swag

Are bloggers ruining Flyertalk?

Well over 100 replies in, and if that's really the question, I think you're all missing the point. I've been reading and posting here for over a decade, and the vast majority of the value I've gotten from Flyertalk has nothing to do with hidden deals, loopholes, or mistake fares. I've learned a ton of valuable info on how to make travel more pleasant, and how to maximize earnings and redemptions, mostly within the spirit and intentions of the airlines and hotel companies. Everything from which seat to choose on an unfamiliar aircraft, which program to credit a flight to, which checkpoint to use at an unfamiliar airport, which programs offer the greatest award availability, and so on. The loopholes are occasionally nice little extras, but that's not why I visit the site.

Are bloggers ruining the loopholes and secret deals? Probably.

But are they ruining Flyertalk? No way.

belfordrocks

If y'all are serious about punishing bloggers who destroy our community, I'd imagine FlyerTalk has a relatively high Google rating compared to individual blogs- a black list of bad blogs with a attention catching title could warn many Googlers and other FT'ers away from these sites...

MilesTalk

They aren't getting paid in cash ;-) So yes, all income gets 1099ed.

belfordrocks

And miraculously the day everyone and their dog decided that it was such a great card was the same day referral links came out. For the week prior, none of the bloggers gave two hoots about it...

+1 re your assessment of TPG and BA blogs.

myob12345

I'm sure this has been said many times already, but reading a few of the ill-conceived "defense" of blogs is just irritating and i like to hear myself talk, as do most of you, obviously, so here goes.

yes, many of us benefit from blogs.
yes, blogs that get a lot of traffic ruin deals. here's why.

many people are inherently lazy or aren't interested in travel to the point that most FTers are (but everyone loves a deal!). if a blogger does the work and mines through 20 pages of FT topics, carefully selecting choice deals-- then writes out the steps one by one (with screenshots!), they essentially give deal/trick access to the billions of dumb and/or lazy (myself included) people out there, who in turn share it with friends and extended families of dumb and/or lazy people. case in point: read the comments of many of the blog entries out there. "how i search for _______ ????? how i do this???" yeah. there are people who are even dumb and or lazy too make it work when it's written out for them.

and here is why i can totally commiserate with the FTers who have been on this board for ages.

yes, the info is free and open to the public. but the INTENT of sharing this info was never to have information go viral. it was to share it among a community of like-minded people, and there were silent "rules" in place that you would get called out on (e.g. try not to call the credit card company asking about workarounds because it MIGHT just be possible the company isn't aware of said workaround- i've seen people doing just that, in blog comments too)

when you break these deals out of the community and put it into a nice package for everyone (let's call them normies) on a regular basis, the consequences are two fold (and probably a gajillion fold): more people = things sell out faster (which honestly isn't the biggest issue here), and you put that info into the hands of a population that doesn't understand what discretion is, and doesn't care what the consequences are if they abuse it. exhibit A: oh you mean I can message Chase repeatedly and ask them to bump my 25k bonus to a 30k bonus that wasn't even a real promotion in the first place?? let's everybody message them at once, I really need those 5k points!

so regardless of what is ethical or practical, the fact that bloggers take the original intent of this board and take it to a whole. notha. leval-- the fact that they make dolla dolla billz off of it-- and the fact that their readers indirectly notify credit/banking companies of every post (ergo killing deals left and right)...

THAT is what is irritating for most folks and i really don't see how you can argue against the fact that, to the FTers who find the deals, and make nothing from it, it is almost as annoying as when you sit next to someone on the airplane and they start expelling gas, and they think you can't hear it except you can totally hear it. also it smells. that isn't a challenge to prove me wrong by the way so don't spout your fallacies at me, i don't care.

and some of those comments were jokes and hyperboles. see if you can find them all.

allanfan

I'll start. The following post drives me nuts last year:

http://millionmilesecrets.com/2011/0...azon-payments/

jpdx

I can't claim to be familiar with every forum on FT, but I'm deeply familiar with the MR forum, where we have seen year after year that experienced posters leave because they're fed up with seeing their deals destroyed (whether by bloggers or excessive publicity on FT). Some of these folks are deal-oriented only, but others are amazing contributors to the travel forums (and I agree with you, that's where the main value of FT originates). In some cases, these people just stop posting in the MR forum and take their deals underground, but others just stop contributing to FT altogether. Over the years, this "brain drain" has amounted to a tremendous loss.

saacman5033

I can't say I disagree with anything you said. I guess I look at the problems in the blogging world as completely uncontrollable so I'm willing to accept it and try to play around it.

edcli

I don't think it just the bloggers, but many members have made FT less of a welcome place than before. Years back I think FT and members were more innocent and looking to help each other or talk about fantastic places to stay. Now I feel like many are just trying to cheat the system. The behavior and posts on the BA/Nordstrom promotion comes to mind. Ppl there are posting how to get pts for purchases and then make returns. I'm sorry that is just criminal legally and in spirit. It is just down right disappointing. Maybe something changed when Peterson (sp?) sold the Site. Newcomers: FT is great number now, but it once was awesome.

