I’ve been blogging for over 17 years now, and there’s no denying that the internet has changed a lot in that time period. The reason I’ve been able to ”work” 365 days per year is really because this industry is my hobby and passion, so it never feels like work. But ultimately, this blog is also a business (even though it was never the goal when I started writing it), and the way the internet functions has changed massively over the years.
I am relatively new to these airline blogs, but yours is by far the best from what I can tell. It is also obvious that you care about your customers and the quality of the product. Best of luck.
@ rebel -- Thank you, and also thank you for keeping a certain someone slightly honest. 😉
I'm not the target audience for this site in the sense I don't fly a lot, but when I do I fly economy; I don't have any real points or mileage etc. I just stumbled upon this site once a few years back doing web-surfing and loved your detailed reports, pictures, etc of all the random places you've been and airlines you've flown, on top of your industry commentary/news. Guess I'm just trying to say thank you for running a good, fun, clean site and your honesty on matters like this.
I don't necessarily think it's true, but given that you largely these days review luxury and uber luxury products, it feels like you must be making bank from this platform in order to pay for those experiences.
@ nobody -- I hear you, and that's a fair assumption to make.
First of all, I certainly do pretty well, and also keep in mind that I've been working for around two decades (longer than my age suggests), so I've saved up a fair bit over the years. Having two kids definitely does cut into the "margins" there, though, I'll say that. :p
As far as the topic of luxury travel goes, that's a combination of a couple of things. Yes, I fly a lot of premium cabins, but that's booked almost entirely with points. When it comes to luxury hotels, you're right, that has also evolved a lot over the years. Those stays are mostly paid for through Ford and his business, because I do provide a fair bit of "advertising" there.
Honestly, in a way it's just an evolution of the business model as well, though I do think it reflects a bigger change in the hotel industry, along with points redemptions values at so many hotels getting worse:
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/hotel-industry-evolved-preferences/
@Lucky, thanks for this thoughtful post. It seems like you're trying to balance everything (profitability, independence, traffic, etc.) without alienating long-time readers.
Personally, the changes have made me log in and stay logged in. Previously, I'd browse as a guest, but the ads were becoming annoying. It does seem to have made me more engaged, too, so I guess it's working? :-p
Hope you can eventually find the right mix and balance while keeping the essence of your site. As for the sponsored content, please try to avoid it as much as possible; every time I see "this video is sponsored by...," I immediately skip. Regardless of the message, I question the content/credibility, even if they say, "these are my own opinions, blah blah blah."
@ Tennen -- Hey, I appreciate the feedback, and always grateful for you keeping me honest, whether you agree or disagree. Happy to hear the new system is "working" on someone. :p
Massive fan of the blog and the content you produce overall. There's a reason I constantly come back and want to keep doing that. Making money from this is absolutely fine - you more than deserve it, get rich from it! Just please just stop bricking the site performance to do it. I honestly think you'll end up worse off for doing so.
@ Joe -- Jeremy has been working on improving the site performance in so many ways. I realize some people may not realize it, but the number of glitches he has fixed in the past few weeks is more than the number we fixed in the decade prior. If you do have any specific issues or feedback on site performance, please do share them with Jeremy.
I think you're giving way too much credit to Jeremy... seems things have gotten worse since he came along. In fact, you could monetize the blog by firing Jeremy and then you'd instantly save whatever you are paying him.
@ Tim Steinkey -- Hey, I respect your take, but that's not happening. But maybe we can work on solving some of the issues you have, with perceiving the site getting worse? Could you share what you think has gotten worse?
That’s a lot of words for describing the enshitification of the site. I might pay if you had blocking or a Timmy-free version.
@ Jack -- I believe Tim is boycotting the site or something, because he hasn't commented in 13 days. Do you want to send me a check, or just send over your credit card details? :p
Ben, one thing that has always made OMAAT standout (besides the incredible reviews) is your transparency. At the end of the day, it's your blog and you don't need to explain anything to anyone. However, it is much appreciated and look, some people are always going to complain no matter what it is. The updates so far have been great and as long as you keep putting out reviews, we will be reading.
