I shared recently a post about how I am not an expert. It’s super empowering to do such a thing, because it relieves me of the need to throw away all respect for the ‘art’ of travel hacking in pursuit of readers. Sadly, Gary from View from the Wing and Ben from One Mile at a Time haven’t done the same, and find themselves trapped. Yesterday Brian, the Points Guy blew the lid off a deal using US Air points to fly British Airways and avoid fees. The response from the big blogs was to republish the same information, rather than link to Brian.
The reason given was that since Brian opened the door to this, it was fair game. So instead of one silly blogger blowing something up we had a stampede. And why? Well because there was fear that they might not seem relevant anymore, and might not be the ‘Expert’. The fact of the matter is that none of these guys are really experts at things like the US Air deal, but if someone else is talking about it and they aren’t they lose their coveted position as thought leaders.
This deal was posted on a handful of minor blog sites, and I didn’t take the bait. But this morning I saw The Points Guy cover it. And I know that American’s PR shop, at least, has in the past monitored what’s posted there. So this now falls into the bucket, for me, of very short-term opportunities that folks should know about before it’s gone.
I’ll pause here a moment and say that I do respect Gary a lot, I don’t read Ben’s blog because it never resonated with me, and Brian for me, back in the day helped me get going, though I don’t read it any more. They have all done great things, but sometimes they, as do I, face difficult decisions and sometimes get them wrong.
The funny thing is, none of these guys are really innovating, nor am I right now. I personally am too busy grasping at the pieces of my quickly unraveling life, to test out the new deal. Deals instead are fed to us via readers or can be obtained by crawling through what Gary Leff coined ‘the minor blogs’ and flyertalk. There are a couple of minor blogs that really are innovating, but there comes a point of conflict when building a site -do you sell out tricks to boost reader clicks, or do you keep them under the radar. I myself have been guilty of selling out tricks for clicks in the past.
Blogs need to make a firm commitment to their long term vision
If it is your goal to build readership and revenue at the expense of a trick, then you are not on the innovators side of the fence. It is fine to be there, and I wish you well. Another blog that does this a lot is MillionMileSecrets, and I respect the heck out of Daraius, he helps new folk come into the game, and is a really nice guy too. Make no mistake, he sells tricks for clicks. But if you don’t, how do you become successful?
This is always the challenge. If Saverocity moves away from sharing all the greatest deals, how do we stay relevant, how do we grow? The answer, for me at least, is that we are in it for the long haul, and for the love of the game. From what I see, Credit Card affiliate money is drying up, and in the 1-2 year time horizon I wouldn’t be surprised to see that vanish all together. From there, a lot of incentive to blow up deals for clicks will evaporate, but there will be still this fear of losing expert ‘status’.
The Bigger you are, the more general you should be
Take a look at any major publication and you will see this truth. If you have mass market appeal then selling out a ‘trick’ has the effect of getting it into the hands of a fraction of a percentage of your readership for actual use, and the remaining 99.9% just think you are the ‘expert’. There are other ways to gain expert status without blowing up smaller deals. Looking at Gary, Ben, and Brian they are doing a phenomenal job of building readership and bringing new people into the game without these things, posts like the one from yesterday are like fishing with dynamite, sure it works to draw some buzz, but how much harm is caused in the process?
I’m no angel. As I mentioned earlier I have done the same thing in the past, and I may unintentionally again in the future as there aren’t firm lines in the sand, but I think everybody in the space knows that a line was crossed yesterday. Brian made a bad judgement call, and Ben and Gary (plus a number of other blogs) decided to jump off the cliff with him like lemmings, in fear that they wouldn’t be the expert anymore. We have to all accept that our peers in this space are very capable of (re)producing ideas and readers are very capable of reading other blogs too, it doesn’t show weakness to have a principle.
But what about keeping things from readers
This is a challenge. I really hate these forum douchebags. In fact, one of the main reasons you don’t see Saverocity blogging about these tricks (other than principle) is that the forums they are posted on are full of idiots that I don’t have time for. I don’t necessarily want to send you there as the answer, but some things just aren’t for blogging about. So if you want information on the space this is my suggestion:
For complete beginners – The Points Guy and MillionMileSecrets both good places to point new people, perhaps giving them a headsup about the credit card links is wise.
