Shhh! I Have a Secret Code for You

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March 8, 2013

by TheMrPickles

First of I would like to thank my friends and family, fellow FlyerTalkers, mile pointers, and bloggers for the honor voting for me to be the newest blogger on First2Board.com. The past seven days has seen dramatic changes for the TheMrPickles blog website. I have taken on guest bloggers, I have written more posts as requested by my twitter followers, and I have fixed the comments section of the blog. It has been a long road to get this blog up and to the full operational status that I had wished it to be since its inception. The mission, goals and enthusiasm of the First2Board team have been refreshing to say the least. Their mission is inline with my mission.

First2Board is strictly free of credit card affiliate links and points-earning schemes. The site offers readers rich content on all things travel related. From restaurant reviews to airfare specials and honest hotel opinions, First2Board offers its readers an exciting, visual, picture-rich experience without the hassle of buried credit card links. Readers will not find credit card promotions or links buried in any First2Board posts.

I am sure you can appreciate that First2Board is a business and as such the costs of normal business expenses such as the server time, office space and electricity, software and consultants. To that end you may have noticed that there have been a few advertisements appearing like the ones at the top of the blog and on the right hand side of the blog posts. I would really appreciate that if you have Amazon purchases that you would normally make please click on the link currently on the top of my blog page.

In as much as this is a travel blog site, you may have the need to access the Hotels.com website which is another advertiser on First2Board. We have secured an offer code just for TheMrPickles readers for 10% off of your entire booking*.

hotels.com

If booking a hotel – click the hotels.com banner at the top and book to your hearts content (use code HTL2013 for 10% off your entire booking – good through 12/31/2013).

* Good until 12/31/2013 or until withdrawn by hotels.com. Use of 10% off coupon code may preclude you from earning in the hotels.com Rewards Program. You do not have to use the link above to use the coupon code, you may connect to any hotels.com portal.

If you enjoyed this post and the others on this blog, feel free to follow me via Facebook, or via Twitter @TheMrPickles.

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Rick ingersoll

March 8, 2013 at 3:52 AM

mrpickles, did you get my emails about the SPG breakout session in Chicago? it seems we may be having email issues. Rick the FTG

Joshua Pickles

March 8, 2013 at 5:37 PM

Yes, and i replied to you already. For the lurkers on this site I have agreed to moderate the SPG Hotel breakout session at the October 2013 Chicago Seminars.

Jamison

March 8, 2013 at 6:49 PM

congrats!!

staceysegal

March 8, 2013 at 8:19 PM

Can I be your wing woman? (Good parrot joke?) offer for real though.

TheMrPickles

March 8, 2013 at 8:22 PM

I will need one on each wing.

tomdav

March 8, 2013 at 10:39 AM

So first2board pays for electricity on top of server cost, lol. Seriously? I’m not sure I understand the point of disallowing credit card affiliate links while allowing the hotels affiliate links or pandering to click on an amazon banner? Does clicking on those links benefit you or first2board? More disclosure please.

March 9, 2013 at 3:11 PM

Electricity does cost money, unless you are 100% on solar panels. What can I say? You are entitled to your opinion. You won’t see me pounding coupons for hotels.com or any other affiliate in every other post like a few other blog sites.

I was just pointing out the new banners on top of the website that just appeared.

A new feature. Feel free to click on them if you want to support First2Board. Don’t use them if you don’t want to use them.

You won’t see my trip reports saying to stay a a hotel and book through my link on hotels.com. Clicking on them benefits First2Board, and I suppose in a stretch it benefits me by them hosting my blog. But the difference in clicking and completing a credit card affiliate link is like $200-450 for the host site compared to pennies per click on common affiliate links.

Big difference, and that is a disclosure you will not see in other blogs. I have no control over the ads on my site, or on my newly released iPhone App.

And you can use the 10% off coupon code via any hotels.com portal, not just First2Board’s link.

Wandering Aramean

March 10, 2013 at 11:20 AM

That Hotels.com link likely nets F2B somewhere in the range of 5% of the total booking; it is much more than just pennies.

March 10, 2013 at 1:58 PM

It depends on the agreement that F2B has with them. I do not know first hand what that agreement says, and even if I did know I would imagine there is a non disclosure agreement.

March 10, 2013 at 1:02 PM

First of all, thank you for finally approving the comment and responding to it. Comment censorship is a very slippery slope.

It looks like you revised the initial blog post to include office space? I see electricity is now associated with that cost as opposed to server cost. Thank you for clarifying. So F2B has offices? How can this be justified with pennies from non-cc affiliate links?

FWIW, amazon pays north of 6%. I use it to support my sites. It’s the only affiliate link I use and it covers annual hosting costs (and no, there is no additional electricity cost). I also encourage readers to get cash back from ebates or fatwallet at amazon when cash back is offered instead of the affiliate link.

