gpapadop

As many things in life, many businesses thrive on keeping ignorant people in the dark...
#newbies click on affiliate links to travel for "free"

And on it goes...

gpapadop

I do not click on any OMAAT and VFTW post for years! I guess there are lots of morons who click on this crap, just back in town and Feedly informs of these new posts:

OMAAT: Absurd Fight Breaks Out on Thai Smile Flight
VFTW: Free Lap Dances for Stranded Southwest Airlines Passengers in Vegas

smh

DELee

Seems like important stuff.

David

Adam1222

You are posting on a 300-page thread about a stranger's blog about planes and hotels. Seems odd to suggest *bloggers* are writing about stuff that's not important.

s0ssos

Seems like Medium blocks IP addresses from certain countries?
Anyway, there is a graphic novel I read that talks about that. I forget the name (Bertha?) but it follows a lady who went to the big city, from the countryside where dreams go to die, and in the city there is a biscuit factory which manufactures "knowledge." People trade everything they have for these biscuits with printed words (eg "news"), and everybody admires the people who are able to eat more biscuits (eg are fat) because they have more knowledge. And people like to eat their biscuits in the presence of others, so everybody is impressed by all the knowledge they have.
Later it is revealed that the words on the biscuits aren't real news, and are just random words linked together and printed out in a factory.

CarringtonEvent

Ben is out of touch to the point of not even seeming human.

He grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth as it was, married someone even richer and then has used his blog (as asinine as it is, it does make a lot of money, and I commend him for that) to further live a life disconnected from reality. Adding insult to injury, he has such a profoundly uncool, clunky way of writing. I bet he’s insufferable in person.

He also editorializes way too much. The post about babies in first class was a good example of this. He clearly wouldn’t have supported babies in first class before he had a child of his own.

By the way, does anyone remember when he insisted some cabin crew once gave him a handjob against his will? I always thought that was BS.

Also, I really hesitate to call people like Ben “bloggers.” He’s just a credit card marketer who uses a blog (or something like one) to lure people in.

kokonutz

No, see, MY lap baby/toddler is DIFFERENT! It BEHAVES in first class!...is the lie every parent with a kid in FC tells themselves and others.

Besides, Ben claims he's always supported them in FC.

I had an interesting experience in European 'business class' (regular seats but blocked middle) recently on BA. A couple with 2 lap kids were also in Euro 'bc'...and chose 2 aisle seats across from each other. Apparently their strategy was to make use of the blocked middle seat to accommodate their lap children, which they did for the first 5 minutes of the flight. But then the FA was having none of it. She required each lap child to be buckled into the lap of each parent for the duration of the flight much to the displeasure of the parents but apparent appreciation of the window-seat passengers.

josephstern

Seems reasonable to me to write from your personal experience. If Ben wrote as a childless traveler, fine. Now that he has a kid has a different perspective? Also fine. People change and their circumstances change.

Also, I haven't seen evidence that Ben grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth, or that Ford is wealthier than Ben. I'm not saying these aren't true, but I just haven't seen this before. Can you provide some links on these points for me?

Raffles

Ben must have banked at least $25m from the blog over the years - Ford isn’t matching that!

jimmygottfredson

Up front, I'm going to claim my ignorance about the "point blog business model", BUT, are you claiming a site like OMAAT is capable of earning 25 million over a decade+ of operation?

GUWonder

If the site has c. 20,000 bank card applicants averaged annually over say a 15 year period, that would probably have gotten him well over the threshold for earning that revenue. And there’s money coming in from more than just card application kickbacks.

ctownflyer

Ok, but where does the number 20,000 come from?
Lucky also hasn't been in affiliate marketing for 15 years.
Don't forget that people often apply through referral offers and direct targeted offers, even if they are regular blog readers.

Someone told me today that they heard I turned down an offer to sell out for $150M. Wild what sort of castles in the sky that people create.

Raffles

How can Ben not make that sort of cash? I know what I make, which funds a decent sized house in the most expensive part of London plus an office in Central London plus two staff. Ben has a readership 10x mine, earns an average of 5x per card sale more than me and has a readership willing to take out 20+ cards each (vs 2-3 max in the UK).

If TPG generates $30m per year, which we are told it does, then you can put a % guess against that for Ben.

CarringtonEvent

What makes people think OMAAT is in the same earnings ballpark as TPG? I would be surprised if his blog brings in even a quarter of TPG's revenue. Granted, he also has less overhead, but still. TPG is practically a lifestyle magazine at this point; OMAAT is a gossipy rag.

Raffles

Exactly. So if Ben does just 20% then that’s $6m which makes my original statement - that he should easily have banked $25m over the years - very likely.