All this has just further solidified my belief that the big blogs operate as a country club clique. You are either a member, or you aren't.

OMAT starts a kick starter asking for travel money and as you can see on the other thread DP and FTG practically trip over themselves to donate (DP even begging his readers to do so in a post). An AA employee on her personal account disagrees with OMAT, and VFW puts her on blast in a public shaming.

Bloggers look out for each other a lot more then they look out for their readers. I'll never forget when a cousin of mine had his chase account shut down for transferring saph points to a friend. He was mystified bc he had read online from TPG who had multiple posts with circles and arrows showing everyone how to do it and saying how it was ok (and how this enhanced the value of the card). This was going on when he was legitimately SPONSERED by chase with their "chase the points guy" series (or something to that effect). He reached out to TPG for help (considering it was his advice) to get his account back. Never heard back, never got a mea culpa.

But now OMAT is asking for money, and they are all backslapping each other and encouraging their readers to give. Not very frugal. Not necessarily in the best interest of their readers either. And somehow I'm skeptical that they'd do the same dog and pony show for you.

Going to FTU and the Chicago seminars was eye opening to see the cliques in action. The way some of them acted like rock star celebrities was laughable. Some of the egos were enormous. It was worth the price of admission on a humor level, that's for sure.

Long bit short, none of this stuff these last couple of days particularly surprised me. However it is refreshing to see great content still being produced in the blogging world by some of the lesser known blogs - saverocity, milenomics, travelisfree. Truly some enlightening stuff there, worth checking out

This is a good point. It's not that he can't afford the ticket himself. It's just that he doesn't prioritize it enough to buy it with his own money. So he wants others to buy it for him.

I'm still shaking my head in disbelief, but hey, if he can shake some shekels from his readers to support his lifestyle then god bless.

Someone let me know when he starts a kickstarter to buy a Maybach. Now THERE's a value proposition for ya!

For me, this is the week that I will stop reading OMAAT and VFTW. Actually the only ones I will continue to read will be Seth's and the Frequent Miler. I will go to their sites without going thru BA. Yes, the shark was jumped this week. Lots and lots of bad behavior has been evidenced and it appears that many who are on BA no longer believe in Freedom of Speech. Very very sad on so many levels.

I love Gary for not censoring his blog comments. But beyond those calling for her to be fired, some of the misogyny posted toward the AA employee was disgusting and IMHO brings shame on the points nerd community.

Waiting for Ben to start a kickstarter to fund his future trip on Etihad's 9 bedroom villa.

+1...misogyny runs deep. TBB used to run rampant with it.

I'd encourage everyone to report that kickstarter. There is a button at the very bottom.

"Fund my life" is against the terms.
Kickstarter requires the production of something of value. If a review counted you could kickstarter anything. I'd love to see them pull this one.

It is beyond obnoxious.

Kickstarter is happy with it. They are tweeting about it. Plus, it is on their front page of popular projects. Click all ya want but they are promoting it too!

Popular doesn't mean right. Porn is popular, but I don't choose to fund my blog that way!

It's up to us as a community to choose the "leaders" we deserve. I'm seriously considering dropping Chicago Seminars from my travel schedule, even though my host is a sponsor.

Jumping the shark?
 

For the OMAT kickstarter, I find the dust up quite interesting -if people want to donate that's their choice - many fund film productions on kickstarter that could clearly be paid by movie studios and there was controversy then too. Ask your readers what they want and clearing they want to read aspirational travels and are willing to pay for it. I've seen travel bloggers (not points bloggers) with engaged communities who pay to subscribe each month to content - works for some not all. Each business model is different this is free marketing drawing more attention.
As for personal attacks, that's never good and it always bothers me how quickly some turn nasty and resort to horrible behavior

Unless Lucky has a million plus in the bank, I really doubt he can "afford" it. He might have it, but that doesn't mean he can afford it. Heck, I could scrape up the money, too, but certainly never would, as I can't afford it, either.

If I recall things right, I think he's going on a yearlong stay in hotels, so I'm sure his expenses are going up a bit.

In the end, it's an attention grabbing method of PR. If successful, he'll certainly give Ethiad lots of free PR, and of course he'll get a lot of fans/detractors too.

I recall he did some analysis and supposedly showed it would be cheaper to do the hotel stay thing, vice his current apartment situation, factoring in the amount of days he is at "home" each month. No idea if he's correct or not but he is expecting his costs to go down, apparently.

My guess is that he considered paying for the Residences ticket himself. He could write it off as a business expense. And it would definitely generate a lot of attention for his brand. But then it would appear that if he could just blow $20k, it would lead to the inevitable discussion and criticism of just how much he makes. (Or the accusations that his parents self-fund.... a claim I find absurd.)

And if he didn't pull the trigger quickly, somebody else would. And in this game, there's no value in being #2.

So he was between a rock (fund it himself), a hard place (Kickstart it), and a gaping hole on his A380 checklist!

Don't know how it is now but he did previously state that his parents had bank rolled his travels.