Ben/Jeremy,
I have been reading the blog for almost a decade, but have maybe commented three or four times over that time period. I’m one of those “lurkers.”
Whenever I can, I have applied and will continue to apply for Credit Cards through your links in order to support the blog. I have never, nor will I ever purchase anything through an ad I view on the Internet… so I would love to see those reduced, but also understand they are an important part of monetization.
I am excited at the prospect of purchasing the ability to reduce or eliminate ads. I don’t expect you to change your business/pricing model based on my comment, but just as a point of reference, I will have a bit of a hard time spending $225 per year for the platinum plan. However, I would absolutely pay $10 per month and not think twice about it. I realize the end of the day that’s not a huge difference but $10 per month feels like an afterthought and $225 feels like a bigger lift. At a minimum I’d like to see a monthly subscription model even if the pricing comes in higher than I’d like.
Thank you so much for all of your hard work creating content over the years!
I wish you success.
Writing my comment again because your ad partner just refreshed the ads which kicked me out of the comments section and deleted everything I’d written.
Love the site and didn’t know you could pay to get rid of ads, will be doing that. FWIW - a combo of the number of ads and whoever is serving them essentially grinds my Chrome browser to a halt on both my machines.
We've paused the partner that was causing the ad refreshes in comments. Thanks for reporting.
I've been a loyal reader for years and I want to thank you for the transparency and just generally keeping your readers in the loop. I wouldn't be so quick to discount some sort of paid content. A couple years ago I would have completely rejected the idea of paying for content. But I've now subscribed to multiple paid newsletters and substacks that I think have really interesting content that I can't get anywhere else.
Reasonable changes and I'm excited for the next chapter of OMAAT. I hope it continues not only provide for your family, but live well. Keep it up!
You're super fun to read. Do what you need and I'm happy that I get to check in every day!
I tried subscribing to the newsletter to get the points and I see a little toast message pop up that says 'subscribing' but it doesn't actually catch my subscription and give me the points. any way to update that?
The same thing happened to me until I realised you have to go to your email inbox where it just sent you an email. You then have to click to accept to subscribe. Then the points were added.
This was great feedback. We've added a confirmation screen noting that your email has been logged, that the next step is to check your inbox for a confirmation email, and that you should come back and refresh the screen after you've accepted.
The short term issue is monetizing a product that has a lot of readily accessible, freely available, competition. I am not young but I think the sponsorship issues raised in the Blog are not as significant as you might think. I watch Youtube videos for Apple products and most are sponsored. The Youtuber makes a point of saying the video is sponsored by product x and rambles for a minute or two extolling its virtues. It does not matter how many YouTubers tell me that a particular brand of screen cover is as good as paper. I do not buy the product. If I need paper, I use paper. The YouTube video is not usually about the sponsored product directly. There are also YouTube videos where the YouTuber will provide a detailed breakdown of how they make money and how much they generate from each revenue stream. Monetization of this blog is a short term problem.
The bigger issue for this blog, however, is the long term sustainability/viability of a service/product that is rapidly losing its utility. Miles and Points are becoming harder to use. The cycle of credit card companies, airlines and businesses paying large fees to the credit card companies (in the US and a few other countries) that sustains this miles and points schema is coming under strain as a model. Simply looking at the credit card aspect of the model, while I enjoy being able to book a hotel in Reykjavik in ISK using an American Credit Card issued by a non American bank, the big three credit card companies, Amex, Visa and MasterCard, are waging a multinational war to preserve their monopoly and high profit margins which sustain the transfer of money to airlines to support the miles and points game. Countries like Brazil have already issued their own card. Sovereignty issues, cost, and other factors are eating away at the big three's monopoly. This does not even begin to address the discontent and frustration customers of the Credit Card companies will begin to experience when they start to realize that the 200,000 bonus they got with their shiny new credit card gets them an economy trip on a packed flight within continental USA and not the business class pigs in space trip advertised on the glossy promotion material. Unless there are significant changes, the entire miles and points game may be nearing the end of its cycle. If the miles and points game becomes a fringe hobby, then this blog has bigger issues than monetization.
Woah. You went full-manifesto in the second half: “Amex, Visa and MasterCard, are waging a multinational war to preserve their monopoly and high profit margins which sustain the transfer of money to airlines to support the miles and points game.” WWIII, right there.
And, “the discontent and frustration customers of the Credit Card companies will begin to experience when they start to realize that the 200,000 bonus they got with their shiny new credit card gets them an economy trip on a packed flight within continental USA and not the business class pigs in space trip advertised on the glossy promotion material.” I love me some spiiiicy hot-takes! The Yowzers! button was made for this.
Not to mention that banks in Europe are starting to process cc, competing against Visa/MC. U.S. processor market is finite, not unlimited. When they hit that wall, points and miles may no longer be relevant.
What you offer is something that is extremely hard to find anymore online… authenticity.
