Update On Our Search For A New OMAAT Contributor

By: Tiffany Funk

Published: March 17, 2018

48 comments

Last month we put out a call for smart and savvy people who might be interested in writing for One Mile at a Time.

We of course hoped there would be quite a bit of interest, but by the time the 2-week application window closed we’d heard from an absolutely humbling number of individuals with such diverse experiences in miles and points.

Like, 2,500 double-sided pages levels of humbling.

Yes, I did go through a shopping portal to stack that 2x bonus with 5x from my Ink card on the print job 😉

Needless to say, we were floored by the overwhelming response, and it took us quite some time to go through these. We tried to look at the overall applications, and the writing samples (both stand-alone and in comparison to others on the same topic), and it was damn difficult. We found ourselves laughing and clapping at your stories and travel adventures, and the crazy redemptions you’ve come up with. Y’all are really good, and OMAAT truly has the best readers.

Narrowing the list of candidates was tough, but there were a small percentage that particularly stood out. Our original plan was to conduct a more traditional interview process, and then eventually ask folks to do some sample posts here on the blog, but there was such a strong group of people with some great perspectives on miles and points that we thought the rest of you might enjoy hearing from, that we decided to reverse the order.

Our thinking is that this will give us a chance to work with the top group of applicants and see how everyone meshes, and give them a chance to see what the actual process of blogging for OMAAT looks like before we move on to the next phase in the selection process. To be fair, we are paying everyone for their work on these trial posts, regardless of when or whether their post is ultimately published.

I’ve been working with this group for the past few days to help choose topics and find angles that are interesting without being too broad, and my gosh it’s fun! The enthusiasm for trying new things, and the passion for miles and points is delightful.

So over the coming days and weeks you’ll see posts from about two dozen people who we think could have a lot to offer in this space. We certainly are excited to get feedback from readers (as always), but because we’re primarily doing this to test the writing and editing process with everyone, we’re going to space out the publishing of these posts over a period of time. It’s even possible that we’ll have made (and announced) our final pick before all the posts are published on the blog.

We don’t want to inundate readers with a swarm of new voices all at once, basically, especially as we recognize that adding even a single new voice can be confusing, and we’re trying to handle all of this as delicately and carefully as possible.

Thank you guys so much — not just for your patience with this process, but for the consistent readership over the years that even makes something like this possible. We appreciate it so very much.

P.S. If you applied, and haven’t received an email from me this week, please check your junk folders. Everyone should have received a message from me by now, regardless of whether we’re able to move forward at this time or not.

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Steve Guest

March 19, 2018, 7:03 am

@Tiffany, stop with the y'all nonsense.

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Ed Guest

March 18, 2018, 10:34 pm

Thanks for giving us a look into the process. I find it really interesting and look forward to reading posts from the new authors. You should put a poll on each of their posts so we can easily vote them up or down (man, that would be brutal).

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Evan Guest

March 18, 2018, 10:22 pm

@Tiffany, that’s right. Andrew just promotes the captivity, abuse, and exploitation of wild animals. Clearly only a minor offense as compared to Daniel’s follies......

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CraigTPA Guest

March 18, 2018, 12:41 pm

I think some of the remarks about Andrew point to a few things you need to consider when choosing and breaking in new contributors: * He came to OMAAT with a pre-established following on YouTube, and didn't seem to understand the difference between blogging here and vlogging (or whatever) there. * One of his first posts was an abysmally disgusting story about him getting to the airport late and being a self-centered douchebag, cutting in line and treating other people like crap. This really soured a lot of people on him immediately, and readers remember things like that. * Many of his early posts also showed a complete lack of education on how to handle comped travel. Nothing wrong with comps, as long as you have strict disclosure, as the rest of OMAAT's contributors do. The quality of his posts has improved over time, but the damage is done with a lot of OMAAT's readership. Which leads to a couple of suggestions: * Concentrate on writing skills, not photography. Hopefully we'll see a few potential contributors who have a small body of well-received work already, if not on their own blog then with trip reports on Airliners.net or somewhere like that. (I would have applied myself if I used to travel as much as I did back when I posted TRs on A.net, but these days I'm doing well to get on a plane once a year. (Yeah, sad, but when you're dealing with $50k of of out-of-pocket dental expense, travel's out for a while.) * Unless they take no comps at all, make them read OMAAT's disclosure rules. Then make them go over and read Brett's on Crankyflier (the only website that I think has even better COI rules than OMAAT does.) Then make them read both again and tell them ONE failure to disclose properly (not buried in passing well into the article like Andrew did a few times) gets them bounced off the site. And as for the people complaining about the credit card reviews, 1) They are important to a lot of this blog's readers, as they form a big part of many people's travel strategy, and 2) Ben has to pay the bills, you know. Some of the FREE site's income, which lets you read it for FREE, comes from credit card referrals generated by the FREE credit card reviews/advice/news. The credit card articles are clearly titled as such, so if you don't want the FREE credit card news, just skip over them and read the rest of the FREE postings on this FREE site. These complainers are like the old joke, "Waiter, this food is terrible! And such small portions!"

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Boco Member

March 18, 2018, 10:52 am

I don't think you're always going to make everyone happy. When people complain about a certain type of post, you can bet that there are other readers who enjoy it. I think the vast majority of OMAAT readers come here because of the authentic feel. Agree or disagree with Ben, you're usually getting the real him. Same goes for Tiffany. For example, did I really need to read a year ago about how Tiffany positioned to Europe in order to make it to JFK during a snowstorm? Absolutely not, but it's 100% pure Tiffany, and that's what made that post gold. I've noticed over the years that Ben seems to be sounding more "professional" in his reviews and holding back some of his funnier or snarky comments. My guess is that it may have to do with the backlash on the comments section any time he steps on anyone's toes. But I wound venture to say that the vast majority of readers--save the ones who always seem to get offended regardless--appreciate the personality. Yes, information is important but I think personality gets overlooked.

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