I’m listening to you, my daily readers.
While most of my traffic comes via Google searches, a big part of why I write is for those of you who come back every day to read what I have to say. I know the internet is full of travel blogs and I do not take your readership for granted. Furthermore, I know I have to earn your readership with engaging content that is worth your time.
If you know my style, you know that I publish “old” trip reports on my blog. I just finished posting my 2013 trip report from Australia and Singapore. Although five years old, it had already been written and never been published before. It was also still relevant, at least in my eyes. More on that in a moment.
First off, give me some credit. As far as I can tell, I’m all caught up on trip reports that have happened in the last year. Not only do I now write them quickly, but I get them published quickly. Consequently, every 2017 trip is now online.
But there are still a handful of reports going back the last few years that I have never published.
Why Old Reports?
I addressed this in January, but with new readers coming to the site every day I wish to clarify it once again:
I do concede that older hotel and flight reviews have a limited shelf life, but over and over again I see that very little changes. Changes that do take place are muted…like crockery or IFE interface or leather upholstery. When major changes have taken place, I am aware of them and note them. Typically when I post an older flight review, I will link to a very recent one from Flyertalk or another blog to “prove” my review is still relevant.
Furthermore, my trip reports provide a basis for the way I think about and review different products, hopefully establishing a predictable baseline in which I can fairly review every new flight I take. My old reviews still provide a high-level of detail and give you a fair idea of what to expect on the ground and in the air.
Finally, most of my old trip reports are already written. Going back a year or two and trying to remember flights would not serve me well. The only reason I have not published more from the “archive” is due to the immense amount of time it takes to sort through and edit photos.
Trip Reports To Come
I’ve tried to deliberately limit my travel this year so as to clear the queue of all old reports and never even have to discuss this issue again. I am getting caught up. Every “historic” trip report takes me one step closer to being 100% caught up.
Here are the trip reports that remain:
- Thai Airways A380 First Class + Asiana A380 First Class (2016)
- Etihad Airways A380 First Class Apartments + Park Hyatt Hyderabad/Goa/Chennai/Maldives + Etihad Airways 777 First Class (2016)
- ANA 777 First Class + JAL 777 First Class + Malaysia Airlines A380 First Class (2016)
- Etihad Airways A380 First Class Apartments + Gulf Airways Business + Royal Jordanian Business + Qatar Business + Al Safwa Lounge + Qatar Airways A380 First Class (2016)
- Balkans Trip (most overland) to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, Greece (2013)
- LAN 767 Business Class + Easter Islands (2012)
- TAM 777 Business Class + Brazil + Bolivia + Argentina (2011)
As always, if I take a new trip, that 2018 trip report will come first.
A Way to Help You Avoid “Old” Trip Reports
I don’t want any of you to feel cheated that you clicked on a report only to find halfway through that it is “too old” for you to justify reading. In order to eliminate any confusion, you’ll now see the year flight took place at the top of every flight review more than a year old.
This will appear on the homepage (mobile and desktop version):
and on the trip report itself:
CONCLUSION
I know it’s “my blog” and I can write about what I want. Ultimately, I will. Yet your input matters, for this blog fails without you. Hopefully, this added clarification concerning when a flight took place will help guide your reading.
Thanks for the clarification. You are doing a good job Mat! Regards to you and family…
I enjoy the older trip reports. Even if things have changed its nice to see what was offered in the past compared to now. I am especially looking forward to your 2013 Balkans trip, as I would love to make a trip to the Balkans one day.
Thanks.
Looking forward to the day young Augustine writes a report!
So am I!
I am so backed up with unpublished trip reports at The Gate that it is not even funny, Matthew — but my experience is this problem: they take the most work to compile; and the audience is not usually as large.
Still, I need to get them done — and probably consider implementing a similar format to yours…
@Brian, I know they take time and are generally not as well trafficked. But I feel they give each of our blogs a necessary character. I’ll continue to write them, even old ones.
I never understand the huge outcry from some over older reports. As you’ve said the basics don’t change. I see new reports of flights or segments I’ve flown 5 years ago that look exactly the same, so what’s the harm? When you Google “First Class review LAX to ICN” you’re going to get many hits from many different years. Who cares when they were published as long as the information is still valid. Your way Matthew at least points out the things that HAVE changed since the trip was taken. No such luck on old already published reports.
Keep doing what you’re doing. If you handed out $100 bills on the street corner someone would complain they were hard to change and it would be better to receive 5 $20’s instead. You know you’ll never please everyone so just do your thing.
Thanks for your comment!
I really like the “retrospective” trip reports, personally. Keep ’em coming, even if I’m the only one that reads them!
I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I read all your travel reports to give me a balanced perspective on how to assess different airlines according to their corporate culture. Otherwise, I would expect all crews to bow during boarding for example.
Matthew,
I for one enjoy old trip reports. And I strongly suspect I would still enjoy them even if they were no longer at all relative. Especially with airlines they are a good reminder of where we were and a nice contrast to where we are going.
I will say that it took me a while to to notice where in the posts you plan to annotate that these are old reports. If you want readers to notice immediately (especially those new to the blog) that this is an old report you may need to highlight it to a greater extent. For example you might lead the title with the year of the report.
As always keep up the good work. And if you get a chance to update the Air France or Swiss situations please do so.
Thumbs up Matthew.
i have got to say that one of the reasons I love OMAAT is that its past reports give character to the blog and allow me to understand that the author takes it seriously and has experience.
unlike some of the teenagers at TPG who basically write as if they have never flown in a premium cabin before or been overseas.
So I commend your efforts Matthew keep it up!
Sorry to nitpick, but this post prompted it. Is there anything you can do about your typos? I proofread and am happy to look at them before you post them. I enjoy the topics and content, but it seems like each one has one or two errors. Just my 2c.
By the way, there is one in this post….
I do apologize for the typos!
Hey Matthew, have you tried using Grammarly? It’s a free plugin (with a premium paid version) and works on any word processing system or online interface.
Easy to install/use… Check into it because it pretty much eliminates all my typos.
Matthew,
I appreciate reading these reports – two reasons mostly, first they are still informative and interesting and second it’s interesting to contrast then and now so valuable from that point of view too.
Thanks.
Thanks Phil!