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| Hotel Kaklasutten, Saariseka, Finland |
Let’s get on with it, fasten your seat belts, let’s go for a ride!
MVP POST OF THE DAY
Okay, this is really weird! Matador Network features pics of “20 of the World’s Strangest Hotel Rooms“. All bloggers I feature here listen up! We are all getting a bit tired of your large Suites! How about some trip reports in any of these hotels huh? I would love to see our favorite bloggers in some of these rooms! Anyone up for room #1 with the dancing pole? #3 totally freaks me out! #6 looks totally awesome! #7 is the Hello Kitty Bondage Room in the Adonis Love Hotel in Osaka, Japan where the author is wondering “how aroused this pussy could get someone” [I am still laughing!!!]. I know many of us would love #8 fuselage of a Boeing 727. #9 is for car lovers, WTF you Germans! #12 Dog Bark Park Inn??? Please flog me! #17 I am certain if Gary Leff looks at that bed picture he will have a stroke!! #20 is built for nightmares!
BEST OF MILES/POINTS
SeatGuru had a massive facelift and I like it so far! tnooz expands on the added features!
Gary Leff was out first with the news that Air France Flying Blue is doing status matches to Gold. Not a big deal but may help some. Use Chrome browser! And status match will only be good through May 30, 2013.
Mommy Points wrote a great post on “How to Temporarily Beat the Recent Hotel Award Chart Changes“. Solid info summarizing the recent changes with dates & specific examples. And not even one affiliate link, hooray!
Travel Summary wrote “If You’re Rich, Then the Points Game is For You!”. Oh yes, it helps a lot! The more you can float, the more you can earn! One day I may expand on my “whore” brokerage account back in the last decade when these brokerage account signing bonuses were more prevalent….it kept going round and round and round to the highest bidder! Oh how I miss E*Trade:-)
BEST OF TRAVEL
10 Best Airport Lounges Around the World. Interesting, I wonder how Ben at One Mile at a Time feels about these choices.
And since we are pitching the great British Airways…how about this complaint letter by Deal Mommy about her ordeal this past weekend? I almost cried! I continue to avoid BA, they can take their criminally high fuel surcharges and shove them up you kwow where! I only had to call BA in the US (for my Lan award pre Avios days) once and the agents sure can use some customer service training! Please let us know how this is resolved. Hope Chris Elliott comes through for you!
Vagabondish reports that the Most Popular State Tourism Website is Michigan’s! Yes, we are number 1 in something! You can visit the site and you can visit our state. It is beautiful here. Ok, it gets so freaking cold sometimes that this morning my garage doors froze and would not open up!
The World’s 10 Most Dangerous Airlines Hey China Airlines, you are Numero Uno!
The 25 Least Visted Countries in the World (HT to Amol of PointstoPointsB) Fascinating list. North Korea at #16. The commentary is fantastic! At the end there is a list of the most visited countries; France is #1 and USA is at #2.
Foggy Walk Through Milan From Landlopers. Great pics!
NOT SO BEST OF
Well, yesterday I was going to post about the $50 off $100 purchase at Best Buy. Late last night I learned it was dead. This morning reader Kathy at Will Run for Miles sent me this link at Consumerist with more details about how the deal went down. To the person who snagged $2,500 Amazon gift cards shame on you hog!
The Points Guy wrote on how to get the 75k MR AMEX Business Rewards Gold card like so many other bloggers today. How can one single post about a SINGLE card end up including 4 affiliate amex links, 1 affiliate Citibank link and 3 Chase affiliate links is beyond me! Its saving grace is at least the two non affiliate AA Citibank links & a HT to Million Mile Secrets…hey, that’s an improvement! Still no disclosure anywhere on the post that there is a direct financial benefit (of course the disclosure is somewhere at the bottom of the website in tiny font in grey color, please bring your magnifying glass!). This practice bothers ME!
And next comes the sales job on the Top 10 Benefits of the Birtish Airways Visa by The Points Guy. It is clearly a pay day! Ok, it is a great offer but coming up with 10 benefits is stretching it a bit in my opinion. And pluueeeease, spare us drama like this “Get in on the bonus while it lasts because it might not be back for a while…if ever.” Welcome to all new readers from the New York Travel Show, click away, cha ching!
