Introduction
A coworker was the first to send me the “$60,000 airfare” article since he knew I took a similar trip to Africa in the summer. Anyway, if you haven’t seen the article, it’s right here. As of this writing, it has more than 12 MILLION VIEWS. Looking on the Business Insider site really quickly, that’s 12 MILLION more than a typical Business Insider article. The blogosphere went nuts with the 1% in the hobby (that being us) cried, “This is why we can’t have nice things.” I’m not sure who came up with that saying, but it comes up a lot. I think it’s self explantory so I don’t have to tell you guys what it means. Just like you, I had my pitch forks out and ready to go. THIS is why we hate bloggers, right?
A Facebook friend tags me
Fast forward about 4 hours when other media outlets pick up the article, and now a FB friend tags me in the article, I respond like this:
I know. I saw this. We in the hobby are not happy with him since he exposed a loophole (that they have since closed) all for site hits. It is very doable since we did it. It costs 100K Alaska miles one-way and he did it by applying for the Alaska Visa card numerous times (which Bank of America also has slowly shut down too).
I didn’t think much of it and left it at that. But lo and behold, the man himself, Sam, somehows sees the comment and responds a day later with this:
Vinh I’m sure you know the loophole has been closed several months before my article was posted. It was also self found, so unless you have proof someone else has taken same trip I fail to see how this “exposed” anything
Did he expose anything?
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not into “travel hacking.” My forte is more on the MS side of things. I’m not sure if my travel hacker friends knew about this a long time ago but I personally haven’t heard about it myself. Even before his response, I had tweeted that I thought the routing was genius – to be able to go from the US to Australia to Singapore was indeed genius (minus the loops around Dubai.) So I give him credit for discovering it himself or reading about it and actually redeeming it. So I thought of coming up with a response to his reply, but I actually couldn’t. Since the loophole is now closed, what difference does it make? He didn’t expose anything here. This is really no different than me blogging about the Target gift card after that loophole was closed. I can’t be a hypocrit here. So we can’t be mad at him for talking about a loophole that has been closed.
Who am I angry at?
Is Alaska now going to raise redemption rates after seeing this article? Possibly. Or maybe this is great PR for Alaska. Now more people know that Emirates is partners with Alaska and you can do this on miles. So is that why we’re mad? Because now the newbs will all apply for the AS Visa cards and try to rack up 100,000 miles? Possibly. Because now this hobby will get more crowded and Alaska will raise rates? Probably. So is that why we’re angry with him? Because he’s letting more people know about the hobby? What are we? The Village?
If one of us books an EK A380 in F flight, we’re all happy to see pictures and read the review, but if a newbie/outsider does it, we’re not happy for them? And for sure, if someone is teaching the newbs, bring the pitch fork!!! But isn’t that what we all do? How many of you have told your friends about the hobby to try to get them to do it too? How many bloggers are trying to teach the masses? Ah, that’s right. So if a blogger teaches the newbs and benefits [monetarily,] we can bring the pitch fork, but if you convince your friends and gain nothing, then that’s okay? Is this why we hate circles and arrows? Okay, I think that’s it. If someone makes money teaching the newbs who then cause mileage programs to devalue, then that’s a no-no! But wait…weren’t you a newb at one point? Didn’t you subscribe to bowtie’s site back in the day? I feel like we’re in Fight Club now. Let’s all remember Rule #1.
It’s a chicken and egg problem. We need bloggers to help us get started in the hobby, but once we get advanced, we despise them for teaching other newbs. Houston, it sounds like we have a problem.
Conclusion
So I didn’t respond to Sam. I think this post is my response to him, and maybe I’ll link it to him. At the end of the day, I’m not mad at the guy. He’s an entrepeneur with a web site who went from zero to 12 MILLION VIEWS. Clearly he’s doing something right. Now go burn your Alaska miles before the impending devaluation!
Everybody was a beginner some time ago, but I’d say that most people who stay invested some non-negligible effort in learning how stuff works.
Newbies now have the attitude of “I want answers now and I can’t be bothered with reading the wiki/FAQ/100 page thread”.
And it’s not just here, you’d see the same thing in high-school/college.
The problem with Bowtie et al is that they take advantage exactly of these people who will give up. These, incidentally, are the same ones who lock up Kate, who buy redbirds on eBay for $100 and bring down A4T down with it, who buy VGCs at the grocery store and then open them in front of CS and buy MOs.
