bthotugigem05

I'm thankful to have a full-time job that I love and a blog network that doesn't force me to only write about the points and miles aspect of travel. It's given me the freedom to focus more on photography, which I feel is a strength of mine, instead of using card approvals as a source of income on which I depend.

I don't blog as much as I should, which is the reason I could never do credit card affiliate links. Also, there was a long period in my life where credit card debt was out of control and it took me years to climb back from it, and I wouldn't want to be the (however well-intentioned and caveated) vehicle for someone to fall into the same thing.

As far as doing the same thing as other bloggers, whenever there is news that affects my readers I want to share it with them, although I am certain many of my readers follow other BoardingArea bloggers. There are many that do not follow other bloggers so I'm at least decently sure my voice could be the only one they hear from about certain topics.

I review products when I fly them and try to make at least the photography better than the others I see out there. Inevitably I cover the same products as many others because I'm oneworld loyal, as are many of the titans in the space, but I try to differentiate by not covering every detail of the experience (I usually don't take pictures of menus, for example) but picking out certain elements of the experience and spending quite a long time on my photos to show them not only how it looked but give them insight into how it felt.

Given all the above though, the posts where I try to be different and sometimes contrarian don't get many pageviews. To date the posts that have the highest residual viewership are trip reports of the same flights that have been covered by 50+ other bloggers.

Anyways, my two cents. I think I basically said the same thing further up the thread but thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to say it again.

notquiteaff

So looking at the number of hits for each of the blog posts on the IF site (which the site conveniently displays), I can't imagine that it's financially viable. There are only four that have surpassed the 1000 views mark. Apparently the audience interested in learning how to cook in your hotel room is pretty limited. How is Emirates getting their money's worth for sponsoring the site?

And the forums (milepoint 2.0)? Less traffic than Milepoint before the rebranding, as far as I can tell.

nsx

I guess we know why there was no Milepoint Premium offer for 2015: the partners didn't see enough promotional value in giving away their points or status cheaply.

TheTakeOffRush

That's the blogging spirit!