Get 500 free Virgin Flying Club miles for installing their shopping toolbar

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• Archie says:

  7 Apr7 April 07:01

  Shocked to see the 3rd daily email today was a naked advert for yachting business. The whole appeal to me of hfp is the impartial, candid nature of the posts. Will be unsubscribing if this is the way forward.

  • Paul says:

    7 Apr7 April 07:37

    Sorry, but me too. I love your site, Raffles, but thought the yacht ad was poor show — on the site maybe fair enough, but not spammed out to your email subscribers. It’s not even miles/points themed!

  • John says:

    7 Apr7 April 07:41

    Noticed this too, in addition to the tracking links used now instead of direct URLs and a heavy push for referral links rather than providing a balanced impartial opinion.

    • Volker says:

      7 Apr7 April 07:58

      How do these tracking links work?

      • Rob says:

        7 Apr7 April 09:53

        It is totally impartial! The content is not driven by what may or may not generate a very modest amount of money from click-throughs.

        If I start running obscure posts for Latvian Air then you can be fairly sure there is money involved, but apart from that …!

    • GlennM says:

      7 Apr7 April 14:50

      I have to disagree John, I think its okay to have the odd sponsored page when its kept in moderation. The advertising was clearly noted as a sponsored page, and the website clearly outlines affiliates and advertising that takes place.

      The only thing I might cringe at is that it came through by email too – which is less preferred, however I always have the choice, if I don’t like the email I can un-subscribe!

      I was interested in the fact that the comments section on that advert/sponsored post was disabled though – I would have loved to have read the comments that would have been VERY likely 🙂

  • CV says:

    7 Apr7 April 08:11

    I have no issue with Raffles making a buck out of what is a great website, i would encourage it. But, that article sitting in my inbox is in my opinion a spam email – its about as relevant to me as all those groupon variations.

    I have recommended this website to a lot of people, and hope they find the same use out of it as i do, but no one would thank me for adding to the spam in their inbox and in the future were it to continue then it would make it harder for me to recommend.

    • squills says:

      7 Apr7 April 09:07

      Not directed @ you particularly CV – but IMHO people should get over it, it’s not exactly difficult to see it’s a sponsored link and easy to ignore.

      We know Raffles is trying to make a go of it as a points blogger with frills and the posts & discussion here are pretty useful. He probably wouldn’t find it so easy to justify what he does to his wife if the blog didn’t pull in a few quid as well.

      Look at (say) Nomadic Matt’s blog for a comparison of what HFP is not, HFP is infinitely less commercial and the better for it IMV 😉

      • John says:

        7 Apr7 April 09:29

        Yes it is currently less commercial than other blogs, but is steadily moving towards it.

        • Rob says:

          7 Apr7 April 09:57

          I think this is ‘it’ in terms of where commercialisation can go, to be honest. There is very little more I can add. What I am trying to do, frankly, is position the site so that it is sustainable if (because of the new FCA regulations) Amex pull the plug on card referrals.

        • Alan says:

          7 Apr7 April 13:25

          Out if interest, do you think those regulatory changes will impact on personal referrals too or just the sort of higher volume ones that you do via a website?

        • Rob says:

          7 Apr7 April 13:43

          Absolutely no idea. Mainly because the FCA’s position on a lot of things is still unclear, but they have been taking a ‘big stick’ approach on issues where they have intervened which is worrying some people. On the basis that refer a friend still exists today, post April 1st, I assume that Amex is happy for it to continue.

        • scroogemcduck says:

          7 Apr7 April 16:27

          Some people are just ridiculous – how do you think this site runs? On hot air? It costs money to run. It costs someone’s time to run. And for the amount of money it saves people, what is the issue here? HKUD has affiliate links all over the place, MSE now directs people to MoneySupermarket.com. For a blog that is mainly read by people in business, surely you should applaud someone for seeing a business opportunity, a chance to make a bit of money whilst doing something they love. For some people though it may be a bit of jealousy that they are not the ones making the money.

    • Rob says:

      7 Apr7 April 09:47

      Whilst I understand your point, it was clearly marked in the header as a sponsored post, so you can delete it without having to open it. It is a one-off and there are no other plans.

