Originally Posted by YOWgary

Would you like to know how easy it is to grow a profitable business dedicated to publishing unbiased, un-influenced, dispassionate coverage of the frequent-flyer market? Without relying on credit-card referrals or bias-creating advertising to drive revenue?

...because I know a guy who can talk about that a little.

If you think Ricky / TJ et al have torched their indie street cred by doing this, you're welcome to hold that opinion, but I guess what I'm asking is... how much stock were you putting in that when they were just driving credit-card referrals? Advertising doesn't pay, and the whole concierge / points consulting thing is reasonably profitable per hour but puts a hard cap on earnings and most of your customers want to fly The Room for saver-tier pricing during peak cherry-blossom season.

I've read through PoT's coverage, and it's about as even-handed as I would have been if writing independently, with fair description of both who benefits and who loses out in the new program, including examples of their own choosing where EVERYONE is worse off than they were before. Most of all, I didn't find it particularly cheer-leader-ish, as might have been expected from what increasingly does look like a paid partnership as "Air Canada’s Educational Partner".

I'm just not seeing a huge problem here. Influencers gonna influence, if you think the woman on Instagram raving about her new weighted blanket is just doing it out of personal enjoyment of the product then I've got a newly-discounted bridge in P.E.I. to sell you.