What is the most useful frequent flyer blog?
#1426
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Programs: Airline Free Agent, Fairmont Lifetime Platinum, Hyatt Globalist, Hilton Honors Diamond
Posts: 3,041
Well, it's like Top 40 music. What is commercial does not necessarily mean that it's high quality. On the contrary, I always liked alternative music lol
#1427
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,708
It looks like he currently only has affiliate links for Barclay's. If you have a store and all you have in stock are turnips, you sell turnips.
#1428
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 432
Regardless of what MV true intention is, I feel I learn something new every time I read his post whereas on some other blogs more than half is quite useless/redundant.
#1429
Join Date: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,708
I agree he has very detailed and useful award booking advice. I think most people would agree on that. The reason he gets dissed a bit on this thread is because of the U.S. Airways affiliate link issue and his deleting comments when people point out a better offer that is not an affiliate link.
#1431
formerly known as felinaar
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: SEA
Programs: UA Plat, AA Gold, AS MVPG, Hyatt Diamond, Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold
Posts: 612
Having met TPG in person, one of the things I liked about Brian is that he dials down the self-promotion. Maybe it's because he has a publicist to do that for him and he already gets enough attention without having to beg for it.
But in my experience there seems to be an inverse relationship to the popularity of a blog and how annoying they are. Attending the BlogWorld/NMX conference in New York last year was nauseating -- it was all about how many ways you could monetize your blog, search engine optimization, creating and selling email subscriber lists, etc. I ended up ditching most of the sessions to spend time writing instead.
But in my experience there seems to be an inverse relationship to the popularity of a blog and how annoying they are. Attending the BlogWorld/NMX conference in New York last year was nauseating -- it was all about how many ways you could monetize your blog, search engine optimization, creating and selling email subscriber lists, etc. I ended up ditching most of the sessions to spend time writing instead.
#1432
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: 1A with Dom Perignon
Programs: Platinum Sky Pimp
Posts: 86
Im pretty sure Brian outgrew the stage where he edits footer on his blog and instead has one of his "staff" members in Philippines do it.
#1433
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: LAS
Programs: DL PM, UA PS, Hyatt Globalist, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 4,904
That being said, MV does have unique posts, and knowledge is power. (France is bacon).
#1434
Join Date: Jun 2011
Programs: DL, Amex MR
Posts: 287
Many new "tricks" involve booking a hidden-city leg with an award redemption for a leg you won't fly, thus saving miles by fulling a round-trip requirement, etc. Despite the miles saved, that's something I'm not prepared to do since award availability has gone down lately. It hurts other FFers who want to redeem their miles legitimately for that unflown route.
That being said, MV does have unique posts, and knowledge is power. (France is bacon).
That being said, MV does have unique posts, and knowledge is power. (France is bacon).
#1435
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Intermountain West
Programs: Too many to list
Posts: 12,086
Folks, let's keep this about blogger 'content' and not personal issues. Last warning. Next person who strays OT may have a short time out.
#1436
formerly known as felinaar
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: SEA
Programs: UA Plat, AA Gold, AS MVPG, Hyatt Diamond, Hilton Diamond, SPG Gold
Posts: 612
Instead I was learning how to collect a list of email addresses and sell them to a spammer, how to up-sell my readers, how to create pay walls, how to pay some guy in Africa to give me 1,000 Twitter followers, how to scrape and republish content without writing it, and how to build a blog in six months before selling it to the highest bidder.
Now, I'm all for making money. I enjoy traveling, and I like that I can make a small living writing about it. But the goal is to travel first and make money second. The attitude I got was "How can I squeeze as much money out of my readers and disappear before they notice?"
#1437
Join Date: Feb 2009
Posts: 3,737
Application Link: US Airways Premier World MasterCard with 40,000 US Airways miles after first purchase
The link takes you to an application that gives 30,000 miles after first purchase and then 10,000 miles after a balance transfer.
#1438
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 167
As a poster of quality FF article links I hope we can discover more writers coming up with their own spin on relevant topics. It makes my job easy when I see post thats short on relevant info and heavy on 4-5 CC links I can rule them out and skip over them quickly.
#1439
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 139
I did see he hired a managing editor, but the text really doesn't look like it's getting terribly much editing (I was a copy editor in college so I tend to notice any typos or mistakes).
Regardless, it looks like TPG is at least adding some degree of editorial oversite that most others lack so that effort is to be applauded. ^
#1440
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: ATL
Programs: Shamelessly Gold at Flying Burrito and AirTrain A+ Elite. Turkish Star Gold, 100k at Flying Eskimo
Posts: 742
I agree he has very detailed and useful award booking advice. I think most people would agree on that. The reason he gets dissed a bit on this thread is because of the U.S. Airways affiliate link issue and his deleting comments when people point out a better offer that is not an affiliate link.