Thank you for all the kind comments and emails about my status. I am fine. I will make a post about my “condition” tomorrow. It is kind of funny. So funny as long as it does not happen to you. In my third version of myself I was attempting a modeling career. Let’s just say that I am retiring from modeling. Intrigued yet? Just wait until Sunday. You know I will make fun of an unfortunate situation…
#developing
TRAVEL
Vivid Sydney Timelapse. Vimeo video, wow!
Belgrade. Yomadic. Any questions?
The world’s most spectacular sunrises. I wish the pics were larger but…still impressive! I can’t wait to visit Lake Louise in July! Shocking, no Santorini!!
Great article on “What to Expect from Airbnb“. From Barrellhopping.
How to Hack Delta WiFi. From Triphackr. Yes, once again. Getting Delta to make less money for the pain it inflicts its Skymiles members pleases me so much:-)
A mountain Biking Adventure in Peru. From the Adventure Blog. Incredible video on mountain bikes, it made me dizzy!
How and Why to Request a Same Day Change. From Hack My Trip. Love useful content!
MILES/POINTS
First2Board numbers for its first 83 days are impressive. I just checked the TBB Alexa numbers for the second time this month (first was on May 4th) and not sure how I went from 190k to 79k in the US ranking in just 20 days. I am not sure these Alexa numbers are reliable. I will check again sometime next month:-) I am honored to beat noobtraveler🙂
Finally a great interview at Million Mile Secrets! Nice to see Miles to the Wild interviewed. You can tell there is a greater cause behind this blog and the blogger knows her stuff. Not like the usual “I got into the hobby of miles 10 months ago and started my blog to help my family and friends and family to fly for free and, naturally, welcome MMS readers and click on my fresh affiliate links” Sigh. It will take many more interviews of this caliber to get over the trauma inflicted upon us by the recent Free Travel Genius interview. I just stopped flogging myself thinking about that one!
Great advice on what to do to avoid get shut down by the Frequent Miler. Very interesting comments, including manifestos too:-)
BLOGGER BUZZ
Open letter question to Daraius at Million Mile Secrets. Did you write the article series on Lufthansa awards? Email me yes or no. Thanks.
Wandering Aramean has five blogs listed in its “Blogroll”. Why is Free Travel Genius listed here is beyond me. I need to buy more Slim Jims to flog myself more lol.
I can’t believe so much bandwidth was wasted on telling us all about this that could be said in just one line. Here it goes: “United Mileage Explorer card will no longer charge foreign transaction fees”.
WorldWanderlusting really likes Barclays cards. I mean, really really likes Barclays cards!
ON MY MIND
Nada. Just working my butt off to stay alive. I decided to get into the blog dance. I am not a quitter. But I am borderline going insane. Considering I was quite insane before started blogging…this is completely nuts!
I will elaborate a bit over the weekend what is on my mind. I hope I get to it!
ODDZ & ENDZ
And now McDonald’s Gives Cleveland Hero Charles Ramsey Free Food For A Year. Poor Charles, with all these hamburgers he may drop dead soon!
9 Things Happy People Do to Stress Less. From Marc and Angel Hack Life. Obviously I need to find an equilibrium to reach stress levels from pre blog life:-)
The first 10 minutes of the Oklahoma tornado. OMG, so terrifying!!!
Finland in World War II. Fascinating pictures (warning: some are graphic!). We never think of Finland when we mention World War II.
George (geōrgos) γεωργός Here is a very very important but brief video that will make you feel much better. Guaranteed! http://youtu.be/s9JqbCH4aVw
Lol, good one. Actually the greek name is Georgios. The way you have it means “farmer”. I guarantee you I ain’t no farmer:-)
Hi George, thanks for your kind words and glad you enjoyed the interview! Yes the cause behind my blog is very important to me and I hope I can get more people interested in eco-tourism. Sorry to hear you’ve been under the weather. I hope it’s nothing more than stress that can be cured with maybe a weekend at a beach resort or something like that.
That tornado video was scary as hell! What a horrible disaster!
Wish you all the best in your blog. I feel great. I will have more on my “condition” tomorrow. It is kind of bizarre and…funny at my expense!
That tornado video is indeed terrifying. Puts that whole tornado risk in focus better than I have ever seen. I am not moving to Oklahoma!
This is crazy, I can’t comment using Firefox even as “Anonymous” but gave Chrome a try and it worked. Is this a known issue with Firefox and Blogger?
Let me pass this to the TBB Tech Dept:-)
I have no idea if this occurs. Hopefully it won’t happen when I move to WordPress. I love Firefox!
Everyone had to comment on the United Explorer’s foreign transaction fees. Fine, they need filler. It’s soemthing to write. But only TPG, that I can recall, turned it into a link whore-fest. So why do you treat all bloggers as equally guilty here? NAME NAMES.
