I don't have a problem with that. I'm not collecting Hyatt points, and, while it was a good deal for other reasons, I happened to have better places to put my travel cash. Sure, some people could have afforded to spend money (and time) every single day on the promotions, but most of us picked 0-2 we'd like to try for.

I get what you're saying. If you've seen a bunch of horribly behaved children then you're probably biased towards thinking that most traveling children are horribly behaved. My kid just turned one this past Monday. My wife and I took a trip to Hawaii when he was 6 months old. We're determined to take our children with us with us where we go as opposed to letting our children dictate our schedules. Some people believe (I'm not saying you do) that having children is a death sentence to your travel plans. I don't fall in that camp. On the Hawaii flights, did he cry for a portion? Yep. But then we got him to settle down pretty quickly. My wife and I both did our best to help those around us feel comfortable; there are even some incredibly sweet and thoughtful people who offer to help - to hold my kid while I need to get something out of the diaper bag, etc. I find that in general, those that have kids are more tolerant of those that have kids, and it is for those folks that I'm grateful.

But I do understand your point - if the choice is between driving and flying, and they're both relatively convenient, I'll drive. For instance, my parents live in Monterrey, MX right for the time being. We find it easier to meet them in Laredo than directly in Monterrey, and we usually end up driving there. Would it be incredibly easy to book a short flight from DFW-LRD, especially with the dynamite value Avios would bring to the table? Sure would! But we choose to drive that route because it's a little easier for us. We can take all we want without the hassle of security, weight restrictions and time constraints.

I disagree with your cause of trying to discourage families from traveling. Those moments (certainly not all of them, but we take the bad with the good) can really build a lot of good memories. I find it difficult to understand judging another for having a slant on her blog towards families, or for choosing to fly with their kids. If their kids are running all around without regard for anyone else, that's one thing. But if the kids are generally well behaved and the baby cries every once in a while, why, I find absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Cue the Twilight Zone theme song. That is too much of a coincidence.

It's amazing how long this has got. My two cents:

The question is concerning whether bloggers are ruining flyertalk. Not whether bloggers are bad/good, or whether they should be blacklisted, etc.

As a 'noob' member according to some, I'd say no. Yes, even though the bloggers do post the deals, it's not always ruined. Would the RGN fare (which I brought onto the main premium fare deals thread) be worse off if matthew@upgrd hadn't posted about it? No. Would the any of the points packages not have sold out if the bloggers didn't talk about it? No.

Maybe some Fter's think that the content of the blogs are junk, but that's their problem. The bloggers have the right to post whatever they want. If you think that they are ruining flyertalk, then move somewhere else. What's the need of hundred's of posts on a dumb topic? Spend your time finding fd's!

As an 11-year member of Flyertalk (!), I have to say, I like the bloggers. I don't have the time or the desire to read through pages and pages of off topic commentary. I like having all of the good stuff distilled in an easy to read format. Saves me the trouble.

I don't care too much about deals that get killed. My preference is for deals that survive in perpetuity -- I've got little to no interest in taking advantage of companies who made a mistake.

What an entertaining thread this was to read through.

My 2 cents on flying with kids: Although I have no doubt that the FTers who post in this thread do travel with their kids and manage to control their behaviour, you have to admit that Flyertalkers are not representative of the traveling public overall. It is extremely irresponsible to go out encouraging every Ma & Pa Kettle to take their kids on long flights when the majority of parents do not know how to keep their kids under control. So I have to chime in on the side of Peachfront here. I realize it is probably also a miserable experience to drag small kids on a long road trip as well but either way the travel is going to be uncomfortable and small kids are going to start cryinging and throwing tantrums so at least with the road trip the misery is confined to the car containing aforementioned kids and parents, not shared amongst 330 people on a plane.

