FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Help! Looking for personal website on how to earn miles
Old Nov 21, 2002 | 2:17 am
  #22  
Marathon Man
FlyerTalk Evangelist
20 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: BOS, MHT
Programs: AA ltg, B6, DL, UA, AS, SPG/Marriott Plt, HH, Hyatt
Posts: 10,062
Rut Dog, how many MILES does it get ya and on what airline--I mean, how many does it HAVE?
ha ha

ANYWAY,
peoples, I am wondering about this whole delemna. Think about it because it is ALL possible and could happen to ANY of you:

So let's say you love to talk about miles and you get to a point where your peers or friends or whatever starts to think you know a bunch of tips or where to find them more than many of them do.

So you have some time or abilities beyond many of your friends and you take it upon yourself to test out some decent computer skills and maybe a few resources you may even have for free and you start up your own travel web page with tips and tricks on it for just that purpose. Hey, it's cool to have a little site and why not, because you can do it and it's free, right? You can compile all your tips or mile stuff in one. (I thought about doing this for my skiing hobby, but have no time these days.)

People love it. Your site becomes an instant hit with friends, etc. Your friends find the info they always ask you about, your mother tells her friends, your friends tell their friends, and so on. You stop having to type the same long emails about the same topics to all these friends all the time. It's in the site, you tell them. The site has updates that you do and keep up with as they happen, and tweaks or edits to make it easier to use/manage. A special on AA or DL here, an upgrade rule to know about there... A fix to the graphics and the way you might lay out the info on the pages in it.

NOW, The site, like some planes, takes off! It is getting a bit bigger than you imagined, but hey, 'you da man' for making up this little thing and now people are looking to you for info on stuff you just happen to have the chance to more readily compile into one place for yourself and your freinds!

I mean, remember, all you use to find yourself doing all day is telling the SAME old tips to ALL these people; friends, new people, people you never met, etc. But the site makes it better and it's becoming well known and pretty good info, so hey, people are getting the word out there that your new little cute travel web site is actually a pretty decent thing to have laying around. Next, people from all over start to ask you to please give THEM the tips and so might even some professionals! You are getting bigger. SOmeone may even suggest advertising on it but you say no at first because hey, this isnt about the money... yet.

Now, maybe the guy who you know with the web server kinda asks for a couple bucks from you since the site is taking up a bit more of his server space and so you throw him a few. You also spend a lot of time keeping things updated because we all know how many changes to own rules the airlines make, right? You also want to make sure the stuff you say on your own thing is right, right? You have to deal with critics even among your peers who tell ya the site is too this or that, needs this or that and that you "have tooo much time on your hands, there, cheif" You are getting both into it and owned BY it. It's big, but that's the web...

Now, somebody you dont even know actually looks to you to learn about your site and they ask about it but people in THEIR world don't remember the link.

So they find THIS forum and they put the question out there... in the big wide world:

"WHERE can I find that site I saw or that info that makes MY travel plans easier to do?"

Now, lemme ask you: IS IT WRONG to HAVE the site? Is it WRONG to tell somebody about that site? IS it really wrong to promote something to people just to try to help them out? Hey, you know some of these guys with sites never asked for a thing in return and I might LIKE to give them a few $ or even miles, but they dont even want it! They'd down right refuse it! How good of them, and yet all they REALLY seem to want is to be the guy who is known to know all about miles. The sort of self-made benevelent Guru master who just happens to put all our crap we talk about into one place (edited and simplified, of course). So is it WRONG to WANT some level of fame--but where you dont really make THAT your known goal? Hey, some people wanna be cool, right? some wanna kinda be known as the guy with the info... Is it so wrong to just have a knack for the web and a bit of self-promotion? Or are we jealous of these types?

I'm just asking. Too many rules is what complicates things in the air travel world. WHy are there so many morals or rules having to be in here?


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If speed is not your thing, distance may as well be. Enjoy and embrace it all!
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