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Deal Killing Blogs: List deals which were pulled, and the blogs which published them.

Deal Killing Blogs: List deals which were pulled, and the blogs which published them.

Old Nov 18, 2012, 11:51 am
  #61  
 
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Your love makes them strong. Your hate makes them invincible. I just woke up in LAS after a night of bottle service. I like to thank the Bloggers and FT helped me get here with some tricks and hints. The OP vs a Blogger charity boxing match!... Ugh I have no idea where I was even going with this
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 11:54 am
  #62  
 
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Indeed I am amazed this thread title survived. IMHO most deals are killed by vets who participate here who go "all in" when they see their precious deals on the blogs. It was not newbies walking into OD and buying the entire rack of Vanilla cards as people boasted about here.

This thread just remains a rant by the OP who wants to keep deals secret and does not even share or contribute here on FT
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 11:54 am
  #63  
 
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Originally Posted by ffI
I think Gary should be happy at being listed as No 1 by the OP.

Anyway I enjoy the info where ever it comes from and I feel that these are not meant to be known only to a slect few. Let us all use them fast and be ready to move to the next one if interested.
Gary probably knows more than everyone in this thread combined... so be grateful he's not revealing everything.

Originally Posted by fishdance
Meanwhile, the points guy has wonderful post explaining why buying vanilla reloads with chase ink earns you 507 points, and unite club card 506. All nicely presented with his Chase referal links. Well, at least he's not killing any deals.

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/11/sund...eens-worth-it/

Seriously, really... Is this what this blogging sh.... is about?
Sometimes. Guess it shows how dumbed-down the Americans have become...

Originally Posted by aviator8
I think some are missing the OP point. IMO this isn't so much about the bloggers, and their existence, and CC referrals, or even the fact that they post deals. This is more of an issue of how it is done. Bloggers are here to stay with the good and bad. As I see this it is a matter of presentation/frequency/credit

A Lot of people are lazy. When a lucrative deal is found, not everyone will jump on it if they have to go figure out the steps and read the T&C's etc.

BUT....

If they are given the information like this:

You can get a free first class ticket to Thailand, just do this:
click this link
put your name here
hit next
check this box
and on and on

A lot more people WILL do it. There is nothing wrong with sharing, but it is how you share. Share the deal in general. Let people research the deal, and make a decision, then go figure out how to participate. It seems to me if bloggers did just this basic level of sharing instead of showing lazy people exactly how to do things then a large segment would NOT play the deal and they would last longer. The blogs would still get their readers; maybe just not as many people end up doing it though.

The other piece is the fact that bloggers post about things found on FT. Some give credit, but others do not, posting as original content. I can't control that but it bothers me when I see it being done.

The last thing is the shear frequency when a deal is found. Bloggers know this is happening, and it is competition to get people to the page, but when a deal is posted in one blog, if it is a good deal you can expect everyone out there to post, and multiple posts per blogger. Add it all up and that amounts to a lot of publicity, and top rankings in Google searches. All that is bad news for non-sustainable deals. If bloggers, boarding area comes to mind as they are a group that collaborates, could agree on some ground rules on this saturating, and cannibalization of messages to reduce that frequency, maybe some of this angst level would fade.
It's really hard for BA to come to something on this. It's all independent bloggers, just clumped together under a name. Sort of like Airline Alliances...

Originally Posted by rankourabu
I thought blogging was about 'borrowing' stuff from other sources, and presenting it in an easy way that attracts traffic that in turn uses the bloggers credit card links?
Depends on if you want to make money or not. If so, yes, and then you can get sponsorship to chase the points guy!
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 11:57 am
  #64  
 
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Originally Posted by ma91pmh
Indeed I am amazed this thread title survived. IMHO most deals are killed by vets who participate here who go "all in" when they see their precious deals on the blogs. It was not newbies walking into OD and buying the entire rack of Vanilla cards as people boasted about here.

This thread just remains a rant by the OP who wants to keep deals secret and does not even share or contribute here on FT
As a fellow blogger with no link, I withhold judgement until he can prove otherwise. Come on, don't be SOOO biased.

