If you’re a regular reader of travel/points blogs like this one, you probably heard a lot about a conference called BACON that happened this past weekend in Las Vegas. What was BACON? figured I’d give my take on what exactly it is and how I felt about it.
First of all, BACON is short for “Boarding Area Conference” and this is the second one that Boarding Area (BA) has had. Last year’s was in Colorado and I was invited despite not being a BA member, but elected not to go. That was a decision I came to regret in the following months and do until this day. I missed a tremendous opportunity.
This year, I’m actually a member of the BA family. I joined Prior2Boarding very recently (you probably noticed a new domain name) and I’m still getting fully integrated (my email subscribers haven’t been moved over yet but I promise it will be done soon!), but I’m considered a member now. That meant that I earned an invitation to this year’s BACON, which took place in Las Vegas this past weekend.
It’s a gathering of all BA bloggers, staff, and their +1s for a convention where we can meet each other and learn from various panels of speakers that were arranged for us. There was a lot of airline and hotel SWAG for us also, and I hope to give away some of it soon (I have lots of giveaways planned, FYI). There were also a handful of non-BA members invited to the conference, similar to how I was invited last year.
We had seminars on quite a few topics. These included a media panel with writers from USA Today and The Associated Press, a Google Analytics workshop with a Product Marketing Manager at Google, a session on legal issues facing bloggers (I missed this one unfortunately), a panel on affiliate programs including representatives from Barclaycard, a session on how to improve our writing, and a session on how to use Jetpack and their plugins.
So as you can see, it wasn’t all fun and games. The focus of the conference was learning and figuring out not only how to drive more views to your blog, but how to write better content and evaluate the traffic you do get. Contrary to what you might have heard from others, this wasn’t just a big “hey you’re awesome” conference where everyone receives pats on the back and encouragement to do whatever they need to sell themselves. There was a heavy focus on quality and true improvement.
There were also social events on Friday and Saturday night and we all got to ride on the new High Roller Las Vegas, the giant Ferris wheel installed aside the strip. It provided amazing views of the city.
My favorite part of this conference by far was Randy Petersen. I’d met him before but only briefly, but I finally got a chance to introduce myself and chat with him for a few minutes this weekend. I also got to hear him speak on a variety of topics. If I had to pick a word to describe him, I would easily choose “inspirational.”
The passion this man has is remarkable. He’s commonly referred to as the “godfather of frequent flyer miles” because he’s been in this business longer than anyone. For those that don’t know, he’s the founder at FlyerTalk, BoardingArea, Milepoint, Freddie Awards, InsideFlyer, Launchpoint, and RoomExpert. He’s been interviewed and quoted literally hundreds (possibly thousands) of times in various news outlets.
But despite all this, the guy really cares about people. He’s a very generous guy. It’s no secret that BA takes a portion of advertising revenue from the ads displayed on BA blogs, but this weekend I got to see where much of that money goes. It goes into a really great staff, the conference itself, and investment in technology upgrades behind the scenes that helps our lives as bloggers a lot easier.
Beyond that, he’s genuinely interested in helping us improve as bloggers. He provides financial support to register trademarks, LLCs (to a limited degree at least), buy domain names, and even pays for drinks at some reader meet-ups. On top of that, he made a point to say that everyone that’s part of the Boarding Area family must give back. BA makes donations and does quite a few other things behind the scenes that would make the humanitarian in anyone smile.
I had my own preconceptions about Boarding Area and BACON before I joined or had a chance to participate, but this weekend has left me with a much, much better impression of literally everything. And most importantly, I’m very glad to know that Randy Petersen is so passionate about BA and takes a interest in developing bloggers like myself. I’ve been writing for over two years but can see that there’s so much I need to learn.
So…don’t believe any of the negative stuff you heard because it was probably taken out of context. I’m generally known as someone that’s very critical of things and have voiced my criticism of blogs in the past, including those at BA. I can happily say that nothing done by BA this weekend had any negative or nefarious purpose. Yes BA wants blogs to get more traffic, but the focus was on developing quality content to accomplish that…not to pump out posts or anything else.
Interesting Information I Asked About
I’ve had many, many, many, many experiences with affiliate companies in the past, so I asked the credit card affiliate people whether being rejected or declined by affiliate companies in the past would affect me in the future. The answer from the Barclay representatives was that no, not necessarily. They said it was all based on how my website was performing at the time in terms of views, but of course they didn’t give specifics on how many are needed.
I also asked Randy Petersen whether or not any blog has been involuntary removed from Boarding Area in the past. He answered quickly with a “Yes” and said he could remember two of them. There are certain things BA does not tolerate, the biggest of which is plagiarism. Blogs can also be placed on both voluntary and involuntary “sabbatical” if they’re not posting on a regular basis. That was wonderful for me to hear.
Sorry, I find this hard to believe for two reasons:
1) Randy Peterson, who you say is inspirational, is the one actively trying to push airlines to revenue models, effectively removing any inspiration from the programs and making them interchangeable commodities. All Randy has cared about for a while now is $$$$, and building up BA to sell it is his #1 goal. He sees the end of FF programs as we know them coming and is trying to cash in before that.
