Astrophsx

Nowhere in his blog (that I can recall) has Ben tried to sell people on his lifestyle. He is a salesman and travel blogger. He documents aspirational travel and has tried to inject his own personal style of writing and reviewing. These trip reports document the product and try to push credit card referral links. With good credit and methods to meet spending bonuses you can typically follow his methods to get similar results. The average reader probably is not involved with mileage runs, living out of hotels that generate miles/points, having a business that generates a large number of MR points through travel related purchases, and directly purchasing miles.

What's not free:

- Expense to manufacture spend in order to meet spending bonus requirements.
- Taxes and fees on award bookings
- Fees if you hire someone to book your award trip
- Annual credit card fees
- If you value your time searching for awards, driving to the store, driving to the bank, making online payments, etc... can add up to several hours.

Ben's travel typically does not come directly from cash purchased first class flights. He buys miles, uses credit card sign ups, lives in a hotel, mileage runs, and has a business that charges a lot of travel related expenses that earns points. Though he does from time to time purchase first class travel and does pay cash for hotels.

The misnomer that many fanboys of Ben and other popular bloggers put out there is that he is where he is because of his talent, dedication, and hard work. I think others have just pointed out that the involvement of his family financially backing him from a young age, the UA scam, and making complaints in order to seek compensation also played an important part of his early success (or ability to stay afloat). The article also skipped over the time that he spent as a travel agent...

There is also an element that Ben's experiences are not what one should expect through similar travel. He is a well known blogger that may receive special treatment. He is well known for "reaching out" through social media when something goes wrong. He is well known for broadcasting where he is through social media (checking-in on planes and hotels) and tagging the hotel/airline in the message. He has had relationships with the companies that he often reviews or documents.

Also, it has been disclosed that many bloggers reach out to airlines and hotels before their trip. At the end of the day his blog is still a great resource for photos airline and hotel products if you want to see photos. He also has documented the process of how to use your miles and points to obtain that travel if you have said miles/points in your account.

I still think Ben is talented and very successful at what he does. There are very few bloggers that are well received in this forum... (Frequent Miler, Wandering Aramean, etc..). To some extent there is always going to be some negative sentiment towards travel bloggers as they are for the most part making a living through credit card referrals, bring an influx of new people into The Hobby, and kill "deals" faster by detailing them in full and sending them out to a wider audience who may not have otherwise been involved in the deal due to the amount of time and research involved.