- For comprehensive daily updates on Award program changes or related news, read: View from the Wing
- For a digest of next generation programs, bank deals and less known cards read: PF Digest
- For manufactured spending:
- Medium thru Advanced Level – Frequent Miler and Chasing the Points
- Reselling – Big Habitat
- For maximizing travel reward programs – Travel is Free
- For maximizing efficiency between earning and burning Milenomics
For expert level advice, but who don’t publicly post about the depth of their knowledge: The Miles Professor, MilesAbound, MileageUpdate, Miles, Points and Mai Tais. I also suspect AmolK and Bengali Miles Guru who both write for HackMyTrip are experts, though we haven’t spoken much, and this list isn’t exhaustive, but should give you some hints. The Freequent Flyer is not afraid to innovate. You might notice that a lot of these names come from #milemadness… that is because I knew of them prior, and then I saw what they were doing during the month. You might also note that you don’t know much of what they were doing, that is because we thought is wiser to not broadcast them for clicks.
The reality is, the folk listed above know more than enough tricks of the trade to get you where you need to go, so rather than face that conundrum of withholding information from readers, if readers want specific help, reach out to them. If you are at the point of experience where really juicy tricks are what you need to elevate you to the next level you need to be quite well established in the game already, and should not be leaning on blogs for surprise answers. If you were the guy that really needed to fly to London you should be asking around and brainstorming how to get there.
So, as a rule of thumb… if you are a complete newbie to this traveling or manufactured spending lark, go through the list of blogs above. If you are spending less than $10,000 per month on your cards you have a lot to learn from these. If you start heading up above that number start reaching out to people, either the bloggers, or the people who comment on the posts and start talking offline. There is enough low hanging fruit to get the new folk on the path, and the more juicy things should be shared a little more discretely.
Here is the link to Brian’s post on the US Airways points on British Airways, full disclosure, I didn’t know about this loophole, it is obviously one that I should have tested out when US joined OneWorld, but I didn’t. But hey, there you go, I am not an expert, I don’t know it all and it is OK for me to not reproduce it in full in order to appear to be one. I am working on some other things right now though, and in future posts I will share how to find the next unicorn, not how to kill it.
I want to hug this post.
Great post Matt! Finally a voice of reason.
I’m tired of all of the recycled posts on Evolve Money, gift cards at WalMart, OV at drugstore, blah, blah, blah…
I loved the comment about lemmings – very fitting!
I hope that all the bloggers boarding area, wandering armean, miles and points, etc. ALL read your post.
Excellent post!
Excellent post, Matt. What more to say? You rock:)
I’ll join in the accolades, good stuff!
yeah man. sorry to hear about the unraveling. we’re with you
+1 great post. A refreshing and unique point of view!
I don’t know if you’re a “minor blog” but certainly more interesting and principled than most of the EchoChamber bloggers.
Nicely done! Looking forward to Charlotte!
Excellent except the two sites on my Ignore list lol.
Don’t we have better ones for beginners out there?
I want to link to this but I do not want any readers of mine clicking on those two, they are not good for MY HOBBY 🙂
Some really good thoughts expressed here. I need to drink some wine to ponder about them. But I have a gazillion blog posts to sort through first. It’s not as bad as I thought, I just press delete on the ones selling Barclays cards 🙂
Periodically I find myself looking for a few good links for someone who has expressed interest in this miles ‘n points game we play. Perhaps rather than pointing folks to MMS and TPG – with a warning about how to choose links used to open cards – we could refer them to Drew’s new guide or FM’s weekly newsletter for newbies. (I did read through Drew’s piece; haven’t seen FM’s but knowing FM’s blog I imagine it is good too.) It seems like most of the big bloggers have “start here” buttons and/or beginner links on their sites too. Less popular blogs do too.
Now this is a solid post +1.
Glad you like the post folks. As for changing the list, I really do think that these two were the most helpful for me as a beginner and therefore will keep them up. I know that for someone more experienced there are a few cringe moments, but you can’t beat the arrows and circles for a noob. Just make sure they are advised about the card situation and go from there.
Agreed. I didn’t read TPG much but I did read MMS when I first started. I found MMS’s post on transferring UR points between accounts helpful the first time I did it and will admit that I searched for it because I wanted those red arrows to guide me through. And I do enter their contests periodically!!
