An Odd Christmas Week Dealing with Credit Card Hawks

I had a weird experience this week. A bit of frustration with this niche.

Well, lots of weird things happen in my life. But actually, things are pretty calm right now. We’re sitting here chatting with Carrie’s Amish grandma. Which… I guess is not ordinary for a lot of people. But anyways.

So two odd things happened this week.

Well, first off. Last week I had a tongue and cheek post talking about the Lufthansa card. My personality is one that values transparency. It’s the way I want to be as a friend, blogger or “business man”. So, I gave a ballpark figure of how much the specific credit card pays.

Apparently another Credit Karma user decided to report my candidness to our affiliate manager (the one who handles travel bloggers). Thus, I got a very polite email asking me to take down the over-candid reference. Although I’ve yet to integrate Credit Karma into the site very well, I have enjoyed their way of doing things so far. Plus their site looks better than others. So I eliminated my over-candid reference and it’s a bit of a no fowl and don’t do it again.

But the fact, that someone else turned me in bugs me. But, I know and am friends with many of the other medium size bloggers who use CreditKarma, and it’s totally not an industry practice. People in the niche are helpful. From big to small bloggers, it’s generally true.

Whatever, I’m over it.

Then, I got an email from Card Synergy (at the wrong email address, which they haven’t corrected like I asked). Apparently I was approved for all links with Amex but they never told me. Until I got the email saying that I’ve been canned.

*blinks*

See, when you don’t make sales, you get canned. But… I was never told that I had links to make sales with!

This has been my experience with this particular… company.

First off, they always ask to do things over the phone (and nothing in writing (go figure)). And earlier I asked two things:

1) Can I hyperlink directly to different pages of the creditcards page they gave me? Meaning I link to a site where there are 5 pages of travel credit cards, and I wanted to know if I could directly link to page 2 or 3, instead of 1.

I was told yes.

2) Can I hyperlink products? Like can I take the text “Lufthansa card” and hyperlink to their credit cards page?

I was told yes.

To the first one, I tested and tested, linking directly to pages 2, 3, 4 and 5. We didn’t get commission for a single sale! None. Not one.

This is after the fact where I tested and didn’t get commission when I linked properly. Of course, the problem is that they have no incentive to tell me the truth or fix it. See I give them sales, and they keep all the money for applications through their site. Genius if it wasn’t so dishonest.

And in regards to the second, I also got an email once explaining that my links were being taken away because I was hyperlinking directly to products… which they told me I could do.

You can see why I prefer Credit Karma. That, and 100 other reasons why they’re better. It’s a matter of honesty and trust.

But I can’t believe Amex approved me, they didn’t tell me, and then who knows how long later… they canned me.

A new direction

Although this is something that I’m writing about… it doesn’t phase me. The ups and downs and lies of this industry barely make me raise a brow. But still, please, wish me luck with Credit Karma. I have a feeling they are a bit more honest in many regards.

And also, I don’t wish to be hawking credit cards. I’ll get paid for people who are getting the cards anyways. Sure, I’ll tell you what my cards are… but you’ve probably seen people pushing cards on irrelevant posts, or writing irrelevant posts.

But ya know what? I don’t judge. I know why they do it. But I just choose to take a pay cut (so to speak) and not do it.

But if I’m really honest, I don’t want a pay cut (so to speak). Or what I mean is, this site consumes me. I do it full-time. Heck, even when I worked 50 hours a week at a “traditional job” I didn’t work as much as I do on this site.

Thus, in 2014, we’ll make serious efforts to better monetize our site. The traffic has grown a lot this year and continues to do so. The work load grows. If we can make it work sustainably, then good for us. If not… it’s time to move on. It will be our year to try.

By the way! For all those who haven’t gotten email replies in the last few weeks, I am very sorry! I will be catching up hopefully this week. Forgive me, I’m 2 weeks behind myself at all times.

Where was I?

Right, we’ll be trying to “make a living” from this. That being said, and as you can probably see why, I don’t particularly want to be a credit card hawk. I’ll never turn down the commissions of course, but instead of relying on these commissions, I want to make our primary income from this site… not credit cards.

This means we’ll launch products.

So wish us luck, creativity, good ethics, and the creation of a product people actually want.

Of course, those who don’t want it don’t have to buy it, but it only works if we add value. Hopefully you’ll see that done.

In conclusion – Thanks

I hope the first half of this post didn’t seem like too much complaining. At this point those things don’t phase me. But it seemed like good context for why hawking can be unenjoyable.

And I also don’t want to diminish support! Right now, we are completely supported from readers who sign up for credit cards through the Credit Karma banner ad at the bottom of every post.

Some of you have been extremely generous and have gotten some of your rewards cards through that banner ad. I in no way feel deserving of your support, and yet I get it anyways. Wow. Thank you.

I wish my sincerity could come across as true as it is. But the reason we can make a living off of this site is because of the readers. And so many people continue to read! And it’s because of you, we can do this.

Thank you.

It annoys me when newer bloggers say things like “I only have 200 readers a day”. 200 people care about your thoughts on a blog post every day? Be flattered.

I remember getting 200 readers a day and feeling… honored. So now every month I look at my analytics and am just wowed.

Thanks for your support to anyone who has read this site. I hope the content and site only get better. I hope all changes in 2014 are seen as improvements to ya’ll.

In the meantime, enjoy your families. We’ll enjoy ours. We took plenty of time off, sorta. And I wasn’t even going to post this week at all. But apparently I can’t even go a week. Be back soon (and I’ll get on those emails!).

Thanks ya’ll,
Drew