We learn about the next Family Travel For Real Life conference, learn how to get the links for the 50k Southwest Cards, get an update of the Top 25 credit cards, learn the options on hotel point transfers, travel to Atacama and Budapest and to weird conventions.
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
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Family Travel for Real Life – Another one planned by The Deal Mommy for October 2015. Would you rather go where you can actually get to know everyone who has a passion for this hobby or would you rather go to huge events like the Chicago Seminars and FTUs where so many online marketing businesses are there to promote and think they are some hot shots or something?
Signup Bonus: 50,000 Points with Southwest Premier Credit Card Still Available – Doctor of Credit Don’t rely on the online marketers to go out of their way to get you the links to this card as it does not pay them any commissions. Why would you pay real money to see them present about crap they put on their blogs anyway is beyond me. But hey it’s a free country. Free!
The Top 25 Credit Cards – Mile Nerd Endorsed! Would you trust stuff you read on Mile Nerd or on Frugal Travel Guy? If you had to think about this for even a second you are reading the wrong blog, go read FTG, I feel so sorry for you.
Why transferring hotel points to a friend or partner is good (but airline miles are bad) – Head for Points Good summary of the different hotel point transfer options here.
101 Tips, Tricks and Hacks to be an Expert Traveler – FTU San Diego Presentation – Rapid Travel Chai Must read if you want to get educated. Don’t like it that it appears at FTU but hey, you can’t have everything in life I guess 🙂
You can get 1,000 Hilton HHonors points by logging into your account, clicking on Personal Information and then change your password. This time they promise it will work, we shall see.
Barclay’s Application Strategies & Best Practices for Successful Approvals – Miles to Memories Some really good info to know about applying for cards from that weird Barclays Bank.
Timelapse From the Atacama Desert – The Adventure Blog Wow, this place is in Northern Chile, how amazing!
One of these stunning images will win Sony’s Mobile Phone Award You MUST look at these. MUST CLICK!
Frozen Apocalyptic Budapest After Ice Fog – Bored Panda Fantastic photographs!
These are the strangest conventions in America Some of these are completely over the top…and so ridiculous… they are funny!
How Much Should You Contribute to Your 401(k)? – Us News & World Report Good article on the subject.
Here is a 2 page reference guide on the 2015 Tax Rates and other figures you may need!
I doubt Kate is working in this store…
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And first.
Taking a vacation for a week. Hate that I’m not going out on top.
I am not going anywhere, need to keep up this site to learn of my Alexa rankings bwahahahhaahaha.
Kind of weird not seeing Helixcardinal on top, so true!
I am done with Doc forever. He doesn’t seem to understand what needs to be blogged and what must not be blogged. A casual comment from Frequent Miler on the chime card is blogged about as a separate article. If only MM sees that. I am pretty sure this will kill the deal. He writes more about MS deals compared to titans and no one cares. Of course most of the ideas are hat tipped to other comments or blogs. Rewind some months back when TPG wrote about Amazon payments and there were lot of protests to take that off. So, essentially other bloggers form an informal cartel as well on who to criticise and who not to criticise. Had this been written by a titan blogger, most of the bloggers would have lined up against him/her. Enough is enough. In fact i even regret for suggesting here that Doc’s site can be made in your like or love list. And, i am so pissed off with this entire travel blogging community consisting mostly of people with double/triple/quadruple standards.
+1
Pissed off at what? You really could use some practice not writing comments that sound like a foot-stomping, bratty child. No one voted you commisar, you’re relatively new to this, and as Ron pointed out at DoC, it’s not like the community is benefitting from your brilliant discoveries.
I am extremely sorry, Anon. Please forgive me for what i have written about the great Doc and the great website and the great copied contents that he continues to provide. What the heck community are you talking about? Are you part of any forum and have you contributed anything useful? What do you know about me to say i am new? Just shut your fcuking mouth and arse and get the hell out of my way.
Sorry, George. Couldnt resist this one.
Agree with Kumar. All points are right on. Also doc is a different kind of bad blogger. He goes out of his way to make friends with other bloggers it seems like.Those others don’t care about being disliked but he does.
