I have no idea the broader answers to this reader’s question, or at least I won’t speculate, but I will offer perspective from my own experience.
LIH Prem said,
What would the travel blogosphere look like without credit card referral fees? (compared to the way it is today.)
-David
I’ve been writing this blog since May of 2002. When the blog first started there was an ad on it, but it wasn’t mine. I signed up for a free Blogspot account. After I had been writing a little while, Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) bought out that ad for me.
I probably had gotten the most attention selling Impeach Norm Mineta bumper stckers, though I did so at cost (if memory serves, $2 apiece including shipping and I handled all fulfillment myself). I wasn’t making any money, I was just chronicling my journey, what I was learning about frequent flyer programs, writing up offers so I would be able to find them later, and sharing it along the way with anyone who cared to read.
I’ve never been much into web stats or paying attention to my traffic, this has always been my blog and I’ve written what interested me at the time. Randy Petersen began hosting my blog in early 2003, and there may have been display ads as part of his Webflyer.com site but no ads specific to the blog itself. That changed in late 2004, I think, they experimented with “BlogAds” and those paid I think $40 a week. I didn’t see any of that money, Randy told me I could have 100% of it and I told him not to worry about it, if he wound up recouping hosting costs that would be great.
A couple of years ago advertising began generating enough side income to be noteworthy. What was a game changer for me though was starting my award booking service, that’s the thing I’ve done that could actually be a real career (although I continue with my full-time job, writing the blog and booking awards on the side.) And about 15 months ago I also added affiliate links for credit cards. I’ve been writing and recommending credit cards since the beginning, credit card companies will pay websites for people who apply and are approved for their cards. For years I directed readers straight to the credit card company website, and they simply didn’t provide the referral to anyone.. I figured I would see what happened if I said to folks, would you mind using my referral link when you apply?
There’s no question that there’s been several changes in content here over that 15 months. Credit cards represent a plurality of all miles earned, and I was undercovering them before. Even still, take the month of January, fewer than 4% of my posts contain a referral link of any kind. But I do write about cards more than I did before, I’m more interested in them than before.
These are among my most popular posts. I hope that they genuinely help people. I try hard to offer only the best available offers for each card, whether they provide a referral to me or not. And to analyze each offer the best that I can. My readers will have to be the judge of whether I’m accomplishing that or not.
As I say I don’t dig into the stats a lot, but I do know that my traffic has grown substantially since I’ve increased my coverage of credit cards. Some people don’t like the coverage but best I can tell on the whole more people do. I get a disproportionate share of cranky comments on posts about credit card offers — often bitter that someone else might click on a link I’ve provided to an offer — one cranky commenter recently explained that it’s because I allow comments and they’re venting as much about other sites as about mine. (There’s really only one person I’ve explicitly disinvited from commenting here, mostly I just delete spam and the occasional extreme sexual description or non-sequitur personal detail.)
I can’t tell you what “the travel blogosphere” would look like if there weren’t opportunities for affiliate income. I can only speak for myself, I was writing this blog for many years without even Googleads, so I suspect that I would keep writing. But I do appreciate the extra income that comes from the blog, I think it really reinforces what I’m doing here, and that helped rejuvenate me after all these years. I think I had a better blog in 2012 than in 2008 or 2004.
I’ve developed my own approach here, which does include disclosing any financial relationship I may have in every single blog post where one may exist (and not just in the ‘About’ section of the blog, where I do that as well). And in writing about what I believe the best offers are, although sometimes which offer is better isn’t clear (as it will depend on an individual’s circumstances) in which case I try to give the best analysis I can.
Sometimes I’ll get emails, like one recently to the effect that the reader had just received a targeted email to sign up for 50,000 points with the Southwest Visa and why wasn’t I writing about that? I’ve written about the Southwest Visa and 50,000 point bonuses before, will do so again, but don’t always jump on those because while they’re valuable (potentially over $800 in travel on ‘wanna get away’ fares) it’s also for flying on Southwest which really isn’t my bag. But a 50,000 point offer is a 50,000 point offer, and it tends to get included when I do roundups or top lists of best credit card offers (whether there’s a referral there or not).
And I don’t take freebies really either, I haven’t ever taken a free hotel stay and I’ve been offered things like private jet travel and European cruises (!). I do giveaways when I can and some people argue that those bias me (a company gives me something to give away, that makes me a hero to my readers, I therefore owe the company for giving me that). At that point I have biases like any other human being, the difference is the volume of writing I do I think mine are pretty clear.
Readers who find my writing valuable will keep coming back, and if my writing isn’t valuable readers will go away. Either way I continue to write about what’s interesting to me at the moment, like I have for the past 11 years. Hope that perspective helps, I can only do my best each and every day and I do continue to hope it’s worth the price of admission.
