nsx

The Carol factor is insufficiently appreciated. Whatever IB pays her, it has been an outstanding investment. FT is incomparably better since Carol took the reins. She put in the full time that Randy never was able to, while simultaneously improving the quality of decisions.

kokonutz

Well I finally got an email tonight from MilePoint attempting to explain the value proposition of the re-brand.



Not to nitpick, but who in the heck puts the phrase go online in quotes in 2015!?

This is so incredibly true that I guess I take it for granted. She leads with a steady, consistent hand and doesn't just pay lip service to fairness but actually practices it. She never plays favorites and always has the long view in mind.

Carol Rocks. ^

Carol. Is. Awesome.

Raffles

The point of IF, as I understand it, is that it is not for you. If you read Flyertalk, you are not the target market.

Where is the money? Newbies / mainstream. After all, it is hard to make money off a group of people who are ingrained to squeeze out the best deal every time (ie us).

The 'issue' I have, so far, is the Avianca deal. I have never, ever mentioned Avianca on Head for Points because it is not something that I am happy to promote to my, fairly mainstream, audience. I don't want to be responsible if they get burned. It is also a massive jump for a reader who reads me to learn about new Hilton promos to be told to spend thousands buying miles in a foreign FF scheme where the call centre struggles to even speak English.

You can't have it both ways. If they want 'mainstream', they can't be pushing Avianca heavily.

The crux is whether this 'mainstream' market exists in a big way. Let's assume, on made up numbers, that 10 per cent of SkyMiles members take it seriously enough to read FT. The only 90 per cent do not take it seriously at all and have never looked at a frequent flyer website ever. My wife is firmly in this category - she doesn't even read my site :-) The IF model assume that a chunk of this 90 per cent is up for grabs.

I look at 'Business Traveller' magazine as an example. If even a tiny percentage of business travellers gave a toss about business travel as a subject, Business Traveller would be a magazine with GQ-style sales figures. Instead it is a very niche product. How does IF grab the 90 per cent where Business Traveller, over 40 years, has failed?

I go to supermarkets a lot. I don't read any magazines about supermarkets, though, or visit any supermarket focussed websites. If an Inside Flyer style site appeared for the supermarket / grocery sector, I still wouldn't read it.

The other issue, I suppose, is whether the IF team - which is so wholly ingrained in the FF community - can step back enough to understand the mainstream market. What always fascinated me about TPG and MMS is that these guys were not major FlyerTalk participants before starting their sites and did not have any baggage in terms of how they thought about the market.

oliver2002

The sweet spot in all this is the road warrior with the 6 figure €/$/Ł salary who travels a lot but also wants to spend his/her dispoable income (and loyalty miles/points collected in the recent ) on a nice vacation. This is where C/F travel and 5* hotels come in. And advertisers outbid themselves to place ads on your site.

However this category is not going to buy Avianca points for vague availability on *A and sign up for some CC to get Hyatt points for Vendoming. Nor is it willing to sift thru complex FTlike forums.

The Departures magazine Amex sends out is exactly in this sweet spot. While the content is not top notch writing, it is evident that they spend considerable effort producing it and have a clear cut audience mapped out. @:-)

baccarat_king

+1, agree with this ^ 100%

NOT this, IMO. This "sweet spot" is way too niche. Believe me, I LOVE this sweet spot, personally. But, IMHO, there is just not enough global interest and traffic to support a "large" site based on this specific niche.

I receive the "Centurion version" of the Departures magazine, and do agree, it's quite an impressive publication. Especially, since I am in a very small market.

Raffles

Even 'Departures' is not exactly overrun with advertising, at least the European version I receive. Strip out the pages from companies where Amex has partnership deals (Jumeirah, Accor etc) and there isn't a huge amount left. This is the despite the fact that the readership is, de facto, about as well qualified as you can get given the card fee required to receive it.

However, Amex may well be charging uber-premium prices and is happy to sell a little for a lot rather than a lot for a little - we don't know.

baccarat_king

In any case, we are probably in agreement this is NOT the target market of InsideFlyer.

oliver2002

OK, conversely, what is the market IF is looking for? We made clear its not the 'Hobbyist' FT or BArea reader, so what is it? And how do you think the traxo, newbie, forum, chat etc features of IF address those?

GUWonder

With rare exception, most of those within the crowd mentioned in the first sentence aren't going to invest much of any time going for something like the MPdbaIF. It's too small a niche within that customer segment that has time/interest for these things.

baccarat_king

Does it have to just be one market? What if you were able to attract the 2% and the 98%. It's definitely NOT an easy mission. But, if multiple parties could find value in InsideFlyer that might be a valuable approach.

Also, you have different aspects of these types of communities, IMO. FlyerTalk is all about "comfort" and "community" to me. (mostly the Delta and Gaming sections) It's a lot different for "newbie" and "less intensely interested" people who travel occasionally. There is definitely a market, it's just quite difficult to get that market to be loyal and keep coming back. Of course, all IMHO.

sbm12

Well, there's a whole section of the blog devoted to Cruises now. Maybe CruiseCritic.com is the target.

baccarat_king

and you "might" be able to guess the other "upcoming" target market. But, I ain't saying anything.

GUWonder

The "Vegas is my dream trip" crowd and (if even different) "destination wedding/honeymoon" crowds ?

sbm12

Such diversity of mission rarely leads to a business success.

Irony: MP/IF claims to be more about community and making people comfortable.

sbm12

Don't laugh too hard...those folks spend a lot of cash. I'd want them as part of my site portfolio. I'm not sure how IF plans to make that happen, but that's a demographic I'd target well ahead of the people willing to drop $4k on LifeMiles.