BTW, can you expand on the F2B “no CC links” and “no point earning schemes” policy? How is F2B going to attract bloggers or readers? Most readers are interested in point earning schemes and plan to apply for a CC. Bloggers like FM have shown one can blog about CCs and point earning schemes without being influenced. While I applaud the direction of discouraging CC affiliate links, I think it might be going too far.

March 10, 2013 at 1:57 PM

I take offense to your accusation of comment censorship. There has been no comment censorship. What I can say is that your comment was delayed in approval because basically it was something I had to sleep on. I never want to get in a pissing war of words with anyone. You did have some valid points of which I admit caused me to review my post and to “clarify” some of the statements.

I find it charming to see that you are questioning all of the business practices of F2B. Your questions are better suited to be directed to F2B and not to one of the bloggers that is aggregated to the F2B website. I do not speak for F2B.

My suggestions of clicking on a link above for something that is a purchase you are already going to make is not the same as encouraging someone to sign up for a CC that has a 29% interest rate, annual fee, and an ongoing relationship that will effect your credit score. You are an adult and can decide what links you want to use.

What I can say, base on my opinion which is still evolving, “non CC links” only means no credit card links. If F2B decides to offer CC ads on the side bar or header of the website that is not the same as a CC link embedded in the text of the articles.

Lets not beat a dead horse.

Oh, and thank you for driving people to my site, my numbers are way up!

March 10, 2013 at 2:38 PM

No problem on directing traffic. You seemed to be speaking on behalf of the F2B in terms of what it costs to run, its policies, etc. but I’ll direct those comments and questions elsewhere since you don’t feel it is your place to answer despite its relevance to the post. As far as comment censorship, I’ve only seen delayed approval to (1) filter spam or (2) censor. I can’t say I’ve ever seen comments hidden to provide time to think about the response, but hey, it’s your blog. Just saying that’s a slippery slope and smacks of censorship.

March 10, 2013 at 2:50 PM

@tomdav
Your comment was delayed because it was the first comment you’ve made on my website. Once I read it I then took the opportunity to formulate a response. I am not one to shoot from the hip.

All first-time commenters automatically go into an approval/spam/trash state awaiting review and approval. Now that you have been “approved” your responses post automatically.

My personal policy is to never censor a comment (meaning to edit) but I do reserve the right to “delete” or “trash” a comment. I know it’s drawing a thin line but it’s my finger on the delete key.

Nothing synister going on here.

Ryan E

March 8, 2013 at 6:15 PM

Cool, discounts are a good thing! Glad you’ll be involved @ Chicago, hope I can make it this year

March 10, 2013 at 9:51 PM

@Ryan
I look forward to the small breakout sessions, because the group is much smaller (like 30 people as opposed to 500 people), we tend to share “secrets” and tricks more freely. Last year it was impromptu with 5 minutes notice, this year I will be able to plan in advance. I hope to have it a little more structured than it has been in the past, along with handouts.

March 9, 2013 at 2:03 PM

You should probably disclose that using the code (or any other coupon) precludes earning credit in the Welcome Rewards program. That may matter to some folks.

And getting all uppity about not shilling for CC links while pushing a different sort of affiliate advertising link – especially without disclosing the impact to the customer – isn’t particularly upstanding, either, IMO.

March 9, 2013 at 2:58 PM

Thank you Seth, your points are well taken. I have added your point about the Welcome Rewards program to the post. I don’t feel that I am “getting all upptity about not shilling for CC links”, but you won’t see me blogging everyday before 12/31/13 that the hotels.com coupon code is expiring and you need to use it before it expires. By the way I have a lot of respect for both you and your blog. Thanks for your input.

March 10, 2013 at 11:18 AM

Agreed that you personally haven’t been “uppity” about it. I do think that the overall tone from F2B has been and the shine is coming off now as people see there are still going to be links and such, just from a different angle. I think that F2B was a bit too aggressive in setting that tone and now there will be some disappointed readers.

Looking forward to seeing you again at FTU in DC in a few weeks.

First2Board

March 12, 2013 at 12:13 PM

I will jump in from an F2B perspective. Nowhere along the line did F2B say it would be void of advertisers. We are indeed a business – yes we have office space, yes we have costs, yes we have overheads. I don’t understand anyone getting upset about a business trying to make money from advertisers.

What F2B has said all along, and adhered to perfectly, is that we will not fill our posts with credit card affiliate links.

It doesn’t really seem like there is much grey area here. We don’t do what we say we won’t do. We do do what we say we’ll do.

Case closed.

RJT

March 15, 2013 at 7:39 AM

Mr. Pickles – I’m an avid travel and points accumulation reader. I look forward to your articles via F2B and unlike some – I actually appreciate a different insight on current deals and benefits that are to be found. It adds clarity to all the clutter out there. Thanks for your past work and good luck with the new partnership/agreement with First2Board.

Mr. Pickles

April 2, 2013 at 12:05 AM

Thank you I appreciate your comments.