With the First2Board launch here, new readers might stumble across The Deal Mommy. (Welcome, by the way!) I thought it would be useful to share not only what my blog is about, but what it ISN’T. Volume 1 takes on the “Frugal” blogs and some of the crazy advice they pitch. So here I present: Things you will NEVER hear me say, Volume 2, taking on some my pet peeves in posts I’ve seen in travel and points blogs.
Before I begin, let me just state that I enjoy many different blogs and bloggers, and just because I disagree with a specific post doesn’t mean I disagree everything they say, and it certainly isn’t personal! I find most of the travel and points community to be extremely generous with their time and expertise. I’m grateful to be just a small part of it.
I’m going to begin with the end here: travel in my world is both aspirational and accessible. While I feel the frugal bloggers lack any sort of inspiration factor, I see in some points posts total disconnection from the accessible.
Travel is also inclusive. First2Board is anti-scheme blogging, and while I’m not anti-scheme per se, I AM anti-entitlement. We (as a community of travelers) should want people to travel more, not be intimidated or feel left out of some secret club.
With those conclusions in mind, I present:
Things you will NEVER hear me say, Volume 2
- Just pull your kids out of school to save money on vacations! You see this gem quite a bit on the “Family Travel” Blogs. Well, I tried it, once. I kept Deal Kid out for two days to visit his Grandparents and got a truancy warning from the school district. Did I mention he was in KINDERGARTEN? So while it may work for some (and with the right teachers I’ve been able to sneak the Deal Kids out a bit after that year), I’m going to write with the school calendar in mind.
- It was only $300/night for the upgrade to a suite, so of course I took it. In my little corner of the world $300/night is the difference between taking a trip and not taking a trip! I would suck it up and sleep in the lowly room in the five star hotel instead of blowing a car payment per night on a suite upgrade.
- HOT! $4,000 Business class fare to Singapore! Leaves tomorrow only! As a Mom, there’s just no way I could take off for Asia on 24 hours notice, and I don’t have 4k lying around to drop on a plane ticket. (Yes, I do have the credit, but you have to pay for it eventually, don’t you?) One of my biggest challenges at Chicago Seminars was finding people who were stuck scheduling around a school calendar, as I am. I’m thrilled at how many 20 something dudes read The Deal Mommy, but I just won’t blog a deal I don’t think most Moms could take! Now a weekend in Europe, that’s another story.
- Join this thing you’ve never heard of for 5 free United Miles! If I wouldn’t bother, I won’t blog it. (But I might re-tweet it.)
- Using miles for coach plane tickets is a waste. Uh, no, it’s a free plane ticket! I love me a lie-flat seat as much as the next girl, but the extra 50k miles to get it on a six hour flight to Europe is an entire new trip, or a ticket for another family member. Domestic first class? Unless it’s cheaper than buying coach, which can happen so always check the awards availability, a first class domestic ticket is total waste of miles IMHO! Now to Asia, I kinda get it.
- You’ll get an extra .0000004 cents per point if you use it this way. Truth be told, I LOVE these math-whiz posts, but they’re just not me. I focus more on the total experience than the retail value. The “What’s a point worth” posts are interesting reading, but IMHO a point is worth what it is worth TO YOU, with one exception:
- Use your points to buy stuff! NO!!!!! NEVER gonna hear me say that. Here’s a fun post where I blast a blogger for pushing “merchandise with points”.
- So I spent $20,000 at Office Depot yesterday… A lady doesn’t re-load and tell.
- My cajillion point bonus posted! As I saw on my twitter stream after an offending post: “What you want, a cookie?”
What’s a piece of “advice” in the blogosphere that drives you nuts?
Totally agree with:
1. The suite upgrade. I will gladly accept them for free, but won’t pay for them. That $300 can buy me a lot of other things I value more than extra space (but keep in mind, I’m only traveling with one other person, or maybe even solo).
2. Last-minute trips. I need at least 3 weeks to get things organized at work before leaving (well, unless it’s just a day or two) and that’s at a bare minimum to keep my coworkers happy. No way I can drop things to jet around the world because of a great fare.
