josephstern

Understood, but both should also be true of the other blogs, so for purpose of comparison to other blogs, I think the numbers are useful.

I'd really like to know how much you (and everyone else, of course) get per sign up. My hunch is that it's pretty near $300. But I understand if you'd rather not disclose the number.

ctownflyer

I don't know of any other blogs that have a dedicated forum, let alone one with hundreds of thousands of postings, like the DansDeals Forums. So I do think it is an unfair comparison. Please CMIIW.

Some cards pay $40, some pay $300, Sapphire is neither the highest paying nor lowest paying card out there, it's in the middle. Very few cards pay $300, most are much less.
I was once offered $500 per approval to promote the Visa Black card, but I told them to jump in a lake...hey, even I have standards
Freedom does pay less than Sapphire Preferred, and I personally think it's the most underrated (and underblogged) card out there if you can open a Chase checking account. See the posts on my site that I linked to before for the proof.

amolkold

To be fair, I was talking about the other travel bloggers. I don't subscribe to your site and have visited it only once before (and was turned off by the sheer amount of advertising). Glad you have a following but it's not for me. That said, one of those posts you linked to was very informative and well-explained compared to the other bloggers, but it's things I already knew

ctownflyer

No worries mate. There's a plethora of bloggers out there that folks can choose to read or choose to ignore. It's the people that spout hate/anger in these types of threads that throws me off.

GuyverII

My go-to blog is Gary's VFTW; he writes well and I love his trip reports, especially the pictures of all the strange food he eats. He is one of the few people on this board I would like to meet in person, if only to shake his hand and thank him for all he's done for me.

I used to view FTG daily until his posts turned into showing off, so I haven't been there in, oh, over a year.

chff

I like upgrd.com

onesweetworld

MillionMileSecrets.com

josephstern

Weird. Check this out.

Here's a decent post about dealing with credit cards, that specifically mentions the Chase Sapphire, on a site that gets advertising for credit card signups.

And there are no affiliate links in the blog post!

I can't say it's super-informative to me, but it's fine, and there might be knowledge there for some. But I'm floored that he has no affiliate links, and I hope others follow his lead!

http://hackmytrip.com/2012/03/23/kee...e-credit-cards

EliteLAX

That blog is written by a very active member of MP.

josephstern

I'm definitely a fan of MP myself, and maybe this makes me more so.

Scottrick

Thank you for the compliment. While I'm not on FT as often, I do try to pay attention.

At this time I have no affiliate links. Heck, I don't even charge for award travel advice (because I admit I am still not an expert in that area). All the links I provide are either (1) the bank website, (2) other bloggers whom I try to credit. I use Million Mile Secrets a lot because I think his blog is most complete and least pushy when it comes to credit cards.

However... I might include affiliate links in the future. I want to make sure it doesn't become a negative influence. If I do so, I will probably put them all on a separate page and tell you to go look there if you're interested; no affiliate links on the blog posts themselves. The CC ads you see on the side are from BoardingArea, not mine. I have an ad there for Hipmunk because I think they're cool, but I don't get paid for it.

As for how informative it is, credit cards don't really interest me much. I have another page on recommended cards that I wrote long ago. I'll update the information eventually when I can't think of anything else to write about. So yeah, I'm different.

x712xdamx

(bolding mine).
I've been in the credit card game for a couple years now, and those kinds of numbers and experience are extremely impressive! I may not be a personal fan of the layout of your site, but I've been impressed more than a couple times at the content in some of your posts about utilizing certain transfers, the difference when the Avios program changed, LAN vs Avios, and all of your info on Israel and the benefits on cards from Amex, etc..
I haven't seen any blogger post with the detail or experience that you do sometimes. I can tell just by reading that you have a LOT of experience over a lot of the more popular bloggers, and even myself, since I have a site - www.travelandcredit.com
I scroll through your page and occasionally find cool sales on normal shopping sites that travel blogs don't cover, and occasionally am floored by your credit card knowledge.

Seriously - 300 credit cards?! FTG talks about 90 ish for himself, and even that is pretty awesome. That picture you posted of your credit card piles on your computer desk (assuming they were yours) with the booklets overflowing with AA cards was probably the craziest miles/credit picture I've seen alongside of pictures from the Mint deal the last couple years. cough mrpickles


That said, your site has a ton of ads, and apparently a lot of FT users hate ads. This is also a public message board, so opinions reign supreme, so take the hate with a grain of salt and keep creating good content and conquering the CC companies! I saw your last post said you had 10 open Chase cards - unheard of!

pgary

Your fantasies exceed any possibility of reality.

josephstern

My "fantasies" seemed to be basically confirmed by another blogger. At least, that's how I interpreted his response.

ma91pmh

Me too

And to the point of disclosure, I'd actually be somewhat more comfortable if it were disclosed how much. At least then you'd know exactly how much bias there is in the "advice" being doled out