Every time something exposes our hobby to the masses, we hear from the naysayers to growth. I was in the barrel last week after the “Nightline” piece aired. Daily visits to the blog jumped up to 13,000 from the usual 5000-6000 — an extremely small percentage of the five million who saw the piece. Mr. Pickles has been scorned with the Wall Street Journal. Brian will be soon again, and every rookie who called the airline while a deal was still live has been the object of scorn as well. For this blog article and this article only, let’s assume this scenario:Anyone who joined or lurked on Flyertalk after August 1, 2001 is banned from Flyertalk. They never saw any of the info, as Flyertalk closed it’s doors to new members and lurkers that day. It became a closed, exclusive community. (Wow am I lucky. I joined in July of 2001.) Everybody else is shut out and none of you got free travel from the information on Flyertalk. The veterans who joined Flyertalk before August 2001 shut you out. NO more newbies. 95 percent of you don’t have the information that has allowed you to see the world.What would our fictional community of then 15,000 members have missed by closing our doors to the additional 340,000 “newbies” who have joined since then? We would have missed the contributions of the 2200% increase in membership.

The Mint deal would still be going on. Anthonyanthony, the original poster, joined in 2000, so that deal would have lived and still been going on. Most — 95 percent of you — wouldn’t know about it, and the volume of activity would be so little that we would have a perpetual miles machine. Sorry, closed community. If you joined after August 2001, you can’t play.

Gary from the View from the Wing blog posted his 10 best Mistake Fares last week, all of which were after 2001. Were they found by you newbies? Probably more than half were.

There would be no Lucky9876coins (join date Dec. 2004), Raffles Longhaul sorry (another newbie, (2008), thepointsguy, millionmilesecrets, Tassojunior, hobo13, arizona guy, and the list goes on and on. All have made valuable contributions, but because the existing members as of August 1, 2001, didn’t allow new members, “no deals for you.”

My point is that the timeline for all of us is different. To Beaubo, I’m a newbie. And to the guys and gals that joined in 2010, the newcomers this year (2011) are newbies. But we all need the contributions from the newbies, however new they are. They soon become the seasoned veterans and help those who follow behind them.

I do agree with the naysayers in one respect. Newbies who want the info handed to them on a silver platter are not contributing to the community. When I started, if you didn’t show evidence that you had tried to research the topic, the old timers back then blew you off. My point here — and it has drawn some controversy — is: Don’t hand it to them on a silver platter. I commented on bloggers in the past, that I thought they went too far on several occasions by handing it out on a step by step silver platter. I agree with the naysayers: If we just give it away, it will get screwed up by the non-involved “takers.” Am I guilty of giving too much away? I probably have been, but I try to reserve “the process” to an email or PM with somebody who has shown some initiative.

And those who think we do this just for the publicity and profit are sadly mistaken. I posted info for three years before ever receiving a credit card referral. Gary Leff blogged for almost 10 years before he did. Now all the bloggers are receiving referrals. I just happened to “get it” before the other guys. Should I try to invoke the rule “sorry, no referrals for you newbies to referrals”? Of course not. I have no right to do so, anymore than we do to keep out “newbies.”


Now back to reality. The Flyertalk, Milepoint, blogging and travel hacking community is re-opened to all again. No cut-off date for membership. Welcome to everyone. But don’t expect the info to be handed to you. Be willing to do your own research and then give back to the community. I’m confident the “newbie” who joins today will provide us all with information in the future.

The past has proven that point to be true.

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