I think it's the dichotomy of opinions that plague this issue.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 12:55 pm
  #65  
 
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I haven't contributed a lot here, and I am still new. I've learned a ton from Flyertalk and also from the blogs. I do wish some of them didn't make this so easy, because I do wish to keep some of this for myself. If fewer people knew about deals they would likely last longer. But I sort of sound like a jerk saying that, right? That I want it all for myself? But I will admit to still feeling frustrated by some of the photos and arrows and whatnot.

Still, the vitriol on this thread seems misplaced. If you want to convince anyone of your position, you should address the strongest form of your opponent's argument, not the weakest. Criticizing gleff for 'killing' or 'outing' the 4 mile Hong Kong deal is weak, since the long main Flyertalk thread on that deal cites his blog post. Blaming him for killing Vanilla Reloads at Office Depot seems strange since his coverage of those was pretty modest compared to other bloggers and compared to the play it got here on Flyertalk. (This is hardly some secret corner of the internet -- the frequent flyer programs themselves often monitor what's said here!)

Originally Posted by ma91pmh
This thread just remains a rant by the OP who wants to keep deals secret and does not even share or contribute here on FT
I've seen lots of folks who want to keep deals for themselves and won't even post them on Flyertalk, it isn't because of the bloggers since reading back through the archives it looks like many of the secret forums started before the proliferation of bloggers. But if someone wants to invite me onto the secret deal sites I promise not to start a blog!!
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 1:01 pm
  #66  
 
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I have a suggestion for OP: start your own blog about hating other blogs. Wouldn't that be swell. Honestly, some folks here have too much time on their hands.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 1:05 pm
  #67  
 
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Originally Posted by yerffej201
Are you saying that people who don't try hard enough shouldn't reap the rewards?
You got that right. To many of the 47%'ers right here on FT!!!
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 1:11 pm
  #68  
 
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Originally Posted by ma91pmh
Indeed I am amazed this thread title survived. IMHO most deals are killed by vets who participate here who go "all in" when they see their precious deals on the blogs. It was not newbies walking into OD and buying the entire rack of Vanilla cards as people boasted about here.

This thread just remains a rant by the OP who wants to keep deals secret and does not even share or contribute here on FT
Racks at OD were getting wiped out way before it hit the blogs and it was going strong. It is when you get these idiots involved posting pictures and calling every tom, dick and harry that things fall apart.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 1:21 pm
  #69  
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Just wait until referral cash flow goes down (and i am pretty sure it is decreasing with fewer and fewer bonus offers) and many blogs will go away.

I take the recent surge of line by line explanation of rather miniscule mileage opportunities as a sign of desperation. What is the business model here after all?

Trying to shame bloggers or plead to be reasonable will only drive more traffic to those blogs and prolong this - there is no such thing as bad publicity.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 1:29 pm
  #70  
 
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Originally Posted by QL_714
Racks at OD were getting wiped out way before it hit the blogs and it was going strong. It is when you get these idiots involved posting pictures and calling every tom, dick and harry that things fall apart.
Exactly. The OD deal had been going on in high volumes prior to the blog exposure. Within a week of the blog exposure, they were pulled. It's the publicity and circles and arrows that shut it down. Unfortunately many people in today's society want everything handed to them on a silver platter, even including in the miles/points game. In doing so, there's more publicity, and therefore overexposure and deals die. It's a good thing that there's some deals that haven't been blogged about....yet. I'm sure if they are, then they will quickly go away.

Equate this to the Trick It thread. Do the airlines know that there's different tricks to drop YQ's on certain routes? Most certainly. But if only a handful of people are doing it, then it's no harm no foul. But if thousands of people start using a trick, then the airlines will no doubt shut it down. Hence the level of code speak and PM's shared in that thread, so that morons won't spill the beans.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 2:47 pm
  #71  
 
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Originally Posted by ma91pmh
Indeed I am amazed this thread title survived.
+1

I guess we now have a pretty good idea of how some of the mods feel about the blogs in question. :-)
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 2:51 pm
  #72  
 
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Originally Posted by lilpooh108
Well said. I agree with that. As an aside, Darius' "tone" on MMS is just really grating. He acts like he came up with all that stuff himself. The pretense of it being his original content part bothers me.
Yes, I agree with you. I have the same feeling about his "tone".
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 2:53 pm
  #73  
 
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Originally Posted by QL_714
Racks at OD were getting wiped out way before it hit the blogs and it was going strong. It is when you get these idiots involved posting pictures and calling every tom, dick and harry that things fall apart.
If the stock was wiped out already how could more exposure possibly have done anything?