Thanks, John and Scott. I thought i was alone. Whenever i comment in Doc’s website not to write about MS deals, there are a bunch of idiots (like our friend Anon) who comes and criticizes me. Well, am i not even entitled to comment or what? This is just getting ridiculous. That is what i felt about the article and i was writing what i felt. Nowadays, everyone seems to be tied up with Doc and if anyone writes anything against him, they are branded as a bratty child or what not. This trend is dangerous and ridiculous. Unbiasedness doesnt mean continuing to praise or continuously criticize any particular blogger. It is the guts to point out if one feels the blogger is wrong they can openly write about it and at the same time praise the blogger if they do something good. Heck, majority of the readers are idiots and that is why most of the titans and to-be titans survive in this space.
Frankly I’m sort of just tired of all bloggers in general. It’s just a bunch of noise these days. I’m sort of just doing my own thing in my own style.
Great thing to do. I am also indeed tired of all the bloggers as a reader. Despite wasting all my time since yesterday commenting and commeting about this deal, i haven’t got a single mention from any of the bloggers or MSers (i was actually arguing for them). They just don’t care. I am tired due to work, travel, arguments in forum, here, lack of sleep since yesterday – all for what? This damn hobby that i started loving. Enough is enough. I am done and dusted with all these thankless souls. Going to take a long break. Let these people blog what they want and let readers be in the drugged world for as long as they want. Why should i be banging my head without even any mention or much support. Thankless world.
Just one final comment before i sign off – none of the bloggers deserve my loyalty – NONE, and none of the readers deserve my sympathy.
Not even me?
I know how you feel. This “hobby” can be exhausting some time. I think lots of people practicing this (including bloggers) will be better off in the long term taking a step (or two) back. It’s like a drug addiction, so hard to kick it.
I started this blog for entertainment, primarily my own. And I still like to vent and let off steam to keep my sanity. Plus find some cool stuff for, you know, entertainment/education/inspiration.
By the way, I did respond below in a longer comment, I did not ignore you.
I remember meeting the Pudding Guy back in the first Chicago Seminars. At dinner he said something that stayed with me as we were discussing what he was up to since those pudding fame days. He said simply “I moved on” and got into marathons and of course traveling with his family. Now imagine keeping up with this hobby and blogging….it is just INSANE!
Actually, I can’t wait to hear from the resident blog troll about my Alexa numbers woohoo!!!
Well, my update about the credit cards went into the never never cyberland…Did it go to spam TBB?
Hmm, I don’t see anything in the Spam folder. Then again there are so many pages in there, it’s a zoo so I may have missed it! Thanks for trying, please try again. I see the Capital One bank cards are back.
If anyone wants that amazing Discover Miles 3% card click on my links. But please don’t use it to pay taxes! I feel so bad even typing this now. I guess Titans never feel bad at all even when they (staff) bang out 50 aff cc links in one post.
I want to challenge here openly – if the chime deal that Doc site posted yesterday dies soon, is he willing to agree moral responsibility that he was the one who killed the deal? So far no one else has blogged about it fortunately. I dont know how many more are going to hat tip to Doc and blog about it soon. On the other hand if the deal doesnt die, i will stop commenting about the site anywhere in the web and accept that i was wrong in my assumption, openly, here in TBB.
Hahaha, you are truly ridiculous. This whole deal dying thing has gotten out of hand. Every person now feels like their whole travel hacking game is threatened by anything written anywhere. I hope your job pays you enough that you’re able to pay for travel or to cover the MS income you’d lose if that happens.
Dear Raj, thanks for judging me with your imaginary thoughts that doesnt match the reality. I dont use chime much but then i care about others who have discovered that deal and were using it so far judiciously to earn miles and points until some stupid blogger decides to blog about it and the entire “travel” blogging world (if at all) decides to follow it and eventually the deal dies. This is how all deals die. My travel hacking is not dependent on chime and my ass is pretty much covered and God has been kind enough on me to provide me a nice job and enough income to take care of my family. I am writing against outing the deals by bloggers. That is the core problem. Continuously outing deals one by one and acting as if they dont know anything is just cunning. You dont seem to understand the bloggers motive nor my motive. We can keep arguing but we may not be able to come to a conclusion.