      I did NOT actively solicit this – the company approached me and it seemed acceptable.

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 09:45

    It is a one-off. They wanted to advertise on the site but Hilton has tied down a lot of the top slots for the foreseeable future, so this was a compromise. It is clearly marked as sponsored and you are welcome to skip over it.

    Had it not been travel / holiday related it would not have run.

    There will not be a spate of such posts going forward, I promise you.

    • Name says:

      7 Apr7 April 09:56

      This is great to hear and appreciate you taking the constructive criticism.

    • Erico1875 says:

      7 Apr7 April 12:48

      I dont see why you need to apologiseor explain anything Raffles
      Indeed, 1 sponsored post a day would not be unreasonable for the goldmine of information you willingly give away FOC.
      I cant understand these people who grudge you from prospering a little for your expertise.
      Martin Lewis sold his site for £68million. Good on him, and you too.

    • Paul says:

      7 Apr7 April 18:58

      Raffles, thanks for the follow-up, it’s good to hear you don’t have further plans for ongoing posts of this ilk. Just for the record I’ve no issues over referral links — that’s totally fair play and to be expected. I wouldn’t even have objected too much if the sponsored post was directly miles/points related, and/or limited to the site only — it was the seemingly irrelevant subject matter sent out by email which I found annoying. Do keep up the great work with the site — a valuable source of information.

• Empers says:

  7 Apr7 April 07:46

  Maybe an obvious question, but how long do you have to keep it to get the 500 points, before you can uninstall the toolbar?

• Boi says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:20

  I can’t seem to find the button to install it…

• ankomonkey says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:24

  I did this last week and have received 1000 miles (500 x 2, but with different credit descriptions both linked to Miles Finder)!

  • Matthew says:

    7 Apr7 April 08:49

    Same here…two bonuses of 500pts 🙂

  • Trevor says:

    7 Apr7 April 13:38

    And me! Odd since it says one is for “Shopping Miles Purchase Transaction” yet I didn’t make a purchase?!

• Boi says:

  7 Apr7 April 08:28

  while on virgin, I applied for their ISA to get the free miles. I applied for hubby and I at the same time. hubby got his 5000 bonus miles last week, I am still waiting. How long can it take and how do I follow it up?

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 10:00

    They post once a week as far as I can tell. Give it another 7 days and then chase. I have never heard of anyone having problems.

• squills says:

  7 Apr7 April 09:00

  Same here, 1000 from last week:

  Shopping Miles Purchase Transaction 500
  Miles Finder Transaction 500

  I was unable to make it download in Internet Explorer but it was simple enough in Chrome 😉

  • Coreen Griffiths says:

    7 Apr7 April 13:23

    Can you download it on an iPad or has it got to be a laptop thanks

    • Rob says:

      7 Apr7 April 13:24

      I read somewhere else (forgotten where) that you can try to install it on an iPad and it fails. However, the points still appear! I cannot verify this obviously!

      • Matthew says:

        7 Apr7 April 23:42

        I can confirm this happened to me and the double points posted!

• William Charles says:

  7 Apr7 April 09:32

  Any geographical restrictions?

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 10:02

    Dunno! It is designed for the UK but not sure they could track it, unless only people with a UK Virgin account get it. But I doubt they are that switched on.

    • Trevor says:

      7 Apr7 April 13:39

      They can easily track it and/or restrict it through IP address. If you do it, try use a proxy first to show you as being behind a UK IP address.

      • David says:

        7 Apr7 April 13:53

        Virgin and their shopping portal outsource provider should have no reason to care where you are.

        Whether specific merchants wants to do business with you outside the UK is the merchants own concern. It would be outright bonkers for Virgin to limit it themselves, espeically by a GeoIP method given that they are a personal international transportation company with customers who routinly find themselves outside the UK.

        But stranger and stupider things have of course sadly happened….

• Matthew says:

  7 Apr7 April 09:59

  Newbie question but can I just sign up for a Virgin account to start collecting points..? Any sign up bonus..?

  • Rob says:

    7 Apr7 April 10:01

    You can use a referral from someone else, but you only get a bonus if take a Virgin flight within x months of signing up. If you’ve got no cash tickets on Virgin lined up its not worth bothering with.

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