I read/scan a bunch of blogs, but in terms of day to day ideas, new strategies, and discussions of the way we pursue this hobby, I like Milenomics, the blogs here at Saverocity, Frequent Miler, and TBB the best. I also find some great stuff at HackMyTrip and Travel is Free. So they are the folks who get my clicks and my daughter’s, who has just completed her second churn!
Much appreciated Elaine!
Hi Matt, I enjoyed this post.
Aside from the blogs you mentioned above, could you list any of the other “minor blogs that really are innovating?”
Thanks!
Hey Rich,
To be frank, I don’t read many blogs, and most of them aren’t ‘truly’ innovating as a lot of stuff comes from the forums… but there are some people that seem to be willing to try new things and be guinea pigs for ideas, such as Chasing the Points making python scripts to find deals (not unique, but nobody is really doing it anymore that I know of) or Freequent Flyer taking a long rail trip to pick up the momentum card, again, he wasn’t the first to own the card, but he was willing to put his ass on the line and try it out.
So, long story short I don’t have an answer for you, but would be open to hearing from other readers if they do.
Great post…I love how it is contrarian but based on true thought, not just to be different. Also really enjoyed citing a few lesser known places to get information that I haven’t checked out before. I’ll be adding you to my regular blog roll from this point forward.
Interesting read.
I watched the coupon world go from unknown to on fire to mostly dead over maybe 12-15 years. It was people who were outright cheating that killed it, mostly. People that learned to outsmart the printable coupon ‘print two’ limits or who just made up their own bar codes.
However another aspect of the game changing was that as coupon use gained popularity the offers started to get less valuable. I always figured it was a fixed advertising budget thing, as the % of coupons redeemed increases the advertising cost increases, unless you lower the coupons value. So twice as many players means half as good a deal.
If that extends to miles and points, anything that increases participation will effect the value of offers over time.
Well done. There are the innovators (somebody has to find these deals first) and then there are the tattletails. Most blogger regurgiate what they have been given (some with minor improvements … “it also works from EWR, not only JFK…)
I am sure you will get some pushback from your colleagues, but I say “Hats of to you Sir”
Cheers, we will see. And now I have to put it to the test as I write the follow up, how to find the next big thing.
@ Matt – I appreciate your list of blogs grouped like that. Don’t you think that Ben’s blog should be on the list though because it features something very valuable – “Ask Lucky” section? I find it pleasantly surprising that, despite having an award booking service, Ben doesn’t just respond in comments but is willing to tackle any question in that section and, from my experience, he answers remarkably quickly (hours not days).
With regards to the TPG-caused chaos, I have a somewhat different view of the situation. TPG breaking the news was akin to a publication breaking an embargo on a story. Once it’s out there, there’s no benefit to keeping it quiet and it only disadvantages their readers.
For example, due to a particularly bad crunch at work, I’ve not been keeping up with most blogs and their daily emails this year. So I missed TPG post and learned about it through another blog. From what I gather, there are also people who don’t read TPG on purpose, so they’d also miss out.
Sorry for the long response — I really enjoy your blog and once my life will allow a bit more time, I look forward to going through your posts. Once you learn about FF programs and easy earnings through bonuses, I think optimized spend and MS are what’s needed for those of us who don’t ordinarily put five-six figures on a CC per month for business.
Hey Ivan,
I can’t add him to my list because I’ve never read him and doing so makes no sense to me, but if he is helpful then hopefully a newbie reader here will see that you like him and can check it out. I’m sure that he is knowledgeable.
Thanks for stopping by!
Oh, okay. I came across OMAAT when searching for SQ F IAH-DME review. He’s a great resource for J & F travel and chain hotels. Perhaps his content will evolve a bit since he’ll be living in hotels for the next year.
P. S. My goal for thus year & next is to take more time off so hope to make it to a DO one day. Was at my first FTU last week and it was nice – Gary is a great speaker. Attended MS sessions as well.
Yeah the reason he never resonated with me is that there is a lot of reviews and I don’t care too much for that- I would read them specifically via SEO search as you did, but I don’t want to tune into the next plane review, bores me. For others they might like it.
Great post Matt, can I link to it from my trip blog?
Thanks- please do