2) Delta Air Lines was a key speaker- why would the most unfriendly FF program come speak at a BA conference? My guess is to push you to promote SkyMiles2015. And having credit card companies speak on how to increase referrals is not quite in the reader’s best interest..
1) None of what you mentioned was present at the conference.
2) I’m guessing Delta came because no one else wanted to. They didn’t push anything – in fact they were asked a ton of tough questions by the bloggers about whey they suck so bad.
You also must have mis-read what I wrote, because I never mentioned that the credit card companies spoke on how to increase referrals. They did the opposite – explain why so many of us don’t have links because of compliance issues. They also mentioned that they’re looking for “quality customers” rather than the ones looking for miles.
So…you can keep believing that BA is terrible and everyone is out to get you (and effectively call me a liar) or you can believe me when I tell you what went down this weekend.
Wow, I politely disagreed and you took it persona- my advice is to be able to take criticism. I’m sorry, but BA is a business, and companies wouldn’t spend their own funds to come out and tell you how to give them less business. Everyone has the same end game in mind, and that is to increase revenue.
There will always be friction- BA bloggers claim to give readers ‘travel hacks’ and ‘secrets’, yet it becomes less believable when all bloggers attend a conference like this.
Of course BA is a business, and so is Travel Summary. Who doesn’t want to make money? The important factor is how one goes about doing that, and the whole point of this weekend was the quality of content. Of course that leads to more views and more money, but does the reader care at that point? They got quality content.
I don’t understand why you insist that the speakers at this conference were trying to explain how to push their product more. That wasn’t the purpose at all. They literally explained how their business works, how and to whom they release information, and how we can be better informed.
If you don’t think BA bloggers provide hacks or secrets, that’s fine…but this conference has nothing to do with that.
Thank you for explaining BAcon to us. I have seen other bloggers talk about BACON but not really explain what it was exactly — so reading your post explained a lot of things for a BA reader such as myself.
I’m actually surprised no BA blogger has written about Delta’s session at BAcon. If you guys asked tough questions, what were they? How did Delta respond?
I think it’s funny how the credit card companies are looking for “quality customers” — if they were, then I don’t understand why they cater to miles/points bloggers (just being honest here.) I heard Amex pulled all their affiliate links earlier this year. Were there questions from the audience asking why they chose that route and whether Chase or Barclaycard would follow that route? I’ve been reading BA blogs for a few years now and after Amex took away the affiliate links, I’ve noticed a decrease in blog posts about the Amex Gold/Plat card and its benefits.
I don’t think BA is terrible at all but I don’t think it’s perfect either. I’m more curious about the purpose of prior2boarding. Is it the same as BA? Different? Why have a different domain name instead of just including everyone, including yours, to BA? Just wondering.
I’ve learned a lot from all of you and hope to learn more. Thank you again.
Most of the hard questions were met with marketing template-sounding answers like “we will allow one-ways” and other highlights of benefits rather than the negatives. From a blogger perspective, people asked the Delta reps why they release info to only the “big” bloggers and don’t give a chance to anyone else. The response was that they’ve had a long-term relationship with those bloggers, so they trust them. They say their goal is to reach a wide audience, so the “big” bloggers can accomplish that better than most others.
The “gamimg” of programs was also discussed, and the Delta reps said they do their best to make sure things like that don’t happen. One rep admitted to buying a mistake fare once before he worked for the company.
I also thought the “quality customers” part was interesting, but at the same time it explains why so many credit card issuers have removed bloggers as affiliates. I think they’ve realized that people like us often times sign up just for the points, which is less financially beneficial to the banks. Thus the push from their end is to find people who will not just sign up for, but also keep the card beyond the first year. I wouldn’t be surprised if you start to see more posts that explain why certain cards are worth keeping (not that they don’t already exist).
Unfortunately no Amex or Chase reps were there – only one from Barclaycard and affiliate managers from bankrate (who basically run the affiliate companies). The decrease in Amex posts is probably due to the lack of affiliate payout. With that being said, there are still some posts about their cards. Not many are great right now anyway.
The purpose of P2B is to take the heat off of the BA front page. There are dozens of BA bloggers, and much of their content gets pushed down on the main page. Adding more bloggers wouldn’t be beneficial to the BA main page or the bloggers on it. P2B is designed for bloggers who are generally new or establishing themselves. They can learn the ropes and build readership there without being overshadowed by the big blogs on BA.
Thank you so much for the reply! As for the ‘quality customer’ — if banks made it impossible to churn cards, then I’d think they’d get the quality customer out of the miles/points folks.
Thank you for this post, it’s best one on BACon of all I’ve read which actually explains it and describes what’s going on and taught me something NEW, unlike other 20~50 posts that focus on their Taxis, Hotel/$20 tips/Upgrades, etc…
haha you’re welcome!
I second Jerry!!!! Oh and Thx TravelSummary for your response to my earlier comment!!! Everything you stated made sense.