It’s so strange to me that people in the blogging world, especially the travel/points/miles world, are so opposed to anyone expressing their personal opinions. After all, a blog is a personal weblog and hence, full of personal opinions.
Everyone seems to be talking about first class travel vs coach travel this week and to be honest, I don’t even understand why anyone is arguing over it. It’s a personal opinion!
A week or so ago Jamison, who writes Points Summary wrote Why Flying International First Class Doesn’t Make Sense. Ben, aka Lucky, over at One Mile at a Time, responded with Why flying international first class does make sense. The Points Guy wrote “How Will I Survive 21 Hours in Coach?” which created a storm of comments and led Points Summary to write a response not only to Points Guy, but to One Mile At A Time’s response to PS’s original post. If you’re not confused yet, Food Wine & Miles wrote I Don’t Fly Coach Overseas (and that doesn’t make me a bad person). Are you still following? I’m getting a little dizzy.
Frequently Flying has a really fun post Confessions of an Elite Status Junkie Part 3 and while it’s not really directly related to the current flurry of my opinion about what cabin you should fly in is better than your opinion, it’s a run read.
So what’s my point? (and speaking of points, I’m sure our Brian who writes What’s Your Point, would have a great view on this topic, but hasn’t weighed in yet.) The point is that we all have our own opinion, and that’s why we write a blog. We share our opinions and sometimes readers agree, and sometimes they don’t.
Today on Twitter Wandering Aramen chimed in with this comment:
Of course, his opinion that “if you’re so focused on the flight and not the trip you’re doing it wrong”, is obviously right, right? Then Food, Wine & Miles responded and there was a some back and forth that ended with Wandering Aramean telling Food Wine & Miles he’s doing it wrong. Wait, since when is someone else’s opinion wrong?
Personally, I think the entire topic is fairly ridiculous. What does it matter if the Points Guy doesn’t want to fly coach? Or that One Mile At A Time only flies first or that Points Summary doesn’t care how he flies. Or that Wandering Aramean doesn’t care about the flight at all? It doesn’t matter because in the end, everyone is entitled to their opinion about how they want to fly and I’m sure absolutely no one will suddenly say “well, since TPG says this or Wandering Aramean says that, I have to change my own opinion about how I fly.”
Again, this seems like a perfect opportunity for me to plug my own charity – www.firstworldfixes.org. Let’s face it, these are all #firstworldproblems and we’re lucky we’re bickering about what class of service we prefer to fly. But what about the people who live in some of those destinations you’re flying to? Many of them don’t have the luxury of having an opinion about first class vs. coach because for many, their choice is clean water vs. dirty water or food vs. no food. I started #FirstWorldFixes to offset our #firstworldprolbem carbon foot print, so to speak. Check us out and follow on Twitter @1stWorldFixes. Thanks.
And back to the subject at hand, no one’s opinion is better than anyone else’s opinion and we’re all so lucky that we can have, and express, our own opinions. My personal opinion happens to lean towards those of Food, Wine & Miles, The Points Guy and One Mile at a Time, but I won’t refuse to fly coach. I just prefer to fly business.
Wouldn’t it be nice if people didn’t get attacked because their opinion is different from yours?
This and the whole is it a secret or not a secret was gold. There needs to be a documentary about the dark side of travel/points/miles blogging!
While I generally agree with this post, many of the blogs referenced aren’t really “personal” blogs. They are for-profit endeavors where the opinion expressed isn’t personal, but rather an attempt to sell a product. I.e., the top 25 credit cards out there….
My opinion is that your opinion about opinions is the right opinion 🙂
Thank goodness you’ve stated so eloquently what my position on the topic is. It is amazing how you’ve turned a couple 140 character snippits into a coherent, salient conversation. Oh, except the part where none of that actually happened.
Fly in F or C or Y or private if you want. But don’t use that as a justification for why you are or are not a good person. And certainly don’t pretend that flying in Y is torture or that it is somehow not survivable. Thousands upon thousands of people do it every day, many on ULH flights. The constant beating of the “only F/C rally counts” drum is, as I said in my tweet this morning, a tiring circle-jerk.
@Food,Wine and Miles – I like your opinion about opinions.
Thanks for writing this. I love that everyone has a different opinion because it means I can always find something to read that’s relevant to me, but at the same time I often wonder “why can’t we all just get along”.
Boy, I’m glad I’m a Narcissist so its always easy for me to be right. 🙂
For me its a rule of thumb: More than a 5 hour flight then it’s biz or better, otherwise I can slum it south of the curtain…..barely.
always feel fortunate to go – however – business is excellent – if possible – getting there is quickly forgotten amidst the joy of simply being there – smiles from SF