Latest evolve phase of TBB is trying to make a much shorter post on days we do not publish the full Buzz reviewing the 347 blogs we are currently reviewing praising and hammering. The full Buzz posts go out on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In order to keep you coming back and using our amazing TBB Amazon link we will make an effort to make shorter blog posts about a few things that interest us always adhering to the Blog Mission below! If we miss a day or two here and there it is not our fault, blame the imperfect template in use that day!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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TRAVEL HACKING PER CHRIS ELLIOTT
It’s been a while but Chris Elliott is back trying to stir up some controversy, creating traffic and likely getting more supporters to sign up to give him money. He wrote this article “Travel Hacking: Scam or Strategy?” in USA Today.
Some thoughts:
- For the record, I have never used the first “hack” of using Dr. in front of your name! Then he refers to “throwaway” ticketing, are you serious?
- Who is this Ryan Lilie who sells “travel hacking” seminars online?
- I never liked the term “hacking” myself!
- On “Manufactured Spending” Chris calls it “totally legal — and totally wrong”. I disagree. Perhaps the companies should not allow wrong things to occur? What I find totally wrong is having phony expert bloggers write about crap they don’t know much about, getting newbies to do things that may hurt them deeply…only to lure them into their blog (“writing” for friends and family how to travel for “free”) and hit them upside the head with many lucrative credit card ads…Puuulease!
- Don’t get me wrong. I like that there are Chris Elliots out there. And I agree with a lot of what he writes about. But the dude has a very strong dislike about our hobby to the point of being, well, ridiculous and very entertaining to read at the same time! 🙂
- If this is travel hacking I am Spiderman. Oh wait…I have no idea what the hell I was doing here then lol.
BURNING ONE MILLION MILES/POINTS IN 2014
Piece of cake. I am currently standing at 828,314 miles/points burned this year!
My final two burns were:
Mrs TBB is going back to Malaysia next week (on AA miles) and on the return she has to overnight it in Chicago’s O’Hare airport. After waiting on hold with AA for 1 hour and 20 minutes last night to see if we can work some other itinerary change to avoid this I gave up and wiped out our 12 year old daughter’s Hilton HHonors account and burned 40k HH pts for the Hilton inside the airport as Mrs. TBB said “No shuttles!”. Have no idea how a 12 year old managed to get these points 🙂
FLYER TALK THREAD TROLLING
Ingy (founder and current writer and face at Frugal Travel Guy blog) just can’t stay away from me and from trolling online! Check out some more gems…this time in FlyerTalk and not here! #sadface
“I’ve suggested that tabloid blogger buzz is a detriment to the harmony of the group with the vulgarity and personal attacks on individuals” and my favorite “If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all” Post #96
If you care please read Post 103 and my response in Post 105.
At the end of the day…we never get this question answered as me and farwest101 again point out in Post #97:
How many cards does the “Tool” recommend if I’m a noob and just want a cash back card? 7? And none are cash back? I would really appreciate if people keep asking that until they fix or take that abomination of a “Tool” down and throw it in the garbage where it belongs….I find myself getting angry now, my therapist is still on vacation….I need to step away from the computer!
Funniest is #106 where Ingy makes fun how many more readers read FTG than TBB. LOL!<—–Notice the caps AND exclamation mark!<—-Another one…ok, I better stop this silliness now… Can you imagine if TBB had paid staff, editors, SEO gurus and templates? Oh wait…it wouldn’t be TBB then…it would be a Tool!
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I need that stroller in my life.
First?
First!
Yes? Yes!
No… No…
Yes, heaven forbid anyone should make any money. We should institute a new “No Blog Left Behind” policy where everyone shares their credit card signup bonuses (donating a specific percentage to charities agreed upon by all of us, of course) That would be the only fair way to handle this whole capitalism thing I keep hearing about.
BTW, I just used your Amazon link for an $8 purchase. Make sure you get that commission, K?!?
No Offense Holly, but, You just do not get it! It is not about making money, other great blogs make money, BUT they have the readers best interest in mind. FTG your employer, Grandpa Rick and other CREDIT CARD SALESMEN will manipulate the content just to sell the credit card product for the people who pay them. They do not give a flying Fart, about the reader. I remember commenting here a while back on what you, Holly, wrote. A short joke of a piece on how to either meet min. spend or create spend on FTG. You said “LOOK AROUND YOUR HOUSE TO SEE IF THERE IS ANYTHING YOU CAN BUY”. Of course there is something we can all buy! Maybe YOUR READERS should ONLY buy what they can AFFORD to buy! …………….. Coming here and badgering Buzz is not the best way to get Ariana’s vacant FTG position, or is it? Did the crazy old dude send you?
