sbm12

No.

GUWonder

That's consistent with FT. And how about TPG?

Astrophsx

Brian Kelly has personally accepted many hand outs. I believe this is how this thread obtained its title.

An example of a free flight is when TPG editor in cheif Zach Honig took a comp A350 flight with Qatar and it had its aborted takeoff. It became one of their most popular YouTube videos (they didn't even have to pay for views!).

When someone points out that Brian Kelly is accepting comps he will reply that he is donating money to charity or some other nonsense. TPG also accepts a lot of free goods from companies. They sometimes accept things to give away to their readers. Whenever you see those "contests" where they give away 10,000 SPG points or what not.

The one thing I don't really understand is when Brian Kelly or Lucky pay for something with their own points or cash and then something goes wrong with their travels they will leverage their popularity to get special treatment. Brian Kelly will sometimes leverage his massive following in order shame companies (the African safari that had a hiccup). Ben is all over social media when a hotel makes a mistake. I don't get why they would do that. You would think that if you are giving an honest review (as much as one can with a popular blog) you'd allow the hotel/airline to fix the mistake after bringing it to their attention in order to document their customer service. Instead, by leveraging their social media following they are ensuring special treatment. This indicates to me that these trips are more for personal pleasure than for work.

Adam1222

At this point , almost all of Brian's own travel is for personal pleasure than work. Just don't tell the IRS. (I'd say the State department of taxation, but they all conveniently "live" in Florida, which just so happens to have no state income tax.)

Also, accepting a gift/bribe from an industry provider you "review" and then making a donation has tax benefits for entities like TPG. They don't accept the gift as income , and write off the donation.

sbm12

Do you count it if the company accepts "in flight" snacks from various airlines?

Mary2e

What about accepting high level status in the airline program? Should that be disclosed as well?

Adam1222

Anything that is not obtained for market cost or on the same terms and conditions as a typical customer should be disclosed, at a minimum. The reason why disclosure is often not enough is because TPG and other blogs have longstanding relationships with these vendors, and someone may not remember/ever see disclosure of the gift of status or, for example, a SPG moments getaway when the site "reviews" a Westin 3 months later.

The best practice is simply not to accept giveaways or special treatment. And if a blogger gets a special free snack that other flyers at that level don't typically get - because of his or her bloggerness- the same probably applies. Of course there's a question of de minimis value, but if I was given free food on a flight, it might - even subconsciously - give me a different view of that flight, at the least; after all, that's the entire reason you're being given the free food.

The other alternative is to stop purporting to give objective advice to customers and admit you are selling credit cards and occasionally sharing your own fabulous experiences that will be unreplicable for the vast majority of readers.

kokonutz

My point is that when Randy ran the FT platform, if I wrote something that violated his long and complex TOS he threw me off of FT for a time. Some people have been thrown off permanently.

On his BA platform not only does he have no rules, his posters can post illegal stuff and he does his Pontius Pilate thing of 'I just run a platform'. His standards/business model have changed significantly is all I am saying.

GUWonder

Business-to-business TOS aren't going to be a mirror image of business-to-consumer/product TOS, especially when the business models are different and thus require a different approach to setting standards/TOS.

If FT founder tried to run boardingarea.com like he did FT, boardingarea.com might not get the traffic and related business it gets. On FT, even the banned would often contribute to the FT traffic and related business FT gets. If boardingarea.com booted bloggers that contributed a lot, it would bite the business's revenues far more directly and be more of a strategic threat to the business than FT booting one or more of its members contributing thousands or even tens of thousands of posts.

Does TPG blacklist/ban any comment-makers on its site? It can probably afford to, a lot like FT can, but does it?

sbm12

This is demonstrably false.

They are different rules than govern the IBBs the company has run but there are absolutely rules. It seems you just happen to not like what they are.

kokonutz

I don't think I made any judgement one way or the other. I neither like nor dislike how Randy runs BA.

Again, just pointing out that the business model/standards are different in response to this:

Point being, while not all opinions on FT are representative of IBB, IBB DOES maintain strict posting standards. Doing things that Randy lets his bloggers do like plagiarism, posting copy-written material, etc would get one banned from FT. In other words, the standards at FT ARE representative of IB in that they, through Carol and her mods, set and enforce those standards.

And to the extent that BA has (or does not have) and enforce standards, that means posts on BA blogs ARE representative of Randy and BA in that he/it sets and enforces those standards (or does not).

And remember, this was in response to Adam1222's assertion that one of TPG's standards is QC, while that is not a BA standard.
Whether one agrees with that assertion or not, a QC standard for the platform is absolutely reflective of the platform and its owners.

GUWonder

I dispute that FT/IBB maintains stricter posting standards, to the point that inconsistency in standards exists on FT -- in some ways more extremely now than it did say 10-15 years ago -- and is no less representative of FT/IBB than the standards and opinions posted on FT by FTers were under the previous FT ownership; rather I find that the inconsistency in standards on FT is now more representative of FT/IBB than it was before, even as the outcome of such may or may not be representative of FT/IBB opinion.

The QC standards being different amongst TPG, Boardingarea, Boardingarea blogs and FT/IBB is a reflection of different business models or market circumstances being applicable as well as of management figures (inclusive of the teams/players relied upon by the management figures of each).

84fiero

Just curious, what are some of the rules at BA? If you are permitted to say, of course.

Astrophsx

Why do you guys keep bringing BA into the conversation?

kokonutz

Well thank you for making my point for me: you perceive the inconsistent enforcement of standards (the standards themselves are quite clear) to be representative of FT/IBB.

In the same way, many find the non-transparent standards that allegedly exist and/or the enforcement and/or non-enforcement of those standards to be representative of BA.

So it is perfectly fair to criticize BA for it's standards (or lack thereof) as a platform because if BA didn't like something one of its bloggers was doing, it could end the relationship. So when BA tolerates plagiarism, that reflects on BA as well as the blogger doing the plagiarism.

So when Randy claims, 'I'm just a platform,' that's disingenuous. Because BA as a platform has the ultimate control over what appears on that platform and therefore may be held to account for it, for better and for worse.


Completely agree. And it has led to disparate outcomes, imho, in terms of content, quality, usefulness and, frankly, 'scamerism.'

YMMV.

Because as a similar business (albeit with apparently a significantly smaller market share - an assertion protested by BA's owner - and significantly different business model), BA is a point of comparison to TPG. @:-)