When I first decided to start a blog, I didn’t really have a plan for what it was going to be. Six months later, the plan to have no plan hasn’t really changed. If someone were to ask me what Mile Writer is all about, I wouldn’t have a great answer. No catchy tagline, no 60-second elevator pitch, no fancy cash flow statement or even a vision of where things will be 3-4 months from now – let alone years down the road.
All I know is that I like to travel and am enough of a nerd to read credit card contracts and do some miles and points math to travel for free. And for me, the best part of all of this is sharing everything I’ve learned with someone else. Whether it’s booking your first mistake fare or billing your hotel and meals to Chase when your flight gets delayed, we have access to an incredible number of resources to travel more frequently and comfortably.
I guess that’s what this blog is all about: talking about stuff that’ll make traveling easier, cheaper, and more accessible to everyone who wants to learn how. I’m not going to pretend understanding the finer nuances of rewards redemption and complex award booking is a breeze, because it’s not. I’m still trying to figure out some of the more advanced topics, but I’m excited by how much more there is to learn.
And as part of the ever-growing Saverocity network, we have the opportunity to connect with fellow travelers, bloggers, and readers around the world. It’s an exciting time to join the community, and I’m grateful to be a part of it!
But to give some semblance of structure to what I write and prevent a deathly slide down the slippery slope of credit card affiliate relationships, I think it’s important to set some clear boundaries on what this site is not about. These are a set of personal guidelines I expect to hold myself accountable to – and hopefully one that you’ll hold me to as well.
So to draw some red lines in the sand or however the metaphor goes, I’d like to make a pledge of five things you’ll never see on Mile Writer:
1. Unqualified advice
Unqualified could mean two things here. It could mean that I am not a licensed professional, expert, sage, or savant and thus not qualified to give professional advice about anything to anyone. This would be quite true.
While I’ve learned a lot about creative ways to travel over the past few years, there’s a lot more to learn. In my mind, an expert is someone who knows everything about something. In a way, this also means that experts don’t have much more to learn because, well, they know everything. So not only am I not an expert, I’m not really sure I want to be.
Unqualified could also refer to advice that is so massively stretched to broadly apply to every possible scenario (and without qualification), which brings us to …
2. Objective “best” statements on credit cards, airline programs, hotels, and otherwise very subjective things
We live in a golden era of loyalty rewards programs. Right now, it’s possible to sign-up for a few credit cards, cash out on the miles, and fly to the far-off destination of your dreams for free.
But the hard reality involves far more than just that.
You’ll need to think about your finances and spending patterns. You’ll need to avoid common mistakes that, yes, can adversely impact your credit score which, yes, can make life unnecessarily difficult (for example, someone I know – definitely not me – accrued a bunch of hard pulls for new credit cards right before going shopping for his first apartment in the toughest housing market in the country). Even in the small segment of the travel world that is credit card programs, you’ll need to decide which cards to sign-up for, which partner programs to transfer points to, when to redeem for travel – not to mention where you want to go!
To help guide you through all these decisions, I’ll do my best to share what I know, lay out all the cards on the table, and talk about the lesser-known facts about each.
But at the end of the day, there is no such thing as the “best” credit card for everyone. There’s only the “best” credit card for you. Ultimately, only you can make that decision – and I’d be wary of anyone who claims to have done the deciding for you.
3. Template trip-reports
“Trip reporting” usually consists of play-by-play reviews of airlines, hotels, airport lounges, or whatever else the reporter deems to be reviewable. As with any review, trip reports are a great way to get detailed information about a product whether it be a hotel suite in Dubai or American’s new international business class.
When I first discovered the world of trip reporting a few years back, I was fascinated by all the in-depth accounts of what it was like to fly first class, stay in giant hotel suites, and travel in a way I never knew. But over the years, I’ve noticed that a lot of this trip reports look oddly the same.