Have you ever heard of sarcasm? Relax!
didn’t come off as sarcasm / I will take your advice and light up a doobie.
It is definitely sarcasm. Do you really think I want to redistribute all of my credit card sign-up bonus earnings? Screw you guys.
BUT to you credit, you did not come here and write SECOND. BRAVO!!!
Yay!!!!!
FIRST!
Somebody stop this guy, take some personal responsibility for a change 🙂
@ Holly:
Thanks for the 30 cents, our starving staff of 1 sure appreciates it 🙂
We don’t like many blogs around here. Sadly, FTG and DP (Delta Points) are in a special league. Nothing personal ok?
Throw in a few smileys like I do to really get that sarcasm through. TBB DNA consists of lots of cells full of sarcasm. Hey, as long as it makes people laugh!
Isn’t it amazing the FTG founder thinks nothing of hiding a better credit card offer that comes with a $50 statement credit (you know, to let readers travel frugally…as it is part of the “mission”) and badgers the “fearless leader” (that would be me, I just high five me!) for disclosing to readers they can get a few more pennies if they keep track of a few changing product categories at Amazon (like baby products…how ironic there is one Boarding Area blogger who exclusively foregoes all these PENNIES and keeps buying diapers with my link) while never answering the question how come does the FTG credit card “tool” sucks so much? Sorry, had to get it out of my system, therapist’s orders 🙂
Soooo….any scoop on who the new FTG editor would be?
Hey, I am all for capitalism too! Just not done to the expense of others and pretending to be experts when there are many other true experts around.
Again, NOTHING PERSONAL. Thank you for reading and commenting and supporting the site. I am waiting for a buy out offer from KKR anyday…LOL.
@ Ramsey: Thanks man. Doobie sounds good to me! Or a doozie. Or whatever…I am so sore from my soccer game last night and the gym is closed so taking a day off to working on my physique!
Well! Perhaps TBB needs to diversify and come out here to (legal) Colorado for trip report purposes! Of course the only place to stay on points within 20 miles of me is a Best Western 🙁 Since I wouldn’t want Buzz to have to slum it, maybe we can work out an informal couchsurfing arrangement instead?
Oh crap, kids still at home. Nevermind, wait a few years.
I have an offer from BW if I stay two nights I get to keep Gold, oh my! 🙂
Yeah…I need to wait a few years. Not sure it will fly “Going to Colorado to see the Doobie Brothers wink” lol.
Watching the fireworks in the miles professor mall VGC is mildly entertaining… MM is sounding like a broken record though. loved how the professor dropped by to say she appreciates all the traffic 🙂
The professor dropped by to let me know I did not miss her post not pumping a Barclay card 🙂
Yeah it is entertaining and this site exists to primarily entertain me remember? 🙂
I want to state for the record that outing MS deals can hurt people badly. And this is my primary beef with it.
Third
Math is not your major…right? 🙂
BTW, I think Chris Elliot was spot on this time.
I find the sensationalism and intended wording of CE to generate controversy and traffic hilarious!
PFDigest had an interesting response to his post. Are we supposed to lay down like sheep and not look after our own pockets as consumers when banks market products in a certain way and encouraging it in a way? Yeah, I know there is a fine line in this stuff. My level of threshold is much lower than many in this hobby. But, yeah, I know what you mean. Some things people do make me cringe and be ashamed of being a part of this “community”. You won’t see me piling up on a obvious mistake fare that some poor employee made and get him/her fired…I chose not to go there. And of course you won’t see me bitching about about how unfair it would be if the company did not honor it or suing for “discrimination” LOL. I can go on but got to move on…
Give me a break! It was the most trivial, “pax both their houses” article I’ve read in a while.
Here’s the article’s summary quote: “Yet even if airlines, banks, and hotels don’t play fair, it’s no excuse to sink to their level.”
Really? We are not talking about winning independence for a colonial state or basic justice for an entire racial group here. We are talking about buying and selling. Period. And as individual players we are on our best days Davids against the corporate goliaths, who really do hold all the cards. And as George points out, we are talking about the banks–yeah, those same greedy sob’s that pumped subprime refinances so far so fast that it sunk the entire economy.
My motto: screw em anyway you can.
Well said 🙂
What do you guys think about the latest “who’s gonna write more posts per day” race?
Incredible, I think I saw 10 new posts on OMAAT last Saturday. On a Saturday? 10 posts?
