grandgourmand

Noticed the heavy emphasis on testing new business class products on his site, ostensibly to meet reader demands for these reviews.

Putting on my conspiracy theory hat...with devaluations of AA, especially, making F so much less affordable (in CX F, for example) need to switch to selling the business class dream.

Smart move, if that's the case.

kokonutz

This has been discussed upthread, and there are lots of explanations:

• Point devaluations.
• Travelling for 2 (with Ford) instead of just 1 doubles the miles and makes luxury F availability infinitely harder to find.
• Tightening of credit card churning rules/bonuses has reduced points supply.
• Responding to reader comments/demand.
• My personal favorite: adjusting to the new paradigm where paid reasonable business class fares is the new elite status (I moved to this 2 years ago and it has been WONDERFUL).

FallenPlat

Also, and in the same vein, today there was a post about effectively requalifying for EXP status -- nearly 90,000 "elite qualifying" miles -- for just over $3K in paid business/first cabins (inclusive of upgrades). Mostly business.

Some of the fares are really astonishing, especially the two round-trip trans-Pacs for $700 or so. Having SWUs helps, too, obviously.

For those, again, who haven't figured out how he does it, well, that's how.

For the rest of us . . . old news. But still amazing, at least to me.

(I have hopes of finaly putting an end to the repetitive, "It's impossible!" posts here; yeah, I know . . . dream on.)

benzemalyonnais

And he decided that it was prudent to alert his readers of his $400 bookings to PTY after the deal was dead. I wonder if he would do that for another similar deal that he didn't intend on flying. I would've missed it myself if I didn't learn about it from FT (as he surely did).

Thankfully there have been less AMAZING DEALS plastered on the blogs recently.

iadisgreat

In his defense, he posted a bit ago that he had booked a few paid tickets to Central America to take advantage of these fares.

But he has previously taken advantage of fares such as this without mentioning it to his readers until after the opportunity closed (with an excuse of "it was happening SO FAST, I couldn't possibly have posted about it in time...").

kokonutz

Relying on bloggers for good deals on premium cabin fares is a loser proposition.

FlyerTalk owns that space. Any deals you see on blogs, 95% chance came from the blogger reading the linked forum.

farbster

Whatever the reason(s), I'm happy to see reviews of business class. Aren't many of the airlines removing first class anyway in many routes? Personally, unless the amount of points was insignificant to go from biz to 1st, I'm gonna go for biz.

oliver2002

The Avianca trickit folks are probably hopping mad that he told the world that LHR-DEL-SFO in AI F is possible via AV LM

TMM1982

What happened to all the posts from the weekend?

84fiero

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...less-valuable/

Interesting take. I don't track paid premium fares much though there certainly have been quite a few posted about on BA blogs recently.

josephstern

This whole Hyatt all-inclusive series seems very off-topic for this blog. Same for much of the Thailand trip reports.

As Ben adds contributors, the aim here of reviewing luxury travel is really getting lost.

Astrophsx

To be honest I don't know if I quite understand the direction he's taking the blog. I always assumed the blog revolved around aspirational travel in order to sell people on credit cards. I always figured he used his lifestyle of living in hotels and flying all the time as a novelty to get people interested in the blog... then he can sell them on the dream.

I also agree that the contributing authors take away from the blog. Tiffany (as much as I like her style of writing) grabbed my attention when she used "off the beaten track" in her title then dropped the ball by staying at chain hotels. She also relies on a cellphone camera which to me brings down the quality. I figure with Ben using a point and shoot he could get someone like Andy (Andy's travel blog) to use a DSLR and really add to the visuals, which I think is why a lot of FT'ers view the blog.

kokonutz

Some of us have been pointing this out for 2 years now.

The points and miles game isn't over. But it's dying.

Ben's lucky to have some scratch in his pocket during the points and miles game death throes. ^ (or as the very first comment says, "Miles are less important because you are rich now!")

FallenPlat

Truth be told, the miles & points game was never really for paupers anyway.

At the flip end of the scale, by the way, you can also do some amazing things with Spirit these days -- at least from DFW.

Amex's struggles have helped me out lately as well.

I should also say, explicitly, that posts like this one have kept me a loyal reader for some years now.

Craig6z

While I agree it is off-topic when you think about OMAAT's historic content, I personally was interested in the Cabo series. My wife and I stayed at a property next to the Hyatt two years ago, along with another couple. Frankly I've been curious about the Hyatt since then, and even more-so after the hurricane.

The review series was very thorough and actually convinced me that upon return to Cabo, that we wouldn't stay there as the experience we really wanted would require Diamond status (I'm only Plat).

While it is possible that I could have found a similarly detailed review elsewhere, the fact it was on Ben's blog gave the poster legitimacy. While I don't always find the trip reports on that site interesting or even agree with them, at least I know that reviewers are welcome to speak their mind. And for the most part, contributors are literate and take quality photos.