A whole thread on Flyertalk about my blog. I guess I have made the big time.

The addition of airfare deals was motivated by a need for more page views for Loyalty Traveler blog. Ad revenue has dropped by more than 50% in the past two years, meaning 100,000 page views pays me less than half what I used to get. I can't publish two blog posts per day anymore and make enough ad revenue to stay afloat.

I'll probably start affiliate links this year too for hotel bookings.

Too many bloggers are writing in the hotel space these days to allow me to post content in the hotel space that is uniquely different enough from stuff readers see on other blogs. BoardingArea has become the 800-blog gorilla crowding me out.

I'd love to only write about places to go, but those stories do not generate enough interest to pay a living wage. I started blogging as a lifestyle job, so I can work from home and organize my days the way I want to live my days. For eight years, I have been sustaining my self-employment without the need to sell readers anything from affiliate links.

I'm not competing with The Flight Deal. There are frequently California routes on The Flight Deal, but I find there are many other routes too that do not get mentioned. As a California based person, I figured I can toss out some of the low fare deals I find with a California and west coast airports focus.

I hope readers don't think these are ordinary fares. Airfares are wave sets with peaks and troughs. I try to point out routes when they are in the trough price zone. I am not looking for mistake fares. I simply keep track of the trends to be more informed myself and help readers recognize deals in the limited window of purchase opportunity fares exist. San Francisco to Cape Town at $890 on British Airways may not seem like a deal until you find you want to go to South Africa and the fare is $1,500. Paris at $1,200 round trip is an ordinary fare. I want readers to know that $620 to Gothenberg, Sweden and a $70 RyanAir round trip ticket will get you to Paris for $700.

Airfarewatchdog.com is a great list of low airfare, but there are so many cities that their list of airfare is overwhelming.

The Flight Deal publishes airfare deals, but pretty random selection of cities.

My primary focus is California fares to other places, followed by west coast fares and other deals are mentioned when something looks good to me.