Well, excellent. I think the deal is dead already. I just added my US Visa buxx to my chime account and it is showing 3% fee for adding funds from my buxx card to chime account. So, something that was working fine till yesterday is not working today. Now, who is ready to accept responsibility for this mess?
Correlation always = causation with a simple size N=1 blog entry and 1 MS method shut down. Demote the doc from DoC to Med Student of Credit.
Bloggers blog. One blog post could not possibly lead to this in a one-day time. Corporations are simply not that quick. Sometimes a deal dies simply because its time has come.
For once i have to disagree with you, Andy. Next day after the post, deal dies. I cant see any other reason at least for now.
You’re not very smart, are you Kumar?
Smarter than you definitely.
Oh I’m not very smart but you’re a couple Bradys short of a Bunch.
I have a feeling that credit card companies and MS avenue providers must be closely watching all MS related sites including FM, Doc etc. Wherever they feel their profits are taking a hit, these sites make their job easy and they are just going to kill it. I think all companies are well aware if their products are being misused or not. Why unnecessarily kindle it and give them tips for killing? Suicidal, just for some clicks.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>Why unnecessarily kindle it and give them tips for killing?
For the clicks. Some may genuinely do it to help readers and (rightly?) think the small readership should not affect anything. And they may well be right. But it takes just one google search sometimes. Ok, I better stop and go to sleep. I elaborated about this a bit more below…
Don’t get angry on this stuff. Get angry on posts like MMS “revealing” to his clicking audience all about Redbird, several other Titans getting excited how it is the “last chance” to get the Freedom card, how others are pushing readers to charge their taxes with the Discover card to “profit”….When cards pay so much per app…ANYTHING can and will be done by bloggers (not all) to make the sale. And that’s the problem amigo….
Ok, I am leaving…for real….I swear….I had Mrs. TBB go to the mall and knock out that min spend on that free AmexEveryDay card to preserve her 80k Amex MR points…..#itneverends
I agreed with you earlier Kumar but now you seem like a nut. Stop while you’re ahead. Not all bloggers are bad. We get that you have a problem with Doc. Jesus.
@TBB – without the first FTU I would not have had a chance to meet you in person before you were famous. 🙂
Because fame changed TBB. Now there are groupies at every DO.
Where, where? You know I got into this for the groupies!!!
I want to say a few things…
Today felt like a Monday to me, not like a slower Friday, WOW!
I am tired and this topic (about MS) is very controversial. I went back and forth a little bit on it earlier on Friday on Twitter where the format allows me to just fire away and clear my head!
https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2
I don’t feature much about MS anymore. I believe every bit of more publicity harms it. Of course the most hideous practice is Titan bloggers blogging about it like they are “experts” and just pushing more plastic credit cards with such “expert” posts. Those posts are the real culprits because of their much higher readership, no doubt about it!
At the same time, I would like to educate the little guy too….so, you see, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Which, in turn, leads to my main point:
The interests of bloggers are not congruent (I feel important when I say this word lol) with the dedicated MSers. Goes back to the old days of miles/points deals where everything revolved around FlyerTalk. Now with the blogs it is a whole new ball game. When the plastic money came in, this altruistic and obscure hobby practiced by “misfits” (in a good way) got so opened up that now it is a feast towards targeting the eyeballs of extreme newbies who used to be mentored slowly by veterans (and some were chased away by some in FT for their symptoms…lol, I hear it still happens!). These businessmen need hits and they need whatever it takes to get them there so they can eventually be sold (cards being the most lucrative product by far of course). I mean, the whole subject is sexy right? “Make money at CVS” (enter pic of Emily holding VRs). I lost my train of thought because my brain is just so exhausted…
Maybe Saverocity in the forums where Google does not reach is the way to do it. Maybe the newsletter. Maybe speaking in general in the body of the blog and being more direct in the comments. I still say the best way is to meet in person and let people into “secrets” you personally know and can vouch for their reliability and, most importtantly, their fitness not to get hurt. Because, you know, at the end, someone gets hurt. Most are innocent folks who got hooked by a blog that appeared in their google search (it is one of the Titan blogs in the Ignore list for sure) and just “fell” for the pitch.