Do you think other travel blogs have proliferated in the last 15 months? I know I’ve “discovered” a bunch of new blogs in the last year, a number of these seem to have gone “pro” within 6 months of starting their blogs. It also amazes me how many copycat miles and points blogs are out there, Million Mile Secrets never runs out of people to interview. Some are great, and cover an interesting niche, others just seem to regurgitate content.
Keep up the good work! I really enjoy your blog.
I found some of your credit card themed posts to be essential in planning for my applications. No one knows what blogs would be like without referral fees and I don’t spend to much time thinking about it. I do often think that some of the nasty comments come from folks that feel as though referral fees are a deal that they cant get in on.
lol … (or should I say oy vey?)
Gary, I was asking you to speculate about the explosion of bloggers and their affect on our hobby, and assuming most are making money from credit card referrals, do you think there would be as many bloggers out there as there are now without credit card referrals? I expect that one day that source of income will dry up, or at least won’t be as lucrative to so many as it is now. Some will certainly be able to find other sources of income with award booking services and other activities that they can grow from their followings, but I suspect some will be forced to find other sources of income.
I was asking you to speculate on others. I know you would still be doing this. You did it before most of the others too, and at a time when it was not lucrative or even a sole source of income for some.
Anyway, that’s what I was asking.
I should have known better than to give a debater a little leeway I suppose.
-David
+1 Travel Bug…i don’t know if i’m only seeing these new blogs because of MMS, but it seems like there has suddenly been an explosion of new blogs.
gary, are you allowed to tell us how much you make from referrals? i’m not asking you to tell us, i’m just curious if the banks specifically forbid it.
p.s. i sincerely hope the last line of this post was a shoutout to dan savage 🙂
Thanks for the Summary Gary. It is nice to have some discussion in the spirit of full disclosure. Know this is a business and not a hobby, but while promoting the credit card deals you do put some objective advise into the “promotion”
anyway .. I thought the real question made for a good topic.
whatever …
@ emily – and I feel really hypocritical being critical, because I just started a blog. I’m not sure where mine is going… Every now and then I stumble upon a newbie points blogger with weak copycat content, and I wonder if they’re planning to monetize.
@ LIH Prem – I’m convinced the end is near. The Points guy and Milevalue just wrote “Welcome New York Times Readers” posts. When your hairdresser tells you to invest in a stock, you know the market has peaked. I feel like sign up bonuses are getting to that point. I don’t travel much for work, and I’m trying to get the big, expensive plane tickets out of the way now. I can go to Peru and Mexico on my own dime when the miles run out.
I think there are too many new travel blogs out there. Last week I read one blogger whose claim to fame was NYC and LAS. Huh? I’ve been to 9 different countries and I consider myself extremely newbie who can barely find my airport.
How much do you make per credit card referral?
Agreed!
Thanks for the informative content. It’s a blog, a place for sharing thoughts and knowledge. If someone is not interested in the particular topic, feel free to not read the post or unsubscribe completely. There is plenty of content out there.
I think there are different levels of bloggers in this new world. TPG and MileValue have positioned themselves as a site to be visited by my Mom. This is the most dangerous audience because they will be more likely to call the airlines or post of Facebook on mistake fares, etc.
However, I think most people won’t do Bluebird or most of the tricks. Certainly not mileage running. I think this world is still a niche business, but effectively consider anything MV or TPG post to be dead on arrival.
Great post, and one of the reasons I’ll continue to follow your blog!
I disagree about MV, he posts simple posts for newbies and also very complicated posts for those who know a lot. The problem is catering too much to the newbies, like MMS did a few weeks ago regarding BB etc
Thank you. Gary for the great work you do every day. Your posts have helped me immensely to understand the ins and outs of the miles game.
Any free private jet travel, cruises or what not you turn down, feel free to pass on to me 😀
Everyone has their biases, which is find as long as people are honest about them. You said you weren’t as in to Southwest which is more than fine, when I read your comments about Southwest I can take that into account.
@Jon @emily all of the standard agreements forbid me from saying (largely I imagine because they don’t want bloggers comparing notes with each other) but it isn’t hard to google that sort of information
@ Lively – I actually really like destination focused blogs. If I can find a good one, I’ll follow it in the runup to my trip. Puerto Rico Day trips has great info on things to do in Puerto Rico. The blogger post intermittently, but they’ve been at it for a while, and all the posts are high quality. I wish I could find a New York day trips blog, but I can’t. There’s a lot of travel bloggers who write about their permanent round the world trips. The content is interesting, but provides me with little inspiration or direction for my own travel.
@LIH Prem wrote, “do you think there would be as many bloggers out there as there are now without credit card referrals?” I’m honestly not sure and don’t have much more information on this than you do, which I thought I indicated in my post. I didn’t ignore your question, I tried to answer the question you asked in the comments of my open thread as best I could, in interest of as much disclosure as possible.
