“You ruined my vacation” are four words I thankfully am yet to hear. There are plenty of other four word and four letter combos that I’ve been equally happy to avoid thus far and I must say that to some extent, part of that success thus far is by design. There are real life implications to giving free advice to a large group of people over the internet and I figured this would be a great time to share my rationale…
There Are Risks With Everything, But Being Bullish Is Not My Style…
Many of the best deals of the year were for travel to or from Istanbul or Cairo. While many of you will say that the cities are perfectly safe and no worse than NYC (which may be true these days), advising travelers to visit when known terrorist activity and strange flight activity is occurring is a risk I simply won’t take. The idea of an email saying “my loved one was lost because he/she took your advice” is something I don’t think I could ever stomach. I’d probably literally shudder the blog. Some deals are worth some muscle and hustle, for others however, I think it;s best to say “I’ll get the next wave”, a classic surfing philosophy. We highlight at least 100 deals a year, so missing out on one amazing business class deal isn’t going to change your life…
Many Points Decisions Are Final. In Flight And In Life, Final Is Serious…
Rarely are pilots busier than on final approach, as they align the aircraft with a narrow strip of flat land. It’s the same with things like points transfers, many of which are irreversible. Advising people to turn these points into those points for this amazing thing is lots of fun, but it can also squash opportunities for other great travel if things don’t work out. For that reason I don’t share many of the most time sensitive, grey area opportunities. Many people will now be stuck eating virtually unusable Garuda Indonesia points because of the advice of many blogs. That means people lost out on either money or Citi Thank You points, both of which are valuable. This year I only had one angry email, and that was after Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic closed their partnership. There wasn’t too much I could do about that one and I gave advanced notice, but it still pained me to think someone was stuck holding points they didn’t want, even if it (really) had nothing to do with me. I highlight the opportunities, you suss them out…
What May Be Right For 99% Of People On Here May Be Wrong For Someone Else, So Play The Numbers…
Unless you are a consulting client or someone who has befriended me in some digital or real world way, I don’t really know you or your personal setup. Though a certain offer may be exciting and a “must” for many, for someone in the process of buying a home, relocating or paying off debt it could easily be a “must pass”. I can’t determine your situation without making the site a membership only setup (which I won’t do), so I play the numbers. If it’s a good opportunity for many, I’m going to write about it and do my very best to explain the benefits. I can’t analyze the value for every single person but I feel that much of the value of this site is derived from my ability to highlight opportunity. If I write about it I believe in it and I believe in full faith that it’s achievable without excessive risk…
Most Of This Stuff Is Borderline Unrelatable, So I Strive To Stay (Semi) Normal And Make The Real Life Implications Positive Ones, Like BETTER Travel For All…
The jargon, the effort… one of the areas I strive to separate this blog with is semi normalcy. I don’t have 44 credit cards (I have about five), I am not entertaining the idea of spending 25 hours on the phone or making an around the world trip to take advantage of a deal, and I remember reading blogs before starting one. The important takeaway is that ANYONE really can duplicate most of the things I write about. They should. How much effort should be put in is all determined by how much it’s worth to you. If you are worth $100,000,000, the excitement of a first class seat using miles may have less urgent appeal than to others missing a comma (or two). It may still be fun to play the game, you just may not want to jump through the hoops (fortunately, we offer a service for that). My best advice is to really read with an open mind that any idea, even if it doesn’t seem relevant at the time could be the next golden ticket for you. Just because you’re a British Airways flyer this year doesn’t mean Alaska Airlines won’t become your home next year. Fly along with us because depth of knowledge is a key to happiness and assessment of relative value.
