The Points Guy: We never accept free flights [merged TPG discussions]
Jun 22, 2017, 5:08 pm
#766
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Has this been prominently disclosed on the website? It's so hard to distinguish which company Brian is working for when he acts these days, Bankrate, Chase, etc. Perhaps some good will come out of this article and realize that nothing on the site is based on an impartial desire to aid consumers, but rather just to make Brian and Bankrate wealthy.
While you say he has built a company out of a passion for points, not quite accurate. He built a brand; Bankrate is the company. The company is built off of unsophisticated customers, over-leveraged American consumers, and an under-regulated market.
While you say he has built a company out of a passion for points, not quite accurate. He built a brand; Bankrate is the company. The company is built off of unsophisticated customers, over-leveraged American consumers, and an under-regulated market.
Or the celebrity who tweets about loving their Beats by Dre headphones without disclosing that Beats/Apple are paying them on the side - believe me they all are. Next time your favorite celebrity subtly tweets about a brand or your favorite food blogger mentions a product they really like - remember they are almost certainly getting paid for that through affiliate marketing. It's not just in the M&P/CC industry that's for sure - I worked for a major entertainment and gaming company and we did it all the time with bloggers in that industry to sell DVDs/Video Games/Digital Downloads of shows/etc.
Please take a look around - this is marketing 101 (I say this as a marketer). Find me an affiliate marketer or a CPG marketing campaign that isn't aimed at the unsophisticated customer or the impulse purchase of sophisticated or unsophisticated buyers.
Jun 22, 2017, 5:37 pm
#767
Join Date: Feb 2001
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But when they say with a straight face that they are all about...credibility, I am sorry, but there is not a large enough shovel...
And yet, to pound on the marketing angle here, other wanna be bloggers who idolize these influencers imitate them and try to get noticed by linking to them hoping for a back link.
And on it goes...
Jun 22, 2017, 8:10 pm
#768
Join Date: Jul 2009
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You mean as opposed to the celebrity who appears in a commercial on TV without a prominent disclosure that the company is paying them $$$ for the endorsement / press coverage / commercial / etc?
Or the celebrity who tweets about loving their Beats by Dre headphones without disclosing that Beats/Apple are paying them on the side - believe me they all are. Next time your favorite celebrity subtly tweets about a brand or your favorite food blogger mentions a product they really like - remember they are almost certainly getting paid for that through affiliate marketing. It's not just in the M&P/CC industry that's for sure - I worked for a major entertainment and gaming company and we did it all the time with bloggers in that industry to sell DVDs/Video Games/Digital Downloads of shows/etc.
Please take a look around - this is marketing 101 (I say this as a marketer). Find me an affiliate marketer or a CPG marketing campaign that isn't aimed at the unsophisticated customer or the impulse purchase of sophisticated or unsophisticated buyers.
Or the celebrity who tweets about loving their Beats by Dre headphones without disclosing that Beats/Apple are paying them on the side - believe me they all are. Next time your favorite celebrity subtly tweets about a brand or your favorite food blogger mentions a product they really like - remember they are almost certainly getting paid for that through affiliate marketing. It's not just in the M&P/CC industry that's for sure - I worked for a major entertainment and gaming company and we did it all the time with bloggers in that industry to sell DVDs/Video Games/Digital Downloads of shows/etc.
Please take a look around - this is marketing 101 (I say this as a marketer). Find me an affiliate marketer or a CPG marketing campaign that isn't aimed at the unsophisticated customer or the impulse purchase of sophisticated or unsophisticated buyers.
Jennifer Garner doesn't purport to be giving advice out to help you and just happen to mention capital one more. The average viewer knows that her ad on TV is an ad. The average viewer doesn't realize that "Ask the Points Guy" is a feature where the answers are motivated by profit.
As for other social media influencers, the FTC recently cracked down on some of that behavior and as a result Instagram and some other platforms are making changes. (You can read about some of it here, for example. https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianrashid/2017/04/27/what-the-ftcs-instagram-crackdown-means-for-influencers/)
I'm quite aware of the deceptive practices many companies use on Twitter and Instagram, and condemn them as well. But this thread is about The Points Guy. Believe it or not, Brian and other celebrities can all be engaged in problematic advertising behavior. Indeed, I can find the entire marketing industry ethically problematic, though I think that disclosure guidelines for advertorial content that the FTC has issued brings it to a less egregious level.