Extra Pack of Peanuts does not post for days (I think he was traveling) and comes back ready to….answer a reader’s question about hotel credit cards, how conveeeenient! And produces a mega affiliate credit card link fest selling the benefits of each card. Talk about original content folks! And to keep me in good graces he includes the non affiliate 80k Priority Club Visa credit card offer but then proceeds to scare the crap out of the newbie reader with this: ” The 80k bonus is an unpublished offer that you can access through the link above. Many have reported that it still works fine. If you’re scared of applying for an unpublished offer, then you can apply for the regular 60k offer here.” Don’t be scared, JUST CLICK THE 80K OFFER!
ODDZ & ENDZ
From Wired: Spy Bases: 9 Secretive HQs of the World’s Intelligence Agencies. This is fascinating!!
Bloomberg: Armstrong Becomes “Madoff on a Bike” as Cheating Shatters Lives“. I find it ludicrous that this guy is allowed to only lose some money over this grand deception/fraud over so many years. I think his ball belongs in a cell next to Madoff! And I thought all along Landry was nuts…do I feel like an idiot! (happens a lot, lol).
Fantastic little chart showing just how tough it is for lawyers to leave the office. For my lawyer readers:-)
Nice run-up of TPG’s pimping. Surprised you didn’t cite your new years prediction of increased focus on the BA Visa
His Travel top 10, along with FTG’s churning challenge are just glorified weekly excuses to push lots of credit cards. I can’t remember the last time his top 10 didn’t contain several real stretches in relevance just to fill out the list
I agree:-)
Actually, there is a temporary increase in the commission right now on the BA Visa, which is exactly why some bloggers are pushing it.
I let my readers know about the temp commission increase in the BA offer…and I was very surprised to see it not pushed harder! I think they are all trying to avoid TBB’s wrath? I actually think they don’t care at all, it’s all about the cha ching!
George, Once you start linking to offers, the other bloggers will get less referrals. What are you waiting for??
Oh wait. I know. You won’t be able to complain about them. Ha ha!
dhammer53
I move very slow:-) I try to focus on the content & quality to gain readers. Thinking about monetizing is like a startup in its initial stages thinking about its IPO. And you do have a great point! If I ever jump in I will do this the Frequent Miler Way and I won’t be a bitch to Flex Offers…they can bite me!
Content, content, content. Nada else. And trying to stay alive handling everything!
Its now part of BankRate and no longer FlexOffers (i think)
Yes BankRate bought just the credit card part of the business of Flex Offers as I orinigally reported in my blog some time ago. BankRate has a decent reputation and I was surprised to see them do this. I would love to know what led to this decision…My gut feeling is that FO is very profitable and they paid a high price for it.
To TBB FlexOffers will always remain BentOffers:-)
Addendum on the “fear” of clicking the Priority Club 80K offer. In the (unlikely) event that it doesn’t work, you get … 60K points.
I suppose you could also point out that contacting Chase afterward to be bumped up to a better bonus is a relatively successful scheme, but that would result in less click-through revenue.
harvson3
That’s a great addendum, I may add it next time. And there will be a next time for sure…many many next times!
“If you’re scared of applying for an unpublished offer…”, is a great trick to get people to click on an AFF link. My favorite trick though is to not remind people who are new to churning about the waiting periods that are required before attempting another signon bonus. Been burned on this one more than once!!
This area is full of tricks. I have no issues with a blogger getting paid for quality content, full disclosures and playing no tricks!
Absolutely correct BlueCat
There are the bloggers who post only the best offers (or post both but make it abundantly clear that you shouldn’t be using their link
There are the bloggers who post only the affiliate links
And then there are the fear monger crowd, who will post both links but try to scare you out of the non-aff link. They never seem to forget to remind you that there’s no landing page, but oddly enough they often forget to mention that while “YMMV”, your mileage doesn’t in fact vary at all as confirmed by a 100+ page Flyertalk thread
I think a strong argument can be made that the fear monger crowd is worse than the crows that doesn’t post the better link altogether
>>>>I think a strong argument can be made that the fear monger crowd is worse than the crows that doesn’t post the better link altogether
I think I agree on this. Bottom line is they can do whatever they want in their own blogs.
TBB reviews travel blogs and informs readers about the Buzz in this space.
If some get offended….they are free to improve to get in the “Best Of” category! Earn your commission dollars bloggers, don’t just mail it in as some of you do, respect your readers!
