Astrophsx

Personally I like FTG.. I just don't like the newer direction the blog has taken with the guest bloggers. I think that Million Mile Secrets has the right idea about guest blogging with interviewing them... but that seems to be what his blog is all about and instead of using that material as filler he is using it as his main content. Maybe FTG is doing very well and I just don't see it, but I feel that his guest bloggers have run out of good content to write about. Probably a smart idea to start doing giveaways to get people to come back and hit up those credit card referrals.

If credit card companies start limiting people to one bonus per card type and shut down churners I think are going to see a lot of copy cat bloggers go away?

josephstern

Don't forget, Rick doesn't own the FTG blog anymore. So there may be a requirement for x amount of posts per day, which might explain the guest bloggers and the less-than-interesting posts and re-hash of the deals on the other posts.

ma91pmh

I like Rick and owe his blog a debt of gratitude sas it gotme started in this game. I have been reading for nearly 3 years now and he has always published daily so this is nothing to do with the new ownership. Now I dont find it particularly useful but I like some of the reports like his stepsons travels in Africa

Not liking content is one thing, just dont read if you dont like. What is not acceptable to me is pumping credit cards ( especially when anyone looking on ft would easily find better offers ) and also when a blogger gets pref treatment (fine) and passes it off as "great service" (not fine)

on a similar note though i cant take seriously critique from those here who have pan-handling referal links in there signature. in real life do you also add to every conversation "oh mail me for an ebates/bankdirect/spg/chase/this or that" referal. it is truly distasteful and id suggest these occupants of glass houses cease their stone throwing

josephstern

I guess we all want something for nothing.

And now I'll start posting just so people can see my requests for referrals . . .

ORD-TGU

I disagree. I actually want all bloggers to talk about credit cards, detail pros and cons, talk about all aspects. Keep me up to date. There is a huge amount of info that I have learned from bloggers that I would have not learned on my own. And I am not a rookie, I have been in this "game" for the last 10 years.

Credit cards are the single most lucrative miles earning category.

A blogger has told me that I can get 100K on the BA, or bump the bonus on my AMEX PLAT to 100K, or multiple AA at 75K, UR MALL, etc, etc.

Would people prefer talk about fill a survey for 500 points? Audience Awards fro 2 points? Twitter for 250?
Why does nobody complain about multiple reports about the Maldives. I have never been there and at most will go there once in my life, and most people will not even make it there?

If you don’t want to read about credit cards, you can skip the post or just go elsewhere.

Bloggers, keep on with the credit cards, and I am more than happy to click on your links to give you all my referral credit as a thanks for your work.

ma91pmh

Allow me to clarify. I totally agree that credit cards are the single largest and most accessible form of getting miles. And I do want bloggers to cover them. I loved that back in the day Rick's blog had really detailed coverage of how to churn the Citi AA cards, down to how long you should wait between apps etc.

Thing is nowadays you don't see that. Just go through Boardingarea and do a post count on Chase Sapphire or Amex Plat. These are both great cards with useful sign up bonuses. But Ba is saturated with posts on it. Some bloggers have "arguments' with each other about relative value. Great excuse to post some more sign up links. Some bloggers create a post summarizing all their posts on the cards. Another excuse to print the links. The posts themselves have no value, other than to the poster to generate revenue

Meanwhile there are currently on going equally attractive offers for Citi TYP, Citi AA Miles, Chase Southwest etc. How much do the bloggers on Ba/TPG post about these? Jack Something Brown, that's how much. They get no commish, and hide their lack of posting behind a b/s wall of "these are not official offers so I can't vouch for them". One Ba blogger - Delta whats-his-name (IMHO one of the worst blogs on the street) went as far as to declare the Citi TYP 50k promo dead and then closed off the post to comments. The offer was alive and well, all that had died was his ability to take commish. Really, really crass. Citi AA biz cards are still highly churnable but nobody talks about it any more as they are all too busy milking the commish cow

This is why I genuinely like Darius' MMS approach as he does seem to list all the offers with good detail on how to take advantage of them. When I do sign up, I use his links as the $50 or so commish would just stay with the bank if I went direct

So yes do please keep posting about credit cards, but cover everything equally and independently, rather than be slave to your commish paying masters

belfordrocks

And while Amex MR gets so much press SPG gets thrown to the wayside, but that's a different story...

josephstern

Who needs either of those when there are UR points? Oh - I mean, does Chase still give a nice referral bonus for those to bloggers?

belfordrocks

I understand the value of UR points, but Amex MR are the most overhyped points in history (at least since CO left). You can tell as there are people willing to transfer their Amex MR, at a loss (!) to US Airways miles...

josephstern

And even to SPG! It's nuts.

