Well, did ya miss me?
You may have noticed that things have been fairly quiet here over the last couple of months. And really, ever since I sold the site back in January 2020. A few things have recently changed, and so I thought that I would share a bit about what has been going on behind the scenes at Points With a Crew, and what you can expect going forward.
January 2020 – sale of Points With a Crew
So, long-time readers of the site might recall that way back in January 2020, I sold Points With a Crew to the Soapbox Financial Network. Soapbox was a project of The Motley Fool – over the past few years they bought several different financial and travel blogs and websites. The idea I believe was to create a network of finance and finance-adjacent content under the Motley Fool / Soapbox umbrella.
Uhhhhh it turns out in hindsight that January 2020 was a FANTASTIC time to sell a travel blog!!! 🙂
Do you even remember what life was like in January 2020?
I wish I could claim any sort of amazing business acumen for selling then, right before COVID started and the demand for travel dropped 90%. But it was just kind of the way that the timing happened to work out.
The past 2 years
Over the past two years (since January 2020), I have been working with Soapbox here on the site. You may have seen posts from me, but more sporadic than they had been in years past. But you’ve also seen additional authors posting, which has been a nice mix. Of course these past two years have been challenging for many people on many levels, and travel blogging was no exception. I’m sure you’ve likely noticed that the amount of content here on PWaC over the past two years has been less frequent than it had been in years past.
I was of two minds on this as someone without an ownership stake in the site any more. On the one hand, I didn’t care since I had sold the site, moved on to other pursuits and didn’t have any sort of monetary stake in how it did. On the other hand, this is “my baby”, all the way back from the very first post in 2014. So it was a bit sad to see it reduced to a bit of a shell of its former self.
To be clear, I don’t blame Motley Fool, Soapbox or any of the people that were associated with the site over the past two years. All of the people that I worked with at Soapbox and Motley Fool were awesome, and they went out of their way to work with me, listen to my thoughts and opinions. I think it was just mostly a case of bad timing for a venture like this, along with a few other factors.
Buying back the site
Which leads me to say that a few months ago, I got an email from the Soapbox people saying that they were looking to conclude their experiment, and asked if I would be interested in buying back Points With a Crew. I was of course interested, since it felt a little weird that they could sell the site to whoever and then I would have no say or control over how my pictures, trips, pictures of my families and such were used. It was different when I sold it to Soapbox because then I felt like I could trust that they would be good stewards of the site and my information here.
So in any case, we agreed on a price, and I bought the site back as of April 1. I didn’t want to post right on April 1st about it since well, you know how April 1st goes….
What to expect going forward
So… where does that leave us going forward? Well in a sense I am still figuring that out. I definitely don’t have the same available time and energy that I had before I sold the site, so it’s probably not likely that you will see multiple posts in a day like was common a few years ago. Still, I do like to travel, and now that we’re coming out of a COVID-induced travel funk, I want to continue to share some of my stories and tips for family travel and large family travel. I’ve got a few trips planned and LOTS of miles and points that I’ve been (unfortunately) saving up. So I think that you will start seeing more content here than you have been over the past couple of months.
I am also pleased to report that there are no additional “crew” members since we last talked. Isn’t 6 kids enough?!?!!? 😛 .
It’s great to be back! Did ya miss me?!?! :-D. Share what kind of posts (or anything else) you’d like to see in the comments
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Happy to see you back. I’m the father of 3 under the age of 5 and always found a lot of inspiration and advice in your posts about how to travel with a family. Aspirational properties are great, but so are all of those oceanfront Residence Inn and Homewood Suite properties! We’ll be looking forward to hearing about you and your family’s upcoming adventures.
Thanks Jeff – it’s good to be back. I’ve got a Residence Inn stay coming up next month and it will be interesting to see what kind of “COVID” cuts they’ve made. And by “COVID” cuts, I mean totally not related to COVID but just cost-savings cuts that they blame on COVID
Welcome back! I’m excited to read future posts! As a reader, it’s been a little disappointing to see some of my go-to blogs selling off…it’s just not the same, but as a business (or regular!) person, I get it. Anyway, this is happy news for me at least 🙂
Are you looking for any contributors by chance? 😉
Thanks Tammy! It’s good to be back. As for contributors, I’m not sure yet. Still figuring out how that is going to work.
Welcome back, that’s great news! Will be glad to have your voice back on Boarding Area.
Thanks Glenn – even though I’ve been writing a bit for PWaC when it was under previous management, it’s a bit different now that it’s “all mine” once again 🙂
Umm. not so much.
Ruuuuude! 😛
I’m glad that things worked out fairly well for you. Do you think that you breached the trust of your readers by not disclosing the sale? The question may seem harsh, and maybe it actually is, but at the end of the day all a blogger has (or doesn’t) from a reader’s perspective is integrity. I’d genuinely be interested in hearing your take on this as you don’t come off as some soulless huckster like TPG.
Christian – I’m not sure what you mean. I did disclose the sale of the blog back when it happened in 2020. Unless you’re talking about disclosing the sale of the blog back to me, in which case, that’s what I’m doing with this post 🙂
My sincerest apologies. I missed it.
I’ll have some sauce with that foot.
LOL – let me know how it tastes :-P. No worries – I think your point is valid, generally speaking, and I do think that there are many travel / credit card blogs who do not do a great job of disclosing those types of things.
