Every time I say “now are the glory years for frequent flyers”, someone doesn’t see it. And it’s true, there are so many great things that have come and gone, but there are many great things to come. I hope to prove that the trend is an upward one for points collectors.
However, the nature of 2014 and the hobby growing is that things will come and go more often and more quickly than ever before. Over all, it’s a great thing.
There are more ways of earning miles than ever before
“Award prices have gone up.”
Yeah, because there are more miles in circulation than ever before. Too prove the situation I went back to 2008 and scanned the blogs that were around then. And guess what? There were barely any mentions of credit cards. I mean hardly any. On an entire 2008 page, I’d search “credit cards” or something and only get ads in the widget. I mean night and day difference.
However, I found in general the content on FTG and VFTW to have the best resources for credit cards, but also… the content was just interesting and good. Gave perspective to how little the hobby has changed too.
However, in scanning VFTW, pretty much all of 2008 there were only four cards talked about. And I don’t have the energy to go and count all the different credit card offers mentioned on a blog in 2014. And before the angries chime in on the commission situation drastically changing, I’m serious, this was just what was out there. Now things quickly quickly changed in the next few years. But honestly, there were only a few cards to mention. And the SPG card was the best card in the world until recently.
So point 1) There were a fraction of the credit card offers.
And point 2) The “Big Bonuses” mentioned were half of the big bonuses for the same cards now.
Here’s the best of what I saw mentioned:
2008 | 2014 |
40,000 United | 55,000 United |
20,000 Virgin | 70,000 Virgin |
20,000 US Airways | 40,000 US Airways |
25,000 Starwood | 25,000 Starwood |
Then point 3) that these bonuses aren’t even the best out here today.
Back to point 1… Think of all the brand new great cards we’ve seen just in the last couple years:
- Barclay Arrival Plus
- AA Exec
- Lufthansa
- Ink Bold/Plus, relatively
The fact that these are new cards says more and more that the rewards points and frequent flyer mile thing is a good incentive for businesses to use, and therefore more do.
More proof…
There are more miles transfers than ever:
2008 | 2014 | |
Amex | 17 airlines | 17 airlines |
Amex | 5 hotels | 4 hotels |
Amtrak | 10 Airlines | 0 Airlines |
SPG | 29 Airlines | 33 airlines |
Citi | 0 | 9 Airlines |
Citi | 0 | 1 Hotel |
Chase | 0 | 6 Airlines |
Chase | 0 | 4 Hotels |
Chase | 0 | 1 Rail |
Here’s the most important part of this chart: Most of the airline transfers are crap. So having 29 airlines vs 33, it’s no big deal. The important thing is that there are more banks doing the transfer thing.
And if you don’t count SPG (because it’s not a bank, and they only have one product), it went from one bank (Amex) to three (Amex, Chase and Citi). And the quality of transfers with Chase is really high.
Even better, this chart is significantly more valuable simply because there are so many cards on the market. Your options are greater not just in the bonuses, not just in the transfers, but in the number of cards as well.
Deals spread faster than ever
“Mileage running is no longer profitable”
In the most traditional sense. But in the last few months, I’ve booked two mistake fares that I earned miles from. My latest one is $148 for a ticket to Hong Kong with a stopover in Europe (Milan and Prague).
Perhaps the risk /reward is higher. The other mistake fare to Europe, I figured I could fly the same route a few times and have United’s top tier status for $1,000. Similar to what happened with me an AA status, but I didn’t pull the trigger with United.
Opportunities are there, it’s just a different dynamic. Yes, ticket prices are increasing, but there are more mistake fares popping up than ever. And when the community grows so big that’s going to happen. The other thing about having a big community, with bloggers that get widely read, is deals die more quickly. Regardless of bloggers, a few booking a mistake fare is a lot less noticeable than multiple thousands.
And that’s where we’re at and I’d say we come out ahead as a whole. The deals might go more quickly, but the serious hear about more than ever.
Higher number of travel programs than ever
“Airlines and hotels. That’s it, right?”
Wrong.
Now there’s Uber, Lyft, AirBnb, Barclay points, Citi ThankYou points,
There are so many things to leverage it’s insane.
More MS buys than ever
It’s the same thing as saying that for a few months a few banks matched a few bonuses and then calling everything else down hill. The fact of the matter is, those were big bonuses but there are more than ever now. Same /same with MS. Yes, VR was a national thing and therefore one giant arrow and circle could outline a specific strategy for the nation. But I guarantee there are more cards in your town’s stores now, and I guarantee that there are more digital wallets now than ever.
And the crazy thing is, there are tons more to come. The way of the internet is in our favor not against us. As long as things change, there will be new opportunities.
However, the nature of the internet is that things come and go quickly. The proof is in and out of the hobby. Whether it’s how quickly deals go on DailyGetaways or how quickly airfare deals go… Or, it’s internet fads, big news disappearing quickly, or how quickly a video goes viral. It’s the way of the internet.