Crazy, I guess it’s all about google and the “new victims” syndrome…
Yeah, pumping posts works great for google———>more traffic————>more dinero from CC ads
I’ll just leave these here…
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23331876-post474.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/23316974-post456.html
This was discussed here some time ago. Too many coaches around these days 🙂
I missed that. Oh my god!!!
This is what i commented on PFDigest @ Saverocity and this is what i would post here as well:
Screw those airlines, hotels and car rentals following horrible double/triple/quadruple standards when it comes to setting cost for travel, stay and rental. On top of it banks encourage MS by asking people to spend horrible amounts like 10k in 3 months etc. I dont care what these corporates think or what these in between people like Chris Elliott dicates how i need to spend on my travel needs. As long as the system is there to be used, i will be using it.
I like screwing banks the most. Actually, come to think of it, it is the most enjoyable aspect of this hobby 🙂
At the same time, I would be perfectly okay if this cc affiliate & mega bonus NAF for 1st year cards just ceased to exist. It is probably doing more harm than good. Never underestimate the hurt of many newbies who are drive by victims…Thanks to SEO skills, they are usually victims by one of the big pumping blogs who target them…
Stupid Bank of America. Been patiently waiting to screw them out of another 5k but their stupid systems are so sucky I may give up on it soon 🙂
Agree with you George but the hypocracies of the airlines, hotels and car rental companies are never to be under estimated. With near monoply these corporates enjoy, the way they cheat their customers to profit is no way better than my employer who sucks every drop of blood out of me just to ensure that he gets to travel in BMW or Mercedes, fly in first class and stay in suites always. Hate this human complex.
I want to be your employer so I can drive a Mercedes, flyi in first and stay in suites. Oh wait, I do two out of the three anyway. I will not suck your blood Kumar, u point to the coworker you can’t stand the most and will make his/her life miserable for you 🙂
Haha . You can start a so called IT “outsourcing” company, get slaves (or workers or employees) on H1 visa, have them placed in companies by themselves so that you don’t do any work, claim to run their payrolls, make money, throw some peanuts to them while you enjoy a BMW, first class flight for you and family and stay in suites. How about that? That is what many bastards from India do for their living by exploiting the beuracracy in issuing work visas to foreigners in this country. You don’t qualify unfortunately, George.
Stupid indeed! I wrote them a letter in about 30 seconds, then spent another three minutes to remove all the expletives. Probably shouldn’t have.
Just one example – I rent cars every weekend and really feel sorry to see what most of the others pay for basic rent and for insurance and other add-ons (mainly retired people) who end up paying such exhorbitant amounts compared to what i pay (15-20 for a weekend rental), which is impossible without knowing the tricks of the game. And this guy Elliott and the other corporates are going to take care of me when i am retired or sponsor my kid’s education or what? I will keep doing it and also pass on these tips to my close friends/family as well.
There was a lot of great info about renting cars at the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO!
To be fair, Elliott is not a corporate. He’s nothing but consistent in his beliefs. He’s this straight arrow guy who believes everyone must play by the rules. Of course, that’s exactly what we are all about. Playing by the rules. 🙂
The email never came…That stupid bank! I am having second thoughts to put myself through dealing with them…it’s not like I am hurting for miles 😉
Ah, just sign with them directly. Avenge me by doing some unethical things to them that Elliott tells us not to.
On the upside, I just signed up with your TCB linky. That’s two Panera coffee, I believe. See, things are looking up for you already. 🙂
I don’t see anything until you buy $25 worth of crap 🙂
Thanks.
I’ve already bought over $200 worth of crap. Patience, my friend. 🙂
You are number 2 referral if TCB ever since I signed up for it…years ago. I so clearly suck in pimping my links!
Oh pluueeze.
Playing by the rules? That’s exactly what hackers do. The Big Corporations can (and do) change them at a whim.
Pretty sure all you’d need to do to clamp down would be to hire someone like MM as a consultant and you’d get all the info you’d ever need to shut off the spigot in a hurry. But they don’t bother. Hackers aren’t more than a pimple on the arze of the flea.
I know you love ya some good infografix – did you see this one from The Onion?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/why-are-we-cutting-our-trip-short,36587/
Lol…Target Eliminated…Wish I could that here with blogs lol.
And the one about Hedonism was funny too!
Onion is the best!
