lcohen999

Isn't this blog owned by Aimia ?

Guava

Employed may be inaccurate since bloggers are generally entrepreneurs who don't typically do the work pro bono. Without knowing how the said blogger is remunerated or his/her relationship to Aimia, one has to take such "blog" with a grain of salt.

robsaw

The loyaltymatters isn't a blog, it is referring to an article on the actual blog here:

http://canadiankilometers.boardingar...eroplan-miles/

I also note this from the blog "You shouldn’t be hoarding points right now, but as long as you can spend down your balance between 2019 and 2020, you’ll be fine"

Adam Smith

Yes, that kind of nuance was left out of the Aimia post. I think the Aimia folks assume the vast majority of people who read their post won't go read the Canadian Kilometres blog and will therefore never notice Aimia's hyper-positive spin.

yerffej201

I'm the blogger here. I wasn't paid anything.

No, my site is not owned by Aimia.

Guava

No one said your site is owned by Aimia. lcohen999 was referring to the site: Loyalty Matters, operated by Aimia. It's just that your site can't survive without revenue so forgive some of us for being somewhat skeptical when you said you aren't being paid. It is unclear how your site generates revenue. Also, here are the screenshots I took from your site:








I count at least 3 different Aeroplan related advertisements on one single page. Presumably, if your site has Aeroplan ads, among others, then it would be best that you put up a disclosure explaining the nature of the commercial relationships even if Aimia does not pay you directly.

Flyertalk tends to be frequented by frequent travellers who are more likely to be professionals from all walks of life. And for many of us, if we don't disclose potential conflict of interest, it's either illegal, unethical or a violation of the professional code we adhere to. In all cases, a potentially serious faux pas to make - not saying that's your case, just trying to make you understand why many people here are drilling on this point. So please don't mistake us as trying to nitpick on you. I can speak for myself - I am not. I always checked the sources when I read something, it's becoming a habit if not to assess the credibility of the author, then to see how the facts were obtained or how the claims were being supported. It's called due diligence. In this case, there is an immediate and major red flag when a site run by Aimia is deliberately quoting you and directing traffic to your site.

yerffej201

I don't select nor run those banner ads. BoardingArea (the aggregator that I write at) does. From my understanding, those banner ads are part of a group buy that's handled by the advertising team at BoardingArea, and generally there isn't a breakdown of what companies are in there other than the generic "travel" or "credit card" category. I don't even know even know if that's true, because I have no relationship to these ads other than the fact I know it's related to my content, and yes, I do earn revenue from that. . But it's a little hard to me to disclose that when I don't even know how, what, or when those banner ads run, especially when they aren't organized by me.

It's like saying I'm also getting compensated by BMO and RBC and TD and Scotiabank, because I've seen those banner ads run on my site. Your screenshot is actually the first time I've seen an Aimia ad on my site.

Guava

I understand what you are saying and have no doubt you are telling the truth. In such a case, you can write a general disclosure explaining your site receives ad revenue, which may include travel providers that you write about or seek to do business with. You can refer to some existing examples of general disclosures from other travel bloggers. The point is to disclose any conflict so that your readers can properly assess the reliability and impartiality of your opinion. Even just the perception of conflict needs to be managed. Just about everyone on FT knows travel bloggers seek to do business with the very same entities they write about, that's why these bloggers are sometimes being called with some rather unflattering expressions which I won't repeat here. So they have developed a habit of writing disclosures and give credits to where they obtain the information.

Try see it from the perspective of informed readers - someone posted that Loyalty Matters (run by Aimia) is directing people's attention to an article quoting your blog. Naturally, people are likely going to be drawn to your site after reading Loyalty Matters, thus upping your site traffic, as a result of what Aimia has done. Why would Aimia be deliberately pushing traffic to your site? That action on itself raises a question. As expected, because you have an opinion that is quite contrary to the general consensus in this thread. Then we go to your site, there is no disclosure of any kind. That's the first thing I look for when being re-directed to another site, especially one ran by the FFP itself (Loyalty Matters). The absence of the disclosure stopped me cold, I didn't read your blog. I deemed it too suspicious to worth my time. Again, I am speaking for myself. Rules surrounding ethics can get very complicated fast. I am glad you posted here to clarify the situation.

InTheAirGuy

As in: "My site receives revenue from banner ads placed on the site by xxx, a service partner to xzy-board. Such banner ads may, from time to time, include those from companies about which this board writes, particularly as advertising algorithms seek to optimize ad placement to similar online content." etc etc

----

"I don't select nor run those banner ads. BoardingArea (the aggregator that I write at) does. From my understanding, those banner ads are part of a group buy that's handled by the advertising team at BoardingArea..."

This also seems in line with the apologists over in the Nashville-AC-didnt' show up thread. "Its' not me, its my partners" isn't really an excuse....

canadiancow

For the record, I agree with Jeff's opinion in that article.

If AC were to run the same EYW contest as last year (i.e. same rules/prizes), I'd go get another million.

I can spend my miles.

Just be mindful of 2020.

StuckInYYZ

Not to be critical, but if you look at some of the other blogs hosted by BoardingArea, you'll see many of the more popular ones have disclaimers on them at the beginning of each post (eg, viewfromthewing or one mile at a time as examples).

We're not saying you're doing anything wrong, but it prevents accusations (for the most part) on your posts.

24left

His blog has disclaimers - at the bottom. Is this what you mean?

.

StuckInYYZ

Doh! Didn't scroll to the very bottom. Generally don't as usually it's usually full of related advertising which I really dislike. That said, most of the other big posters usually put those disclaimers at the very beginning. Not that he has to, but might as well be up front about it. Kinda like the small print or foot notes in the old days.

(my original comment still stands...should have mentioned the large possibility of a devaluation coming...)

lcohen999

But you are *far* from the average

So as an SE with time to travel, you fall into the 1%'s 1%

canadiancow

But I'd argue that someone who only collections a few tens of thousand per year has an even easier time.

I'm sitting just under 900k. I'm tempted to go get another million. It's MUCH harder for me to use that many in under 3 years than it would be for my dad, who has maybe 75k and a credit card, to continue collecting and use them all.