The unofficial slogan at MEAB is “always be probing“ because often the best deals for churning, manufactured spend, and travel hacking are those that you discover and no one else knows anything about. That said, there’s plenty of merit in “teamwork makes the dream work” in this hobby and its important to balance both strategies.
To me, balance means working in the hobby individually, but also in functional groups. Specifically, I segment all of my reading and learning in to one of a few buckets:
- A very small group of close friends in the hobby with similar skill levels
- A medium size group of similar interests
- Specific topic groups (ex. Fluz, award redemption, bank bonuses)
- Individual reading (this blog I guess?)
Each and every one of these buckets has upped my game and continues to do so; I learn important information, discover new deals, and get new ideas essentially every day.
My suggestion for you: If you don’t have something for each of the above buckets, find a way to remedy that; it’ll almost certainly up your game. If you’re not sure where to look, ask someone in the hobby or start with a basic group and network your way into small, medium, or topic specific groups from there. Good groups can be found on Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, online forums, slack, and discord.
Have a nice weekend and fill those buckets!
There’s more than one way to fill a bucket.