First, I love, love, love flyer talk. I have learned so much and the community is outstanding. I don't post often, but I read a lot. So thank you.

Is it the blogs and the resulting proliferation of information that is the issue? Or just a few greedy, glutenous people for whom to much of everything is never enough? In light of the recent story about those two AA frequent flyers who so abused their life time passes, (seriously, booking empty first class seats on international flights so no one sits next to you or companion tickets for strangers) I would have to say the later.

Most of what I see on flyertalk and the in better blogs (like the Frugal Travel Guy) is rooted in the spirit of good will, with the intent to help each other get to a better place, enjoy the trip, travel in good company and at a better price (literally and figuratively).

I don't know about you, but I figure the bad guys, the abusers, well things have a way of evening out in the end.

Thanks for the topic.

One guy blames mrpickles for EVERYTHING!

Nice post. Thanks.

-David

When a sour person criticizes your bread and butter and it is not Kosher, dill with it by spearheading a movement to help remove the chip from that person�s shoulder.

I relish garnishing this discussion with thoughts such as that...

Feels like it's more of a matter of one guy telling all his friends that there's FREE CANDY TO BE HAD OVER HERE!!! (and he just happens to have a lot of friends)

= lots more hands reaching into the bucket

kinda off topic, but I noticed that FTG and Gary @ VFM don't list each other on their respective blog rolls anymore. I hope they aren't in a spat

It messes me up because my morning routine is to go to FTG and then open all blogroll sites (MMS, TPG, FM, etc). FTG can you add VFM back so my life can be balanced again?

I would say it's more like one person telling their friends about the free candy................oh and BTW since I am such a wonderful person for telling you how to get the free candy (complete with screenshot tutorial) wouldn't you be an angel and please use my credit card referral? After all, I am only doing this for the kids!

I occasionally read MommyPoints, but I confess that I don't read it for deals. Instead, I read that blog for family travel ideas. I start at Rick Ingersoll's website multiple times per day. Then, I move to MilesBuzz!, then to the Credit Card Forums. I follow MommyPoints and The Points Guy on Facebook, but again, more for certain niche posts. All of that disclosed, your quote which I have highlighted above - peachfront - is short-sighted.

First of all, I have a preschooler who REALLY wants to go to London, Hawaii generally, and Australia generally. She would gladly spend hours upon hours on a flight watching Disney movies (with headset, of course, to spare the other flyers) continuously on a DVD player for the delayed gratification of visiting those places. This kid thought it was no big deal to stand in line for an hour to see a speech by President Obama. She stands in line for that long all of the time at the Disney Parks and waits patiently longer on a flight. Still...do we take her overseas now? Of course not! We're saving those trips for the future when our youngest is at least a preteen and guaranteed to enjoy them.

Regardless, lurking in FlyerTalk for a year then joining a little over a year ago and religiously reading FTG have been invaluable experiences. I continue to milk certain deals that I won't repeat here for fear of being rebuked for overexposure. I even was the first to expose a double application loophole for a specific card that I stumbled upon accidentally and have posted that in FlyerTalk. Since then, several have reported success in getting the deal on purpose.

How have I used FlyerTalk and the blogs? You know that "camp" comment? I used 90,000 Capital One Venture points to rent a cabin for a long weekend a couple of hours from where we live for a family reunion at the resort.

The Disney comment? We've cashed in 180,000+ Executive Club/Avios miles to fly our family twice to Disneyland (once in past including my in-laws, once in future), and we spent 100,000+ Cap One Venture miles for Allegiant flight+partner hotel and rental car at Walt Disney World. We've spent 157,500 HHonors points to stay in the Homewood Suites near Disneyland (future), 60,000 for a couple of nights in the Hilton O'Hare on each end of a Disneyland trip, and 25,000 a few months ago for a Hampton Inn on the way to the opening round of the Women's NCAA Basketball Tournament. We used 112,500 Aadvantage miles to get to SoCal to watch TCU win the Rose Bowl and to celebrate the win at Disneyland. And...one more Disney...we have used 30,000 SPG points for a future stay at the Swan Hotel near Epcot for 3 days.

Those are FAMILY trips! Miles and points help us with travel, accommodations, or both and GREATLY reduce the cost of the experience(s). In addition, things like Disney Premiere Annual Passports help meet the credit card spends as do highly discounted airfares on Allegiant. Oh, and we used 50,000 Southwest miles (which we will probably never fly) to buy an Xbox Kinect and a half-dozen games via the Amazon.com trade-in. That's pretty kid friendly and gets the whole family exercising on rainy and snowy weekends. I also got myself bumped to Gold in HHonors due to a loophole exposed in FlyerTalk. Then, I got a free upgrade on a AAA discounted room to a suite with jacuzzi at a certain Hilton brand property the night before I defended my dissertation. I can tell you that $80 for that normally $170+ room plus breakfast for 2 was a steal, and it certainly helped make me relaxed and poised prior to the successful defense. Thanks FT!