Enter the “template trip-report.” Let’s walk through one together:
I boarded the [Airbus/Boeing] on the [left/right] side. The greeting flight attendant was [kind/helpful/apathetic/other]. I settled into [First or Business class seat] and was promptly offered a glass of [orange juice, champagne, sparkling water, straight vodka, mystery rum, the elixir of youth or one/some/all of these]. Or, I wasn’t – which made me quite upset and led to deep self-reflection on what the lack of pre-departure beverage meant for the airline’s stock price, the state of customer service in this country, and the health of the global economy.
We will now run through a number of photos of the aircraft, various serveware (with my comments on which I find to be superior), lightly-microwaved meals, and mini-tubes of toothpaste.
Let’s face it: these get boring pretty fast. We all know that first class is nicer than not first class – do we really need to know about the ever-changing peanut-to-cashew ratio in pre-packaged airplane nuts?
Now this doesn’t mean I’ll never write a trip report. And to be clear, it also does not mean that any trip report I do write will be the product of ground-breaking investigative journalism and feature photos worthy of the National Geographic. But at the very least, it’ll be about something that I find mildly interesting. Hopefully, you will too.
4. Luxury travel is the only way to travel
Luxury travel is great. I like nice things, and I like having nice things even more. But for me, traveling in luxury is not the only way to travel. This might seem rather obvious, until you find that the vast majority of blogs dedicated to points and miles travel (even the ones oriented to the “frugal” traveler) spend an inordinate amount of time talking about what it’s like to fly in the front of the plane or land the corner suite at yet another five-star hotel.
A common rationale for all this high-end blogging goes something like this:
MYTH 1: Flying first class is the “best” value for your miles because you can redeem points at a greater dollar value than for coach.
MYTH 2: Also, the steep annual fee on that credit card is totally worth it because you get free airport lounge access and $100 in food or spa treatments whenever you stay at luxury hotels!
It’s true that the points to cash cost ratio is generally more favorable for first/business class than coach. It’s also true that some credit cards (mostly the ones with a $450+ annual fee) give you complimentary access to airport lounges as well as generous credits at more exclusive hotels around the world.
But blog-bites like these frequently gloss over how these benefits and products actually translate into value.
An exhaustive discussion of “value” is best reserved for another day, so for now I’ll rely on a slight modification of Rule 2 to explain what I mean:
FACT: What’s “valuable” for me may not be “valuable” for you which may not be “valuable” for the next guy, and so on.
For example, would you rather use your points to live it up in first-class once? Or would you rather white-knuckle it through long-haul coach to cross not one, but two countries off your bucket list? (No, the answer here is not “get more points.”) Do you have time to travel the world for months – or were you just saving up for that one special trip after your wedding? When booking accommodation, do you care more about whether you get a complimentary baby crib or the top-bunk near the lockers? Do you get more excited by panoramic views at the world’s highest bar or three beers for a dollar at a neighborhood happy hour?
People want different things. If wanting something is in any way relevant to value, people value different things. I may want nice things, but right now I value exploring the world much more. So while you’ll probably see a few posts about nice hotels and credit cards with eyebrow-raising fees, they will likely be far and few between. It’s certainly not the only way to travel.
5. Regular and frequent posts
When I first started writing, I set a reasonably ambitious goal of one post per day. I was so proud of this reasonably ambitious goal that I rewarded myself by taking a few days off every now and then. When now and then became more now than then, I adjusted my expectations to a few posts per week. Then life happened, and I went a month without writing a thing. Posting has been sporadic at best ever since.
Hard deadlines are not my friend. At the same time, I realize readers expect things to read; otherwise, they wouldn’t be readers. To compromise, I’ll take my favorite blogger’s lead and pledge to share a “new post every sometimes.” I think this is a better reasonably ambitious goal, and it’s one you can definitely hold me to. Plus, whenever I disappear into a post-less hiatus, you can always find something new to read on Saverocity.
Thanks for the introduction. I look forward to your future posts.