Are there blogs that get started hoping to make money on affiliate income? Maybe, they haven’t told me so but I guess it is possible. But you can’t make much money on it if you don’t have a lot of site traffic. So that doesn’t seem a very plausible strategy if true. You really do have to start with content.
Thanks for the background.
I’m curious…how much does Chase pay you per SP or Ink approval?
@David see comment #17 above
I personally think your blog was better in 2011 than in 2012. You really jumped on the CC gravy train in 2012. You clearly covered CC’s much more in December 2012 than jan 2013. I would say that on a month to month basis, you covered CCs less in Jan 2013 than any other month in 2012. You picked a very biased month. I think this is because Chase etc have incentivized bloggers less to push their credit cards so far in 2013. Chase cut their business with many bloggers and there are relatively poorer offers out there so far this year. Bottom line is that in my view (and as a long time reader) many of your posts in 2012 were influenced the CC gravy train.
Thanks for what you do Gary!! You’re early PM’s to me about booking a trip and your blog has changed my life! I’ve earned literally a million miles because of your advice!!
Sure, we all have biases and we all make mistakes (Gary’s fact checking is better than some journalists), but overall this is a great blog. Plenty of posts are not/applicable to everyone, but easy to focus on those that are.
Are you trying to say that your blog isn’t influenced by the money and benefits that you receive from hotels, airlines, etc? I ask because I’m not sure what you are saying here.
@Zz, yawn. There haven’t been a lot of new/changed offers out in Jan. 13. When they are there, he alerts his readers to them. When they aren’t, there aren’t as many posts about CCs. Regardless, there are consistently many posts throughout providing useful tips and analysis beyond simply pushing CC offers.
Personally, I like the CC posts. It makes it easy for me to keep on top of new offers. And I greatly appreciate all the other posts as well.
@Gary, thank you for your efforts. I was more than happy to use your affiliate links earlier this month for CSP and Ink.
Thanks. Care to say how many referrals you get per year?
Thank you for the valuable info.
I don’t get why people get upset when bloggers mention a particular cc and that they have a referral link. First, any reader can go directly to the cc website or FT to click on the link. Secondly, I don’t mind giving the bloggers some extra money if they bring to my attention a cc bonus I wasn’t aware of in the 1st place. The really innovative stuff, regarding points & miles, comes from FT anyway (for the most part).
Also, Gary, you seem like an intelligent person but if you are not accepting free private jet rides and free european cruises I think I need to re-evaluate my opinion of you! 🙂
Todays post is exactly why I love your blog!
Gary – your transparency in demonstrating where you earn referral revenue is a best practice. You are doing a great job, keep it up, and earn the rewards and revenue you reap from helping point others in the right direction. It is ethical, it is moral, and it contributes to the betterment of each of us readers as as a positive externality of your sleuthing and relationships we learn of opportunities we would otherwise miss out on. You demonstrate why free markets, with transparency and voluntary transaction is what have made this country great.
I’ve noticed more CC posts in the past year or two but, to be honest, they have made up a larger percentage of the attractive offers.
Personally, I read the posts that interest me and skip the ones that don’t. The CC offers don’t bother me in the slightest.
I really don’t understand the need by many to groan about CC referral links and posts about CC use, especially from Gary who seems to have the least focus on these. CC’s are a big aspect of this hobby for many (that is how most of us start getting involved). It is clear that these drive many blogs (in some case almost completely). Why is this always such a surprise or cause for consternation? Do you believe that the news media has no bias? Many people who whine about this topic are hypocrites! We have no qualms about jumping on the latest mistake fare offers or large CC bonuses, but scoff with derision at every opportunity about some bloggers’ CC links, because we are so above that sort of thing. People need to stop telling others how to run their blogs and stop the pretentious morality plays.
Some people say there are “too many travel bloggers”. Since nobody forces me to read anything I don’t cxare how many trhere are. It’s like if I don’t like a TV show I don’t watch it, but I have no interest in taking it off the air (and some people presumably do like it).
I am sure some bloggers wouldn’t be around if there was no money in it. That would be true in just about anything. Why would this be different?
I think when you read people’s blogs you can tell which are heavily affected by the money. In this site there are a few “front page” ads, unlike some others lined with them.
Would we rather the banks keep the money for themselves?
“What would the travel blogosphere look like without credit card referral fees? ”
It will be just like it is right now, just minus the referral.
I’m not a blogger but I’d like to share my info with peers, friends & family, without CC referral links & fees – nuf said.
Thanks for all you do Gary- and don’ t post how much you make per referral link! lol
@Stephan – a BIG +1!!
