The Perils of Blogging, Quick Defense of MMS, My First BuzzFeed Article, and More!

AKA my first digest?


The Opportunity Cost of Being a Miles and Points Blogger via Miles for Family. This hit home for me in a big way. It’s why I try my best to keep blogging fun instead of a chore. I only write when I have something interesting to say. Otherwise, I keep my trapped closed. And that’s how I deal with generating new content. Must reiterate, if you like a blog, use their affiliate links if they have them, comment when you really love something, and interact with them. It’s the little things that make it all worth doing.


Via comments… There’s been some mud-slinging onto Million Mile Secrets and how they often don’t post the best links to credit card offers. A few thoughts about that… As always, do your due diligence. A quick Google search will in fact tell you the best offer. MMS has a mother-in-law rule where they lay out exactly how they try to give readers the best links, even if it doesn’t earn them anything. Finally, am I being naive here? Can anyone actually point out an instance where they’ve intentionally misled readers? I think it’s all hot air, and that they’ve actually done no wrong. Also see: The Opportunity Cost of Being a Miles and Points Blogger.


The Beginner’s Guide To Earning Airline Miles via BuzzFeed. I’ve been contracted to write a series of points & miles related articles for BuzzFeed Travel and this is the first one from the pipeline! It’s meant to be spread far and wide across the land, so feel free to share the link anywhere you see fit. Hopefully, it’s a good intro to this hobby, so send to your friends who are still putting everything on debit cards.


How to pick your Aer Lingus seats on an Avios booking via Points with a Crew. Useful info, and ties into my recent post about getting your Aer Lingus confirmation number from Royal Jordanian. And, as I get ready for Ireland, you may want to check Aer Lingus award space to have your own trip to the Emerald Isle.


Quick blogroll.

Want to express admiration for Rapid Travel Chai. Stefan has the right idea about things, and his passion for travel shows through to the surface in all of his posts. Aside from being a great writer and photographer, and an avid traveler, he’s a great guy. Highly recommend his blog.

Check out The Jetsetter’s Homestead, too.  I’ve been having a blast interacting with Jennifer on Twitter. Also be sure to check out the rest of my Prior2Boarding crew. Lots of interesting tidbits scattered about, and a good rabbit hole to fall into if there ever was one.

One more to add: Doctor of Credit. Will has an awesome, thorough blog pertaining to the credit side of our hobby. A daily read and a mainstay on my feedly.



That wraps up my 1st “digest” – very cool. Kinda fun to post random thought in an unsorted order. I might have to do that more often.

Oh and one final note! If you are in NYC, please join us on the evening of April 22nd in the East Village for the Reach for the Miles meetup! Would love to meet new NYC peeps!

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About Harlan

Just a dude living in Memphis, traveling, and working toward financial independence.

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Comments

  1. lol poor darius. he does have his rule and it’s explicitly promoted. when i started off i appreciated how he broke it all down for anyone to understand. that’s fine for the basic strategies. my issue with the site is how he always posts all big news a couple days after the major blogs. more importantly, if being a deal killer was real phenomenon then MMS is responsible. “Get 100 vanilla cards here!” “here’s how to abuse your redbird!”

    Tone it down. We know you’re getting paid big dollars by targeting readers who don’t care to engage in the points game on a more than superficial level but why ruin it for everyone.

    Million Mile Populist. Hated by those in the points leadership, loved by the people.

    • LOL, I can see both sides. But I have to say, he helped me a lot when I was just getting started. But some of the stuff that’s said about MMS is just blatantly untrue. If you have a beef with his blog, at least use factual arguments, dang!

      Agree with you about the deal-killing thing, but that’s a separate issue altogether…

  2. It was nice of you to try and help beginners, but you might want to edit your post on BuzzFeed. (1) Southwest isn’t fixed at 1.67 cents anymore (60 miles per $1). It was devalued to 70 miles per $1 quite a while ago, and a few days ago they switched to a floating value that apparently varies between 70 and 80 miles needed per $1. (2) Aer Lingus is not in any of the 3 alliances, and I don’t believe Air Canada flights can be credited to it or vice versa. Aer Lingus does have a specific partnership with United so you could credit flights on all 3 to United (since United and Air Canada ARE in the Star Alliance), but you couldn’t really do it with the other 2. (3) I think you should have warned people about fuel surcharges. (4) Mentioning Delta in the same breath as American, United, and Southwest to a beginner without warning them of the contempt in which the SkyMiles program is held may send them into a bad place.

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