The minute you start taking paid sponsorships and promotions one of your brand’s core values gets annihilated.
The younger generation may be numb to paid sponsorships and reviews, but they aren’t your demographic… (dont have the means), so it’s my humble opinion that you keep doing what differentiates you from most everyone else… and that’s offering honest and unbiased opinions about luxury travel and their related programs.
Keep up the good work !!
While I agree with your sentiment, I would hasten to point out that the younger generations are taking over. We, on the other hand, are becoming older. Point of reference, I voted for LBJ while in Nam. They are multiplying, while we are declining ( not me, just you).
(Fair points, AlanZ—and credit to you for surviving that era. Countless people have been helped and saved by those Great Society ideals you voted for back then (Civil Rights, Medicare, Head Start, etc.). Much of that is under attack and being rolled back right now, and most people are deeply unhappy about it, so hopefully this pendulum will swing again soon. No group is a monolith, but rest assured, plenty of younger folks are still carrying the torch and building on the foundations you laid. Sorry to go a little off-topic, but needed to be said.)
Hi Ben
Feel free not to answer if I'm being intrusive, but I'm presuming that one of the key ways you monetize the site is by using it to drive traffic to your husband's travel agency? I was surprised to not see that mentioned above.
I'd got the sense that the site was pivoting more to acting as a feeder for Ford's business from the increased focus on reviews of Four Seasons, Virtuoso, Hyatt Prive, cruises etc. that he speailises in.
Nothing wrong with this, by the way - the site is free to view, so you have to monitize the content somehow. I'd far rather have the relatively subtle promotion of Ford's business that you do, than a bunch of obnoxious sponsored content.
+1. It felt kinda cringey reading about the business model behind the recent cruise reviews. It felt like there should be a disclaimer. Ben pays, Ford earns, Ben highly reviews, Ford gets new bookings. Sorry, my unpopular opinion. I trust Ben, but this doesn't feel right.
The point is that you're fully aware of that relationship when reading the review. Commonly when these relationships exist they are often obscured from the buying public.
I think those of us who've been around for a while understand the Ford TA relationship, but it would be great for Ben to make sure the disclosure is clear each time. Not everyone understands that Ford earns commission from the booking, for example. So it's kind of a "discount" for the Ben & Ford family.
The complaints are all very silly.
It's your product and you are within your rights to determine its monetization or not. While I won't pay, it doesn't mean that someone else won't. I say you do you.
Ben, please keep doing what you’re doing. Evolve the site as you want and need to. I guarantee you everyone who loves your content will keep reading x
One of the changes I dislike is that I can't comment unless I agree to receive your newsletter. If I only want to engage by reading selected articles and the occasional comment shouldn't I be able to do that if I don;t care about engagement status?
If you unclick "I want to stay connected with ..." the post button dims and you can't post. What's up with that?
“Business models have to evolve, or else… wink” *photo of Spirit* Oof. Got’em!
I don’t understand what you are doing after reading this!
It all sounds pretty sensible.
You do you you Ben, you're a good you. Differnt than me--but you. Been reading like since late 90's..
You took more "chances" on scoring points back then. All good. I find your view refreshing
Been a reader for over a decade (but only just recently made an account now that it finally let me!), and seeing this blog evolve over time has been a joy honestly. You've stayed true to yourself while keeping up with the modern trends on how the internet operates. I find these new protocols pretty fair and valid.
If anything.....I just wish I could get a how to on adding you on a preferred source so I can get gold since I have no idea what that means ahaha
Morning, cwestpvb. If you navigate to your member account, under the notifications tab, we've got a button for "Add OMAAT to Google". Just a quick two clicks and the points should post immediately.
https://onemileatatime.com/settings/notifications/
I would say that monetization is always what you should do for a brand. I agree that Ben has made a good reputation of the honest day-by-day thoughts of the travel industry and the way to get those unique travel experiences. This is his secret sauce for this site.
However, we have seen this pivot before....The Points Guy....is now just an AI scraped and really not very deep "news site" now. As a result they really have lost the value of the name.
I fear this will be the way OMAAT will head aswell.....the pivot needs to be the trust of the readership and have them actually pay for the content....and most importantly it needs to be relevant and useful to the reader. Its very much a balance.....
The key of other websites is the removal of ads and other paid sponsored content is for the reader for the relevant stories. However, the concern here is that many posts are promoting paid links and promotional push to a side business as a blog post....you dont see that say in a Wall Street Journal or the sf chron....its pure storied content. Its hard paying to be promoted to....you already get that on social media. They key is to get enough "thorough and useful content" as a result of your paid subscription.....I am not sure where that where be here....but the minimum is to get rid of the posts saying there is a points bonus promo out where there is monetization of the links...that usefulness from the reader is limited.
Thank you thank you thank you for a paid ability to avoid ads! I just don’t have the time to do community engagement but read the site almost daily. Very happy to pay to avoid ads.