3. Marginal extra points. Really depends on the amount of time I invest to do so. Clicking something on Facebook for free points? Sure. Taking extra trips to the ATM for (minimal) extra points? Nope.
The other thing that frustrates me is being told to be flexible on my dates to find award availability. While I understand it, it’s just not realistic in my life to fly on a Wednesday instead of a weekend. So I’m flexible in my destinations, seasons, seating class, or using cashback rewards instead…
Yes! And, thanks for reminding me of another one to add to the list: “using miles for coach is a waste”. UGH.
I’m not a fan of posts claiming that a particular fare is amazing when it’s merely a fare that is good but not particularly rare, and requires additional complicated travel planning. I won’t get too specific with my example b/c I don’t want to pick on a particular blogger, but I remember a post from last year that gushed over a r/t fare between Point B and Fabulous Destination. Problem is, the blogger lived at Point A. Now, I’d been watching flights between these two cities for some time so I knew that this fare was indeed a good one, but I’d seen fares go well below that price during the course of that year. I’d let this scenario slide if the blogger was just jumping on a deal that was convenient for them, but the post then led to the blogger coming up with strategies to get themselves from Point A to Point B so that they could take that flight to Fabulous Destination. Now, I’d be willing to go to great lengths to get myself to Point B if that Point B-Fabulous Destination fare really truly was remarkable, but in this case it amounted to the blogger spending not much less total in fare and/or points than they would have if they’d just typed their destination into travelocity. Altogether it was a decent deal given the time of year, but it was far from being a steal. And as a newbie to the travel deal scene, posts like that make travel planning seem like more of a headache than it’s worth. IMHO, the deals worth reading about are the ones that mean significant savings, with additional strategies to make that travel steal accessible. Otherwise, why bother follow travel blogs when I could just use a travel aggregate site?
I’d cite your posts about planning your trip to Ireland as striking that perfect balance of how to make a trip worth planning for when the steal’s origin isn’t in the traveller’s home base.
Having said that, perhaps I’m viewing all of this through newbie-colored glasses. The irksome blog I referenced earlier might be the type of post that appeals to readers who are used to accumulating airline points in the six-figure range after a single credit card churn.
April,
I hear you and thanks for the insight. I think it’s natural to have a bias towards your own point of departure (in my case WAS), but I agree it’s also then helpful to make sure to expand your coverage to include “This is how you would re-create the same from your hometown.”
It wasn’t so much the multiple leg aspect of the trip that bothered me, it was more a combo of 1-good but not great deal plus 2-fretting over strategies to use the deal. In the end, I doubt the blogger got much in savings. It would have actually made a great blog post entitled, “The Deal I Saw, and How I Discovered It Wasn’t The Best Deal For Me.” I probably should have mentioned that I brought up that scenario because I’ve seen scenarios of a similar vein on other blogs. Most of them are travel scenarios for the purpose of mileage runs. But again, I’m still a newbie and I read blogs with vacation in mind. I’m sure I’ll think differently when I have the time to invest in travel for the sake of mileage and frequent flier status and less for the destination. Like you, I’m also constrained by kid’s schedules and the school calendar, and a budget that’s fitting with this stage of life. 🙂
“A lady doesn’t re-load and tell” lol
Flying business instead of coach: if you are flying around popular vacation days with the family, time and availability slots are scarce, so Business class travel is a decent alternative as you don’t want to waste 1 day of your vacation recovering from travel alone? So go another few thousand vanilla reloads and get the extra miles 😉
300$ suite upgrade: sure 300$ is a bit too much, but when travelling with two kids you appreciate the extra space, since once the luggage is unpacked and the rollaway beds in place there is not much space left in a standard double room? So show me the 4000 point Hyatt suite upgrade anytime when travelling with kids.
Hi Oliver,
I’ll give you biz as an option, what bothers me is when people judge others for daring to admit they fly coach! Also agree that the Hyatt upgrade is an absolute STEAL. I’m also a big fan of the condo rentals, especially when you can pick them up for pennies on Skyauction.