I am not a parent, nor do I ever wish to be one. Nor am I a forensic scientist (but I watch those kinds of shows on TV), but in this day and age of internet predators, is it considered prudent to be posting pics of an attractive blonde toddler and one's travel plans/speaking engagements online for all to see? Not something I would be doing if I did have a kid.

The article seems to extol all the virtues of the credit cards without the caveats as to responsible management of credit. People who can't pay their bills in full every month and don't have the discipline to stick to a budget are NOT going to get "free" travel, they will pay for it in interest charges which is exactly why the credit card companies bribe us with these deals in the first place.

Could we please drop the comments about flying with kids from this thread? It's really off topic for this thread. It's not about one blogger.

Just stop replying to that individuals posts in this thread. Thank you.

-David

I disagree. Most Flyertalkers are interested in redeeming for J or F class awards. We look forward to a relaxing, luxurious experience (as opposed to going in economy). If the incidence of kids in J and F increases due to bloggers, it detracts from the flying experience we hope to achieve so it is pertinent to the topic.

Amazing, because Mommypoints and other family oriented bloggers aren't usually interested in redeeming premium cabin awards. For the most part they are interested in family travel for free.

So like I said earlier, FTers are ruining FT a lot more than the bloggers are with the constant bickering, inflammatory posts, like peachfront's in this thread, and the ensuing arguments that detract from having a reasonable topical conversation between intelligent individuals.

And what's even more ridiculous to me is the belief that kids shouldn't be traveling in whatever cabin you are in. My daughter traveled in her own seat from almost the day she was born, and never caused a problem. So if you want to talk about kids being a problem for you, this is not that thread. It's a completely different topic. Nothing you say is going to get rid of kids traveling in F, J or any class for that matter, so it's really futile IMO and ridiculous to think there's anything you can do to change it.

So again, how about taking that sub-topic somewhere else where those that are interested in the debate can join in, those that are not, can just not bother to read it? Isn't that the reasonable thing to do?

-David

I can't speak for others in this thread but if anyone doesn't want to read my posts, they can add me to their Ignore list. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/faq.p...l&titlesonly=0

I do however think I have shown a valid co-relation between my posts (Does the presence of children detract from the flying experience most commonly sought after on FT and do bloggers contribute to increasing the probability of finding more children on your flight?) and the topic of the thread so it's really a matter of do you agree or disagree.......and that is really the purpose of a discussion forum. I am not invalidating your right to your opinion, I am merely disagreeing with you and voicing my own opinion which is well within my rights.

I really appreciated reading what the OP's perspective. For a long time I have been thinking the very same thing. The oldschool bloggers who have been blogging for the past 5-10 years are who I have been following. These brand new bloggers who are repeating verbatim from flyertalk are the ones who are ruining things for us. SO many things have changed for the worse in terms of deals: AAdvantage is no longer churnable, Chase is blacklisting people right and left, AMEX stopped matching bonus's etc (and the list goes on and on) My guess is that things will continue to go downward due to the 100's of bloggers.


Funny Story:
I was corresponding with one of these small time bloggers (I think the blog is less than a year old) and suddenly he wrote "I hope you are using my links! i'm glad to help you, but if your not using my links please let me know"
PS:
I knew MUCH more than him and ended up teaching him a few tricks of the trade

And of course the "free" is in inverted commas, because as any economics/commerce student with a basic knowledge of opportunity cost would tell you, nothing is free. So that wonderful trip for 4 to Orlando in coach might not be so great once you realise you could have flow business class to Asia for the same cost, if not less...

Nobody is saying you or anyone else does not have a right to their opinion. The point is what you are talking about though valid has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Read the OP.

IMO, and this is the point I was trying to make, not to you personally, but to those discussing peachfront's rather inflamatory posts, the discussion moved away from the original topic towards complaining about kids in general, with a relatively minor tie in to bloggers helping more families travel. I'm sure you will disagree with that, which is fine by me. Do whatever you think is right.

That's all I have to say about that sub-topic. I really don't want to promote that discussion in this thread any more than I already have.

-David