mnscout

Alright, so Randy put the first myth to rest, let's hope, but let me respond to your second statement.

1. I believe that pointing out a good credit card bonus and helping people understand how to get advantage of it is already added value. I understand you don't feel this way, because you already know how. But there are other people not just you. Which brings us to point #2.

2. Complaining that bloggers want to help noobs is just silly. I too want to help noobs. I will help noobs without any ulterior motives because I love this stuff, and I love to share knowledge. One thing I don't like is country club mentality. I understand why some people feel this way, but I hope I have the right to disagree. Who do you think bloggers should look out if not noobs? You? But you already know almost everything, and what you don't, you know where to find.

Now the question of getting compensated is silly too. Blogging is hard work. Taking your blog off the ground is even harder, and in this tiny niche the competition is especially brutal. Very few bloggers make decent money, and absolute majority of bloggers make very little if anything. What all of you guys fail to understand is that there are not too many people out there who want to click on those links in the first place to make everybody happy.

HikerT

I'd say the jury is still out until we hear of BoardingArea bloggers that weren't automatically approved by FlexOffers.

As far as helping noobs, I am not saying there aren't bloggers out there with noble intentions, but once the affiliate income starts to roll in we do see behavior change. I provided a pretty good example of that with one blogger suggesting readers use their 10K affiliate links for Ink over the 5K offer. But hey, if people aren't willing to call a spade a spade in that instance I doubt they'd be convinced of anything.

elBulli

May I ask out of genuine curiosity: Is that your book you're hawking in your signature line, or just a book you've found useful?

Mommy Points

HikerT, my guess here is that hitting spending requirements is so second nature and easy for you via various routes that perhaps the essence of the post really didn't make sense to you. I think I get that. However, as strange as it may seem for you, there are lots of folks out there who will have trouble hitting a $10K or even $5K spending requirement in 3 months and they would rather just pick up some miles upon the first use of the card.

At the time that post was written, that was possible with one (the old) offer, but would not be with the new one. It would then be an all or nothing proposition to hit the spending requirement to get the bonus points. I have many readers who don't feel comfortable doing anything other than traditional use of the card to rack up spending, so even 5K can be too much for some. The post simply presented the two options and highlighted the pros/cons of the two. Not sure why presenting the two available options irritated you so much, but apologies if it did.

I think I have weighed in on the FlexOffers thing before, but my understanding is there might have been a brief period of time where being a BA blog was an automatic or fast-track route with FO, but my understanding is they quickly returned to vetting each blog individually. I'm sure being a part of BA helps on some level as they are familiar with other BA blogs, but my understanding is it isn't an auto-approval stamp.

Not sure what that really has to do with what "the most useful frequent flyer blog is", but still hope it helps someone none the less.

onthego15

Thanks Mommy Points for your very clear comparison on your blog today between the "old" and "new" versions of the USAir credit cards. There is a lot of confusion because of the different varieties of cards USAir is offering and your post today definitely qualifies as most useful to me.

elBulli

I personally am not a fan of your blog at all. But in this case you're right. I have no problems putting in the time to manufacture a $10k spend, but my parents don't want to go through that so they'll go for cards like the US Airways 40k-on-first-spend cards. So I can definitely understand your point.

HikerT

Seriously? The Ink Plus spend requirement is $5K. You have 3 months to complete it. Amazon Payments covers $3K of that. If your readers can't do $2K of other spend in 3 months all they need to do is buy $2K of gift cards at office depot in month 3 and use Amazon Payments liquidate over the next 2 months. There is no cost to doing this due to the 0% interest for 6 months on Ink Plus. Heck, they could meet the 5K spend entirely at OD with gift cards and just liquidate via AP over 5 months. But your advice to these readers is to use your affiliate link, ignore AP as a tool, and essentially burn a credit inquiry for a 25K bonus? Sorry, that's just horrible advice. They shouldn't be applying at all in this case!