It was late at night. I could do this full time naming names. Sorry this is a part time endeavour/insane hobby. I just write what comes on my mind. All art, no science.
George
Your journalistic integrity has been compromised. I think a few of us can guess what might have happened. But you are probably finding out how it works in the real journalistic world once you have been “had”.
I think you will overcome that inner fight soon though. And you will forever end up on the losing side.
Just don’t pick on small timers anymore. It is sad to see you lose the fight but understandable. Tell ribs not to pose here too. I know they wish they can censor here as well.
Will be interesting to see your post tomorrow. Today I wanted to write a long comment, but I know it might influence a lot of the content you have in mind for your next post. So I will wait for it to come out first.
Anon.
Anon,
“My journalistic integrity” – Say what???? I am no journalist and I have not had any journalistic training at all! I like to think I have plenty of integrity but, please, do not equate me to journalists…I just have a tiny blog, this is no New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, come on!
Can you please be more clear? You may be overthinking everything!
Ribs can post here anytime. Anyone can post here as far as I am concerned. TBB does not censor. All I ask is to try to be respectful and, you know, a bit constructive would not hurt!
I love the manifesto on FM’s Citi TY post.
it is a fact that Citi accounts really have been entirely shut down, or TYP locked out, etc.
Yeah, I liked that manifesto too. I should copy it here. Then again I was going to copy one of harvson3 posts here too but never got around to it. This happens a lot with me:-)
Geez. Give it a rest. Who the f#$k cares who wrote the MMS lufthansa posts anymore than who writes the 4 to 5 updates on TPG with “The Points Guy” as the author?
FWIW, the lh series doesn’t read the way micober writes on his site. The lh posts are written for dummies and very different from the other posts on micober’s site.
I care. So I asked. It was brought up so I would like a clarification.
I am certain ghost writing happens in this industry. Heck, it happens in so many other industries. It is called leveraging the founders’ time. The more money in it, the more it happens.
IF something like that was done it should have been disclosed imho. If it did not happen, I would like to know too. Tough spot.
Damnit, I wanted to grill but it is not that warm outside!
Ribs sounds good to me.
With that attitude, why give a fcuk about anything? What’s your criteria for giving a fcuk?
Why? Easy answer. Look at the name of my blog. It ends with BUZZ…
This is a significant development, if true! The business has gotten so large that ghostwriting is becoming common big time. Pretty soon you won’t know who is writing what. They will all be Staff working 80 hours per shift:-)
MMS is in a lose-lose bind here.
It’s very clear he didn’t write it himself but it’s just as clear that if he admits that it was ghost-written that it will raise several other questions and it will make the article itself full of inaccuracies.
Thus he will continue to ignore the authorship question and hope that the “controversy” goes away.
Yep
Kim Jong-un makes children cry…….I find it disturbing the even the children look at him like some God like figure. Yet I did find some irony researching this on the internet. Here is a video of him doing a Game Show on N. Korean TV. WARNING there are some GRAPHIC SCENES, that might require PARENTAL GUIDANCE……………………… http://youtu.be/KezvwARhBIc
Them North Koreans are just so disturbed Period!
Hey, I think that guy was the exchange student in “Sixteen candles”….omg, that was about 25 years ago!!
1) We already know the answer to whether MMS wrote the articles. You can find the “author” on Google (see the FT thread), and if it wasn’t for MMS’ hard on for Darius, he wouldn’t ignore the obvious (his incessant dodging of it) right in front of him
2) It is important to know because unlike TPG who everyone knows is a slimeball, Darius tries to portray himself as some honest do-gooder “mother in law rule” type of guy. So when he hires someone to put together link orgies (you think he shelled out $$$ so that his readers can be informed on LH?), it kind of goes against his reputation. Unless his reputation is that of TPG’s?
3) If it wasn’t him who wrote it, that would mean there was outright lying in the post and comments. Also, many commenters noted that they’re giving him the clicks because they’re under the impression Darius spent 80 hours researching for this. I would think those people have a right to know who actually spent the 80 hours….. don’t you (TBB and Anon at 9:21) agree?
I am not the anon at 9:21 but I am one of the critics. In my opinion it is pointless to argue with TBB or MMS(yes they post here with random names). I wasn’t an MMS hater, but certainly never liked him because of the way his site was built. Extracted and copied/pasted packaged information. Then the arrogance on FT and on his blog never accepting some obvious concerns of the community at large. Once the $$s roll in it can get hard.
