I do not hate anyone. I strongly dislike credit card salesmen masquerading as “experts” selling a lifestyle. It just happens that what they do is affecting my hobby. That’s all. No hate. I love everyone.

Thanks for reading taking the time to comment.

Lots of deals can be found with certain search engines, keywords, and patience. I’ve done that in the past 3 years and had a blast.

Points and miles collectors are in competition with those whom engage in illegal activities with others’ cc. They can read, too. Perhaps the excessiveness may have contributed to more people reading, but at the same time, those deals popped up in my searches and I read and read and read to weigh the arguments. The deals die because of the user end, or as the Gold Rush trickles to an end.

BTW, try Greateats.com for free food.

Oh yea! That Starbucks Gold Card ROCKS! Esp if you have 3+ cups of coffee per day like I do…

That’s fair.

A big blogger would charge a fee and hand out cc apps to everyone coming in. And on the way out a CSP app would have to be done. On the spot. BOOM. PROFIT. NIGHTLINE.GETDOGNAMEHIMPOINTS. JETSETBABY

Time to refill my decaf coffee at Starbucks. For Free. Gold card, come on!

Can’t tell for sure, no way. See my comment above. All this effect is cumulative. I iwill get to your email at some point. too much action here when I have tax work to do!

Doing Hail Marys a la Packers Rogers style for them to approve it so I can pay the poor starving intern 🙂

Is this the beginning of the Adele song?

@avos11: Thanks for the respectful discussion. I hear you too. Really. Bank staff would probably not spend their time to get into the FT forums, dig into Reddit or get Level 6 access in Saverocity forums or get lost in DanDeals forums. “Irresponsible and greedy users” of course contribute as well. The effect is cumulative! The blogs lure in the new eyeballs (imagine, they have never had the CSP card yet OMG!) with deals they find/steal/copy, publicize them for their OWN benefit (think eyeballs, higher ad revenue, and of course more cc clicks, more apps, more dinero), they “earn” their readers “trust”, they get them addicted (probably ruin them for ever as most of them are probably not responsible to have more than a debit card…but that’s a topic for another conversation), and then they may end up holding the bag (think Home Improvement cards, etc.). But, more importantly, of all the hordes of new ones only a few take their time to learn about this craft (and it is kind of a craft…weird one for sure) and a good portion screw it up by doing stupid things which, cumulatively again, lead to Cardinals taking notice. All along the way, the business men bloggers masquerading as “experts” make loads of money and ruining it all for everyone and probably ruining some people for life but…who cares, it’s “all about conversions” hey.

Reciprocity? Sure, this hobby has some of the most open and helpful people teaching this stuff for a very long time, mostly in our personal circles, small DOs and in the dark corners and forums online. But the big blogs have changed the game. Gradually, they became big businesses and their readership exploded to appeal to people who are just too busy to pay too much attention to learn this stuff. It’s just been ugly lately…I’ve been doing this for years but only with people I KNOW have the aptitude AND MONEY management skills to handle it. You can’t just blow it up with pics and arrows to everyone. Oh wait, yes you can when each cc app can mean X zeroes in your pocket.
Sometimes I do feel left out but I have met people doing this for years who clue me in. And I don’t kill deals. Then again, this blog is not how I feed my family so I can empathize with bloggers whose blogging is a full time job. And some do it responsibly. And those are the ones who lose direct affilliate cc links which is one of the most ridiculously pathetic things ever! It’s a very fine line that’s for sure. That is why I have been super focused on preaching that by not supporting the small responsible bloggers gives more life to the big pumping businessmen whose FIRST priority is their OWN profit and then comes everything else.

@ Brenton: I agree with. A little more research and knowledge never hurt anyone. On the contrary, you learned more this way and became better. There IS of course value in making things REALLY simple and I frankly do not think anyone has done that really well….If I had the time I could do a better job AND do it responsibly…But I happen to like my job and as long as I keep this as a hobby it works for me. If I could make more than minimum wage here at TBB I would be ecstatic. Lost my train of thought. Oh, I should have stopped at “I agree with” 🙂
Especially with this: “so the bloggers didn’t kill them, they just greatly expedited the process.”

@ Chris: I agree with you but I would not call them the a -word. They are businessmen selling a product/lifestyle/deal. People fall for it. It is what it is. Of course it is for the affiliate links, ad revenue does not do it believe me!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Do you think that if the affiliate links were gone they would still post about these deals? Hell no
Hell no indeed 🙂
The rest of your points are also good. One of the first questions I ask at a newbie is “How much time do you have? Do you have an addictive personality?” Because…you know 🙂

@ Scott: I am boycotting you for boycotting my links…so there 🙂