oliver2002

I would also take a job/assignment at IF with fixed pay rather than a cut

GUWonder

Members registered does not equate with members who actually pony up $3,300+ for Lifemiles.

oliver2002

Liked this one:

84fiero

Yep, a lot of us just sort of automatically register for anything that comes along out of habit...a habit borne from being burned by having forgotten to register for a promo in the past!

That's pretty funny.

gpapadop

There is a lot of moola on targeting the "barely skim the surface" crowd and skinning them blind

I thought the commenter who said that TPG and MMS have succeeded commercially because they did not have the FT "baggage" made a great point.

Time will tell with IF....as it always does.

gpapadop

Ok, so the clear vision with Milepoint was not as clear so it has become clearer with IF?

Late catching up here....as I was blindly registering for promos left and right

84fiero

The vision is clear as mud:

Step 1: Collect new members
Step 2:
Step 3: Profit

notquiteaff

"It starts with a clear vision of what’s over the horizon"

Maybe my vision is clouded, but slapping together a forum and a blog isn't exactly new stuff. I have been visiting sites that did that for 10+ years. And it seems that IF couldn't even integrate my forum identity with the blog comment system.

skunker

Don't forget the awards program tracking and travel tracking applications.

kokonutz

I actually think the bolded part is very true. Thing is: when he says 'no one understood what FT was all about' when he founded it, I would include Randy in that group. Having watched it evolve from its infancy, it grew organically rather than by design. With crowd-sourced input, advice and free help/labor even before crowd sourcing was a thing. I would never say Randy got lucky: he was in the right space at the right time and made many right moves along the way. But to say he began FT with the end in mind is pretty revisionist.

And credit where it is due: Randy (and now his partners/employees) seem to simply try lots of stuff. A couple have been very profitable (FT and BA). Most of the others, not so much. But success isn't about how many times you get knocked down. It's about how many times you get back up.

Now...as for the unbolded part of that quote, I am sure there is a vision. But if this venture is successful I'm pretty certain it won't be based on the vision that they currently hold...

kokonutz

Denny Flanagan is now an IF blogger.

Soooo...there's that!

notquiteaff

Looks like IF picked up where MP left off... with very little "purposeful" discussion in the forums. But at least I can now learn on IF what an F stop is and how to detect counterfeit US$...

And for some reason they appear to also have removed support for https, even on the login page.

sbm12

I assumed that the consolidation was, in part, based on SEO. And yet it remains a bunch of distinct URLs rather than a consolidated one. So strange.

gpapadop

So, Denny goes blogging on IF...but not on Boarding Area. I am confused about the bigger picture here. Or I am just confused in general...

#developing

Raffles

It is a different payment structure on IF AFAIK because of the 'curated' approach - they will not be running 2 blog articles on the same topic. The good news is that you will only need to read about the Hilton Gold becoming a new Amex Plat benefit once!

Clearly the BA structure of 'keep all the money from your links' does not work in this scenario, since Scott would end up having to fend off backhanders from those desperate to ensure 'their' article on the new SPG Amex bonus was 'the one'.

The upside is that people like Danny who have no interest in selling anything can be better rewarded.

There may be a home for TBB over at IF you want it .....!