Apology and correction is up.

http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2014/...a-big-win.html

It's still amazes me that a blogger could have such a fundamental ignorance of major program like this. This isn't a simple mistake, or "getting caught up in the excitement. This is a major blog, and that's a clear major misunderstanding. Crazy....

I'm constantly amazed at the critics here. He made a mistake and apologized. When it gets to be a habit from certain posters you have to wonder if it is all they have in their life? Criticizing others that is. I'm not suggesting freeloader falls in that category as I don't follow his stream of posts. But a repeat offender would appear to me to be trying to raise their own low self esteem by tearing down others?

Food for thought

"Let he without sin, cast the first stone"

I don't think this is an unfair criticism. This certainly isn't a petty mistake.

I think it's important to alert consumers as to what bloggers clearly aren't the experts they make themselves out to be. As you know, readers listen to bloggers and follow their advice. I think it's warrented to show them that not everyone out their is giving them meaningful and helpful advice. After all, it's them the reader who pays for these mistakes.

The author is paid - he's a professional blogger. This was not a simple error. It showed a fundemental misunderstanding of the topics he's paid to write about. I believe that merits mentioning. I think the readers need to know this.

Remember, your most important asset is your credibility.

Agreed. And holding bloggers accountable/helping readers separate the wheat from the chaff is part of what this forum is all about.

The other problem is US award availability is mediocre at best for a lot of their routes. Yeah, it's nice that you can book a trip to PHX in the middle of July, but I wouldn't extrapolate that to "sweet, I can use Avios to go to Hawaii in late December!".

Generally, my experience is on SOME routes where there's low demand, US will open up low availability (they will esepcially do this last minute because they can pick up some revenue from their own membership, given a $75 last-minute redemption fee + taking miles off the books, it's better than an empty seat), but it's really spotty. For instance, scanning the chart, I saw some PHX-HNL availability in August.... but no HNL-PHX... and no other low availability from June-December. :rolleyes:

Anyone getting a pile of 100K BA Avios and thinking they're set for flying on US for some time... well, they have another think coming. This isn't a huge win. There are some places where they will win (PHL or CLT to Europe during low season, PHX during low season/brutally hot), but there's a reason US gets panned every year when those "whose miles can you use" surveys come out. Those surveys are generally methodologically flawed because they tend to forget about partners, but they do pick up that US is very stingy own-metal. The strength of US as a program in *A (and why FTers like me loved them) was always their *A awards, not their own availability. Going to OW doesn't help that- it hurts because now BA fuel scamcharges are part of the mix TATL. In a sense this is somewhat like BD leaving *A, a real loss for people who wanted (relatively) cheap-ish premium longhaul tickets.

Sure is a good excuse to push credit cards, though. ;)

I don't mean to harp on the same point... But come on. FTG's post today AGAIN got the avios program wrong. Didn't they JUST apolgize for this exact thing yesterday? Come on guys, I know you can do better. PLEASE - learn about the programs you are reporting on.

From today's travel challenge:

Jerry and Olivia’s Itinerary: Fly out of Asheville Friday, September 5th with US Airways through Charlotte and Philadelphia to get to Burlington. Rent a car from Thrifty to get around. Spend 5 nights at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel & Conference Center and return on Wednesday, September 10th.

Breakdown: A pair of round-trip economy ticket from Asheville to Burlington with US Airways cost $846 ($423 each). The best fare we found was on Delta at $736 ($368 each), however Olivia is going to transfer 30,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards to British Airway. Now that US Airways is a part of Oneworld, they can redeem Avios for flights with US Airways for 7,500 Avios per person each-way as the total flight distance is between 651 and 1,151 miles. British Airways will pass along $5 in taxes per person each way for a total of $20 in taxes. Olivia will pay the taxes using her Chase Sapphire Preferred and to keep her net cost to zero will use 2,000 Ultimate Rewards as a statement credit to offset the cost. She’ll still have 11,000 Ultimate Rewards available for redemption.

Read more at: Travel Challenge: A Trifecta in Burlington Vermont | Frugal Travel Guy

Agreed. Anyone who would risk a DM account to get GM status via a trade has none. Do you agree [redacted]?

DP, not sure what you're talking about?

I have forgiven Howie for making the same mistake two days in a row. It is your right to criticize and your right to stop reading the blog. My question is:

Can you forgive him for the mistakes he made?

I'm sure he doesn't need my forgiveness, but I'd give it to him. It's nothing personal. He seems like a nice enough guy.

I'm just surprised at the quality control of the blog - how can the same mistake go out two days in a row like that. It's just odd to me that whoever is running the show didn't pick up on the exact same mistake from the day before. It speaks to the credibility of the blog

The reason I point this out is bc misinformation like this is extremely detrimental to the newbies that the FTG blog caters to. And if the goal is to educate and help people new to the game it's imperative you get key information like this right the first time - not in subsequent apology posts or corrections.

Aw man. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Sorry to see that happened. Again. :(

Indeed. These aren't typos or grammar issues (though a good writer, and corporate owned, pro blog shouldn't have those errors even), but fundamentally wrong information and misunderstanding of the program.

A resource that holds itself out as having expertise in something, and makes money from that venture, is expected to have higher.quality standards. Someone catering to novices should be more careful. The fact the same error happened twice, after supposedly correcting the first one, really destroys credibility.

Getting defensive and attacking those who point out the.errors only makes it worse.

It's nice to see where others fix up their mistakes, but it's not OK to apologize and then make the exact same mistake the next day. If you're not learning from it, what's the point of owning up to it in the first place?