Bloggers posting wrong and misleading advice
 

Nothing makes my blood boil more then when a blog posts incorrect info - and then refuses to correct or retract it (likely bc it may affect the credit card push)

I was reading the buzz today, and came across this comment about today's Travel Challenge on FTG.com

"Another Travel Challenge, another batch of factually wrong information given by FTG and his staff

- It costs 90K miles with Skypass miles to get from LAX to PPT, not 60K
- Since Hawaiian only flies once a week in each direction on Saturday, you can’t possibly have a 5 night stay
- I haven’t looked it up, but I’m guessing it would be hard to get the positioning flights at HNL in at least one of the directions without another overnight there

Will the newbies that FTG Staff is “helping out” be told that they’d still be 60K Skypass and 100K IHG points short of the award before or after they open up those 9 credit cards and spend 23K on it?

Good thing the quality of the blog is dependent on how many people click the site from google, and not factual correctness…"

Something similar was also posted on FTG.com - and these mistakes were acknowledged in comments by both the blog founder and editor - though no one decided to fix the post!

On FT a spade is called a spade. You can't post incorrect info and get away with it. Posts like this do not help anyone (except those profiting from the links and wrong info).

Wow - the post just "disappeared"... Magic!

To bad it was over 6+ hours after the mistakes were acknowledged

Yes, promoting an inferior (or incorrect) deal because the worse deal makes the blogger money is THE cardinal sin of points and miles blogging.

Thanks for calling this one out!

They could've at least owned up to the mistake, taken the time to re-post it correctly later rather than pretend it never happened. It's really impossible to justify such obvious errors by a site holding itself out as being written by experts, and geared toward newbies. Glad you called this one out.

An entertainingly awful post from Delta Points just now, trying to scare people into thinking they won't earn points on the "mistake" fares from Thursday. :rolleyes:

ETA: At least he can handle the feedback well. :rolleyes:

http://static.ow.ly/photos/original/492Sf.jpg

Proudly censored by DP! You're such a rabble-rouser Seth.

No fireside chat for you!

Exactly. It takes a lot of ego to ban readers who point out corrections to flawed posts on that 'blog'.

But you'd think BoardingArea would take some steps to address the blogger's refusal to be corrected as well as the typos in the copy and awkward layout. It does not reflect well on BA or the other bloggers. But perhaps clicks are king?

It must be all about the clicks I guess. BA doesn't seem to have any real standards for correctness, or grammar/typos (grammar and typos being prevalent issues in many of their blogs, even the big-name ones).

I'd also think Delta would not want the DP blog using their name with such poor, incorrect content and defensive responses to commentors who provide corrections or feedback. But maybe there isn't anything they can do about it, I don't know. Or maybe it's below their level of caring.

That happens on the DL blog as well as FT too. It's their kingdom - just we can all recognize their pettiness. Censorship and banning are the refuge of the fearful and small-minded i.e. the BA and DL apologists and corporate stooges. These people need to be shown Edward Snowden's Christmas message :D

I was told that BA is thinking about, or is in the process of, hiring an Editor in Chief who will go through ever post. Not sure if this is purely for typos / grammar or also to act as a fact checker.

That is quite different from what I've heard.

Correcting grammar AND factual info on the DP blog? Yikes, talk about a full time job...

BA operates as a rented space and each blogger pays for his page, that is my understanding. $$$ is the bottom line and as long as each blogger meets a specified performance, things can be overlooked. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Personally I don't mind the censoring of vulgar or vile personal attacks.

But I find it very unprofessional to edit someones reply or even block a more accurate opinion. DP does both and that is the reason I never visit that site. And I advise friends to skip it altogether.

I asked one of the bloggers a while back and was told "featured bloggers" get top billing (new posts show up in the big squares at the top) and a bigger % of ad revenue. There is no set formula on how featured bloggers are chosen, basically up to the powers that be. This may have changed but you really have to scratch your head over some of the inclusions and exclusions.