If anyone knows a place like FT was 5yrs ago, pls pm me. I feel it just doesn't pay to share frequent flier pt tips for fear of it becoming to popular. My 2cents.

Tiki

Does anyone else think that allowing links to blogs in siggies is detrimental to the interests of Flyertalk? Who would we contact to have this looked at? Jpdx, you must have access to a Moderator's forum, could you have this question moved to the right place? I wouldn't know who to approach. I am very familiar with the Admin CP in VBulletin, it's also technically possible to auto-censor links to blogs in the same way that swear words are replaced with **** so that means bloggers can't get a benefit from having their url appear on Flyertalk which does increase their Google rankings.

iahphx

I wouldn't be so sure. I don't care how much money you have, if the choice is applying for a credit card or buying a $1000 airline ticket, a good percentage of the population is applying for that credit card. And reading the blogs that tell you (in plain English) how to do it.

Of course, it's possible that the blogs will kill the lucrative credit card signup bonuses just like their publicity kills other deals. If there are no good deals, there won't be many blogs. Is that possible? I don't know -- we'll have to see how it plays out.

iflyjetz

I will never use blogger links unless it's the only link to get the most points for me.

Until three weeks ago, I only had 4 credit cards - MR Premiere Visa and 3 others that I never use (USAA Mastercard, Wachovia (now) Wells Fargo Visa Amazon Visa.
After reading some threads here, I got the Southwest Visa and the Priority Club Visa. I will slowly add a card every 3 months or so until I've captured most of the low hanging miles/points.

^^^ Excellent post.
I came here more than a decade ago to find out details on hotel loyalty programs. I hope that I've contributed a bit to this forum - not so much in finding/posting 'deals', but in passing on information about how to travel better and get the best experience for the money.

This thread reminds me a bit of the gnashing of teeth on the Marriott forum over getting 10 nights' credit for hosting a meeting. Huge loophole that allows you to host 8 meetings in a year and *poof* you're a Marriott Plat. Or 6 conferences + the MR Premiere Visa. It didn't bother me, in spite of being very close to achieving lifetime plat because most of those people aren't going to take advantage of most of the plat benefits. To get the most out of Plat, you have to stay at full service hotels (JW, Marriott, Renaissance, Autograph collection, Edition). A lot of those 'hosting' conferences at their local Courtyard to log additional night credits aren't going to be staying much at full service hotels.
This loophole is well known by Marriott headquarters but it still hasn't been shut down. I doubt that it will. For Marriott, this is a revenue source that has very little negative impact on them. Instead of giving someone Marriott Gold status for having a credit card, Marriott has found a great way to extract money out of the light traveler. On the other hand, Hyatt's credit card gives you Plat status. So Marriott is able to squeeze additional revenue out of us status chasers.

I've been here for more than a decade. I had things come up in my life where I didn't visit this website for several years. I will probably go dormant again sometime in the future. So while it can be frustrating to lose contributors, many eventually return.

suspire

Yeah. This is the funniest thread of the year. You'd think they were the Illuminati with all their delusions of grandeur.

elizadoo

Count me as one of the < 100 post people. Most of my time has been spent reading and not posting, but I've been with FT for a few years now and even I have seen great deals dry up faster than ever.

I had no idea that FT was owned by Internet Brands, which also owns the Frugal Travel Guy, the Boarding Area, and others I can't remember now...might explain why some of the material is duplicated, might it not?

As one of the founding contributors on TripAdvisor, when it was still a tiny forum, I watched it grow, and grow, and grow....Now it's a megacompany, and all those budget hostels I used to visit on the cheap have "Trip Advisor rated" signs on their walls and their prices have quadrupled (sigh).

iflyjetz

There are many out there who never bother even registering for loyalty programs because it's 'too much work'. At the moment, many are willing to put in the 'work' for the miles/points.
I don't know how old you are, but I vividly remember all the grocery coupons used back in the 70s. I've never seen that level of coupon usage since then. In fact, it's a very infrequent sight for me to see anyone else in a grocery store using coupons.

This current fixation on travel deals will pass.