What is the most useful frequent flyer blog?

I used to play Words With Friends with him, but he hasn't returned my last move in a long time ....

Thoughts, comments, opinions...

There is a mixed feeling if bloggers should be considered journalists. I'm by no means a legal expert, but I get the feeling as long as you are in a public place local TV news crews and maybe even newspaper reporters can take your photo.

Does this apply for bloggers taking photos on flights? Should faces be blurred like google does with google maps?

Are we really looking for a new reason to criticize bloggers?

mmmm I think we should keep it a 1:1 ratio...

For every positive comment about a travel blogger, a negative one should be posted just to keep things balanced

So essentially you're trying to severely limit the negative comments?

It's impolite. If the TV news is taking photos of whatever they darn well please, then they're not much better than paparazzi. I try not to take photos of anything if people's faces are showing, unless it's an obvious crowd. That usually means I don't have as many pictures as I would like of airport lounges and planes. Blurring faces doesn't make it much better. The person you're taking a picture of doesn't know you're going to blur his or her face.

I'm not sure what your point is. Are you blaming bloggers for making FT bad by only sharing their content on their own blogs? That seems like FT's fault for not being better at attracting content.

I do agree most blogs have an unfriendly interface. It's why I bargained with BoardingArea to let me keep my own domain when they asked me to join. I don't know if I've solved all the problems with blog interfaces, but at least I can try things out.

A lot of blogs do have horrible interfaces...of course, so does FT! I still like MilePoint's interface and general setup much more, if only it had all the years of content inside that FT does.

No.

Just my opinion...

that's what I was thinking. I'm new to FT but have been lucky to have a career that provided me with a ridiculous amount of points/miles over the years, and i grew up in an accountant family where i learned everything about credit, cards, etc. so i'm not a stranger to rewards travel/signup bonuses, etc. However, what i have appreciated is most bloggers do post the most important information that i need to know, and if I ask a question in the comments I dont have to worry about someone snapping with "use the search function" (which, by the way, isn't the best). bloggers connect to their readers, and if they get ALL their info from here, i still wouldn't care. but a lot of who I read make attempts themselves to get to the bottom of some things that FTers are going on for 300 pages about.

I'm sure some will interpret this post as just more blogger-bashing, but I really need to call out MileValue for his continued pushing of the affiliate US Airways link. And this has nothing to do with killing deals, or affiliate links, or anything of the sort. I respect that blogs belong to the bloggers and they can post whatever they want and monetize however they want. If they want to push the affiliate US Airways link, there's nothing inherently wrong with that.

What I do object to, however, is acting directly contrary to a public promise. Back in October when he first added affiliate links, MileValue made a big show of proclaiming that he would only promote the best offers, regardless of affiliate status. At the time, I honestly believed him. But every time he pushes his affiliate US link, he's obviously violating that promise, and more to the point, he's actively suppressing attempts to call him out on it. On his latest post today, he deleted at least two (perfectly respectful) comments reminding him of his promise minutes after they were posted. Affiliate link stayed intact.

I don't care what you think of bloggers in general; making a public promise, breaking it, then censoring people who try to call you on it is just dishonest. MileValue is a smart guy, but I think he's making some really unfortunate choices in how to run his blog.

MV has been censoring comments for a while...

In regards to the US card, kudos to TPG today for dispensing with BS and just cutting to the chase:

http://thepointsguy.com/2013/02/best...ys-mastercard/

+1, was nice to see that too. Didn't even add an affiliate link alongside the good offer.

Yep, made my Best Of category

I will miss you guys every day...

You're right. That is just more blogger-bashing. What many of you fail to understand is that written T&C mean a lot to anyone who is not a mile-addicted junkie like us. A "normal" person won't touch our favorite US AIR card because it states explicitly that non-elites aren't eligible, and it doesn't matter how often you tell people it's OK. They won't touch the 50K Citi Hilton because it doesn't state the bonus. I've been criticized for "pushing" Citi AA advantage cards in my book. I once received an e-mail, in which the person accused me of lying about Citi AA 50K offer, and then bragged about getting a 30K AA bonus and how he was proud that he didn't have to "violate" the Citi terms.

Now, I will give this qualification. In my opinion, a blogger owes it to their readership to at least mention a better offer and let his readers decide. If Milesvalue doesn't do that, it's wrong. On the other hand, MMS does it unfailingly, and yet many folks from this thread hate him still. Go figure!

I'm sorry, but a lot of you, guys, are out of touch with reality. Bloggers, with very few exceptions, do not write for the FT crowd. Just because there are so many of us here on FT, it doesn't change the fact that our number is tiny--just a drop in a faucet if you will.