You wouldn’t have a circles and arrows blog teaching driving and then send people to the road, right?
Personally, I couldn’t care less if the guy did the 60k trip every single day of the year on miles. What hurts me is the publicity. I have taken a few trips myself in long haul premium cabins, but don’t go about bragging to friends and family (let alone strangers on the internet). I am sure there are many people who travel in premium cabins much more than me at much lesser cost, and they don’t “publicize” their travrl lifestyle either, the way the noob did for “one trip”.
This kind of stuff hurts everyone (including that noob, assuming he got addicted to premium cabins due to this trip and is going to continue in the hobby). Don’t forget the forest for the trees.
I saw no trade secrets in either the story or the video, since details were scant on how the miles were accumulated. Not that it matters what anybody else thinks about it, since both banks and airlines widely believe credit card-airline dual-branded loyalty programs are profitable. And they are for me, too, of course. But in the case of airlines, US accounting rules can make it literally true — airlines sell miles to banks, presumably at a profitable markup. Banks use the miles for credit card sign-up bonuses. But airlines can’t book the revenue from selling the miles until some of the miles actually get spent. Churn and earn, baby, corporate-scale. Airlines thus don’t want to restrict award flights, they want to encourage them, which is why there is about 50% better US award availability in 2015 than in 2010. Look it up in the wiki.
No, he admitted the miles were racked up by applying for the BoA AS card multiple times over a period of time.
I said I saw no “trade secrets,” and it’s no secret serial acquisition of AS cards has been widely, regularly and routinely reported on the blogosphere every few days for a couple years now.
Good article!! I think one thing some folks overlook is the (unknowable)
number of n00bs that read about this, or take a trip with points and start
chasing them, but then QUIT doing so. Why? Too much work, can’t figure
it out, don’t want to spend the time, cannot MS, etc., etc.
I suspect that it is like many hobbies. People decide they will build a
model train setup and get it started then it sits in the basement for
years. Yes, once we know about deals we hate to see them get out, or
know that they are too fragile to be shared much or whatever. But this
kind of thing will always attract attention and result in drawing new
people in.
The bigger thing is, how many *stay* in. That’s the question. I suspect
that in the long run (more than a year or so of active pursuit of miles
and points) most people drop off. They can’t get time, whatever.
I got to say, I like your take on a lot of these things, Vinh. I
recently weeded out the blog list that I read and dropped a few
newsletters but keeping your stuff on the top of the list. Good work and
hope you’re enjoying doing all this!
Carl
I think people drop out when they find out they can’t find availability to book 2 first class seats to Europe in July a month out. Haha. Thanks for the kind words and reading Carl.
I’ve tried to get several friends and co-workers into this game. Many of them can’t even comprehend how it’s possible. Those that DO understand the basics of it can’t wrap their heads around how to keep up with it, spend enough money, pay off the credit cards, etc. One guy I know was taking a trip to china. In 10 minutes, I looked up an award redemption in business class that would cost him a total of about $250 in fees and showed him exactly which two credit cards to apply for to get all of the points he needed. He thought it was awesome and planned to follow through on it.. then promptly forgot all about it and purchased a $4000 ticket instead and thought he got a great deal. I could only shake my head.
This hobby is not for the meek. It takes a substantial amount of time, discipline, and research to do well, and some people don’t have the brainspace for it. They have different priorities and sometimes saving money on travel they weren’t expecting or planning to ever take just doesn’t appeal to them. This hobby is a rabbit’s hole; a pandora’s box; a can of worms. You can’t just do it a little bit, and while a few credit card applications will get you started on your way, after a while, you MUST get into MS and/or reselling and continuously push the envelope of tedious, senseless, and sometimes even seemingly illegal activities to feed the point addiction this hobby requires. You might even find yourself building entire businesses as a structure to maintain the rather industrial nature of it all.
It doesn’t surprise me that some people would look at that and feel it’s just not worth it. Doesn’t surprise me at all.
Great comment and you say what I was kind of rolling in my mind a lot better than I did! As a matter of fact, I am trying to figure what kind of and how to open a (very small and easy) business to help me with all this as it is getting to the point where I need some reasons to cover some of the crazy stuff. Not to mention a better way to justify the business cards that seem not to really be connected to a business!
Much more things on that but glad you added so well to the discussion! This is one of the better boards in general, IMHO, for what it makes me think of AND how it encourages me to actually think, instead of looking for circles and arrows (and a paragraph on the back of each photo explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. )