Indeed, and I'm still happy to offer my advice and thoughts here and Flyertalk and elsewhere for free as I always have been. In fact, I'd rather help folks learn to maximize their miles than take a fee for making a booking on someone's behalf, if they're so inclined to invest in learning to do so.

But there are plenty of frustrated people out there, not the kind to spend time on places like Flyertalk, who just can't seem to get value out of their miles.

I only like working on projects for people who believe that the $250 or so that they'll pay me is the best value money they've ever spent, perhaps they wouldn't have known even where to start and they didn't think it was possible to get what they were after.

If you're not sure whether it's worth paying me, don't.