Here’s Why We Don’t Have Credit Card Affiliate Links

Everything changed after a £1 billion loss.

I started working for Abbey National (a British bank that’s now part of Santander) in 2001. It was an enjoyable job for the first six months or so because even though it involved an element of sales, the focus was on finding the right products for customers.

Around that time, Abbey National were investing in wholesale loans which had initially been paying off for them, but then the whole Enron scandal happened and the value of their investments tanked, leading to the loss of £1 billion.

A Change Of Focus

All of a sudden, everything changed. There was an understandable focus placed on profitability, but their method of achieving this was sales, sales, sales. Customers went from being valued clients to simply being viewed as points that we needed to meet our increased sales targets.

Someone comes in to take money out of an account? Give them a credit card application form with your referral code on it.

Someone comes in to change their address? Sell them home insurance.

Someone comes in to open a bank (checking) account? Make sure they open a credit card or you won’t earn any points and we’ll hassle you for not meeting your targets.

As someone that enjoys providing great customer service but is a non-salesy person, this sucked. It reached rock bottom one Saturday afternoon though.

Sales Vs Customer Service (Part 1)

I had a young couple come into the branch wanting to open an account. They were saving for their wedding the following year and so wanted to open an account where they could sock away some money each month and earn a little interest in the meantime.

The couple were perfect candidates for a savings ISA, a savings account with a decent interest rate on which you didn’t pay any tax, but it was a type of account that earned us zero points towards our sales targets.

They mentioned that they’d been to a nearby branch the previous week to discuss their needs and had been given a couple of application forms. They pulled the forms out of a bag and set them on the desk.

The applications they’d been given were for a bank account and a credit card, with the staff member’s referral code scribbled on the back to ensure he’d get the points.

They were a couple wanting to save for their big day but all that “colleague” had seen them as was one solitary point towards his sales target.

Rather than an unneeded bank account and credit card, they left our branch with a savings account and my best wishes.

Credit Cards Can Be Great

Now, don’t get me wrong – credit cards can be great so long as you pay them off in full each month. They provide some important consumer protection benefits and many provide some kind of rewards.

For people who love to travel (like Shae and I), credit cards are an amazing source of airline miles and hotel points. These are earned from both signup bonuses and category bonuses, like earning 6x Hilton points at grocery stores and gas stations.

These same credit cards are also a great source of revenue for many travel bloggers. If they write about a credit card and a reader applies through their link in the post, the blogger can potentially earn hundreds of dollars (the amount varies depending on the card).

In theory, I don’t have a problem with this. The blogger’s providing a service and so there’s nothing wrong with them earning an income. But there are times when their needs don’t meet their readers’ needs.

Sales Vs Customer Service (Part 2)

Bloggers with credit card affiliate relationships are only able to link to the standard publicly available signup offer. The problem with this setup is that it’s frequently possible for readers to earn a higher signup bonus by applying for the card through a completely different link.

For example, the standard signup bonus for the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card is 25,000 points and you can only earn the bonus once per lifetime. If you search for this card on Google in your browser’s incognito mode though, you can often find 50,000 or 75,000 point signup offers.

Similarly, the standard signup bonus for the IHG credit card from Chase is 60,000 points. If you go on the IHG website and pretend like you’re going to book a hotel stay, you’ll often see an ad in the corner for 60,000 points plus a $50 statement credit. (n.b. the bonus sometimes increases to 80,000 or more, so I’d hold out for that bonus instead).

The $$$ Question

The bloggers therefore have a decision to make. Should they refer their readers to the standard (i.e. lower) signup bonuses so that they can earn their commission or should they tell their readers how they can earn a higher bonus but which would result in them earning zero commission.

Most of the bloggers choose the first option which means their readers miss out.

There are a few though that focus on customer service more than sales. For example, Greg at Frequent Miler has an approach I appreciate – his Best Offers page always links to the best available offer for a card, regardless of whether or not it earns him a commission. Shawn at Miles To Memories similarly posts about higher signup offers, even if it doesn’t earn him a commission.

Doctor of Credit takes it even further. Despite the focus of their website being about credit cards, they don’t place any credit card affiliate links in their posts to ensure that they can give you completely unbiased advice. Their readers (including myself) therefore have a huge amount of trust in them.

Why We Don’t Have Credit Card Affiliate Links

I’ll be writing about credit cards quite a bit over the coming years as they’re one of the major ways that we earn miles and points, which means they can help you travel for free as well.

That means I had a choice to make when we started No Home Just Roam. Should we apply to become credit card affiliates to help fund our travel or forgo that income to always make sure that you get the best deal?

After working at Abbey National, I don’t ever want to think of you – our readers – as a commission. I also want you to trust Shae and I in the same way that I trust Doctor of Credit.

Our decision was therefore easy to make – we’d have no credit card affiliation on this site.

We still want you to get the best deal though, so when writing about a credit card we’ll link to Doctor of Credit to ensure you can find the highest available signup bonus at any given moment in time.

Just to avoid any confusion, there’s a chance that you might happen to see ads on here for credit cards. We have Google AdSense and Amazon CPM ads served on our site and so there’s a possibility that one of those companies might display an ad for a credit card. The ads that you see aren’t something we choose though.