When the media gets a whiff of the points game

Earning points and miles is a balancing act. When we land on a goldmine, the challenge is to keep things in moderation to avoid getting shut down. Don’t get greedy and overzealous. That is what ruins deals – a group of people behaving abnormally and catching the attention of the big wigs.

Then, there are those whom you never expect to go blabbing about “the secret” to the press, especially not on such a grand scale. I came across this article through TravelbloggerBuzz, and cringed as I scrolled down the page. It started off innocently enough – how Brad Wilson, founder of Brad’s Deals, earned 4 million miles through the US mint coin scheme. My first thoughts were, “Why does Brad Wilson need to do this? Surely, he can afford to pay for high-end travel out of pocket? What is his FlyerTalk/Milepoint handle? Was he served with an Amex financial review? Why is he bragging about this to BusinessInsider, not to mention Fox & Friends?”

Then I scrolled down and came across “Amazon Payments.” Now the guy is explaining how to utilize Amazon payments to meet spending requirements. Next, the author gets in on the fun and talks about prepaid cards – not mentioning Vanilla Reloads by name, but offering Walgreens as a location to buy $500 prepaid cards.

Bloggers “expose” deals. We tell people how to game the system. But all of this is done within the circle. There are few people outside the points/miles world who know about Amazon Payments and Vanilla Reload cards. That is until Brad’s book is published. Considering this was on Fox & Friends and made it into BusinessInsider, I’m assuming Amazon will take a closer look at some of the $1,000 payments made in the past few months. While I’m not involved with Amazon Payments and my Vanilla Reload source has gone bust recently, it makes me wonder if the clock is ticking on this hobby or if we can adapt and continue to find new ways to earn free/cheap travel.

What are your thoughts? Will you be high-fiving Brad on his upcoming book tour?

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