We bring you the “news” that Million Miles Secrets has been sold to Bankrate, check out the most infamous hackers, visit the 20 best private island resorts, discover a great Hyatt Gold Passport cheat sheet, more on the 5/24 rule, look for Alpha, dance with my favorite robot, laugh at a prank inside a museum and end with the best gif for YOU!
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The big “news” was Million Mile Secrets finally going public that the blog was bought by Bankrate. I am not going to waste any more time on this in addition to what I said on Twitter and in my own blog comments. Personal Finance Digest also wrote about this as well and summarizes it well with:
- If doctors received incentives to promote certain drugs over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for patients?
- If investment advisers received incentives to promote certain mutual funds over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for investors?
- If bloggers received incentives to promote certain credit cards over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for readers?
Hyatt Gold Passport cheat sheet. Because, sometimes you just need to hammer some points to get through your brain and stick!
This is the latest on which cards are not affected by the 5/24 Rule. Lazy Traveler has a fantastic post pondering about the banks and our future. And he institutes a moratorium in flying first class, say whaaaaaaat? #shitjustgotreal
12 Most Infamous Hackers of All Time. Sadly, none of us qualified. Lol.
If you are such a great investor, where is your Alpha? Great personal finance read.
One of my favorite movies recently has been Ex-Machina. And I totally loved the brilliant dance number of the dude with the AI “robot”. And now you can dance to it with: “Intergalactic” by The Beastie Boys, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and “Oops I did it again” By Britney Spears. Brilliant to the nth degree! I wonder how many exclamation marks MMS will add to something like this. Yeah, right…come on, THINK!
The 20 best private island resorts.
Pranksters placed glasses on the floor of a museum and visitors thought it was art. Only in San Fransisco 🙂 Stab me now please…
And I leave you with this…
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First?
You know it!
MMS was smart to sell out now, lets face it, it is only downhill from here as far as “The Hobby” is concerned. He will get max. alimony money now rather then later. Another reason guys, to keep it in your pants and think with your big head not your little head.
This is why I will expose all the hard to know and find underground secrets to my readers in a club member only format. George you and your readers are cordially invited of course.
C. Howard Esq.
Will we learn any weird tricks in this club? Maybe even the one weird trick airlines don’t want us to know?
Can we get in for freeeee?
That actress from Ex Machina did a pretty cool music video for Chemical Brothers/Beck. http://youtu.be/BC2dRkm8ATU
Wow, best looking robot ever? I like the Chemical Brothers. Not their best song. But you are so right, video is pretty cool. Thanks.
If you like robots and/or the Chemical Brothers, you may be interested in their “Sometimes I Feel So Deserted” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saZVNLMMmmo
Awesome clip, wow!
Song is pretty good too.
If doctors received incentives to promote certain drugs over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for patients? Yes, and they did with very little oversight and transparency until very recently. Additionally, the U.S. (And maybe still new New Zealand) are the only countries that allow direct to consumer advertising by drug companies, which greatly increases off label use.
If investment advisers received incentives to promote certain mutual funds over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for investors? I’m not sure on this, but the whole life universal fund that’s heavily pushed by advisors definitely has a higher payout than term life and a separate retirement account. If the adviser is commission based targrather than fee based, isn’t it possible that your interest isn’t priority #1?
If bloggers received incentives to promote certain credit cards over others, would such a system produce suboptimal results for readers? Definitely, but stupid people are profitable to bloggers and banks alike. If everyone got the best deals, no one would get them because they’d no longer be profitable. This is exactly why we have to look for new deals and hold them close. RIP AP, vanilla reloads, feeding my birds, 8 AS cards in a day, Emirates with AS, Cathay with AA, Citigold checking bonuses, the list goes on…
Brenton, I agree pretty much with your every word 🙂
You always do… 😉
While maybe not being incentivized to promote some drugs over others, Drs are definitely incentivized to promote some products over others (e.g. Knee braces). My Doctor charges $800 for a brace. My insurance covers only 50%. Same brace online costs $186. And worse, not even given a choice between similar braces that would work. Why? Profit margins are the highest for a specific company. So why stock anything else?
Regardless of my opinions of any one blog, at least consumers in this space have a choice on what they consume and don’t, and how deeply they want to educate themselves on the subject.
Ouch on that brace, wow!
>>>>>>>>>at least consumers in this space have a choice on what they consume and don’t, and how deeply they want to educate themselves on the subject.