Mommy Points

I think you are still missing it completely....there are a bunch of people who don't use AP to meet spending requirements. There are a bunch of people who don't buy up thousands in gift cards to meet spending requirements. It's clear you do and hitting spending requirements is easy as a result....but I promise you not everyone in the miles and points world does that. In fact, I would say the majority of my readers don't. That is why for some of them getting 25K points and then using the 5x for cell phones, cable bills, occasional OD visits, etc was a better deal. Again, the post just spelled out both offers - it didn't push the old one over the new one.

HikerT

The problem is that you are essentially pushing a 25K offer. It's bad advice and tainted by the $150+ referral. How many other 25K offers do you push, specifically ones that don't give you a referral?

dbh1

So long as one is presenting all options accurately and being very upfront about them, I don't see the issue. In the past I have even mentioned slightly inferior offers where I stated something like: this offer is similar to the link above but requires $2k more in spending; however, I get a commission on this link so if you don't care, feel free to use it. I know no stranger would ever do so, but a long time reader or personal friend may consider it. Even though I have decent number of pageviews, most of them are window shopping, applying somewhere else or somehow blocking the affiliate tracking and I get most of my actual revenue from personal friends and family that just hop on my site to apply since it helps me.

Maybe most of my readers are other bloggers looking for the latest deals for their own sites -- jokes on them, my stuff isn't that original Well, the travel reviews and tips are very original (and useful IMHO), but the points stuff is about aggregation and simplification 99% of the time.

ma91pmh

I agree 100% with MommyPoints here. You are just completely missing how most of the world views this. The vast majority of the population does not want to deal with some bizarre way of sending money to themselves. They do not want to go and buy Office Depot visa gift cards and somehow "liquidate" them through the same bizarre service. Most people think "liquidate" means putting some food in the blender to make it edible for babies!

Manufactured spend is for those willing to put in time and effort. The vast majority of the population are actually fine just redirecting normal spend onto a couple of new cards to get enough points to do something they like for free.

You really need to realize that your reality and indeed mine are way different to the 311m(*) Americans who don't bother with FlyerTalk. (* based on Jul 2011 census stats with US population of 311.5m with approximately 500k FT users)

HikerT

So it's simply coincidence that these readers become the focus as soon as a better offer shows up that the blogger doesn't yet have a $150+ referral link for? If these readers are the target audience, then why aren't these sub-par minimal spend sign up bonuses highlighted more, specifically ones that don't provide a referral?

elBulli

No one is saying it's coincidence. I doubt even the MP blogger would deny (unless she's even more disingenuous than I thought) that she hawks what's best for her and uses the "care about the readers" canard for pushing her better-for-her referral links.

She just makes a good point about people not necessarily wanting the "best" (as in, most points earned) card over the "best" (as in, easiest to earn points) card.

The "target audience" of any of these blogs is in fact a moving target. It is the audience from which the bloggers make most money at any given time. Sometimes it's hardcore churners like you and sometimes it's one-and-done spenders like my parents.

HikerT

Moving target indeed. I really doubt the readers that would have problems meeting the reduced $5K spend actually have a business. Yet no ethical concerns raised until it serves a purpose. Today we see ethical issues raised for using the non-affiliate US Airways link. Just seems to me like more nudging to encourage readers to use the affiliate link.

Mommy Points

Sigh. I think we just have to agree to disagree both on the purpose of the old Ink post and today's US Airways post. I pretty much only post about things I would do myself, so ethics come into play in this hobby on a regular basis. Heck, FM had a great post on "the ethical line" today.

I do think we will agree on this point though (which is back to the subject matter of this thread). My site, and others like it, probably aren't helpful for you and others like you who are advanced in miles and points. There are some sites that probably do have more value for you, but those sites probably don't have as much value for others who aren't as advanced.

In other words, you probably can't be useful to everyone at the same time. You can just share what you know in the best way you know how to do it and hope it helps someone out. If it doesn't, just try harder the next time.