Introduction
When I got serious in this hobby back in early 2012, I’d have to say MMS was my #1 site followed by FM’s. I loved the circles and arrows as a newb. I remember when I even Sharpied on the back of my Ink “5X office, 2X gas” and my Sapphire “2X food,” etc. I mean, who could remember which card earned what perk at what store when you were first starting out. Then over time, as I learned more and more about this hobby, I began to rely less and less on MMS even though I still subscribe to his email list today. So when I heard the news that Bankrate acquired his site, I was happy for them.
Sure you may say that because I’m a blogger, I have to say those things, but I honestly am happy for them. I think his site is very well designed and it’s a great starting point for newbs in this hobby. Even once in a while, when I’m searching for things like “Chase reconsideration line,” his site would be one of the top results. While I’ve never met them in person, everyone who has met them say they are very nice.
So why are people angry at him?
Because he helps the newbs
I think most people hate him because of the ‘circles and arrows,’ and that those ‘circles and arrows’ are teaching newbs, and clearly the tenured hobbyists hate newbs getting into their “hobby” for fear the newbs will kill everything. Does that sum it up? The irony here is that WE WERE ALL ONCE NEWBS and we all relied on those circles and arrows at one point in time! If you tell me you’ve never visited his site, then feel free to stop reading now. But if you’re in the 99% that read his site at one point in time, then you can’t be angry about the circles and arrows. This isn’t Fight Club people.
Because he kills deals
I think the last deal he “killed” was probably when he posted about the 4 BoA cards he got in one day. It wasn’t a coincidence that BoA stopped that madness after his post. But yet no one was angry at FM for essentially doing the same thing by banging BoA over and over again for his trip to Nekker. Since then, he hasn’t killed any deals. And to be honest, if I had banged 4 in one day, I probably would have blogged about it too, with a subsequent “BoA axed me” post a few months later.
Because his site is not relevant anymore
That’s a valid point. You can get 99% of it and more from DoC’s site. But you also aren’t mad at your 2nd grade teacher because you know how to spell “Cat” today, are you? Just because you don’t read his site anymore doesn’t mean you should hate the guy.
Because he pushes credit cards
So? I’ve given him clicks when I started in this hobby. I’m sure some of you did as well. If you look back over the past 4 years, the content has mostly stayed the same… well maybe fewer personal stories. The point is this is how blogs make money. Really, don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Because he makes money
This may be the number one reason to be honest. I think deep down, every one of us is jealous that he makes money on his blog while all of us are slaving away at our 9-5. This is why we hate TPG too because he “sold out” but really that means “dammit I wish I had started a blog and sold it for $1M+ too.” Do you want to start a blog and make money too? No one is stopping you. Go try it and come back to me in 6 months when you still have <100 hits a day and you are making $1 a month on ad revenue and tell me you are still going to keep blogging away.
Conclusion
Whether you hate MMS or have stopped reading MMS, you have to give him respect for building a great business. Just because you don’t read his site doesn’t mean you should hate him. For instance, I don’t like Kim Kardashian either but I don’t hate her. I respect how she parlayed a sex tape into a multi million dollar empire. You gotta give her that at least.
We also need to stop this blogger on blogger hate too. To the readers, it just reeks of jealousy and pettiness; people aren’t stupid. It’s like hearing your divorcing parents make fun of each other. If you don’t like a blogger, then just ignore them (like I do with Kim K,) but there’s no need to bash them. And who cares if his content may or may not change now that he’s been bought. You stopped reading a long time ago, remember? Leave the hate to the trolls.
Lastly, I was going through my emails to find my first correspondence with Daraius and found this (he responded within an hour btw.) Man, such a newb question by me…
So with all that said, congrats Million Miles Secrets.
I read everyone’s blog. I synthesized what I learned and have had fantastic trips all over the world on FC and BC and achieved status in hotels. I have loved the perks, but now so many methods have died a natural death, and I am out of the USA so the methods do not work for me anyway or are too time consuming. I think it is great that these bloggers like MMS and TPG figured out how to be good at capitalism. Wish I had blogged all of my trips when I got into wikis in 2008. Ah well. Such is life. I will still do signups for CCs, and will continue reading to make up my own mind and what fits into my lifestyle. To each his own. But am getting very tired of the blogs that rant against everyone else. Move on, will you?
