Back in November I recommended Chris Guillebeau’s $49 frequent flyer guide e-book. It’s not for the battle-tested two million miler that upgrades all their flights already, books international premium class award tickets for breakfast, or who figured out all on their own that buying stickers from US Airways back in December could fund their international first class aspirations for the rest of their life.

No, it’s an excellent introduction for someone coming at this from the beginning, maybe the kind of person reading this blog (admittedly written more of the time for experts than for novices) for the first time perhaps via a Google search, or someone who travels a lot and knows there’s more out there but is overwhelmed by all of the information.

Chris’ book is a good start on miles and points basics.

Now the Frugal Travel Guy has come out with his own book, at $6.99 for Kindle it’s a veritable bargain.

The author again targets those for whom this passion, obsession, or opportunity is new and lays it out cleanly and simply with stories from his own experience. He’s less comprehensive on miles and points than Chris’ contribution, but he focuses quite adroitly on finding the best deals — he has an excellent introduction to using Priceline for cheap hotel accomodations, and one of the very best introductions to ‘churning’ credit cards for substantial signup bonuses.

Plus it’s an easy, breezy read and for me a walk down memory lane of Emmi cheese, Wendys soda cups, and Valumags subscriptions — all the crazy things I’ve done to keep myself traveling effectively over the past several years.

Usually travel advice is either written at the level of and with the built-in biases that Lucky or I bring to the table, or more likely than that at such a low, dumbed-down level so as to be both not useful and often even wrong.

Both contributions serve a real niche, good solid advice for getting started that doesn’t presuppose too much knowledge and doesn’t talk down to its readers either.

Definitely recommended at the price point!