Anyone who knows me knows that I follow deals, especially air fare deals. The primary love of my life (after Won’t Run and my family) is theFlightDeal. I owe a lot to them. There are many places in this world that I’ve traveled to because of their alerts and their hard work. And what they do IS work, even though they love what they do.
Sharing is caring?
There are many other websites that also share airfare deal info. In recent years, I discovered SecretFlying and loved to watch the often zany deals and destinations they posted. There are others too.
However, it was recently pointed out to me that nearly every single deal SF posts is a rehash of some other website’s posted deal. I started watching other websites such as Fly4Free and AirfareSpot. And, BANG! like clockwork, as soon as FlightDeal or Flyertalk or one of these other websites post a new airfare deal, SF copies it and posts it as their own. Not just sometimes – but EVERY SINGLE EFFING TIME.
And here’s the part that bothers me most: SF NEVER GIVES A HT OR OTHER ATTRIBUTION OR THANKS OR LINKS TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER OF THE DEAL. Frankly, I think that stinks.
SF is a copycat.
Most bloggers that I respect are fair (my fingers keep typing fare!). If they learn of a deal from Flyertalk or from some other source, they let that be known. They give credit. Information is rarely unique, but reputable bloggers share info and state where they got that info from.
SF is a copycat. Why? Affiliate links. CLICKS equal money. SF copies the content, but ask you to use their hotel or flight booking links, all without crediting the original author.
I will look for the originator.
Now, I’m not saying that SF is committing a crime. Many websites exist to make money, and I have no issue with that. But I do find their antics misleading. I’m not saying I won’t follow SF – getting an alert to a deal from them is a good “heads up” to a deal. The SF-type websites out there serve a purpose, but I’ve made a personal decision generally not to use their links but to instead use the links of the source of their deal post.
So too, if I am going to post about an airfare deal I’ve learned about from SF, I will do a little research and, when possible give credit to the originator of that information.
So, here’s what I say.
From now on I’m going to show a little more love to the FlightDeals, the Fly4Frees and the AirfareSpots of this world, and less to the SFs of this world.
A New York frequent flyer who elegantly combines her passions for worldwide travel, running a gazillion marathons all over the globe and staying fit ... without sacrificing her fancy for good wine and food.
Thanks for this. I’ve gone to secret flying in the past and just thought SF, flightdeal, airfare watchdog, etc. all use the same source (but I guess not?) From now on I’ll just stick to flightdeal then since it seems like a lot of these other sites use that as the source.
I do feel though that a lot of information found here on boarding area or prior2boarding were at first found from flyertalk. I see some bloggers put a HT to that specific thread on flyertalk whereas others I at times don’t see HT.
Finally someone is speaking up about this shameful practice.
DansDeals is another flagrant violator of this unwritten bloggers code of ethics.
He pawns off FT posts as his own regularly. He then creates his own affiliate links.
I have called him out on this many times but he filters the comments on his site and never allows them through.
Thank you for covering this topic.
I didn’t know these other sites even existed, so thank you as they are now booked-marked. SF is now deleted.
I didn’t know about them either until recently.
TheFlightDeal never gives attribution either to other sites. I see two deals from past four days I posted day before TFD. Did my posts lead TFD to deal. Don’t know, don’t care.
The deals are there when they are there.
The silly thing about HT links are how is a reader or publisher to know if the deal was taken from someone else? Last week two BoardingArea bloggers posted an airfare deal HT: ThePointsGuy.
When I clicked their links to TPG, the article there ended with HT: LoyaltyTraveler.
What is the appropriate HT?
Where the blogger read the deal?
I don’t think that there’s one easy answer. I do think a HT should reach back not to the last link, but to the originator especially if its easy to find. If you post something in BA, then another BA posts it, you should get credit down the line. It shouldn’t be a popularity contest!
as I said, though, there’s no easy answer – the fact that this post is getting people thinking about issue means its a success.
thanks so much Ric for your blog and so much original content!
In that case I would link both sources
HT: ThePointsGuy and LoyaltyTraveler
I’m glad you became aware of SF tactics. Everytime you posted that you found the deal there I groaned. SF and F4F are two of the worst.
As for TFD, i have nothing but respect for them. I hope you can attend their next NYC get together and meet them.
Thank you for your ethics. The redundant content is anti-click bait for me. Thank You for saying something.