3 sentences, 2 with exclamation marks in the end. i am turning into the ghostwriters at MMS 🙂
And, after you went easy on her, Just Another Points Traveler is at it again. 3 of the past 5 posts have been pumping Chase cards. The worst one is today. United Card again. Inferior offer. FIVE affiliate links to the offer without $50 and a quick, deceitful mention of “some people have been getting $50” buried in a paragraph without any mention of the actual link. That’s just lying. It’s a better public offer, not “some people have been getting”. WTF. This is deceitful, this is stealing $50 from every reader who click her link. Other bloggers on your ignore list are coming clean about the better offer and not deceiving people and stealing from them. Ridiculous.
But at least she uses my Amazon link, do you John G?
Ok, that was a joke actually. I agree with your post. I called her out in the previous Buzz post, give me a break. Consider the history of the bloggers. It’s not like she has been pimping stuff consistently like the TBB Ignore Blogs! Come on. Just had a baby, diapers and getting hair done in Miami are not cheap you know.
She read my blog. I like the awareness I bring to my dear hobby, I think it is healthy and it is improving it. But, like I said so many times, the economics involved are ludicrous so I see why people do it!
I am watching. She has a long way to get to the Ignore list…
Thank you.
I have no issue with the links. It’s the deceitful stealing of $50 I have a problem with. Honest pumping is much better than stealing the way she is doing. No baby, no hair, no lifestyle is an excuse for that behavior… just because she is raising a baby, that makes it ok? You may have “called her out”, but you did it in a very kind and biased way. My point is it’s not a fair playing field with you – some people you don’t like and attack them endlessly, but when one of your buddies does something much worse, it’s ok because she needs “diapers”. Don’t forget back in the day, she was in cahoots with MileValue giving him kickbacks for redirecting to her Chase links.
Quantity/history matters!
I am surprised you have no issue with the links.
I will ask her about the MV arrangement next time I see her. Or maybe she responds here.
There is lower quantity of pumping because there is lower quantity of posting. But pumping everyday when you tell the truth is much better than stealing and lies. The title of the post was false saying that the United card is the ONLY card that gets better award seats. It isn’t. It was a lie. Lying and posting inferior links in the same post. And you’re ok with it because it serves your own interests – you may not be a sellout for money, but you are selling out your credibility with this ridiculous bias.
You are busting my balls John G.
I’ve been around long enough to know I can not please everyone. I appreciate you taking the time to express yourself in my blog!
I am not ok with it of course. But if I said so EVERY time I see stuff like this I wouldn’t have time to go take a dump in my so plain looking toilet! I prefer to make fun of the blogs that have graduated to the Ignore list. Some have had a warning to respect their readers more (some consider this bullying, not my problemo).
This site made $2.47 yesterday for hours of work for YOUR entertainment.
I still can’t get over the fact that Ariana at Pointchaser was making up to $1,000 a month from Barclays’ credit card links!!!!!!!!
fyi, I posted a comment on the blog.
Watch it be deleted like mine was last Friday.
“Your marketing in this post is very deceitful. The extra $50 is a publicly available offer, not something “some people are getting”. You bury it in a paragraph with your affiliate links all over the place. This is stealing $50 from your readers hoping they don’t notice. I think the only right way to handle this would be to replace your affiliate links with the publicly available offer to make sure no one misses out.”
See previous response.
And just because I like to have the last word here 🙂
I agree with John G, George. That’s not the first time she has been pushing her crappier links.
When she still was an Amex affiliate, she kept on pushing the crappier 40k Plat offer and censored comments that pointed the 50k MB offer. Very dbag move.
She is at it today again…
Very disappointed.
Another sex themed headline from VFTW. You know that kid in Superbad who drew pictures of dicks? I bet that was Gary. Or still is. http://youtu.be/fzuvQXDUybE
Yep, posted that on Twitter hours earlier too 🙂 Never got an H/T of course…yeah it happens. If I had a dollar every time…
and that video clip is HILARIOUS!
Did I just see Matt of Saverocity tweet that he’s back pimping cards? Oi vey. Contemptible for someone who wrote how he had seen the light.
But I can see why. Ariana’s crappy blog was getting her $500-$1K month just pimping the Barclays card in half azzed fashion. Imagine the $$$ that non stop Barclays whores like MV, TMP are getting?
Once a pimp, always a pimp!
I am still shocked that her blog was bringing in so much from the Barclays cards!!!! This site brought in $2.47 yesterday. Sometimes I feel like saying JUST PHUCK IT!
I know that MMS has been getting a whole lot of crap for his fill-in-the-blanks template post, but… Ariana’s “Best _____ Hotel Redemptions: Category __” is just as bad and just as boring. $500-$1k a month for crap like that? We’re all clearly in the wrong business.
I just calculated what it will take in Amazon orders for this site to make $500 per month and almost fell off my chair lol