Did Rick seriously just recommend the United card that comes with a 30K signup bonus?
I think some of you forget that you already know this space well. For example, complaining that the churning challenges are just a glorified way to push affiliate links overstates it a bit I think. I don’t mind the churning challenges at all. When I try to explain this hobby to people, they either simply don’t believe me that you can get all of this (nearly) free travel, or they think it is too complicated. The churning challenges provide concise, real-world examples of how to accomplish a specific trip using CC signup bonuses. I’ve used them as examples to show people how uncomplicated this can be.
You may disagree with specific offers that are being pushed, but I don’t think it’s fair to call those posts to task just for pushing a bunch of affiliate links. While I’m sure that helps him, I really do think he’s providing good content there for the most part.
Except a few weeks ago, FTG grossly overestimated the cash cost of a trip (by thousands of dollars) and included cards that the person in the example already had. The vacation in the churning challenge that week was unattainable for a newbie and was actually a poor use of examples.
In my own opinion, I find these churning challenges are to be filler stuff. You can see that not much thought went into them and they are just slapped together quickly. And see next post for more reasons. I think a more comprehensive review of the person is needed to fully understand their situation, goals, preferences, credit/cashflow/spending/assets/etc…but who has time for that, that is hard work. Here are two cc apps, this is what you would pay (lolololol) and voila, it’s magically frugal!
Sorry I disagree. It’s my blog, my rules, my reviews:-)
No these are absolutely CC filler posts
Don’t get me wrong…. such a topic “could’ve” been a great feature, if it was used for it’s intended purpose
But it often contains bad and incorrect advice. And is very transparently trying to sucker newbies into CC’s
The second you push a 30K Delta card over a 50K US Airways card for a newbie looking to go to Phoenix (a US hub), it becomes abundantly clear what the motives are. And it isn’t “helping out newbies”
Not sure if he still does this (I stopped reading his blog once he started pushing bad CC’s), but MileValue used to have great writeups on how to utilize miles
Tons of details. Simple step by step instructions with pictures. Neat tricks even a newbie could utilize.
Now THAT is how it should be done.
Rick is just “open these cards (that I get money for). You need X miles to get here. You can do it with X spend”
Milevalue developed a great brand imho. You know, the brilliant posts on how to use the miles, the free stopovers. I think it was a brilliant move to hire the kid for award booking. And that is WHERE we have the aha moment guys! The effort vs money made is just not enough…something needs to be done and BANG! The easy money from the affiliate credit cards enters…and the content starts to suffer…and the easy filler posts and intrusive sales pitches (and bad advice) start coming…and then you hustle for more PR…and then when you gain it (New York Times…by promoting your expertise in utilizing miles)….you rope in all the newbies and you give them the dumbed down newbie material (which you magically can get served to you by so many other bloggers in a better format I shall say)…So you welcome the new readers, you give them a little bit and you promise them if they come back tomorrow you will continue this “extra special” series of posts especially for them. And in the meantime your former readers start to desert you…
So…in this process….the blogger’s bank account starts to get fat and you start to justify to yourself you are doing God’s work by “helping” people. You actually BELIEVE this! The ones who have been around and know a few things start to really dislike you and pretty much stop visiting your blog. The really smart ones sell at the top and laughing all the way to the bank, not giving a crap about their legacy.
So…we have the old readers slowly leave you because you have become a unrelenting sales machine BUT endless numbers of newbies discover you, get you more income and likely give up in the process (who cares about the ones whose lives gets upended who can’t control their spending, you did your part to warn them, lol), but MORE newbs keep coming, especially if you are great in PR!
Lets face it, the BIG money in this market is in the newbs, there are SO MANY of them out there!
Or, you can develop a brand by focusing on content, content, content and develop an audience slowly and steadily. Treat your readers with respect and not a bunch of idiots who get annihilated by an endless number of filler posts and affiliate links and stupidly alarming posts or cautions (that link is not official, you may not get the bonus, so if you want to be sure here is my crappy inferior link!). Develop a niche and brand and cherish it! Park your aff cc links in a separate tab & focus on helping (or entertaining) your readers, keep adding value to them. They are not as dumb as you think! They will reward you for your hard work. Probably never or near the level of the big pushers in the game but I guarantee you that is a lot more noble way (at least in my book and consciousness) to go about and stay proud that you ARE really making a difference! Or fall for your own BS that you helped a couple get to Phoenix on Delta Skypesos.