@Ben the funny thing is that my time is the biggest scarce resource, a European cruise may be free but is it the #1 thing I want to do that week? Probably not. I’m not saying I can’t be bought, just that I’m more expensive than what anyone is offering 😛
@Sean not sure what you’re asking, I don’t receive money from hotels and airlines. I do receive the same elite benefits available to anyone who travels as much as I do. And it’s amazing how hotel properties don’t seem aware (and I don’t tell them) about any social media I do, 98% of the time I don’t think they’re trying to treat me any differently either.
Ignore the naysayers. As long as blogs like yours provide useful information, whether about credit card signups or not, you will have loyal readers. Keep up the good work.
@Ben: Ditto. I couldn’t care less that a blogger makes some money from telling me and others about a good credit card offer. For an infrequent flyer, CC miles and points are the key to travel. One thing I like about Gary is that he is consistent about pointing to better offers even when they don’t generate a referral.
@dave: I think the ranks of bloggers might thin a bit if referral fees weren’t available, but I think you’re basically right. I started a blog (ThePointsNinja) as an easy place to point friends and family to when the ask me about “all that miles stuff.” I’m pretty sure that Lucky, Gary, and some others wouldn’t drop out of sight if the referrals went away.
I think it’s great that bloggers can compensated for what they do. That’s capitalism. I read almost all of the blog posts I read through google reader and only go to the blogs if I want to comment or read comments. So, out of curiosity, am I still contributing to the traffic stats by using google reader?
Gary,
Thanks for all you do. My international premium travel is funded solely from credit card signups. The wife and I just blew 600,000 points on a CX F trip to Bali/BKK. We’ve got a trip to Europe booked for later this year (outbound in SK J, return TK J) and 18 nights in hotels paid for on points. On top of that, I’ve got ~900,000 points left.
So, thanks for all you do. Without the credit card signup bonuses (and your advertising of them) we’d be stuck stateside.
Now I’m curious about the sexually explicit comments that are deleted!
I very much appreciate and enjoy the work you do, Gary.
I guess I just wish you’d be more aggressive about moderating comments that only seem to be complaining about CC affiliate links and saying nothing more than “this blog has gone downhill”. Constructive conversation is good, but there can be a lot of negativity here sometimes, and that’s unfortunate.
I don’t mind seeing credit card referral links on blogs.
I just don’t click thru them unless they’re the best available link, and they’re not pretty much most of the time.
The bloggers get ad revenue from the traffic generated anyway.
@Paul S – I think it’s great when folks subscribe to my feed. But no it doesn’t contribute to ad views, etc. No worries, click on what interests you and I’m not sweating having fewer ad views!
I want to say definitively that I DO care if Gary gets a referral fee, as that is why I choose to click on his links when I get a card!
All of the information you provide, Gary, is fantastic and worth a subscription fee, yet you provide it free of charge. If I can give you the chance for a referral fee the credit card companies would keep anyway (if I went to their site to signup), then all the better for me and the readership!
Think of all the great info and how much it was worth to you in 2012. I can say the information gleaned since last June was worth two bag fees ($50), priority boarding on Thanksgiving flight ($10*3), and in-flight food purchases ($10), free hotel breakfasts ($15*5), room upgrades ($100*5 nights), cash-point discount ($100*3); total $965 saved! A lot? No, but definitely significant! Now for our trip this spring, we have 2 round trip coach tickets ($238*2), one free hotel night ($250); totaling $726 so far.
I’m happy to give a referral fee for this kind of savings! Heck, I’d definitely PAY for this information (Milepoint premium member to prove it).
Thanks for everything, Gary! We owe you a lot more than a referral fee. 🙂
P.S. Please note that of the listed values above, only the airfare in the Spring is miles related ($476 out of $1,691), as the rest is from Category 2: cards you get and keep for the benefits. That breakout and explanation ranks #1 in my opinion, as that’s where my family is in the game.
@Walt K,
Yawn right back at you!
“There haven’t been a lot of new/changed offers out in Jan. 13. When they are there, he alerts his readers to them. When they aren’t, there aren’t as many posts about CCs.”
Got any data to support that speculation vs influenced by the degree of compensation? Chase Sapphire/Ink were mentionde 50-100 times by Gary in 2012. Were there really that many new/changed offered related to these card? No, the benefits were the same througout the year. The spend and amount of bonus was changed a few times. However, getting $150-200 per referal may have been a reason why they were mentioned so many more times (compare how many times Sapphire MC vs Visa were mentioned, true the MC does not seem to be available right now). Fact is that Gary is not allowed to talk about compensation from Chase. Fact is that Chase required bloggers to push their credit cards or they would be dropped (well established by many blogs that got dropped by Chase=now they are allowed to talk). Me thinks that Chase is not incentivising bloggers as well right now (new objectives for the year) and that the recent CC offers are poorer. In short, the BIG gravy train may be over for small to medium sized blogs.