Originally Posted by
Astrophsx
There is some twisted truths put forward by the author of the article about the industry (read the article to form your own opinion). The article also paints a picture of Ben as someone with a high IQ, who looks for loopholes, and someone who has mastered the ticketing algorithms. "His mission is to outwit the airlines and fly first class, for free, as much as he can without getting caught."
The article also states that he spends an average of 6 hours daily in the sky.. that an airplane is his bedroom, office, and playroom.
"The fact is, we are beating the airlines at their own game. The people who run these programs are idiots. And we'll always be one stop ahead of them."
I'd like to hear the thoughts of how the article portrays the ban from United. Also, that Ben says that he has repeatedly has tried to pay them back ~$5k to get unbanned. There seems to be some discrepancies between what he has disclosed in his blog. The persona that the article paints is different than what Ben has shown to his readers.
Don't you think he would like to paint a better picture of himself to a mass audience that probably has never heard of him before? Do you think people would be willing to care about a guy that was banned from an airline for doing what is alleged (versus what is reported in the article)? One is gaming the system, the other is fraud.
The article makes it all sound so glamorous doesn't it? First class flights costing $15k. 5-star hotels. Running into friends in Hong Kong and sharing a bottle of champagne until the wee hours. It's a puff piece.
But, for the life of me I can't figure out why hobby is written as "Hobby."