Visiting this site during the initial days certainly fueled the fire but I gradually saw the change in tone once Steele wrote a guest blog. It started to go downhill from there. Suddenly TBB was not even feeling shy about being an MMS apologist. If you exchange emails or have personal conversations, it will never be the same. I am fine with that too. What pissed me off majorly was when he started to apologize for MMS and then at the same time picking on TPG and others, especially young girl like Ariana. Enough already. I probably wouldn’t have disliked MMS as much if not for TBB and the shenanigans that kept building over the last 2 months or so. Deceptions and hypocrisy at every corner in life these days.
I think anyone else considering a similar type of travel buzz type blog thinking about being critical of excessive credit cards, affiliates or other community dislikes will get worn out or bought out. Do it if you want to network with others (always going to be useful in any career choice). It can be tough from all sides and you will never win. It is either make $$s or consider seeing therapist, who hopefully accepts credit cards. Don’t let this get to you too much.
I need to freelance.
I agree with the TBB love affair with MMS being nauseating.
Why is he asking for a private email from MMS on whether he wrote the article?
Only George should get a response? What about the dozens of people that have asked him over the past week that he’s dodged?
He should be asking MMS to answer that question in public, not in one on one secrecy
And if/when MMS answer that it isn’t him (everyone except George knows the answer already), what is TBB going to do? Keep from his readers this information they are no less entitled to than him?
Call him out on shady/lying/TPG’esque (and then some) tactics?
Ask him to inform all the readers that said they’re clicking his links because they thought HE wrote the articles?
Don’t count on it….
Well, like I told Rob, no point in getting frustrated over all this. Let it go from the system. Move on, it is not going to stop.
Think something more constructive. Even better build a travel blog 🙂 Need someone to guest writer, let me know. Despite spending time here getting all worked up, most long time FTers know stuff 🙂
I agree that readers should know who wrote it.
I consider Brian TPG a friend. One of the nicest persons I know! I comment on blogs only, not people…Well, it is hard to distinguish these days isn’ it? We can knock down his blog’s practices all we want; bottom line is he has built an incredible business! Fact.
Response to Rob:
I also agree that if your brand includes outright honesty and then try to improve on that by pretending you personally spent 80 hours working on a particular project when you did not…well, it is a collossal mistake! At the same time, we all make mistakes when BUSINESS considerations come into play. My blog has resisted the business factors so far. If I ever decide to make this a business I am afraid I may fall into the same kind of mistakes.
Response to Anon 11.57 am:
I have never posted with a random name, here or elsewhere!! Never have, never will.
No reason to hate anything. Love is better.
Regarding Steele, for the last time. I was on a major mission to have a daily post for the first three months. I was at a conference and could not post for a single day. I accepted Jason’s guest post because I thought (and still think) it was very relevant to my audience. I could have skipped a day or do a filler post like other bloggers do. That’s all. Stop busting my chops.
Hey, what I do is not a science. I write whatever comes on my mind. Do I have biases? Of course I am human, we al do! But I do try to be even. Maybe I should try harder.
Regarding Ariana: A talented blogger who was featured here many times. I am not sure writing for FTG adds to her brand. I was sad to see it.
It is very funny being accused of deception and hypocrisy! Just imagine all that deception and hypocrisy with no dinero coming to me at all. I can’t wait to see what else you will say if I go down that route dude:-)
I am getting worn out. I would love to be bought out like FTG:-) Please make an offer. Latest numbers: 190,000 page views. Alexa (US): 76,000
I promise to stick around and keep the TBB brand going, not another typical sell out l;ol.
Or maybe, like you suggest, $#@^ it and just go on and make some money since I can not win…Win what anyway? Is this getting to me? Yes I think it is…I am very proud so far that I have managed to build this all alone, it was a personal challenge! Not sure where I go from here. But I hear you…
I am already seeing a therapist. She is really good and of course she takes credit cards, come on!
Freelance? How about a monetization specialist position at TBB? You take care of a separate tab in my site with affiliate links while I focus (in the Frequent Miler way) on the content. I hear it is the next BIG thing after ghostwriting lol.
Response to Anon at 12.09 am:
I am asking for a response in an open letter. I also told him what is the right thing to do. I will leave it there. I can’t wait to see the other parts of the LH series:-)
Response to anon at 12.19 am:
I am moving on:-)
This is part travel blog. I think I find some pretty good travel related stuff for my readers. I hope you are all not here just for the blogger buzz stuff lol.
Guest writings: I am open. BUT I am VERY touchy of what appears here! Anyone, feel free to send me potential guest content. I read it and if I like it I publish it with your guest links of course. If I do not like it, I do not publish, I delete it and thank you for trying. That’s all.
Now I need to go check to see if more eyegbrow hair has gone missing…
Sadly I don’t have affiliate links. Would have loved to help you out. Now extracting information from FT and packaging it, that I can do. And maybe a few tricks not even on FT yet 😉 But I kid on selling out like this.
Brows > Ribs, bro. Take care.
Its Googlewallet, not ribs……get with the program.