Originally Posted by ingy

It was just card churning and burning my own stash and the wife's. We did have the advantage of being able to write off other expenses if we blogged about a trip but nothing really outlandish there either.

In the end bloggers are just like other travel hackers at heart trying to get free miles and points or earn them as cheaply as possible. I was never granted any special favors as a blogger except everybody on a OneWorld MegaDO got some extra EQM's for a flight delay regardless if they blogged on not. My remaining status is lifetime Plat from AA based on earnings primarily before the change to flight miles only and Plat with SPG that will end this year.

My current stash combined with wife's is about 2M with a pile of them earned recently on the Citi Exec card and some UR earned from reselling stuff. I have purchased and shared miles when on bonus promos like the US Airways ones.

Those still active in the blogging game are much younger and still want elite status for future years so are probably buying more tickets with blog income to maintain status and can write some of the expenses off.

I was never offered a big pile of free miles or points by an airline or hotel program, nor bank reward points for pushing credit cards. Since selling the blog IB has reimbursed my coach tickets to LAX and hotels about 4 or 5 times and I got to keep the miles and points. On a recent trip to NYC to have lunch with Chase I stayed at the Waldorf as I wanted Katy to see it and I had to pay the extra cost over a standard NYC hotel room myself. No big deal either way.

From my standpoint I was just in the right place at the right time to catch the affiliate link game and get out before it got nasty and over saturated.

Directly to you point, some blog owners are high income earners that can justify in their own minds, based on current income levels, buying premium class seats. I never could justify the prices charged for premium seats.