The (Honest) State Of Travel & Points Blogging

I’ve been blogging full time for over 17 years. A lot has changed in the travel & points blogging landscape in that time, between the increasing popularity of the points hobby, the way that media consumption has changed, and more. I thought this would be an interesting time to reflect on the overall state of this “industry,” if you will.

I imagine some bloggers will have similar takes, while others will have different takes, and I of course welcome their thoughts as well. Part of the purpose of this post is to explain the overall content mix you may find on the blogs that you frequent.

Some background on how OMAAT started

For some background, I started this blog as a hobby while in college, and for a long time I didn’t make any money on it. I never planned on making it a career, and for that matter, I’ve never really had a business plan for the blog, and have never had any desire to sell the site (which, it’s weird to me that selling a blog is even a thing, but…).

The travel & points industry is my passion, plain and simple, and I wake up every day looking to this as an escape. While I’m fortunate that this is also my career, the reality is that my day-to-day really isn’t very commercially focused. When “working,” I spend 95% of my time actually working on content, rather than being focused on the business side of things.

The reason I can write this blog every single day of my life and be happy with it is because it’s my passion and not my job. With that out of the way…

The complicated travel & points blog landscape

Back when I started blogging over 17 years ago, this wasn’t a very crowded space. There were very few blogs, and even fewer blogs from back then that are still around nowadays. Over the years, a countless number of independent blogs popped up, and that’s fantastic.

Some didn’t last for long (not realizing it takes a lot of work and consistent effort to be successful), while others are still around today, typically because they have persistence and a unique angle. I’m very supportive of anyone who wants to try their hand at blogging.

However, there’s no denying that this space has become much more challenging over the years for just about everyone, due to a variety of factors:

• As anyone who publishes content online can attest to, search traffic has decreased greatly, due to Google’s AI Mode (and other similar features), which summarizes answers to questions, rather than linking to actual content
• The way that people consume media has evolved, especially with younger generations getting news via short form video on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, etc.; I’m actually going to talk about this in more detail in a separate post, because there are some concepts I’m exploring, and that I’d like feedback on
• We’ve seen multiple travel blogs sold, including to huge media companies, venture capital companies, etc.; there’s nothing wrong with that, but their goals are almost always focused around revenue rather than profit, meaning they might spend millions per year buying online ads
• We’ve seen mainstream media news sites get into the travel story and credit card rewards space, as this just has much broader appeal than it used to
• We’ve seen all kinds of sites pop up that are so clearly exclusively about SEO

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with any of the above concepts. My point is simply to say that this space is a lot more challenging than it was a long time ago. Just as the miles & points space has changed a lot over the years, so has the blogging industry.

I think it’s also why we’ve increasingly seen some sites change how they’re monetized. We’re increasingly seeing sites either offer a membership where content is behind a paywall, or introduce other paid services to generate revenue.

Why travel & points blogs have the content that they do

Let me be brutally transparent here. I’m sure this is something that other bloggers can relate to, and it might explain the overall mix of content you see on points & travel blogs.

If you look at the comments section of blogs, you’ll see comments along the lines of “this isn’t the content I come here for,” no matter what the topic is. That’s totally fair, because after all, everyone is looking for different content. But I think it’s important to understand and consider how people make a living.

For example, my absolute favorite kind of content is airline and hotel reviews, because that’s what I’m most passionate about. I think what most people don’t realize is that those reviews don’t directly pay the bills. They’re hard to monetize, they’re a massive investment in terms of time (traveling and writing) and money (travel typically isn’t free!), and they don’t get nearly as much traffic as some other types of posts. So where’s the value in them?

• Many of us are huge huge airline and hotel product geeks, and find writing these reviews to be enjoyable, regardless of whether or not the math works out; you don’t understand how giddy I get when I get to fly a new airline, no matter how bad it may be
• Many bloggers realize how much readers enjoy trip reports, and view it as an overall good investment in getting people to read and support the blog
• It’s useful to be well versed in what airlines and hotels are offering; after all, that knowledge is what sets peoples’ insights apart

Beyond trip reports, you have what you might consider to be “monetized” posts, about products. There’s money to be made there, but it’s probably not as lucrative as you’d think, or at least it takes a lot more effort than you’d expect.

Like I mentioned above, it’s hard to compete on SEO with major news sites, and you have other sites spending endless money on ads related to these products. As far as a readership base goes, well, if you’ve written about a product often enough, odds are that they already have it.

This gets at my above point about trip reports. You hope that people enjoy some content on a blog, and will then support you the next time they want to pick up one of these products, or just keep reading in general.

Then you have what some people consider to be clickbait stories. There are some blogs that almost exclusively post these, and they come in varying forms. There are a few things to understand about those:

• These can get an absolutely unbelievable amount of traffic, especially for smaller sites, that don’t have a very high base level of traffic; these kinds of posts can easily get exponentially more traffic than your typical post
• These really aren’t intended for the actual audience of a blog, because these are all about generating traffic from elsewhere
• These are often the easiest to write, because they’re not a huge time investment

Do I post these stories sometimes? Yes, of course, though as a percentage of content, not nearly as much as some other sites. Do I enjoy writing these posts? It depends. I make my best effort to only write about stories if I personally find them to be interesting, or if I’d enjoy reading them elsewhere. However, maybe I don’t always get that right.

I’m fortunate that my blog gets a good amount of traffic to begin with, but for many smaller sites, it’s extremely common that a single “clickbait” post gets as much traffic as the entire site otherwise gets in a month. This is the primary way that many sites can be monetized — some will write content hoping that one post breaks through and goes viral. It’s not only about the direct monetization of that traffic, though — many readers who find a viral post may bookmark a site and become readers for years to come.

None of that is to say that sites should or shouldn’t have clickbait, or that it’s a great idea, or anything. Rather, I’m just saying that making money on the internet is hard, especially if you don’t want to put stuff behind a paywall. And unfortunately often the stories that require the least effort generate the most traffic, and for many blogs these are the posts that pay the bills.

If I approached this blog strictly as a business, I’d just write clickbait stories all day, as that would almost certainly lead to the most readership, and it would take a lot less effort. However, part of what has made this business sustainable for me is that it’s also my passion, and I get up every day thinking about airlines. I wouldn’t be able to do this seven days a week for 17 years if I didn’t love it.

Talking about Turkmenistan Airlines or TAAG Angola Airlines? OMG, that gets me excited. Someone stripping naked in an airport terminal? That doesn’t interest me as much…

Bottom line

The travel & points blog space has evolved a lot over the years, for better and worse. Making money running an independent blog isn’t easy, though I hope the above at least provides some context on why you may see the content mix that you see on various sites.

In closing, I just want to express my gratitude to those who have been reading OMAAT over the years. I feel blessed beyond words to be able to get up every day and just play around with my favorite “hobby” and have it also be my career. I recognize not everyone is always going to be happy, and also that content won’t always be equally good.

We have our good days and bad days, or perhaps even good years and bad years. It has certainly been a challenging few years for me in terms of travel, between my mom being sick, and now having two kids. That being said, I’ve done what I can to greatly increase my number of review trips, and also have a lot of travel planned for the second half of the year.

At the end of the day, what makes blogging most rewarding is those who read and interact, and genuinely enjoy the content, recognizing that no one who puts themselves out there is always going to get things right.

As always, I welcome feedback, and of course would also love to hear from other bloggers about how their experiences differ.