Frequentmiler.com is ours! Celebrate w/ huge swag giveaway

I started this blog as a hobby in 2011.  When I picked the name “Frequent Miler,” I made sure that the FrequentMiler ID was available on Twitter, but it never occurred to me to see if the frequentmiler.com domain was available.  This was just a hobby after all.

Less than a year later, this hobby became my career.  In the 2012 post “Up in the Air,” I wrote:

In March, my life imitated art when I walked into my company’s Cisco TelePresence room to meet with my boss via video conference.  He informed me that due to the latest round of reorganizations, my job no longer existed.  To be fair, he delivered the message himself instead of hiring Clooney, and the TelePresence room was way more life like.  It was more like how James T. Kirk speaks with Klingons and other villains “on screen”…

Actually, while the news was a shock, I wasn’t really unhappy at all.  I’ve been tinkering with this blog for the past 8 months and I’ve really enjoyed it despite not having enough time to give it my full attention.  Thanks to the latest company reorg, I now have 8 months of severance pay to safely call myself a blogger and see if the old “if you build it, they will come” philosophy works with blogs as well as baseball fields.

Well, the experiment worked out incredibly well.  Frequent Miler quickly became a successful career.  And now the business supports not just me but also a full time employee (Nick) and two part time employees (Stephen and Carrie).

Once the blog officially became a business, I suddenly wanted to own the frequentmiler.com domain.  A small part of the issue was that I probably lost readers who tried to find the blog by entering frequentmiler.com into their browser.  A larger part was simply pride in ownership.  I’m proud of the Frequent Miler blog and I wanted to own the domain that should go with it.

The problem was that the frequentmiler.com domain was owned by a shipping company.  They kept the domain with the intention to create a rewards program called “frequent miler” for their truck drivers.  Over the years, I made a few attempts to buy the domain from them, but without success until now.  I recently tried again and finally succeeded!  The domain frequentmiler.com is now mine… mine… all mine!

It’s a small thing, but it’s nice to have something in 2020 to celebrate.

New domain, same content

Nothing has changed about our blog other than the fact that if you’re reading this online you’ll see that the domain now starts with “frequentmiler.com” rather than the old “frequentmiler.boardingarea.com”.  Old links will still work thanks to the magic of redirection.

FrequentMiler.com Swag Give-Away

To celebrate our move to frequentmiler.com we’re hosting a big swag give-away.  Since this marks a small bright spot in an otherwise mostly dismal year, we’re using this year’s repeating numbers “2020” as the give-away theme:

• 20 different products available to win
• 20 1st Place Prizes
• 20 2nd Place Prizes +
• 20 More 2nd Place Prizes +
• 20 More 2nd Place Prizes

First Place Prize Choices (20 Winners)

20 winners will get their choice of one of the first-place prize choices shown above.  If first-place winners prefer, they can choose from second place prize choices instead…

Second Place Prize Choices (60 Winners)

60 winners will get their choice of one of the second-place prize choices shown above.

How to enter

• Everyone is free to enter but please note that we will ship winning products only within the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii.
• You may enter only once.
• To enter, simply add a comment to the bottom of this blog page including the domain “frequentmiler.com” (with or without quotes).  You may write anything else you’d like in the comment, but doing so will not increase your chances of winning.  Submissions via email, Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media will not count.
• Important: You must put a valid email address in the email text box associated with your comment. We will use that email address to contact you if you win.
• You may add additional comments without the domain “frequentmiler.com” listed. Those comments will not be treated as give-away entries.
• Comments not in the spirit of this give-away (such as those containing vulgar language, mean-spirited attacks against others, commercial advertisements, multiple entries from one participant containing “frequentmiler.com”, etc.) will be removed and not valid for this give-away.  The authors of this blog will be the sole judge of which comments, if any, should be removed.
• Comments will be accepted until Sunday, November 1st, 11:59PM ET.  Any comments submitted after that day and time will not be included in the give-away.

Method of selecting winners

• 20 First Place winners will be selected by using a random number generator to select from the pool of valid comments.
• 60 Second Place winners will be selected by using a random number generator to select from the pool of valid comments.
• Once a person has been selected as a prize winner, they will no longer be eligible for additional prizes within this giveaway.  In other words, the same person can apply for a new giveaway promotion in the future if/when one is held, but cannot win more than 1 prize for this give-away.

How winners will be announced

• Winners will be announced via a blog post on Monday, November 2nd.
• Winners will be alerted via email and asked to choose their prize.
• Check your spam folder. Any winners who do not reply within a week will forfeit their prize.

Support Us: Buy Swag

Many of the items in this give-away are available for sale through Zazzle.  If you like our swag and want to buy your own, here’s how you can support us and save money…

Buy Frequent Miler Swag on Zazzle (for less)

Here’s a link to Frequent Miler Swag: www.zazzle.com/s/frequentmiler

Here are some tips for saving money with Zazzle (this is not limited to Frequent Miler swag):

• Look for offers available through your credit card.  For example, currently Chase has an offer for 5% back, and Amex has an offer: Spend $75 or more, get $15 back (through 12/31/20)
• Find a good portal option. As I write this, Giving Assistant is offering 15% back.  If you haven’t yet signed up for Giving Assistant, use my referral link to get $5 for signing up (and I’ll earn $5 when you earn additional cash back).
• After clicking through from a portal to Zazzle, search within Zazzle for the term “frequentmiler” (but without quotes) to find our products. We’re adding new items regularly, so check back later if you don’t see what you want.  Note too that most items are customizable to your own tastes.
• Apply a promo code for a discount.  Through October 31st, you can use the code SPOOKYTREATZ to get 31% off.
• Get free shipping.  When checking out, sign up for a trial Membership to Zazzle Black.  Make sure to cancel Zazzle Black after your item ships, so that you won’t be charged a membership fee (unless you want to keep it: it only costs about $10 per year).
• If you were able to stack all of the above options perfectly, you would buy $109 worth of stuff for $75, and you’d get back:
  • $15 from Amex for the Amex offer (Spend $75, Get $15 back)
  • $16.25: $11.25 from GivingAssistant (15% of $75) + $5 for signing up
  • Total cost after rebates: $43.75 for stuff listed at $109 total.