Since the beginning of the hobby, there was generally a natural progression to move from churner to shrimp to dolphin to whale using whatever was the most popular platform of the time. Whether it was back in the day on Flyertalk, /r/churning, or deep down in comment threads on Doctor of Credit, you gradually picked up the context of what things were by committing to learning about it. 

This was a tedious process, and it certainly weeded out people that didn’t want to put in the legwork of better understanding the game. But it wasn’t that serious – I remember getting downvoted to oblivion on reddit many moons ago when I asked if the annual fee on a Southwest card counted towards Companion Pass, and I’m still here.

Things have changed a lot since then – /r/churning is a ghost town compared to its heyday, and Elliott Management has ensured that Southwest went from a program with extreme usefulness to yet another bad domestic airline. 

When the AApocalypse and nutritional supplement implosions happened, there was a natural push to move things out of the publicly indexable eye and safely out of a crawler searching things like “credit card offers for my houseplants”.

Nowadays, you can find the churning and MS chatter taking place in groups across every platform you can think of – from giant Facebook groups to tiny Whatsapp and Telegram chats. 

Much like Flyertalk and /r/churning, the ratio of legitimate discussion to the same question over and over varies day to day and group by group. For example, the major award travel Facebook groups are probably not a great place for even a beginner, because there’s so much static from easily searchable questions obscuring the helpful info. 

However, there are other places that are more helpful for scaling up. Private groups spun up in two forms – small probe groups of people that already knew each other, and paid groups from prominent creators who offered more exclusive content and chats. 

Much like their predecessors, there was an expectation of Googling easily answerable questions and contributing equally to the community. Speaking to my journey, I would occasionally post a negative data point and get a politely worded answer of “how did you possibly think that would work?”

Regardless of what era of the hobby and flavor of learning platform you had, you probably made a lot of mistakes along the way. Those missteps are invaluable on your journey from shrimp to dolphin to whale. It’s much better to learn about concepts like kiting when you’re moving four figures instead of six, and it’s much better to get shutdown by a very sensitive issuer early on than an important one later. 

Perhaps most importantly of all, making the mistake of hesitating on a play or signing up for a new debit is something you can only learn in time. Even ten years in, I was kicking myself this morning for the fact that some of my loops I can only run in one player mode due to procrastination years ago. 

However, over the last few years (and especially in the era of a plump man’s logistics company) there are people who have decided to ignore the best interest of the community, opting to essentially sell the trade secrets to anyone willing to pay for a Substack subscription with zero vetting. 

It’s an extremely shortsighted choice and is directly contributing to the war on happiness, but hey, this is America, who is going to tell them no? 

For me, the biggest concern is on the beginners they’re bringing in with unrealistic promises.

The value proposition is very different compared to some of the OG private groups associated with mainstay churning/MS content and feels much more like the kind of direct response marketing you’d see in the classifieds of tabloid rag promising riches while working from home.

Pictured: Whop grifters promising things you could learn yourself for the low, low price of $697

vs.

The Ron Swanson-esque value prop for Vinh over at Miles Per Day

Putting aside the obvious fact that guaranteeing that a certain easy MS method will stay alive and contribute to that $10k goal in 2026 is asking for trouble, some random kid on Whop should not be jumping straight into full MS without learning about the basics of the hobby first. That’s how people end up buying five figures on closed-loop gift cards they have zero use for.  

I think messaging things like “earn $20k/yr in credit card points when you sign up” is so irresponsible when you aren’t ensuring that the people signing up have the foundation necessary to navigate the inevitable troubles that occur when MSing. But at the same time, that headline sells a hell of a lot better than the realistic copy that some of the legacy communities use.

Even in my own experience, I’ve had a couple of friends who I helped get deep quickly. Even with monitoring, some of them were shutdown for doing reckless things because they didn’t know they were reckless. And since I had learned not to do said thing 8 years ago, I didn’t think to mention it. 

Anyway, unlike the people who parlayed getting into a private group into essentially grifting that info elsewhere, I’ve always believed there’s more money to be made building a community of like minded people. Most of us are clear-eyed about the fact that you had some level of chance interaction to get to where you are now, outside of the oldest of heads. 

I’ll continue to do my best helping point people that are ready for it in the right direction, while also respecting that spoonfeeding isn’t doing anyone any favors, and that’s what I’d suggest to you too. 

Coming soon: EARN $5K A DAY WITH CHASING CETACEANS LOOP PLAYBOOK /s (jk) and whatever else I need to say to make this clearly tongue in cheek.

Hope your new year is off to a great start friends!

Terviseks!