I subscribe to RSS feeds from a ton of different blogs in various different niches.
A lot of them have helped me over the years. Some helped me learn how to blog. Others taught me how to maximize credit card reward schemes. Some helped me discover more about different points and miles opportunities out there, while others I’ve simply enjoyed reading for the perspective.
I therefore wanted to make a list of them here as I think they’re all incredibly useful resources in one way or another.
Doctor of Credit (DoC) is a ridiculously valuable resource for anyone wanting to learn how to take advantage of credit card reward schemes, particularly with regards to their signup bonuses.
I have a lot of respect for Will and the rest of his team as they don’t carry any credit card affiliate links. That means they’re forgoing a ton of income in order to stay independent and unbiased. DoC also keep a list of the best signup bonuses for credit cards to ensure you get the best deal.
They also regularly post other deals, bank bonuses and more, so go check them out.
Shawn at Miles to Memories (MtM) blogs about travel credit cards, gift card reselling, hotel and flight reviews, deals, sales and all kinds of other good stuff.
Although he has some credit card affiliate links, he’s always sure to highlight if you can get better signup bonuses elsewhere instead of going through his links.
Greg and Nick publish a bunch of flight deals, credit card signup information and ways to maximize your points and miles earnings.
Similar to Miles to Memories, they have some credit card affiliate links but they always list the best available signup bonuses, even if it means they miss out on the commission.
Edit: As of January 2018, I’m now part of the Frequent Miler team!
Ben AKA Lucky is a true aviation geek. His main focus is publishing business class and first class flight reviews along with luxury hotel reviews.
Although that’s not how Shae and I tend to travel – we usually fly economy and stay at places like Holiday Inn Express – I really enjoy his writing style, along with how knowledgeable and thorough he is. I’m not an aviation geek whatsoever, but his enthusiasm makes me interested in what he has to write.
I only started reading Ariana’s blog in late 2016 but have found it incredibly interesting. She writes quite a bit about her methods for earning a ton of miles and points and also does some trip reviews.
Similar to One Mile At A Time, I love her writing style – I can’t really place my finger on why, but she manages to make all her posts be interesting.
As Ariana’s Muslim, it helps give me a new perspective on things. It means I get to learn about stuff like Umrah which I doubt I’d have heard or learned about on other travel sites.
Frequent Miler Insiders Facebook Group
Run by Greg and Nick of Frequent Miler, their Insiders Facebook group is a helpful resource for all things points and miles related.
There are some great deal alerts that get posted there first, plus there’s a knowledgeable community of people that can help answer any questions you have.
Award Travel 101 Facebook Group
This is a Facebook group that has over 25,000 members. It’s a great way of learning more about points and miles and gives you an opportunity to ask others for help and advice on travel-related matters.
AT101 get hundreds of submissions a day though, so not all questions get accepted so as to not overwhelm the group.
n.b. This group used to be called Travel Hacking 101 but they changed the name to Award Travel 101 in 2017.
Miles To Memories Facebook Group
This is a Facebook group run by Shawn from MtM. It has a similar focus to the Travel Hacking 101 group listed above but is a bit of a smaller group (partly because TH101 started a long time ago).
The benefit of the smaller MtM group is that there’s more chance of your question being accepted.
I’ve been reading ProBlogger since about 2011 and learned a lot from Darren and all the other writers on the site.
It’s what helped us first start blogging in 2011. The stuff I learned gave me the confidence to create other websites. It’s thanks to those sites that we now earn enough income to travel full-time.
I was dumb.
I first heard about Pat Flynn back in 2011 or 2012 but never paid much attention to what he was up to. He’s in the online business / making money online niche so I was wary of his site, thinking it might be dodgy. That was stupid given that it was around the time I was starting to make money online myself. If I’d paid attention to him back then, I could’ve learned so much and been much further ahead.
Fast forward to late 2016 and I read his book Will It Fly. It was free as part of our Kindle Unlimited subscription and I was blown away by how much value it provided.
I therefore decided to give him a try and started listening to his SPI podcast from episode 1. Walking Truffles three times a day and jogging 4-5 times a week meant that I got through the couple of hundred episodes in two months.
I’ve since started listening to his other podcast called Ask Pat and am up to episode 150 at the time of writing this.
There’s so much good stuff on his podcasts (and blog posts). If you’re interested in creating anything online, you really should check him out.