Finally, to do it right you need to totally focus on this venture. We are all not Gary Leff to multitask with so many projects. I am right about at that point that I need to make a decision where I go from here. Do I put my kids up for adoption now or later? Ha, just kidding about that! Neither I am talking about adding aff links!! I need to figure out if I can still find the time to do this at the high quality I expect of me. With looming tax season staring me at the face & wife being downsized the pressure is way up. Almost three months now, I only had one guy sign up on my ebates referral link, endless hours of working on the content and absolutely no time to tend to the technical side of this venture and the way my site looks really bothers me.
Ok, that was quite a rant, wow!
Thank you all for reading. And for clicking my affiliate links, lol!!
Maybe I should cut and paste this to tomorrow’s blog post, what do you think? I am not sure my readers want to know what I am struggling with and you all made it clear you do not want to keep reading about whether I keep blogging or not.
So, as I have said before, #developing
I’d like to nominate that post for MVP post of the day for tomorrow
I personally would have no problem to you finding a way to make money of this blog, especially if your family’s current financial situation necessitate that
I would be glad to help you out by clicking some of your links. My only concern is that your readers are probably the ones who give their “business” to superstars like Frequent Milers…. it would be a lot more perfect if it were the market shares of FTG, TPG and MV you’d cut into. But if someone is reading your blog, they’re probably not the type of person giving those guys their aff $$$
I’m in the middle of an app-o-rama. After reading that expose on how Flex Offers (or whatever they are calling it these days) is screwing the small blogs and making the big blogs richer, I decided to just click through from the hotel sites (SPG, Club Carlson) or other public links. I just don’t like their philosophy, why not give everyone a chance even if they only get a couple clicks a month? Why kick bloggers out if they don’t meet a quota and refuse to pimp their links in their blogs? They (Flex Offers) pissed me off enough to not want to use them.
Got the 50k + 5k + $50 UA after a hassle, I must have some hidden cookies on my main laptop that kept throwing the 50k offer when I was logged into UA back to the 30k offer. I switched to the little netbook I use for travel and voila, got it! Still have 2 x AA pending, then debating if I should tag a Chase Freedom and Wyndham 30k since it amounts to a free 12k AA miles. The Freedom is in my blog’s Google ad offers, I want to see if I get a commission if I am approved!
I totally agree with your feelings about Flex/Bent Offers and their business practices. But…sadly, it does make business sense to focus on fewer websites with much higher traffic! I use public links ever since I started blogging to preserve the editorial purity of my reviews. Nothing personal bloggers, I just can’t have favorites here!
I know it is time for me and wife to get back on the AACiti train again…Will get to it soon. Last year I waited for a very short Freedom offer for 35k pts, no idea if they will offer it again! And with no more Chase Exclusives being offered it’s just not as great deal as before! I dont’ bother with Wyhdham, I do not like the company at all…I need to read on that Google Ads stuff…just too busy with own life and TBB reviews to get to it:-)
Have you seen milevalue’s post? Welcome NYT readers! click click click push push push chaching. Okay I feel better now 😉
Thanks a lot for the feeback. I agree with your statements:-)
Current financial situation is just fine, wife has 5 months severance pay and the job markets appears to be good. Then again, after almost 15 years in the same company she finds it quite hard to get going on this, it is not easy.
Thanks for the support, really!
Dan gets a big thumbs up for finding out that ANA isn’t collecting fuel surcharges for United flight
Now it’s time for the Lucky’s and MileValue’s of the world to add value to this by finding out the very best ways to leverage this
And it’s time for the TPG’s of the world to use this “breaking news” (might or might not H/T) as an excuse to pimp AMEX cards (technically so did Dan, but i think he was justified for breaking this)
Yes I noticed that, it’s already in. Lucky already mentioned it with proper HT. Let’s see…
That unsafe airline list is pretty poor. AF has had three hull losses, and didn’t get included. The data on Korean is including incidents from 30 years ago…they’ve made significant changes over that time frame.
Heck, AA has had more hull losses than several of the carriers listed.
The list says it is for incidents since 1983. I do not doubt you…I just gave the link to the story which I found interesting! Thank you for reading & commenting!
I know many of us would love vegas #8 fuselage of a Boeing 727.