That example of the BoA cards is a great example of why people don’t like his site.
A) That concept wasn’t his own. He stole it, and didn’t give any credit. He went to a seminar given by Dan Eleff of DansDeals. However, he agreed not to post any of the stuff discussed there. Not only did he go to the seminar, he also tagged along to the after seminar meetup, against the wishes of Mr. Eleff and the crowd there, who were quite familiar with him. However, throwing him out would’ve been quite unprofessional, so they let him stay, after he promised to keep everything being revealed quiet. This is where he learned of the BoA scheme.
In other words, he steals 100% of his content from other people and places and doesn’t give any credit.
B) He’s a noob pretending to be a big boy. When he posted about the Citi W>WE loophole (arguably his last casualty, although that was too public to be blamed on him), he admitted he’d never tried it. He has yet to contribute a thing of his own to the community. He just takes, and takes, and takes.
C) His credit card shilling is really out if control. He uses every opportunity to shove in another affiliate link. At the end of the day, it gets annoying that he’s just trying to make money off other people’s backs without giving anything in return.
D) His circles and arrows. His blog isn’t just noob friendly, it’s babied down. A noob friendly blog would encourage people to move on from them, and introduce them to a bigger ecosystem. That’s MMS’s biggest fear, because once people look at any other blog or site, they’ll realize he’s worthless.
E) That BoA thing that he posted, he didn’t just kill in the future. He killed it for people that had already taken advantage of it also. Alaska started freezing the accounts of people who had taken advantage. In other words, he screwed over his own readers who were stupid enough to listen to him, along with everyone else.
In summary: He stole an idea, shamelessly ignored his commitment not to post it, blogged about it in a babied down way that shoved it in the banks face and spurred them to take action, completely screwed over those who had taken advantage in the past and those who read his blog and took advantage, and refused to take responsibility and apologize.
This is just one example. There are plenty more.
I too started out with MMS. Honestly, if not because they made their blog seems so simple and so Miles-for-Dummies, my wife would never have gotten on board with the miles game. I knew about affiliate marketing at that time and disliked how they push credit card signup in you face every 10 sentences, but that didn’t stop me from reading the good stuff to get me up to speed.
I applaud their courage to stay transpant to their readers for the most part, sometimes a little too much, but even with the best intentions, it is hard to maintain readership, or any relationship, when there is money involved. No amounts of free give-aways are going to keep the readers, just as no amounts of luxury travels are going to keep a marriage.
Still, it is way better to come clean about your corporate sell-out than having someone find out about it (cough… TPG). And with all the bank crackdowns and shutdowns, it makes sense that it is now or never for MMS to cashout before the blog turns into just another high-end travel blog.
With that said, undoubtedly MMS would have to reposition themselves for a more general audiance like what TPG did with TPG TV and Travel + Leisure. I too wish them all the best. I will miss their free stuff at FTU.
I wonder if the divorce was about this sale.
That’s a good question jack. No one knows except for them.
Darius and Emily actually wrote a post about their divorce (or maybe it was just D, I can’t remember), and it’s pretty open. If you’re curious, you should search for it. It’s right on their blog. I went back and read it after I read mention on flyertalk that they got divorced. I think it was well before the sale though. Like over a year ago, I think.
MMS was good at the beginning. But then his ego got too big and he had to tell anyone how extra cool he is. With it came the extreme commercialization of the site. I understand that he wants to make money with it. I disagree with the annoying and annoying way he did.
I didn’t start to dislike MMS because of the content but because how the entire content was sold and how spamy it got.
I think he made the decision to gear it more towards newbs with all the stock photos, short sentences, etc. That probably happened when he hired the writers for the site. I’m sure the old timers didn’t like that change, but I think he knew the old timers weren’t reading/supporting him anyway, so he just geared it even more towards beginners and in the end, it worked out for him with the buyout.