@ pstm91 -- Thank you for reading, and also for your great contributions, especially on luxury travel topics! 🙂
You don’t need to justify the changes but I understand the motivation, when I first started following you went on wild trips, many airlines and hotels both 3 and ultra luxury. Then the family dynamic crept in and of course your priorities change and with that the reviews are very much at the upper luxury end of the industry and honestly as a business traveller I don’t get to experience these everyday but are for special occasions. Then AI came along and changed everything, I’ve been offered early retirement and your similar situation is that AI makes finding information so much easier and with personal AI agents now it’s a game changer. Bottom line you had to diversify in order to maintain the status quo and yes you will see some change in the audience demographic as you change, your doing what a good responsible business owner needs to do.
Lucky, been reading for a long time but primarily thru a RSS reader like Feedly. I don’t think I am missing out on stuff vs going to the website and not sure how the changes will impact RSS but happy to hear more about it.
Good point. I have been following Ben from the start and have found value in his reviews as well as finding much of his take on things to be entertaining. However I rarely go to the site and comment only when I think I have particular relevant experience and expertise. In the past I have supported the site by applying for credit cards using his affilate links, but I am quite conservative in that regard and my credit card ownership hasn't changed in a number of years, having long ago found what works best for me. Many years back, while commenting on Ben's writing style, (and having had hands on experience with online media, I asked been what he would do when due to structural changes, his business model could no longer adopt to reality and suggested he get an MBA to improve his business skills and prepare to work in the industry, perhaps for an airline. I appreciate the fact that there are people who just don't fit into a corporate culture, but a successful business career reqquires beng able to adopt rapidly and get ahead of the curve. Frankly I have absolutely no interest in achieving ant kind of status on ben's website, so the current changes are not at all relevant to me (and am pessamistic as outlined today they will be successful in generating the incremental revenue he expects). And as to Ben's competition, I have to add that I find The Points Guy (post sale) to be a great value (indeed intentionally or not, much of its industry news is duplicated by Ben). I understand and can tolerate Ben's more recent efforts to increase revenue, including promotion of booking travel through Ford, but if I could no longer follow the RSS feed I would miss Ben's personna, but would find that The Points Guy more than fulfills one's knowledge as the industry has changed.
Thanks for sharing an update on this Lucky.
Everything you said in the post made sense to me, so I am totally supporting your blog's recent changes!
Keep doing the good stuff. 🙂
“Then you have other sites just switching to pure clickbait garbage, since at least that generates page views, which generates revenue”
You could have at least included a hyperlink to View from the Wing here!!
My view is you're not monetizing enough. If folks can watch a youtube channel like LA Flights and sit there watching plane spotting and making relatively large donations for their comment to be read out "on the air" to the 2,000 people watching at any given time, I see no reason why you cannot have a nice prominent "tip jar".
Just put in a slogan at the top so the folks that didn't read to paragraph 14 or whatever of this article get the message: OMAAT is [always] free to read. User engagement or [$50] unlocks an ad-free experience!"
@ Peter_ -- Hah... thank you for the idea! We will definitely get better about communicating this.
Tryin' new things can also be fun... If you haven't seen 'em yet, gotta say, Matthew's (LALF) 'Minute Review' recaps, his new segments (on YouTube), are pretty good... he also had a YouTube 'Short' on his 'visit' to LH a340 unique downstairs lav... (peak av-geek content). Bah!
These posts haven’t been the easiest to digest, especially if you’re just skimming through. I didn’t even realize I’d get less ads when signing in; I only sign in when I want to comment and not when just reading articles (the latter being most the time). These aren’t the exciting posts most of us come here for so I wouldn’t be surprised if I other aren’t reading them or fully taking the time to understand them.
Maybe it’s the consult in me but would be nice to just have a simple one page diagram that explains these changes. Similar to how airlines show earning status and the different benefits.