Conclusion
- There are more cards than ever
- There are more banks giving miles
- And there are more airline transfers for the ones that still do transfers
- Deals spread faster than ever
Yes, the hobby has grown a lot. Some see it as a bad thing, and perhaps for some it has been a bad thing. But for most it’s a great thing. I don’t just mean that the number of people benefiting has gone up, but that over all the old pros benefit from the newbies.
For example, with mistake fares. The fact that more people know about mistake fares could be seen as a bad thing. However, it means that next time someone sees a price of $148 for a trip around the world, they might just stop to post about it online, or tell their crazy travel friend who posts it online.
It will go quick, but I guarantee you we hear about more deals together than apart.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
FTG – quite rightly – used to list churning Citi AA cards as the number one way to earn miles back in 2008. Not sure how you missed that it was on every single post every single day on the right hand side column bar. Churning was massive back in 2008, now it has gotten much tougher and of course any blogger who hopes to get a whiff of CC commissions will never mention the word. I get your general points…. but there was a lot of good credit card stuff going on back then … churning… checking account funding etc…
I think that was 2009. Because I did go through all of 2008 on VFTW and I noticed in 09 he started listing tons of AA cards. But… that went on this year to the extremes with 100k and $200 profit. It can’t get better than multiple 100k cards with $200 credit.
For those of us who don’t live in the US, we don’t get these credit card offers (certainly not for US airlines) and we don’t have MS opportunities. The only thing that’s changed is that the award redemption prices have increased, and more folks from the US are in the game, meaning less seats are available.
Would you re-consider your statement for those of us living outside the US?
I don’t live in the US and these opportunities still work for me. I would say that you would need great contacts there for it to work. You should have people that you really really trust! But if not then you are absolutely right that it would never work for people outside of the US.
Fulfill your American dream and come to the land of points and honey.
I’m really not qualified to speak on the situation of miles/points for non-US citizens over the years.
That chart comparing 2008 to 2014 doesn’t tell nearly the whole story
1) 40K United miles in 2008 is worth a lot more than 55K in 2014
2) Virgin miles are sucky regardless. Their best use is usually transferring to Hilton – 40K Hilton points in 2008 is probably worth as much as 105K Hilton points today
3) The US Airways comparison doesn’t convey the fact that it was remarkably easy to earn US Airways miles through other-non CC means back in the day. Grand Slam, “everything counts” promo, other joke promotions etc. – it is harder than ever to earn US Airways
4) 25K SPG points in 2008 is worth more than 25K SPG points in 2014. Probably at least 25-50% more
And that’s before you even get into the mention of all the great promos. Who needs points when you have things like Faster Free Nights or SPGs “stay 3 get 1 free” promos?
The game is only better today if you’re willing to put the time and effort into MS. Those of us who just don’t have the bandwidth or energy to jump through all the hoops are worse off today than they were in the 2008-2011 golden era
And let’s be honest – we both know the real reason that the # of CC posts has greatly increased. The explosive growth of affiliate commission. How do you know? Because the cards that don’t pay (i.e. Hyatt and IHG visas)…. get coverage like it’s 2008 🙂
Right. My point is that there was only those 4 cards. I did not say “the bonuses on these cards went up twice as much as award chart prices did.” That just wouldn’t be true.
I say it’s better in MS and credit cards. Maybe not better than 2011, but not worse. And it’s not a sprint.
“My point is that there was only those 4 cards”
And that’s patently incorrect. You can’t do an analysis of blog posts from 6 years ago to say that credit cards didn’t exist. They did exist – they just didn’t pay hundreds of dollars per referral, so blogs were ignoring them.
If we use that logic to determine the existence of cards, then the IHG Visa, Hyatt Visa, Blue Cash, Amex Everyday (until recently), the 3 Southwests cards that don’t pay affiliate commission all don’t exist today – afterall, you’d have to use the hubble telescope to find mention of them today on the bigtime blogs
I sure hope it’s naivete on your part, and not willful ignorance stemming from BACon that is causing you to think that only 4 cards existed back then because the blogs that have become credit card advertisements today were actually…. gasp…. miles & points bloggers back then
Fairmont Visa card…. doesn’t exist today
Afterall, you won’t find any mention of it on Boarding Area, TPG or MMS.
Same logic, right?
Drew is sounding more like a BoardingArea blogger. Maybe that’s why he was at BAcon conference. Agree with Rob 100%.
How can NOW be the best time when the following represent only a small list of things that happened in 2014:
– Death of VR
– Delta and UA going revenue based
– US Air devalues
– Elimination of portal bonus for Staples VGC
– Elimination of portal bonus for Amex GC
– No more CC loads on Amazon Payments
– Plink gone
– Death of TD Visa Buxx
– AA ends stopover on award redemptions
– AMEX entire suite of cards devalues (eliminating 15k threshold bonus on PRG and lounge accesss on Platinum)
– Delta capping point transfer into SkyPesos
– Citi takes away companion ticket and flight point benefits and introduces worthless transfer partners. On top of that Citi cards (Premier and Prestige) come with small sign-up bonuses
– Chase devalues cards – elimination of 7% dividend, 10% annual bonus, and Ink Bold card.
