NFS is one of the longest standing freebie sites in the UK. Kieron Donoghue site has an excellent interview with the site’s previous owner John Lamerton.
It entrenches a rather unusual position for IBG who have interests as merchants (sweatband.co.uk), a network (AF) and as an affiliate.

Other affiliate sites run by IBG include:

If anything this new purchase is unusual as IBG’s other sites have bee grown in-house, and to be honest, have never really amounted to much. While the last year has seen IBG invest massively in developing its base of travel merchants, these projects have seemed to just tick along with no real energy. Even their two travel sites, CheapHolidayDeals.co.uk
and CheapAccommodation.com acquired from cheapflights.com last year have not seen much of a push since their purchase
Plentypoints compete head to head with a number of other super affiliates on their network such as ipoints and Free Fivers and noone bats an eyelid.

If anything is special about this deal it is that put up a sizeable investment, IBG now need to make it continue to work well, but in a market where the variety of deals offered to site visitors is critical, will IBG be doing more to promote programs from other networks?