So many blogs have been sold to investment groups over the past 5+ years that it’s hard to trust any of them. Groups like Red Ventures (TPG) and so forth have no interest in the true content and are just looking to pimp affiliate links. You have some work ahead of you to get that trust back if you even care to. I enjoyed your blog and I’m glad you are back at the helm but the jury is back in the courtroom to see how it works out going forward. Many of the people that read this blog or stumble on it through Boarding Area understand the money-making side of such blogs but many don’t get that and fall victim to some unethical practices. It would be nice if you would address that going forward. My list of top practices you might consider adopting: 1. Get rid of any pop video ads from Boarding Area on your site. We all hate those. 2. Always post the best offers for deals (Amazon, credit cards, etc.) regardless of potential affiliate income potential. 3. Continue to allow comments, we will try to be nice 🙂 4. Don’t post any “Top 10 travel gadgets posts, please, please”. I’m glad you made some cash on the site and now is your chance at a new era. Watch those that you hire to write content so they don’t pimp you out, I’d be glad to vet those for you. Oh and welcome back.
Thanks for the feedback my fellow Dan. I think Soapbox / Motley Fool was a bit different than some of the other groups that have been buying blogs. I don’t think that they even did anything at all with credit card affiliate links over the past 2 years. Which maybe explains why they ended the project :-).
I have no plans to eliminate the comment section, and I think that I have always been pretty good at disclosing how the site makes money and disclosing the best offers. On credit card affiliates, I don’t really control the offers that come with the credit card links, but again, I feel like I have a pretty good record of denoting when the offer I have is not the best offer.
Thanks for reading and thanks for the feedback
Welcome Back! Looking forward to your posts.
Thanks! It’s good to be back!
A nice surprise, welcome back! I’m glad you are back at the helm. Looking forward to future posts as the travel world (hopefully) continues to recover.
Thanks! I know that we have definitely traveled less over the past 2 years and are getting back into the swing of things
I have missed you blog and am glad that you are best. I have no list of “wants’ from you – just post what you want.
Thanks for the kind words – I will try to live up to them 🙂
Your posts have been missed!
The world needs more travel bloggers who have day jobs, large families, and traditional values.
Thanks! You mean it’s not all about first class flights and 5-star hotels??!!? 😀
I have never once seen 8 first class award seats available on the same flight.
Maybe in business on some BA routes, though. 😀
Good news – congratulations
Your site tends to focus on family travel and at 75+ that ship has sailed 🙂
However I am a subscriber and when things match my interest I always give the site a read.
Welcome back.
HI again,
Your posts were always helpful and interesting. Glad you are back Dan.
Look forward to what;s ahead.
Thanks! Glad to hear from you
Welcome back! Isn’t it funny how we can plan all we want but things just have a way of working out differently than we imagined?! I used to love your content because we did a lot of traveling with my siblings, nieces, nephews and cousins but ironically while your blog was on a semi- hiatus, we went from zero kids of our own to three! Your content will be more valuable than ever to our family now. Excited to see you come back and sending all the best wishes for whatever comes next for you & your family!
Wow – going from 0 to 3 in only a few years is quite the life change! In some ways, traveling with little kids is easier than when they get bigger. The actual travel can be stressful with little kids, but as they get older, you have to worry about school and jobs and such. Good luck and I’m glad that you’re here.
Welcome back! Our family grew with a pandemic baby, but we are unlikely to catch up to you we plan to stop at only five children. In any case, your focus on family travel, especially on best value, is more important than ever.
Thanks!
That’s a little “large family” saying there when you talk about having “only” 5 children :-D. Glad you’re back and hope you continue to find enjoyment and useful tips with the things that I post
Wow 6 kids… Can u look at the continued none benefits of hotels like booking club floor but CLUB not open…a very common occurrence or web says food on site and restaurants closed most of the time!
Yes – the continued insistence of hotels that their service cutbacks are “COVID-related” is super annoying. I have a post for a stay at a Hilton in Austin that I need to finish up where the lounge was closed “cuz COVID” even though literally every other restaurant in the city is open.
Thanks cannot wait to read about your Austin stay!!
Glad you’re back!
One of my favorite memories is your trip to KP, where you stayed at a 5,000 point (I think) Hilton (I think) property.
We were in SIN, and seriously considered going there. We decided to go to DPS (Bali) instead.
Looking forward to your next (great) report.
dhammer53
I think you’re talking about the Category 2 Doubletree Johor Bahru hotel in Johor Bahru (in Malaysia across the causeway from Singapore). That was an epic hotel and a steal for 10K Hilton points
Dup to click on Notify me of follow-up comments. 😉
Welcome back, yep, from the green grey and defacto largely locked-down Netherlands, I missed you.
Even tho wisdom and some old age have blended to reduce my travel, I am still open to your insights.
Best,
Paul
Thanks Paul – it’s good to be back!
Interesting! I didn’t realize the site had been sold until seeing this post.
Welcome back, I’ve missed you, can’t wait for new upcoming travels!
Best of luck
Thanks! It’s good to be back and stay tuned for some recent adventures
Great news all around, Dan! Welcome back. Any chance you are going to do anymore local meet-ups?
Thanks Julie. Yes, I could definitely see getting some local Cincinnati meetups going again. It would be great to talk travel