Hear hear! This post really does you credit. The contentiousness online does no one any good and is super unpleasant to wade through when you’re trying to find an answer to a question. On some sites the negativity can really dominate.
On another note, what did happen to Drew?…
Someone said he wasn’t living in hotels but was really in his parents basement and got outed.
That would be really crazy if true but I doubt it he had some pretty great content and looked at things in a different way.
Drew and George got into a Twitter spat, so he’s alive and well. Not sure why he stopped posting; he said he’s been busy.
Great post. And dude, I still sharpie all the categories and perks on the backs of my 40+ cards…
Where is :facepalm:? You should really only carry like 3-4 cards in your wallet, so should be easy to remember.
My main wallet has 4 cards but my backup wallet has like 30. I do have them memorized, but it’s just an OCD thing haha. I don’t just put the categories, I put the perks and things like “10k bonus points for $10k spend” and “no FTF”.
I don’t have anything against MMS personally, and I agree one big reason is that as you say, “he makes money.” Every person who thinks of themselves as “experienced” in this hobby is proud of how they scored a great deal or pulled a great scheme (or even scam). It’s all good when the banks, the local drugstores, or whoever is the butt.
Well, MMS just successfully pulls a bigger-scale meta-scheme (or deal), and the money comes from newbies who are possibly getting something useful or possibly a warped sense of achievement when they really just spent about as much or a little more than they were going to, but went to the Hyatt Vendome instead of the Holiday Inn–in the big picture, probably no big harm. But when you see someone with what seems like the “same” skills as you socking it away on a great deal you can’t get in on–of course you resent it!
That said, one reason you left out: that MMS house writing style is so very annoying to read. I’ve never read a “for dummies” book but if they are what they sound like, MMS’s style would fit in perfectly. The stock photos, the exclamation points, the repeated slogans–it’s grating.
I have a really hard time with the way he refuses to write out the word “one”. He’ll write “1 of my favorite destinations…” or “the 1st time I went to…”. Check it out, usually happens multiple times in every post. It’s incredibly obnoxious and not how the English language is written.
I’m sure it’s intentional. Clearly it annoys the “experienced,” but I’m sure the newbs (his target audience) don’t mind. I never noticed the ‘1’ thing, but I’m sure I’ll be looking for it from now on.
I agree with all of this, and yet… I guess it’s a bit of nostalgia for how things used to be. Not an especially useful emotion, but it’s hard to ignore once in a while. I think that’s what’s mostly driving George at this point. It’s not as if those old times are coming back. And I’ve been involved nowhere near as long as him — I got started in 2007, pre TPG, pre MMS, around when Rick was getting going with FTG (back when it was barely coherent but actually had a lot of deals and tricks that you didn’t have to dig through FT for)
Yeah last week I found a post by MMS about a $1K gift card. Made me tear up a bit. I do think the days of free flowing information is gone. Everything has gone underground due to fear of killing the deal.
I too started out with MMS as my main means of learning the lifestyle and appreciate what he offered and that he deserves to profit by it. Congrats to him. I won’t give the new owner any credence, but that’s no knock on MMS.
I also started my hobby with MMS by reading his every post, since it is really easy to understand. His step-by-step explanation of loading bluebird and booking award ticket is really excellent. But I stop reading his daily post after I have enough knowledge, and turn to your site as well as DOC and FM. Now I become a blogger(in Chinese) and I can understand that more newbs means more money for bloggers. However, it is not easy to teach them how to play the game and the best way is explaining everything like MMS did.
As a blogger and player, I am struggling about keeping some terrific things secrete or using those to attract more readers. I think it is even harder when writing blog becomes a full time job instead of personal interest. Anyway, deal comes and goes, the only thing we can do is be prepared and hit it hard.
I used to struggle with posting about hidden deals, but not anymore. I don’t do it because 1)I don’t want to kill it for myself and 2) most of the deals these days are told to me in confidence that I won’t share publicly, so unless I found it myself, I’m not posting it.
I think the thing with MMS, TPG, and the like these days is: do they really help newbs anymore? Everything is news focused – this deal, that deal, etc., nobody really writes about the basics anymore. Which is fine, the game is evolving, but I don’t really see many blogs helping out those starting out anymore (though like you I’ve had good experience with personal correspondences for the most part, at least I did in 2011 when I was starting).
