Necker Island, here we come!

A long time ago a friend of mine turned me onto the notion of doing Necker. At the time the Contour card was working, as were many other 5x and prepaid options and then some. In no time at all, without having to get more than one VS CC, we had enough miles for Necker. We could not go that year but said we would go the next. And then this thread came out revealing that FF would be going.

Now, I have met Greg and yes he is a nice guy and all, but in terms of what he does for “work” he is pretty much my enemy and that of anyone who really does MS. Or did, shall I say.

There have been many discussions on bloggers and deals and who outs what and why and what it does to people. Some here may argue that his site helped them get miles or points or cash back. Others know, as I do, deep in their heart of hearts, that all he did was to reconfigure and pretty up bits of knowledge already out there but more in the down-low settings and blast it on this site so as to tout himself as a helper, whereas instead, he was merely doing ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he could to generate hits and bring in more interest and people to this blog. With that, people would click on links to CCs he touted, and those CCs pay him a cut for every application he invariably brings them all. So on the one hand, yeah, he filters the info people claim they dont have the time to go find or invent themselves (because they are lazy or stupid and also rude for not innovating and trying like others have before them) for the masses and in turn those masses click on CC links to get the cards they need anyway, but he gets rich in the process. I am not against someone getting rich from capitalistic schema such as CC links, but I do not like how it happened. That a blogger such as greg can basically out everything and get paid to do it, ruin every avenue and not care that it dies (because he doesnt really MS anyway so who cares) and profit from the hastening of the death of what was once a very good set of games and gigs. I could go on. Some of you heard me go on before. Some have excuses and counter arguments. But the fact is, much of what was great MS is totally dead. And we have Greg and a few others like him to thank for that. The antithesis of MS. The reason why much of this, even if it would have eventually ended, didnt last another year or two like it could have.

If someone told you that all the MS you could do would earn you another say $20-30k if it lasted one more year, would you have wanted that one more year? Yes you would have! He made it so that did not happen for any of us.

The only benefit, as others like me have said, is that now, soon, since he has nothing to post but maybe some uber coupons and staples deals, he may need to get a real job again.

As for Necker… How many here got so far through and got shut down by the bank? Or lost places through which to buy or burn GCs? Or messed up their other chances at other cards and deals? How many attained the number of miles needed only to find there’s no room at the inn?

Well, we wanted to find out when Greg was going to go there. I contacted him and asked him and he told me. I said, gee Greg, wouldnt it be cool to go at the same time as us? He agreed. Well, this prompted him to tell us when he was going. In reality it helped me decide when NOT to go. But in the end, we decided to avoid the island all together so we could enjoy our once in a life time trip without having to talk to a bunch of Gregs or Greg wannabes that may happen to be there at the same time as us.

We rallied and contacted the Ulusaba Experience, another Branson special, and we had to get a bit more miles and swing a deal with them, but now our whole family is one upping the island and heading to Safari in South Africa instead! Maybe I’ll be eaten by a lion for acting mean. But at least I wont have to face the bloke who ruined what had been a really cool hobby and miles/money maker. It is likely people wont follow me there using VS miles any time soon.

Marathon Man still does 2x Cap One and sometimes SPG at his local mall and orders some GCs online. He can still burn in some places and that’s because a lot of MSers who subscribe to this blog fortunately do not live where he lives. MM always believed in sharing, but through word of mouth, text and small email groups. Big scenes like blogs and large forums stopped working for MS long ago. Deals get killed too quickly, and now what we are seeing is that the CC companies and others are most definitely looking directly at MS forums and blogs to learn how to stop it. I mean, look at the letter everybody got from Wells! Look at the T&Cs put in place by Alaska, who named travel hackers as the reason for its changes. They can see this stuff, and I told you all it would happen. We could have prevented or at least prolonged the outcome. The only other part is that I am sure the volley of back and forths generated from this post and ones like it will give FM more hits for a while, but hey, what CC are you gonna get now? Chase has the 5/24 rule, Amex pays only once in a life time, Cap One denies a lot of people and reduced its travel redemption use for points, and Barclays shuts everybody down. Wells pretty much will if you even think of buying a GC anywhere, and a lot of stores wont sell em or let you burn em. Stores that do wanna see “real debit cards” and there’s even rumors of many CVSs going cash only. Charge Smart is all but done, and the Feds will come down on you if you use the USPS too much. Scammers hack and steal the digits from activated $200 MC GCs, and the airlines keep upping or changing their award amounts. Anyone wanna go back in time just a year or so?

Congratulations! I have been vicariously following your journey to get these miles, and I’ll be enjoying Necker island vicariously through you too. Please write about every single detail on this trip!

Also, Here is an idea, check with them on upcoming celebration weeks in the near future that might be booked up but to let you know if someone cancels and a spot opens up. We did this this to get a discounted stay at the exclusive and expensive cayo espanto in Belize..

I just went to an island in the bahamas in Oct with my wife. No weather issues. Although it may be a good idea to check what their policy is in case of bad weather.

Yes, as i replied in an email, I would plan to go maybe Oct 1 week and it could be fun to go with other milers.

I earned my VS a while ago doing several things, and having the card was only one. My wife actually has all the points not me. She had ONE VS card. But I did a ton of heavy MS using the then workable contour card. Also at the time, people could still transfer UR and MR to others not related to them so I did a ton of trades for other awards people needed that I could book. So we are sitting on just over 1.2mil now and we have never flown VS.