Travel with Grant Joins Prior2Boarding (BoardingArea’s Sister Site)

The rumors (started by myself) are not true.  My blog was not bought for $1 million dollars (I wish).

My blog is joining Prior2Boarding.com, which is BoardingArea’s sister site.  I am staying self hosted (for now), so all of my links will remain the same and nothing on the back-end has changed.  Think of me as a contributor to P2B (that’s how us cool bloggers call it).  I will continue to post everything on TWG, but my content will also show up on P2B going forward.  For example, my last 2 posts show up on P2B like this (clicking those links will take you directly to the article on my site):

You might also see my content show up on BoardingArea from time to time (if it is really good).

I have prepared a brief FAQ session with myself, feel free to read it and learn more about “the man behind the blog.”

Q: Who is Grant?

A: I currently 24 years old and lives at home (so luxurious) in Irvine, CA. Irvine is in “the OC” (close to Disneyland) and between Los Angeles and San Diego counties. Irvine is great for travel hacking since there are many Walmart stores, CVS stores, office supply stores, and several airports within driving range. I graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in Marketing and Finance but shortly discovered the miles and points world and fell in love with travel hacking (wish I had known about it a few years earlier – I’m sure I’m not the only one).

Q: What is Grant’s day job?

A: I work for a division of Panasonic that is the market leader in In-Flight Entertainment and Wireless Connectivity (WiFi and live TV onboard airplanes). It is a great company to work for and fits perfectly with my travel-obsessed lifestyle. In my spare time, I sell items on eBay (I am currently an eBay PowerSeller), work on manufactured spending, and research/write my blog.

Q: Why did you start your blog?

A: Most other travel bloggers say that they started their blog to educate family/friends on how to “travel for free.” I have a totally opposite answer. Most (95% or more) of my friends and family members like the idea of “traveling for free” but they don’t want to invest the time and energy necessary to make it a reality. I got tired of telling them which credit cards to get, which places to buy gift cards, etc. I’d rather invest my time teaching you guys (yes you!) on how to accumulate miles and points. If you want to learn about miles and points, I want to be the one to teach you about miles and points.

Tangent aside, my blog has many step by step guides on how to do everything from funding your Bluebird or Serve Card (link), to freezing your ARS and IDA credit reports (link), to learning the ins and outs of the ITA Matrix (link), and a lot more. Some topics are very complicated, so I made very detailed guides with lots of pictures to help clarify the process. Most other blogs will tell you how to do something, I want to show you how to do something.

Q: What things do you blog about?

A: Only things I care about. If I don’t care about something, I won’t talk about it. $2,000 business class trip to Europe? Nope, too pricey for me. 50% off diapers? Nope, no babies here (PS if you do a lot of shopping on Amazon, please use my Amazon affiliate link above). Diamond/platinum hotel elite status? Nope, I rarely pay for hotel stays, I much prefer using points. Anyway, I hope you get what I’m talking about.

Q: What is your stance on trip reports and hotel reviews?

A: Honestly, trip reports and hotel reviews are a lot of work, I’m talking about a couple hours per post to edit the pics, remember what I thought of the experience, and then share those thoughts with you. Instead of writing trip reports, I have started writing trip booking reports, which start with my recent trip to Spain (link). I cover searching for Air Berlin flights on AA.com and Lufthansa flights on United.com. I shared how I searched/found award space, booked the award, and accumulated the necessary frequent flyer miles.

Personally, I don’t like writing hotel reviews because the high end hotels have already been reviewed many times (Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme anyone?) and no one cares about the lower end hotels, right? Plus, sometimes I stay at AirBnb properties sometimes and those aren’t very fancy. Also, if I have the necessary Hilton points for a free night at the Hilton near the center of the city, I’m going to use my Hilton points to stay there. I don’t care about the 5 star Westin/Marriott/Hyatt/Kimpton on the other side of town. Use your hotel points to stay where you want, you don’t need me to tell you where to go. For the record, I’ve stayed 2 nights at the Park Hyatt Paris Vendôme (thanks Chase Hyatt Credit Card) and it is very nice. If you are ever in Paris, I really recommend staying there.

Q: What is your stance on credit card affiliate links?

A: I promise never to make blog posts for the sole purpose of pushing credit card affiliate links. Who wants to read that? The only place you will ever see credit card affiliate links is on my credit card page (only Barclays links and some credit card referral links). My blog is too small to get the best credit cards from the big banks, but I do link to the FlyerTalk page with all the latest credit card offers that are currently available. I may in the future feature credit card ads on the right side on my blog.

Q: What is your stance on “deal killing” posts?

A: First off, there are 2 types of deals:

1. Limited time only “mistake” airfare and hotel deals where the paid price or number of miles required are substantially less than they should be (check Twitter and FlyerTalk for these deals).
2. Small loopholes in reward programs that allow you to make money or generate miles/points very cheaply that may or may not be against the rules of the program.

I love a good deal as much as the next guy, but I don’t have hours of free time to read Twitter or browse the FlyerTalk forum everyday. If you spend the time looking, you will be handsomely rewarded. I usually find out about these deals shortly after the deal is dead, so you will almost never see me talk about these limited time only “mistakes.”
The second type of deal is where there are many shades of gray (perhaps 50?) with no clear cut line to cross or not cross. If a reader or Twitter follower sends me an email or DM with information about a loophole and asks that the information not be published, I promise never to publish it unless the information has hit the other major blogs. You might think this is selfish, maybe it is, but I think some loopholes will stay around longer the less people who know about them. For the record, I’m not sitting on hundreds of secrets, just 2-3 that work well for me and my unique credit card situation. We are all entitled to keeping our secrets to ourselves or sharing them with some/all others. From reading many “deal killing” posts over the years, there is a sharp divide between readers who are thankful for the new information and readers who are very angry for revealing one of their secrets to the masses. I hate being in the middle of the firestorm and would rather watch quietly from the sidelines. Everyone has different opinions on this touchy subject, I just wanted to share where I currently stand on the issue.

That concludes the FAQ, if you have any questions for me, please leave a comment below.  I will do my best to answer them.  Have a great day everyone!