“According to my sources,” a phrase that I’ve always wanted to say, REDBird is dead. Within the BoardingArea family, Miles to Memories broke the story, Frequent Miler confirmed the story. Then an actual Target employee emailed me to say that he had seen the memo first-hand putting an end to this speculation once and for all.
Never before have I seen people so up in arms about an announcement though I understand why. DEADbird was our lifeline to a world we otherwise could not afford.
Did Target do away with the Bird because of manufacturers, money launderers, or because it was simply unprofitable? Who knows, not even Deep Throat. All I know is that it is dead and I won’t be returning to Target ever again. They can keep their 5% off, Amazon is still cheaper.
Thanks for the memories but it’s time to move on.
Stay with TPOL for the latest breaking news. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. (Another line I’ve always wanted to say.)
A phrase I’ve always wanted to say, indeed! I’m reluctantly becoming a fan of your blog. No fair! You trick people with good writing.
Lol why reluctantly? Too funny. And thanks for the compliment, I think there was one in there.
I don’t hand out a ton of compliments, hence the reluctantly. Yes, there was an actual compliment. I like your writing. It’s fun, informative, well written and you don’t take yourself too seriously. Your information on Bangkok is going to come in major handy for my first trip in February. For instance, the picture of you with the ginormous drink was an inspiration. Maybe not the wisest inspiration, but take inspiration where you can find it.
Much appreciated. If you have any questions about Bangkok let me know.
Thank you Redbird & Target! It’s a been a great year or so, getting $10-15K per month in manufactured spend! Oh well, on to the next thing……
I agree. We had our fun, let’s move on. Still, a little warning would’ve been nice.
Not that it is that important, and I’m glad to have scooped up the memo story and ended the suspension for all of us, but just to set the record straight, since you mentioned specifically who broke it: I was the one who broke the memo story.
I saw the memo in person yesterday afternoon at one of the two Target stores I visited, asking supervisors and then managers trying to dig up confirmation. Pondering the 10.12.15 events, I wrote a post arguing both sides and stating why I thought that meant Redbird was dead. But until it was confirmed, that remained speculation, educated guess/analysis.
I didn’t expect to be the one confirming it, but by afternoon of the next day (10.13.15) no one had confirmed it, I just couldn’t believe that Target stores didn’t have any confirmation about it yet. So I drove to a couple of stores nearby probing. When the second manager reluctantly showed me the memo, after many questions, I asked to see it twice, just to make sure.
I then wrote a post about it on my site at http://www.NoonRadar.com (not a real blog as of yet, it was meant for Redbird sale) and shared that post on Flyertalk yesterday (10/13/15) at 6:53 pm EST, then on Twitter, Reddit, Frequent Miler, Miles to Memories, Points Chaser and several other blogs where I have been commenting about Redbird for a while.
It was a Target employee who had seen my post and asked me on Twitter for my email address, then emailed a bunch of bloggers and myself confirming my story and linking to it, but stating he couldn’t email us the memo pic. Minutes later Grant (of Travel with Grant) replied to the group email with a pic of the memo, which was then published on several blogs. I was without internet during this time yesterday evening so I didn’t attach the pic to my original post until this morning.
I don’t necessarily blame you for the confusion though…as of this morning, the posts that I’m reading about the story on several blogs don’t necessarily make it clear who broke the story, or how they got to see the memo (in person or via email) and when 🙂
Thanks for sharing. I’ll leave the comment for all to see.
I don’t go on Flyertalk nor did I know of our website. I updated the post to say ‘Within the BoardingArea family’ to make it more accurate. Either way it’s ‘he’s dead jim’.
Let’s try to find something else now!
Indeed, onto the next thing. And thanks.
For accuracy sake, here’s a couple of clarifying details about my comment above:
The Target employee group-emailed us yesterday (10/13/15) at 8:41 pm EST and Grant replied to that email with a pic of the memo just a few minutes later, 8:55 pm EST.
I saw these emails this morning. A couple of hours after I broke the story last night I went without internet access. Up until that point the memo pic wasn’t published anywhere (at least I didn’t see it or any mention of it). However, I obviously don’t know who got the pic first from where before publishing it. Thought I’d clarify this after reading my above comment now; just didn’t want it be meant as me asserting the chain of the memo pic publishing on blogs (who got it from whom before publishing it where).
As to the memo pic showing on my original post about breaking the story, I put that up this morning (10/14/15) when I saw the aforementioned group emails; it is the pic (a version of it, not identical display) that Grant had emailed us last night.