While I’ve been active in the MilesTalk Facebook group and on Twitter the last week, I haven’t published much here because we were on a family vacation – our first international trip with Player 3 – in Aruba. I’ll write up a Lightning Review of the Ritz Carlton Aruba soon…
Today, on the last day of 2022, I want to reflect a bit on MilesTalk and Your Best Credit Cards in 2022, what’s coming for both in 2023, and some general thoughts on the business side of “doing what you love”. But first, let’s take a quick look at what content drew the most likes and shares in the past year.
In this article
The 5 Most Read MilesTalk Articles in 2022
None of these surprise me too much. MilesTalk is pretty much known all over for inventing the Status Match Merry Go Round (and I admit I’m pretty thrilled every time I hear people mention it casually outside of MilesTalk using its rightful name 😉 ).
The MGM article dovetails right into the Merry Go Round, and the Atlantis stay is a prime benefit of that Caesars Diamond status you get from the Merry Go Round.
The article on Point.me likely secured such a high spot in overall traffic because of our coupon code for a full month of searches for just $1.
And the Southwest Companion Pass Guide article made the top 5, no doubt because it’s both a huge topic in the Facebook group and because it gets a ton of search engine traffic.
2022 in Review and 2023 on Tap
I’m pleased with the growth of the MilesTalk brand, generally. While many blogs have teams of writers, 99.9% of the articles on MilesTalk are mine. I churn those out while constantly answering questions in the MilesTalk Facebook group (and on Instagram and on Twitter), working on Your Best Credit Cards, and running my 3D medical animation studio.
And I’ll be honest, it sometimes feels hard to write the blog when it’s relatively small in the grand scheme of miles and points blogs. Competing against Boarding Area is a nearly impossible task (and they have zero interest in MilesTalk joining their network), but while I don’t *always* want to write, I do *often* want to – and I prefer it to other media channels, despite my efforts to make myself record more Instagram reels @ MilesTalk. I have managed a few viral reels, but when you are doing as many things as I am, it’s a bit hard to prioritize.
However, I’m more excited about the other components of the MilesTalk “empire.”
I had a great time speaking at the New York International Travel Show in October (and I’m always open to speaking engagements – they energize me like nothing else), the 2nd Edition of the MilesTalk paperback book is selling better than the first, and Your Best Credit Cards had a record year in 2022. In fact, for the first time since starting MilesTalk all the way back in 2016, it earns enough to largely support my growing family and I’m SO grateful to be able to do what I love for a living. That means I’m SO grateful to all of you 🙂
As much as I love hearing from people that took their dream honeymoon in style and attribute it to MilesTalk (and believe me, those stories absolutely inspire me to find more and more ways to teach miles and points), I do need to support my family (which many of you know added a Player 3 in February) and so this is quite a big deal to the ongoing growth of MilesTalk.
The MilesTalk Facebook group has grown tremendously in 2022. At the end of February, we celebrated 10,000 members and we are ending the year at 19,000 members. That’s more than double in the last 12 months. I look forward to having ~40,000 members this time next year and want to thank the AMAZING group moderators – Sarah, A.R., Tim, Jenny, and Patrick for all they do to help our group members learn everything under the sun around traveling with miles and points.
The most growth, though, came from Your Best Credit Cards and to that end, I’ve spent the last 7 months, and will be spending the next 4 months, redeveloping it from top to bottom, reinvesting nearly all of the last year’s profits to build something truly amazing. Think of the current site as a beta that taught me what I needed to know to knock the next version out of the park. I like to say that this is what I’ve been training for my whole career…
I don’t want to go into too much detail on that for competitive reasons, but it will help you find your best card (or cards) no matter your skill level and with the most amazing ease that no current site matches. It will also offer novel features (free!) that no other site offers to help you earn the most possible miles and points on all of your spend. I’m incredibly excited to relaunch that next year and am extremely proud of all the work that the development team has put in so far.
I’m also incredibly thankful to have found some amazing partners for Your Best Credit Cards – other creators and influencers that work with me to help people find cards that are best for them. If you are a content creator and want to learn more about affiliate marketing for credit cards, please drop me a note.
Lastly, I do plan to have more in-person Meetups. Our last one, in Santa Monica, had a great crowd and I know the value of in-person events.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to do any of this without the support of my wonderful Player 2 wife, Nicole. She’s been with me since MilesTalk made so little money that most NYC women would have dropped me like a hot potato. But she saw my passion and the potential and never, ever suggested I should go work at a bank instead.
She knows I’m meant to build my own thing (after all, I’ve been an entrepreneur working on one thing or another for over 20 years), and now that MilesTalk has truly come to life, I am even prouder than I would have been – because she believed in me.
So for 2023, I promise to keep doing what I’m doing – helping you in any way that I can and finding even more ways to do so. I thank you all for your support.
From my family to yours – a very Happy New Year!
