Videos that fail the quality bar are not published on the Platform; the underlying asset is deleted from our video processor and you will see a rejection reason on your post in your profile. You may re-upload a corrected video at any time. Automated rejection is not a sanction and is not subject to appeal beyond re-upload.

9.4 Photo posts are not subject to the video quality bar; they are auto-approved on upload but may be removed under the Acceptable Use Policy if they breach our rules.

9.5 Reactive moderation. Where another User or a third party reports your content, we may remove it pending review. The handling and any reinstatement is set out in the Acceptable Use Policy and the Copyright and IP Takedown Policy.

10. Term and termination

10.1 Term. This Agreement starts on the date you accept it and continues until terminated.

10.2 Termination by you. You can terminate this Agreement at any time on thirty (30) days' notice to support@trovestays.com or by switching your account back from a creator user-type. Termination does not affect your accrued rights or obligations (in particular, commission earned but not yet paid, or any clawback debt outstanding).

10.3 Termination by TroveStays for cause. We may terminate this Agreement immediately on notice to you, suspend payouts, and (in the case of fraud) forfeit unpaid commissions where:

10.4 Termination by TroveStays for convenience. We may terminate this Agreement for any reason on sixty (60) days' notice to you. In that case earned-but-unpaid commission is paid out at the next monthly cycle (USD 100 floor disapplied for the final cycle of an outgoing Creator).

10.5 Effect of termination.

11. Limitation of liability and indemnity

11.1 General cap (mirrors the Terms). Subject to clauses 10.4 of the Terms and 11.4 of this Agreement, our total aggregate liability to you under this Agreement in any twelve-month period is limited to the greater of (a) commissions paid by us to you in that twelve-month period and (b) HKD 1,000. We do not pay for indirect, consequential, special, or punitive loss; loss of profit, business, opportunity, or anticipated savings; loss of data; or losses caused by force majeure or by third parties we do not control.

11.2 Indemnity by you — Creator-specific scope (uncapped where shown). In addition to your indemnity under the Terms, you indemnify TroveStays, its affiliates, and its and their officers, directors, employees, and agents on demand against all losses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with:

11.3 What this does not cover. Nothing in this Section 11 excludes or limits any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited (see clause 10.4 of the Terms).

11.4 Reasonableness. Each part of this Section 11 is intended to be reasonable under section 3 of the Control of Exemption Clauses Ordinance (Cap. 71) having regard to the commercial nature of the Creator relationship, the absence of any sign-up fee, the share-of-revenue commission model, and the broad indemnities given by both parties.

12. Governing law and dispute resolution

12.1 Governing law. This Agreement is governed by the laws of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

12.2 First step — talk to us. Before commencing formal proceedings, you and TroveStays agree to attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute through written correspondence and (at either party's request) a senior-level discussion.

12.3 Arbitration. Any dispute, controversy, difference, or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement, including its existence, validity, interpretation, performance, breach, or termination, or any dispute regarding non-contractual obligations arising out of or relating to it, that is not resolved under clause 12.2 within thirty (30) days, shall be referred to and finally resolved by arbitration administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC) under the HKIAC Administered Arbitration Rules in force when the Notice of Arbitration is submitted. The seat of arbitration is Hong Kong. The number of arbitrators is one. The arbitration proceedings are conducted in English. The arbitration is confidential except to the extent disclosure is required by law or to enforce an award.

12.4 Interim relief. Either party may seek interim or conservatory relief from a court of competent jurisdiction at any time without waiving the arbitration agreement.

13. General

13.1 Notices. Notices under this Agreement must be in writing in English and sent (in the case of notices to TroveStays) to support@trovestays.com with a copy to 26 Square Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong, and (in the case of notices to you) to the email address on your TroveStays account or by in-app message.

13.2 Assignment. You may not assign this Agreement without our prior written consent. We may assign it to a successor in a corporate transaction.

13.3 Set-off. In addition to clause 6.4, we may set off any amount owing by you to us against any amount owing by us to you under this Agreement.

13.4 Entire agreement. This Agreement, together with the Terms and the other documents incorporated by reference, is the entire agreement between us about your activities as a Creator.

13.5 No waiver, severability, no third-party rights, language. Clauses 17.5, 17.4, 17.7, and 17.8 of the Terms apply to this Agreement as if set out here.

13.6 Survival. Sections that by their nature should survive (3.2(a), 4, 6.3–6.4, 7, 8, 10.5, 11, 12, 13) survive termination.

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Version history

Version Date Notes
1.0 2026-06-11 Initial public version.