I do agree that they're overhyped in general, but they are somewhat flexible and can be used to top off a bunch of other programs.

But how about UR points? Seriously overhyped. I have a lot, and I haven't had occasion to use a single one yet. Basically, it's UA or Hyatt - maybe WN but I hate that. And no transfer bonus so far. I'll bet most people haven't used a single UR point either since they're relatively new.

84fiero

So far we've only transferred in a few thousand UR points to top off for certain awards, but am really waiting to see if they start to run bonuses like MR does. Who knows, maybe I'll be waiting a long time!

I just got my first MR card but so far haven't done anything with the points. I hesitated to even sign up since the loss of CO and BA devaluation makes it less attractive. I still really like SPG though.

belfordrocks

Chase is a lot better than Amex- it transfers to United which in all honesty is the best program out there. Other options like Hyatt and KE are all secondary, but UA miles are seriously worth quite a bit now.

SPG is still the best point out there- no doubt. But since they don't give bonuses for dining/travel spend (other than 2x points at Starwood properties) they really don't work well for airfares etc and are a much more "generic" credit card instead. And of course the sign up bonus is lower- and we all like one-time rewards much better than consistency

Amex MR is honestly just trash- it transfers to DL which can be good for certain awards, but generally are harder to use than *A miles, and then we have AC and ANA (which both have fuel surcharges except for certain carriers) and BA which is just generally... bad. I seriously don't see why certain bloggers love BA so much... they're as bad as Qantas.

Edit: People argue BA is good for "short haul awards" but LAN/SPG is even better- a sub-500km award for only 6000 LAN km's (that's 2400 SPG!)

amolkold

I love Chase UR ... UA is the best mileage program in my opinion, and their partnership is invaluable. My family has redeemed 145,000 UR points since getting my first points in July. Most were to UA/CO but I also transferred 5K -> 5KHyatt -> 2K US during the Grand Slam to get a late hit for 20K US.

We pushed 180,000 MR points to CO last year before 9/30, and are back up to 110K MR now. I'll probably transfer those to BA (especially now with the bonus, for short AA flights) or to SQ since some saver F and J awards are available on SQ but not partners. Sure, there's a fuel surcharge, but SQ is worth it in my opinion for trips to India.

I haven't signed up any of us for an SPG card, but I'm thinking more into it for the near future. If UA devalues their chart, I'll move more from Chase to SPG, since they can transfer to AA/AS/US.


That said, I can see why these are the 3 most hyped cards/programs ... they allow for easy transfers to multiple programs. A lot of bloggers are saying to build up points without a plan to use them, then figure out how to use them for a trip later down the road. It's capitalism, it allows them to get people to use their referral links to get these points on bonuses without having to figure out how to use the points.

saacman5033

Definitely YMMV. UA miles haven't jumped in value for me at all recently and all my UR points transfers thus far have been to KE or BA.

Again, quite a bit of generalization, and I have no idea what you're getting at calling the SPG card "generic". While not my personal favorite, it's a good card with far from generic award opportunities.

I disagree but you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

Honestly I still like BA miles (though less than pre-avios) but I haven't seen bloggers show an undue amount of love for them.

Also, way to go on the cherry-picking the sub-500km award. Sounds great if only I could find a flight that is sub-500km

belfordrocks

Still, any flights under 1300km's (~800 miles) cost 10K km's or 4K SPG points. And the fact that the award chart is still segmented under 1300kms means that shorter awards are even cheaper.

For flights under 500km's, some Alaskan flights like ANC-Kodiak/Cordova are great redemption value as well as flights like Dallas-Tulsa. Under 1300kms, flights like ANC-BRW/OME/OTZ/SCC can get over 10-15 cents per SPG point...

I said "generic" as it unlike Amex or Chase, it doesn't have bonuses for dining/airfare so works best for "miscellaneous" spend.