Of course.
This resembles the FTG dude’s argument, about personal responsibility which of course is valid for the readers. How about some personal responsibility on behalf of the bloggers who don’t go along with “tools” designed to trick readers to apply for more credit cards, like 7 travel reward cards that pay the blog in the same day when an unsuspecting trusting reader is only looking for ONE cash back credit card?
Doc fixed my ear with a weird procedure, phew!
Nice disclosure on top of that squat product by the way. I actually read it and learned something from it.
I get emails frequently that look like this:
“ATTENTION: IMPORTANT NOTICE
Domain Registration Service SEO Company
Notice#: 905848
Date: 03/29/2016
EXPIRATION NOTICE”
in big letters at the top. If you make your way to the fine print at the bottom, it says:
“THIS IS NOT A BILL. THIS IS A NOTIFICATION PROPOSAL. YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO PAY THE AMOUNT STATED UNLESS YOU ACCEPT THIS NOTIFICATION PROPOSAL. This message, which contains promotional material strictly along the guidelines of the CAN-SPAM act of 2003. We have clearly mentioned the source mail-id of this email, also clearly mentioned our subject lines and they are in no way misleading.”
Good to know.
Now, there are varying levels of scamminess–these being at the higher end–but they’re all part of the same family.
Brenton’s right-all three of Points Guy’s examples produce conflicts of interest which distort the ‘advisor’ relationship. Points Guy thinking it doesn’t and expecting readers to believe that just shows how far down the we are.
It is though a great way to increase the YTB.
TPG & that World Domination guy:
https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2/status/736256050962288644
The power of the CSP card 🙂
Look at the bright side.
Not a peep out of the credit card shills about true MS once they roll over for bankrate.
They wouldn’t dare offend their overlords.
Nooooooo!
That means no more Emily pics in front of gc kiosks smiling holding plastic.
Yeeeeeeeeeees!
I never found MMS to be as bad as the other Titans, at least not until recently. Yes, his content often reeked of “over marketing” and hyping and staging, but maybe I am more sensitive to it as a (former) marketing guy.
Drew apparently didn’t like the use of the word “spin”, but, ironically, MMS would probably have approved of it. “Spin” is another word for “marketing” anyways.
I agree.
The guy is so good he has morphed spin into a higher form of….insert Titanic epithet 🙂
When the BankRate/TPG disclosure came out in 2014, DiffPaul had some very salient points on the matter. Miss “seeing” that guy around.
Aww, thanks! I’m a fan of you as well.
TBB is a fan of both of you!
What happened to Steve?
Strange, i was under the impression they sold to Bankrate 2 or 3 years ago when they moved to Austin. Didn’t think it was as recent as last year.
You.Don’t.Say! 😉
I’m not a cool kid, or was traveling…what really did happen to Drew, or is it classified like M/S now?
I really miss that guy, his posts, and his enthusiasm. I’d trade all of the Bankrate sites for his!
Funny you ask that as I asked him exactly that too!
https://twitter.com/TravelisFree/status/735866740987416577
And the answer is he just got busy…
I am going to stop because people think I focus on the negative stuff…smh 🙂
It is somewhere in the middle….sorry. Tried to cut and paste the relevant parts but failed. I don’t have any interns to delegate stuff like that. Probably why I am no Titan. Woohoo!
Writing for MMS?
I call a spin!
Holy cow! What an exchange!
I rather agree with you that he should write a little something to his readers. I religiously went to his site every day—it was at the top of my RSS reader. Then he told us he was working on something new.
But then things went pretty quiet. He’s now at the bottom of the reader.
Reminds me of Travel Summary, who also used to be good, and active.
Blogging is fun and (somewhat) easy to start, a bitch to keep it fresh.
I went back looking for the post where he said he was working on something amazing and the content just got really depressing after that. The whole thing reminded me of Dean Kamen with the segway. The thing about Drew’s content is he put all that time into complete guides and infographics that now are outdated and inaccurate.
But now he’s going the way of the milesprofessor and frugalhack. If only TPG, MMS, and FTG would also head that way.
>>>>>>>Blogging is fun and (somewhat) easy to start, a bitch to keep it fresh.
So true, so true.