Try to come up with same number of positives as negatives. And please don’t list Uber or SkyPesos 2015 changes as a positive. That would just be downright embarrassing.
Take it a step further – let’s focus on what may happen in 2015 and beyond. American devalues premium awards and going revenue based. Alaska devalues their chards and even worse if loses the turf war against Delta, may even merge with Delta. IHG devalues further to be more in line with Hilton.
You forgot what I would think is the worst one of all – Amazon Payments
As long as you do it responsibly, that’s 12K miles a year from each…. ahem…. alias. Without ever having to leave the couch.
For those who value their time to much to get into MS, that basically just leaves Serve, whose days are no doubt numbered as well
I have a feeling that armchair MSing will soon be a lost art form .
AP is hardly MSing. 12k a year is nothing. That can be done in an hour from any armchair today.
Do tell.
Totally agree! This is the worst year for MS! Not to mention all WM in my area remove Kate and reject all gc/prepaid loads. Man, remember those day when $500 VGC in OD?
All those are only a complete list if you add all the things we gained in 2014… which is a lot. A lot is kept off the blogs, probably for the best.
But this is my point exactly. We loose more than ever, because that’s how things work in 2014, it’s fast paced.
Sure things come and go and I agree with you it is changing faster than ever before. That’s exactly why I disagree with you now is the best time to play this game. Part of this game is to adjust on the fly. But when you need to adjust to a new strategy every month because something got shut down or devalued again, most people don’t have the time and resources for that. We are converging to a point where a lot of people simply quit this game and barrier to entry becomes extremely high. It has become survival of the fittest.
Oh no, the sky is falling! Keep complaining and exit the game; I’ll keep traveling for free.
You can’t just take a small sample size(6 years) and an even smaller slice and purely look at sign-up bonuses.
Back in 2008/09, there were more promotions to mfg miles that could compete with CC sign-up bonuses alone(cpm), like the track-it back promo, the Grand Slam that took place every fall. Then there was the Mint, the good ole’ days.
The mileage runs, you say, the routing rules were more liberal back in 2008/09 than it is now. That you can stretch a RT from NA to Asia to add more segments without too much difficulty. If you’re paying $ out of pocket to get top-tier status when you’re not traveling on someone else’s dime, I think in most cases for people, it’s cheaper just to pay the ala carte change fee, baggage fees, and so on than it is to mileage run for status to those fees waived.
I’m not looking only at signup bonuses. There are a lot of things kept off the blogs that are alive, and there’s more blog content than ever. There’s a lot happening. I can’t put it in one post, but instead an entire blog of content.
Self-serving nonsense.
The ONLY group of people that can honestly say that things are much better now are the bloggers. Because they benefit personally, directly and financially. (And most of them don’t even give a rats ass about travel per se – they fly half way around the world to spend 2 free nights at a mega resort, take pictures for their blog, never actually experiencing anyplace other than the airport and the bubble around the resort).
Young, unemployed vagabonds – who have no structure to their lives and who can grab their backpack and head off to Prague tomorrow if there’s a mistake fare may be marginally better off now, but how many of us (besides the bloggers) really fit that profile? I couldn’t care less about such “opportunities” – I have a job and a life that can’t be dropped with zero notice.
For most of us who have been playing this game for a while (20+ years for me), the past 5-10 years have ben an utter disaster, and the trends are all bad.
Bloggers and the credit card referral fees are to blame. When a blogger doesn’t stand to profit financially from his “advice” then he’ll have some credibility. Until then….they’re just shills. There’s a basic conflict of interest here, pretty simple.
Self-serving?
So do you know anything about me?
The number of hotels I’ve had for free being a blogger is zero. Heck, I don’t even do hotel reviews. This comment makes zero sense.
I don’t see Drew shilling credit cards like the other blogs do, which I think is credible in itself. If you took the time to read his posts, I think you’d see the quality in his advice.
I don’t know of now is better than 2008, but I do know that now is pretty fantastic. It’s a spin on that old saying…When was the best time to get into the miles and points game? 30 years ago. When is the second best time?…now
I really enjoy your blog, but these vague posts about “things being kept off the blogs”, ect are really getting tiring.
Most of us do know what your referring to, however there are some that don’t.
And isn’t “right NOW” always the best time to get into points? Who in their right mind would recommend someone waiting two years to get into it?
You have a great blog going. Don’t get arrogant.
Excellent post Drew!!!
I used to read thepointsguy.com often, but now it is converting into a credit app advertisement blog.
Do you have an idea of how blogs like thepointsguy.com receive in credit card affiliate fees per credit card app? approved?