"Other people do it too" isn't a retort to my point- that I don't find Brian's business model commendable. But obviously if measured based on financial gain and no other indicia, he has succeeded.
Jun 29, 2017, 12:01 pm
#769
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TPG profile in The New Yorker for those interested: http://www.newyorker.com/business/cu...the-points-guy
Includes this tidbit:
Includes this tidbit:
During his first month of affiliate marketing, in February of 2011, Kelly made five thousand dollars. Two months later, he published a post about a hundred-thousand-point bonus offer from Chase and British Airways. Hundreds of readers applied for the card. He made thirty thousand dollars in twenty-four hours and gave notice at Morgan Stanley the next day. Today, his sway has grown so strong that many banks consult him before releasing new credit cards to the public.
Jun 29, 2017, 2:58 pm
#770
Join Date: Feb 2004
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During his first month of affiliate marketing, in February of 2011, Kelly made five thousand dollars. Two months later, he published a post about a hundred-thousand-point bonus offer from Chase and British Airways. Hundreds of readers applied for the card. He made thirty thousand dollars in twenty-four hours and gave notice at Morgan Stanley the next day. Today, his sway has grown so strong that many banks consult him before releasing new credit cards to the public.
Blogs like FTG, TPG, and my own made a killing off it and VFTW, OMAAT, and MMS all changed their affiliate link policies after that.
One day I'll write a book on this stuff
Jun 29, 2017, 3:42 pm
#774
Join Date: Feb 2004
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TPG profile in The New Yorker for those interested: http://www.newyorker.com/business/cu...the-points-guy
But hey, at least there's still miles for dining
B. Brian is a multi-millionaire, so he doesn't need to travel "like" one.
C. It's easy to have "endless" miles when you can buy an endless amount from airlines like Alaska.
D. I also thought all the bloggers besides FTG were pretty dumb for leaving all that money on the table for all those years
In the end I guess I'm the dumb one as they went after the n00b market and the MSM which I failed to go after.
Jun 30, 2017, 7:03 am
#775
Moderator: Lufthansa Miles & More, India based airlines, India, External Miles & Points Resources
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Quite the kudo from Forbes for thepointsguy.
Forbes Top Influencers: The Points Guy, Brian Kelly, On Turning Miles Into A Media Empire
[..] Kelly is using his fame to advocate for life-saving causes. He has donated hundreds of thousands of air miles to Rainbow Railroad, helping to rescue LGBT people from places where their lives are at risk, most recently Chechnya.
Forbes Top Influencers: The Points Guy, Brian Kelly, On Turning Miles Into A Media Empire
[..] Kelly is using his fame to advocate for life-saving causes. He has donated hundreds of thousands of air miles to Rainbow Railroad, helping to rescue LGBT people from places where their lives are at risk, most recently Chechnya.
So, last year, he started Points for Peace, an initiative that partners with the nonprofit Peace Jam to fly Nobel laureates to children who might benefit from their guidance. “Everyone looks at charities, like, ‘Oh, they have too many administrative costs and travel,’ ” Kelly said. “I said, ‘What if I come in and help?’ ” Kelly now travels every few months for Peace Jam events in sub-Saharan Africa. Last June, in Ghana, he held a “Shark Tank”-style competition with three hundred and fifty teen-agers, awarding micro-finance loans to the most entrepreneurial of the group. He told me, “When I see talent, I want to develop it.”
Jul 2, 2017, 11:06 am
#777
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This has to be one of the dumbest articles ever on TPG.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/06/quo...xt-flight-out/
Scraping the barrel doesn't even do justice to how bad this is. Basing an article on a Quora question must be a new low... and the guff he's written in response makes it even worse.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/06/quo...xt-flight-out/
Scraping the barrel doesn't even do justice to how bad this is. Basing an article on a Quora question must be a new low... and the guff he's written in response makes it even worse.
Jul 2, 2017, 11:20 am
#778
Join Date: Jun 2012
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Not only do they steal borrow their content from other vapid websites like Quora, they don't really add to whatever they're borrowing.
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/06/quo...xt-flight-out/
The comments echo my sentiment (At least they don't whitewash their comment section like FT's front page articles do)
https://thepointsguy.com/2017/06/quo...xt-flight-out/
The comments echo my sentiment
(At least they don't whitewash their comment section like FT's front page articles do)
Jul 3, 2017, 11:38 pm
#780
Join Date: Jul 2014
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Posts: 541
30k in a day though 