My whole point was as (now former ) TIF fans we deserved better. A tiny update would have come a long long way. Instead, we got a Daily Getaways deal and a food apps post. He somehow thinks I hammer on the negative stuff (trying to stay away from it really but there is so much crap and spin out there someone needs to save the newbies and tell them what is is!) but show me another blog who has been so positive for GOOD shit! I am not talking about the wimpy scratch my back type posts so many bloggers do to be noticed by Titans…
Anyway, It’s Le Bron again in the Finals.
>>>>>>>>>>If only TPG, MMS, and FTG would also head that way.
If only…
While the criticism lobbied at MMS and the like are well-deserved…let’s take a step back. Darius has completed the classic startup business model circle. He saw an opportunity, started a blog, worked hard to build a brand and create traffic to the point that the blog was likely making good money that attracted the attention of an investor. Now he’s taken the opportunity to cash out. You can get mad at him for how he did it, but he deserves a little bit of credit for being successful. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and the Google boys also had some ruthless business practices in their early days, but they laughed all the way to the bank (not saying that Darius is their equal, but just that these traits are not all that uncommon).
Are you saying if BankRate offered to buy TBB for a nice chunk of cash and promised that you could still write your own content, you wouldn’t take it? And perhaps….3 months after the transaction and your “service retention” clause expires…you get tired of their “suggestions” and just flat out leave…with the cash, of course.
You wouldn’t do that?
As altruistic as a lot of bloggers claim to be, I think at least 90% of them would take that deal.
Very sensible. I agree that if they were able to find a business opportunity, why not take it? I don’t read them and I understand they push credit cards strongly, but they appeal to a lot of people who value the simplicity of going to one site.
The one area I found distasteful was taking other people’s content and simplifying it and making it too easy to replicate (which is why I choose not to read them), but that hardly pales in comparison to some business practices from successful companies.
@Erik, I would take MMS’s deal! I don’t think anyone is actually mad, though….more like we are saddened that yet another bit of the hobby has been handed over to a corporation.
So what used to be sharing tricks of the trade amongst “insiders” (however you define that) has slowly but surely become one big set of infomercials for credit cards. Little guys like Drew and a 1000 other lesser bloggers were left outside in the cold while the Titans were (and are) getting fatter. They eventually give up.
If I were a little guy blogger, the only one thing I would be pissed about would be if one of these corporate bloggers got there by regurgitating content from me.
It’s probably a positive move for anyone still reading it not interested in reading a 15 part series on a trip to Croatia. Editorial oversight should kill those kinds of posts.
@ Brenton:
You are perhaps putting way too much emphasis on that corporate oversight. I doubt it. Or maybe instead we will see a 15 part series on the benefits of (insert latest) credit card.
I wanna know when the logo will change. I should have a contest. The winner wins a partial Panera GC. Woohoo!
@NotOneOfTheInfamousAngries
Brenton, is that you? Because I agree with all you said 🙂
Re: regurgitating content: If all blog posts were purged with content that originated in Flyertalk/reddit it would be VERY quiet! And make my job so much easier lol.
If I had time I would do interviews of bloggers who faded/quit and ask them hard questions, no spinning, TBB style. And then have one done on me or maybe interview myself when I give up too (one day!).
I could go on…
@ Eric:
You make good points. MMS is a marketing genius, no doubt. I hope he is happy. That blog has a permanent space in the TBB Ignore Blogs List. Obviously many successful commercial blogs are in it. And so be it. I call them as I see it.
I am not mad at him, come on. But please spare us all the spin that nothing will change blah blah blah. I am starting to get angry and I already am after watching “The Decision” go back to the NBA Finals 🙂
Bankrate will never do that, this blog does not qualify based on traffic and conversions. Irrelevant question. And it is sure not trying to be in that position. And it is perfectly fine. Not all things in life are fair you know. I think the “clause” is lot longer than just three months. And come on, they promise nothing will change, yeah right.
If something like that happens…I think it would be more than 90%.
If I was MMS I would have taken that deal a long time ago #hint
But I am not.
And life moves on
A 70k UA link. Log in with yr UA Mileage Plus info and see if you get it. Standard 24 month language applies. And of course the awful 5/24 limit. You are welcome. (Not affiliate link…if it was it would have been ALL Over the net by the pumping machine blogs!):
https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/sso/Login.aspx?return_to=thatsaplus
I thought FM mentioned that 5/24 does not apply to targeted offers.
Maybe I missed that…It’s late.
I know PedroNY has the answer #hint
Lots to read but need to get over to the Accademie or however it is spelled to see Michaelangelo’s work and so forth, I know you guys have seen it all before.