When our kids are older, we will take them to Hawaii and on international trips. If we still have miles and points, we will try to use them. If not, we will gladly pay out-of-pocket given what we have saved and continue to save through miles and points programs. We still have a sizable war chest of AAdvantage miles, United miles, SPG points, HHonors points, and numerous other points/miles. We will continue to churn and burn. Someday the game may die. Someday the miles may devalue to the point of minimal significance. But, today, I will milk them to give my family the vacations (and interactive video games) we otherwise might not be able to afford.

It seems this is where the discussion always goes. Is it so hard to just use discretion on certain deals? That is all it comes down to. Check your egos and cameras at the door and use common sense when posting.

Which ones? That's what I'm asking, and who are you (or anybody for that matter, I don't necessarily mean "you" personally in this context) to decide that?

FT is all about sharing information freely.

Now that (new) people have the knowledge and have learned how to find things because of FT they are now saying we shouldn't share things or somehow ban the bloggers? Those arguments never made sense to me when they happened in 2000, 2001, or at any point in between then and now.

what?

But yes, this is the never ending argument, it's not about the bloggers, but they have just gotten the wrath of this poster and the group of FTers that are piling on to them now. Regardless of what you think about them. This isn't the first time this argument has come up and it won't be the last.

-David

At one time there was a certain FI that allowed funding a CD�s with a CC. It lasted for years. If that would have been posted on FT it would have been killed in days.

Another FI offered a bonus for opening a CD that made the interest rate over 8%. It was posted at FW on a Friday and died the following Tuesday.

Just recently links were posted for CC offers that were not public. They lasted on FT for a few days before they got killed. I could go on forever but hopefully you get the point.

Sorry that was not meant for you but many here know exactly what I am talking about.

Disclaimer: I have no expertise in what I am proposing and probably half sleepy right now too But here I will still go ahead.

How difficult would be to set a website/page (shell as suggested) and get referral links of best offers like bloggers?
Idea is that if this site can be run by a committee of FT volunteers with probably a committee and as an Non profit organization and all money collected through referral cc links be be donated to charities or may be very tiny percentage kept for some FT do type things or managing expenses?

Goal would be divert the funds to good causes.
Website can probably have counter on site only constantly updating the money collected for general public.

Practical/wishful idea?

See post #168 in this thread.

I read the blogs and I read FT. I feel as if I'm active on both fronts (as a blog commenter and as a forum reader/contributor). I also have a blog myself, but the majority of the posts are a trip report for friends/family (a TR that I posted on FT as well).

That said, I prefer FT just because there seems to be a lot more answers and expertise here. Someone noted the whole "signal-to-noise ratio" thing between FT and the blogs. The way I see it, FT has a lot of great signals, which produce noise in between themselves.

The blogs who post the most frequently also lack a level of expertise. I really enjoy reading MatthewLAX UpGrd blog, but he doesn't post as much as others (quality over quantity?). Another thing that I don't like is that blogs are very prone to upselling the good parts about miles, while downplaying the difficult or bad parts.

For example, I read TPG's blog and he has done some great posts in the past. The old BA series comes to mind. Brilliant. However, his recent post on "How to get into CNN's top 10 first class cabins" only played the positives.

This is a proverbial needle in a haystack. I've tried to book SQ F since March but the only availability I find is through SQ's program; they don't seem to release F space to *A partners. Lucky recently had a TR that included SQ F SIN-NRT, but that was booked with SQ KF miles (which he clearly stated).

And which routes have F space? I searched during 7 months of flights and found only a handful out of YUL. I've flown LX F. It was between ZRH and HKG. Kind of on the other side of the world.

Jet Airways has some of the worst award space in the industry, and is a pain to search for. I once tried to find Y space between DEL and BOM to make use of a stopover rule ... it didn't exist for an entire month-long period. The flight that we eventually booked went out half-empty, so it's not a load issue. Try getting into F.


That said, he did point out some good things, such as cheap ways to get into Emirates F (which I experienced only because of information from FT as well as SFO777/MattHandy's great TRs of those flights) or that LH has scarce award space. But I'm worried that someone will go out to collect certain miles only to find out that those award seats don't exist. Then they'll come to FT and complain about it.

Hi David,

Thanks for pointing, I didn't get through whole thread. Good point. what does community feel

Thanks,

Dracs