I guess this isn’t really commentary on MMS, but just our blogging community in general – we’re basically just writing about deals 80% of the time now, which makes me kind of sad. All the n00b oriented material is easier to find with a google search and dates back a couple years. That being said I can’t even remember what it was like to be new so maybe the stuff is useful
You bring up some good points Joe. I don’t think any site caters to true newbs anymore because all of the newb articles can be found via search and most likely going towards MMS, as well as the unwritten truce among bloggers to STFU about fragile MS deals.
If you were Bankrate, whose site would you buy? You can’t buy DoC cuz he has no cc income and let’s face it, his site could use a redesign. You’re not going to buy OMAAT and VFTW because you are essentially buying the person, and if they leave, so goes the site (unless they hire writers like TPG.) I think it made sense for Bankrate to buy MMS. Whether they should have bought them at all is another debate, but they are a publicly traded company and they’re not stupid. Regardless, hats off to MMS for building a business and selling it off; I think that’s everyone’s dream.
OMAAT has other writers now. I wouldn’t be completely surprised if it gets bought out some day. But I think it’s more personal for Ben, so I don’t know if he’d want to sell.
Good point fromJoe and you about there not being a lot of new content for newbs. Maybe it is because things die so quickly now. There isn’t as much juicy content. There aren’t those amazing things like VRs and Amazon pyments. If you’re new today, what are the main things you need to know? Which cards can be churned, some basic ms, info about partners?
Funnily enough I just went back and read that epic and controversial 18 part series on the miles and more credit card that Drew ghost wrote for MMS a few years ago. There’s got to still be a place for info like that. Heck, I can still use it.
I think thepointsjock said recently that people are asking for info on routing rules on less well known airlines (or something like that). Could be useful. As miles get harder to earn, we may have to go back to the books to become cleverer about how to redeem them again.
Like what thejoeflies say, no one really post quality contents anymore. I read OMAAT daily because it at least gives some new reviews and update to date on aviation news – but Ben used to post about routing rules too – where did that all go? And his endless push for Citi Prestige.
VFTW is too opinionated. FM these days seem to just post about stacking whatever to buy at Sears. Travelisfree used to be my go to site but Drew disppeared. No one really posts routing info and sweet spots anymore.
I mean, I’ve yet to see someone writes about the sweetspot with new AA miles. I get it, people are upset over devaluation, but it already happened. So why not have another chart / study for your new readers to read?
Btw if anyone has suggestions on which other blogs to read (besides this site obviously), please share thanks!
I fully agree. Ben became spamy over time, too. I think that 90% of such bloggers discredit themself over time for money. It’s a sad fact.
Some people are not made for it and will sell their sole for $$. Others stay unchanged for a long time, make their fair share and are still read-worthy years down the line. It’s also an ego problem.
I am happy for all of who sell themself this badly. One source less to write and talk about because you can file them in the useless category, ignore them and move on.
Regarding other blogs… not really a blog, but I like to follow http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com who lists all deals he get known about — deals that benefit the users and not the bloggers. Too often the bloggers won’t publish them since they don’t earn through these special or in branch offers.
I like DOC and milestomemories. I am big into ebay buying and bank bonuses right now and DOC is the best for those things etc. travel codex and pfdigest are good too but don’t put out a ton of content. I have heard Drew is sick or something and that is why he is MIA.
I used to read MMS but he started rehashing the same things over and over and stopped responding to readers which is the worst thing a blog can do IMO…so I stopped reading it. I sometimes still read the Friday guest posts.
Drew is not sick. We have talked recently. He is just fine
Milevalue posts good content on routing rules and sweet spots that you believe are missing….including AA sweet spots.
You know how there is an unwritten rule among bloggers to not post about MS deals anymore – I wonder if we’re now seeing the same thing with sweet spots on airlines. Like our boy Sam who boasted to the nation about his 8 legs on EK F for $10 or whatever and was subsequently killed. I wonder if we’re starting to move that way next for fear the airlines will jack up the sweet spot rates.