Hey, has anyone heard about Alaska launching a new loyalty program? Neither have I. 😉
Yes, I’ve been writing a lot about Atmos Rewards
Yesterday morning, Alaska unveiled its new Atmos Rewards loyalty program, and also revealed changes to its exiting portfolio of co-branded credit cards, plus the introduction of a new premium credit card. I’d say that’s pretty huge news, and yes, I’ve covered it a lot (and I have a lot more to write, but y’all are giving me a hard time, so… I guess I have to control myself?).
I’m used to people disagreeing with me in the comments section, and I appreciate that, and people trying to keep me honest. There are no hard feelings (the “stop being mean to me” in the title is a joke). But given the variety of comments, there are actually a few things I want to explain.
The comments are quite something, like…
“This place is turning into TPG overnight.”
Ouch. That’s soul-crushing.
“Are Alaska spunking their entire 2025 marketing budget on this blog or what?”
If so, you know more than I do!
“6 articles about atmos cards ? really? and we don’t call that clickbait ?”
I don’t think you know what clickbait is…
“As I commented another place, this sadly isn’t sufficient. It takes one report to any EU consumer protection agency and you’ll be apprehended on arrival. You must disclose the nature of this commercial relationship. The EU doesn’t f around with these things. It’s clear there’s an upfront commercial relation here beyond affiliate *or* an enhanced remuneration agreement. This *must* be disclosed.”
Wait, I’m going to be apprehended the next time I enter the European Union, because I wrote about Atmos Rewards? First Egypt, now the European Union?!
“This website is drowning in Atmos stories. Somebody throw a life vest.”
Okay, that’s fair…
Why I’ve written so much about Atmos Rewards
The reason I’m addressing these comments isn’t because I feel the need to defend myself, but because I think it’s actually an interesting opportunity to explain how I go about writing on a day-to-day basis, and why there are sometimes content blitzes like this. I get it, the optics might be strange/not good, but I’m an open book with this stuff…
Contrary to what some people might think, Alaska isn’t paying me a dime. I do have affiliate links for Bank of America credit cards, but that’s the case with most credit cards. I don’t have any sort of quota, and I don’t have any additional marketing agreement. I can write as much as I want, or as little as I want. None of my Atmos Rewards posts have been pre-approved by anyone.
These kinds of content blitzes are probably bad for the blog’s bottom line. I’m a bad marketer. I’d probably get more people to sign up for credit cards if I had one post about this daily for a month, rather than 30 posts about this over the course of a week. So why am I writing so much content in such a short period? It’s a good question, and it comes down to four factors.
First of all, I’m genuinely excited about the Atmos Rewards program, and the new premium credit card. Say what you will, Alaska does an incredible job with loyalty, and there’s a lot to cover. There’s not an airline that “gets” loyalty as much as Alaska does. Just look how well the carrier does financially, and it’s largely because of how good the airline is at engaging its members.
When’s the last time a loyalty program made a major change, and we weren’t like “oh gosh, this absolutely sucks?” It’s rare, right? I don’t just find this interesting at large, but I’m also writing about this so much because I’m thinking of switching from AAdvantage to Atmos Rewards, as this is exactly the kind of (slightly) gamified program that I like.
Second of all, people have a lot of questions about Atmos Rewards. We of course all consume content differently, but when I get the same question over and over, my thought process is “let me address that now,” rather than saying “oh, let me add that to my content schedule for 28 days from now, and then I can answer the question.”
Third of all, my approach to blogging is very organic. I publish an average of around 10 posts a day (often more), and I typically wake up each morning with zero posts ready to go. I write about what I see in the news, what interests me, or what I think is helpful.
At the moment, I’m very interested in the Atmos Rewards program, because there are a lot of things to make sense of and analyze. So I write about one aspect of the changes, and then I think “wait, that other detail is also interesting, so let me cover that.”
Fourth of all, I think many people don’t understand how much work is done on the back-end of blogs, even just to keep content relatively accurate, and not have it be a total mess.
For example, we’ve seen the rebranding of two credit cards, and the introduction of a new premium credit card. Obviously I want to cover the changes to the cards, and that requires updating the review posts that I’ve published of the previous cards in the past.
Like, I’ve written a total of 6,000 words in review posts today, about the three cards (which I haven’t actually published to the front page of the blog), because obviously I want to be able to link people to accurate reviews of cards.
This creates a bit of a cycle. “Well, I updated the review post, but all the links to other Alaska Mileage Plan stuff in the post are outdated or inaccurate, so let me update those as well.” There are so many links to redirect, and other details to update. That’s kind of the process by which a lot of that content is created, because if I think people will find it interesting, I’ll publish it to the front page.
Let me acknowledge that I understand so much content about one topic can be overwhelming. To those who are interested in Atmos Rewards, I’m sure they very much appreciate it. To those who couldn’t care less about it, I’m sorry, because I realize this stuff is super boring.
The reality is that I’ve been writing this blog 365 days per year for over 17 years now. The reason I do this is because I love what I do. The free rein I have to publish what I want when I want is one of the things that keeps me sane. I’m lucky, because I can basically go down rabbit holes about loyalty program and things that interest me, and somehow I make a living doing it.
I totally acknowledge the content mix isn’t ideal some days, and I apologize for that. I should probably maybe limit it to a couple of posts per day, and tell my brain “hey, stop thinking about Atmos!” That would be more aligned with some sort of a sponsored campaign and a strategy to maximize revenue, rather than what I’m doing.
I hope that longtime readers can give me some slack, realizing that they might not love the content some days, but hopefully they do other days. I apologize if there are any stories I failed to publish today about people taking off their clothes or getting into fights at airports, but I assure you there are other sites that can cover that too.
Bottom line
I would’ve rather written another 1,300 words about Atmos Rewards, rather than 1,300 words explaining why I’m writing about Atmos Rewards, but here we are. Just kidding. 😉 In all honesty, to those who don’t care about Atmos Rewards, I’m sorry for the lack of interesting stuff the past two days. For those who do care about Atmos Rewards, you’re welcome.
While criticism for the amount of content about one topic is totally fair, I just want to set the record straight for why it happens. It’s not because I’m being paid under the table to do so, but instead, it’s for several other reasons…
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