Anyway you did say you were going in big knowing the end was coming so I hope you got a good slice of the pie
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 3:00 pm
  #74  
 
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Originally Posted by kilton
+1

I guess we now have a pretty good idea of how some of the mods feel about the blogs in question. :-)
After all, aren't they part of Internetbrands also?

Originally Posted by nature1370
Yes, I agree with you. I have the same feeling about his "tone".
Can we stop bashing bloggers here?
It's a list of deals which bloggers posted.

Seriously, mods? Can you change the title/stop the bashing?
Go make another thread. This is seriously irking me.
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Old Nov 18, 2012, 3:03 pm
  #75  
 
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Originally Posted by azepine00
Just wait until referral cash flow goes down (and i am pretty sure it is decreasing with fewer and fewer bonus offers) and many blogs will go away.

I take the recent surge of line by line explanation of rather miniscule mileage opportunities as a sign of desperation. What is the business model here after all?

Trying to shame bloggers or plead to be reasonable will only drive more traffic to those blogs and prolong this - there is no such thing as bad publicity.
I'm on record as being no fan of bloggers but I am beginning to think another approach would be better. They aren't going to go away just because we don't like them, they are making too much money. They are killing deals that used to require some degree of experience and intelligence by spelling out the exploits in language a 2 year old could understand. I can see the detrimental effect on FT that fewer deals are being shared here because people don't want bloggers to copy the information--so everyone is basically losing. It was quite an interesting interview with Travelkid on FTG.

No one has mentioned US Grand Slam as a deal that was killed, although I gave more details on a thread in the GS forum, I would attribute the killing of that deal to a certain female Texas based blogger (mother of a toddler) who was running monthly tutorials on how to prepare for GS 12. I'm pretty sure the USDM people saw that and decided they didn't want hordes of people buying the minimum on their partners and having to deal with complaints when it didn't post on time. USDM still wants money so they at least gave us a share miles bonus but even that wasn't half as lucrative for experienced Grand Slammers.

The other killable deal occurred in April and May of this year. Now it's one thing if a company wants to promote tourism in the USA but quite another for a blogger to break down in great detail how to use hotel points in certain hotel programs to exchange for cheap airline miles. Result was that it was nearly impossible to log on to the site in question to buy points because of all the newbie traffic. For the sake of the OP, you can file that one under the same female blogger from Texas.

Notice how I am being discreet with the names? I don't want to contribute to raising traffic at the blogs by giving their names and possibly give them more readers. That's one thing you all need to consider when discussing bloggers on FT or elsewhere. The more links they have, the higher their rank on Google which leads to them expanding even further. Either use acronyms or descriptions that FTers will understand but Google won't. Gregorygrady, maybe you could consider altering your OP. I understand your intent but it could backfire and have MORE people going to those blogs.

Now for my other idea. We don't like bloggers over-exposing deals that in the past would have been exploited by FTers with the capability of doing their own research. Why don't we dilute THEIR income? Let's turn the tables on them and over-expose credit card referrals!

There are only so many people out there who don't have the usual credit cards and every blogger who comes on board with referral links further dilutes that pool. So maybe we should ALL make blogs. Not blogs that kill deals, but ones that share unkillable deals and maybe give an extra slant on them. If we make some kind of alliance like Boarding A. and all link to each other and put links on any personal website we have we should get Google rankings soon enough. We can't completely get rid of deal-killing bloggers but we COULD cut their income enough so they have to return to their day jobs!

Is anyone else interested? What's the best blog software to use?

Last edited by Tiki; Nov 18, 2012 at 3:10 pm
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