Now we just need to get rid of the Champagne 1st class pictures/content. 🙂
All flight deal websites take deals from one another. Not sure why you’ve targeted Secret Flying as the only ones who did it.
As someone mentioned above, F4F do it just as bad.
I’ve seen Secret Flying find an Error Fare and all the other sites have “copied” them without reference.
If anything, Secret Flying is by far the best website because of their easy to use interface and the many example dates they provide for each deal.
Looks like the author has a vendetta against SF.
Here is an interesting case example from past few hours.
About 30 minutes ago I came across Philadelphia to Madrid for $454 on United. As I was writing up the fare for anarticle on Loyalty Traveler it increased to $600s. Once my post was invalidated, I checked SecretFlying and TheFlightDeal to see both of them had already posted about this, based on Twitter time stamps, 32 min (TFD) and 40 min (SF) earlier.
I had not seen their posts before working on my own article.
Secret Flying – 4:56 PM – 20 Jun 2016 It’s back…Philadelphia or Dallas to Barcelona or Madrid, Spain from only $389 roundtrip!!
http://www.secretflying.com/2016/06/mega-post-philadelphia-dallas-phoenix-spain-387-roundtrip/
TheFlightDeal – 5:03 PM – 20 Jun 2016 [Summer Fare] Star Alliance – About $500: Miami / Dallas / Philadelphia / St. Louis – Barcelona / Madrid / Helsinki. Roundtrip, including all Taxes
http://www.theflightdeal.com/2016/06/20/summer-fare-star-alliance-about-500-miami-dallas-philadelphia-st-louis-barcelona-madrid-helsinki-roundtrip-including-all-taxes/
The time stamps look too close to have copied each other. Was there another source?
No reason to think there was another source. They could have easily found it independently. I found this fare independently, but I stopped writing my article when the fare went up.
Philadelphia was already gone within 30 minutes of their posts. DFW and MIA to Spain is still in $400s at the time of writing this comment.
Secretflying.com also has this post from 2:54 PM – 20 Jun 2016.
http://www.secretflying.com/2016/06/miami-barcelona-madrid-spain-397-roundtrip/.
If PHL had not gone up, then I would have likely found MIA and DFW myself without having seen their posts, since I would have looked for other AA hubs with low UA fares. STL I would not have seen.
The past three days these fares have come and gone repeatedly in less than three hours.
The fares are easy to find if you are looking frequently. Obviously sites built on posting low fares as their business model are run by people looking at fares many times throughout the day. I was eating dinner and writing other things at the time these fares came up and they will probably be gone in the next hour or two.
And within minutes after leaving my last comment, I published a post showing that Delta matched these fares from DFW, MIA, STL, PHL. Philadelphia came back with United in $400s when Delta matched their fares from all the airports to Barcelona, Madrid and Helsinki.
The whole strategy of airfares is to keep the consumer guessing.
These fare wars continue.
I built on the work of both SecretFlying and TheFlightDeal. As I said earlier, I doubt I would have noticed St. Louis if not for TheFlightDeal, but all the other low fares were easy to spot.
and on occasion, I’ve “discovered” sales because of Kayak price alerts I had set. This happened a few months ago when I booked my trip to Amsterdam for my school reunion on TAP. It was part of a massive TAP sale that I booked before the air deal websites covered it.
You can easily track who copies what with examples of ‘x in 1’ trips that usually are more custom and unique than round trip flights.
Try checking who and how fast copied this one, originally posted @ f4f 😉
http://www.fly4free.com/flight-deals/europe/incredible-journey-from-paris-uae-south-africa-seychelles-and-india-for-only-e654/
SF is so scammy – they auto follow/like their FB page if you visit their site and is login to your FB account.
I love The Flight Deal too. They are always great about answering questions travel and finding some great fares.
Thanks for this article. It’s really helpful to expand my understanding.
Every frequent flier loves airfare deals. As a flier, I certainly like on those part to follow the ethics as they offers deals (and, not just to concentrate on revenues).
thank you for this comment. Actually the plot thickens – I’ve learned a lot more info in the past few days.
That sounds great!
Secret Flying is the scum of he airfare website world. Totally pathetic.
Pretty strong words. I’m discovering lots of mysteries among the airfare website world. It’s very interesting.
Thanks for the best blog. it was very useful for me.keep sharing such ideas in the future as well.
Thank you for sharing great article and information regarding deals.