A quick link to that at the top of each article, and further links there with additional info, may be an easier approach
@ Alec -- Thanks for the feedback on how we're communicating the changes. Given that we've been implementing multiple changes in quick succession (just so we don't do too much at once and have something break), I think we're still trying to figure out the best way to communicate all of these things.
If you go to the top of the site and click on "Community" and then "Membership & Status," you'll see most of the new program explained. We'll probably try to link something in posts for some amount of time, as you suggest, but we also don't want to be annoying. So thank you for the thoughts!
These "TED talk" posts are the ones I read slowly, savoring every single line. Whereas if it's a review of a cruise ship in the tens of thousands of USD, I'd probably inspect the food pictures and wait for the next post. Of course, I'm not in the target demographic for said cruise ships.
However, I do believe that long(ish)-form reading (because none of Ben's posts is actually long) is becoming more and more of a dark art for lots of people, as casual readers seem to only feel comfortable with bullet point lists. The idea of reading a whole paragraph or a small number of pages seems to have turned into an anxiety trigger for many, imo.
As much as I personally dislike pre-digested elements, such as diagrams or one-liners, I do think they have an audience that only seems to grow larger as time goes on (and this does not even consider video, short-form video, etc., which deserves its own discussion).
Anyways, looking forward to the new OMAAT with diagrams and one-liners... (sigh)
@ hbilbao -- Honestly, that's a great point, and I perceive a similar trend. Admittedly I'm a bit too wordy, but it almost feels like everything over 300 words is wasted, because people just don't have the attention span...
I feel ya, @Ben. We'll now just have to wait until people start losing their attention span for bullet point lists, diagrams, and one-liners (I've already met people like that). Sigh!
Here's the thing, I am very appreciative that we currently experience an OMAAT community that goes beyond short, stubby, brief points. It's especially ironic considering that, 300 years old, your average student would learn English, French, Greek, and Latin, and now, people don't even try to read a proper article. So yes, it's awesome to have a more in-depth, thought-out system like OMAAT, and I hope it continues to endure.
i was very touched to read that! !!
Loooong time reader, and I truly appreciate the perspective, next time changes are made like this it might not hurt to lead with this article rather than dive into the details
Hi Ben, thanks for sharing your perspective on this. Bit of a stretch idea, but have you considered doing "edutainment" video reviews for flights and hotels, where the content is partly footage of the review itself, and partly a discussion on the history, background, airline economics, etc. of the product you're reviewing? (I'm thinking of the channel FlightFormula on YT, I think he's great)
I think that this would make for some popular content, especially given your readership.
@ brewing_altitude -- Appreciate the idea! We'll be launching a video concept very soon. While it won't initially be what you're suggesting, that's a great idea, and maybe something we can expand into. Thanks.
What if we were already subscribed to daily emails? Is there a way to get the "points" without opting in? (Opting out and back in doesn't look like it triggers).
I agree with all the changes. In a world where tech (AI) and consumer habits are changing rapidly everyone, even the big companies have to think like start ups. Innovate, change, or... Not good.
As long as the email you're subscribed with is the same as the email on your account, it'll get picked up, and you'll be awarded the points. I confirmed that's the case for you. If you load the notifications tab now, you should see your points (as should anyone else).
Maybe it's because I'm in your generation, but I've come to abhor the way that online media is turning into all sponsored content and ulterior motives. I've been a long time reader (mostly lurking) and have appreciated how balanced your viewpoints are. It's such a shame that the modern creator economy doesn't reward content that's impartial and nuanced, so if this is what you need to do to pay the bills, I'm here for it.
@ happy_mango -- Hey, thanks for the kind words, and we feel exactly the same way. Honestly, trying to make a living online is incredibly frustrating nowadays if you actually value the quality of what you produce, want to be ethical, and aren't just a full-time salesperson.
Sadly, nowadays even scientists have become full-time salespeople. You just have to read a grant application and you'll see... :'(
I just wanted to say keep up the amazing work. Your blog truly is outstanding. And thanks for sharing 🙂
Absolutely 100%! We support you all the way, and hope to see OMAAT doing well in another 20 years!