First, thank you Mommy Points for participating here!

>>>>>>>WideOpenSpaces: we (InACents) were batting better than .500 per month to the mystery quota (which I didn't even know about till after the fact, and that was with very, very minimal even mentioning of credit cards on our site).

Thanks to you too! Thinking out loud...What I don't quite understand is how BA bloggers who do not push this stuff (recently Rapid Travel Chai and Frequently Flying joined the party) can maintain said quota!! This is why I thought it was a pretty good guess that BA must have a Grand total umbrella type arrangement with the affiliate companies. Which then leads me to ask you if there was something else that was the cause for the separation? These banks can get touchy with certain words (Hack, sh*t, etc.)? Probably not...But not knowing what the quota is must be so frustrating. All this non transparency is just not very consumer friendly:D How can you then compare the quality of the affiliate companies and evaluate which one you are going to go into bed with??

This is a fascinating topic@:-)

You forgot Milepoint:rolleyes:

:DYou think I forgot? I will reiterate, the guy that created FT and BA is smart :D

I can not 100% speak for BA, as we are not affiliated, so please understand I am speaking as an outsider to their arrangements from what I have read. I haven't been able to track down where, but I read a response from Randy a while back that the BA affiliate ads are totally separate than those of their bloggers. So therefore, any quotas (if any) are separate and unrelated between BA and it's bloggers. Their bloggers are free to do what they want with affiliate companies.

There COULD also be totally separate sets of rules, especially when dealing with a large conglomerate like BA. Meaning, they have really high traffic volumes, which could let any quotas slide. That is also why some new BA bloggers get approved for affiliates right out-of-the-box.

Keep in mind, once approved as an affiliate, there is also a trial period of unsaid time, at least in our experience. Chase, for example, gave us 4 months to meet said unspecified quota. Apparently, our affiliate company knew all of this too, and in the midst of a transition between representatives, it never got mentioned.

As we eluded in our article, even if we had known their was a quota, we would not push, push, push links just for the sake of our site and audience. Almost all of our traffic is from travel topics outside credit cards. It's not how we set out to do things, but other bloggers may and are free to do so. We still have an affiliation for AMEX, for example, and are not even close to their supposed quota, and are in no rush to sell ourselves out to do so. It just depends how each site wants to run their business.

To answer your other question about whether it was something we said, we are a family-friendly site (other than any frustrations in our dropping Chase post), and the specific reasoning left in our termination notice was "Merchant declined due to low volume." If it had been any other reason, I would think it would have said so.

Bless you for that. You are one of only a few who think like this it seems.

Anyways, my question for you is since you have already been given the boot by Chase, would you mind sharing the various CC affiliate payouts for the various Chase cards as many of us here are very curious to know that info?

I respectfully have to decline out of respect for my fellow travel bloggers and relationships we still have outstanding. Also know that the payouts greatly vary by affiliate company (depending on how much they want to keep for themselves), and can even vary between bloggers. If a CC wants to pump out more of a certain card, they will increase the payout to encourage more promotion. I dare even say, we as bloggers, have control to encourage our affiliate companies to increase payouts for certain cards if we choose.

As I grow more and more familiar with WordPress, I have been analyzing some current blogs including those on BA. There is some kind of uniformity in the layout, they all have the same theme with a customized banner in the header. They all have the same Google Ads (currently everyone has "Jet Ease" in the sidebar and one place mid-blog). I am going to take a guess that the owner of BA gets this revenue in exchange for promoting the blog on BA. They all have what appears to be a customized widget with links to the top 15 BA blogs. Some have added a separate widget with other links of their choice.

A non BA blog such as MMS has a double sidebar set up with affiliate ads down both sides and one Chase ad in the header. As I scroll down the home page, there are far more credit card posts than travel posts but I do have to give props for the wedding pic on the Thanksgiving post. I'm a big fan of Indian clothes and bought a few sarees myself when I was there last year. I do find the double sidebar layout to be a bit busy for my tastes, I like the single sidebar layout.

I can see one possibility for us smaller bloggers. The SPG card does give ANYONE 5000 points when they refer anyone to the card. No quotas. The offer appears to be the same for everyone - currently 25,000 bonus with $5000 spend. I'll get one in a couple months when I have expenses that will meet the spend.

I am also looking at Amazon affilates. Birding guidebooks fit nicely with my blog and I think I could sell those once I build up the readership. Does anyone have them and do they have quotas?

I don't know whether I should join CJ now or wait until I have more page views? If certain affiliates want a minimum page view, how do you prove this? Screenshots of Awstats? :confused:

And if anyone knows a good spamblocker that doesn't block humans can you please post it here? I had one that appeared to be the most popular one and set it to the defaults they recommended (no pingbacks, html, etc) and one of my friends on Facebook messaged me and said she tried to comment but got a "fatal error". She was especially freaked out considering the title of the post!

From buildoffers (I am not an affiliate):
80 for Slate
120 for Sapphire
120+ for SP?

Good luck?

50k bonus for Sapphire Preferred
 

Earn 50,000 bonus points with Chase Sapphire Preferred. Learn more at [redacted]

How to overcome the 10 person credit card referral barrier
 

how does one overcome the 10 person credit card referral limitation? I was thinking of referring some friends and relatives to credit card programs via email and hopefully get some flight points in the process. Any suggestions?

Come up with better expectations.

The affiliate management companies have to monitor the sites that offer links for compliance with various rules. They don't want to waste time monitoring sites that don't perform.

That said, if you just want points rather than cash there are some "refer-a-friend" options for various cards.