The bottom line is….as long as MS methods exist they will be blogged. How you react is up to you. I say vote with your clicks and be true what you believe in. I believe Delta is criminal and have not given them a dime (actually it was $10 in fees for a saver award ticket to San Diego last year lol) since 2012. Take a stand. Express your views. And click my links LOL.
I have a free Starbucks drink and may blow it tonight in a Mega Venti Skinny Mocha Extra this and Extra That Macchiato (sounds fancy like….congruent) or something like that.
Anyways, to end it here, the latest MMS interview started with “I started collecting miles and points in January of 2014″. Reader on Twitter indicated the typo, should have been ‘January 2015”.
This space is just too entertaining to give up…
In the meantime, has anyone seen Alexa? Can someone contact the troll to track her down and report her whereabouts, thank you!
How come the first comment is always ‘First’?
Deep!
first
You can be anything you want here!
I like and respect you personally, George. Here is how i responded to one of Matt’s comments at his forum and i think it will be appropriate response to you as well. May be i need to work on getting my PMP PDUs to retain my PMP, may be do some other courses? I am highly educated with multiple degrees (Finance, IT, Management et al) in multiple disciplines, George. I work as a Manager and all these personal hits for my passion is totally unnecessary. I am well versed in stock markets as well. It is high time i take a call on what I should be focusing rather than getting hit by people calling me nuts and what not? Ultimately i was not called out by even one person for being a whistle blower at the right time and all credit goes to Doc after he has killed the deal on his changing stance on how to handle MS at his site. So be it if that is what God wishes. As you rightly pointed out, what started as a hobby has grown in to monster, eating most of my time. High time i give some serious thoughts on how to use my time more effectively. Hope you agree with me since you are highly intelligent 🙂 . And thanks for allowing me to comment here all these months.
“I agree that honey is better than vinegar. You know me Matt. I am more friendly than many guys out here and will even go out of my way to help bloggers like Drew or George or others i like. That is what i tried doing many times at that blog through comments and mails to him but didnt have any success. He just continued to write about deals and this post was writing on the wall that the deal is going to die. He still denied in his comments on the original chime post that it will not die but i was right. At times it is good to make some noise and that is what i did this time. I think it helped. By the way, i dont think i visited that site for MS deals for sure. I have access to this forum and i read flyer talk. Do you think his site is going to beat the information that i can get from the two forums? No way. In fact most of his posts are just hat tipped to many other forums and he doesn’t have much of individuality. He is definitely better guy than some crooks out there and that is why i wanted to ensure his site stays that way. I think i did the right thing. However, i am kind of drained out after this entire saga. I need a long break. Enough is enough. Who am i to correct the bloggers and get hit from all sides – bloggers, readers et al. I have a full time job, family and other stuff to take care. No one is going to thank me for being a great steward of MS. In fact no one thanked me for this. I played the role of whistle blower at the right time. Anyway, I dont have a blog and i dont have any vested interest of improving reader base etc. Why do you think i take time to comment posts of Kenny or Trevor or Joe or you or American travel project et al? These are great guys with tremendous potential and i am sad they don’t get the same recognition like Gary or MMS or TPG. I just wanted to ensure these guys dont lose interest seeing no comments and stay away. That would be a disaster for this travel blogging world. I am doing it on purpose with child like enthusiasm. Sad nobody understands my intentions. Anyway, i take it in my stride and for now have decided to stay away from all this noise.”
Note for all others: this is a personal one to one talk between me and George in response to his comment. Please dont poke in to this and rate me a nut or what not. Please give me some personal space and freedom. Thanks in advance.
One sentence he has degrees. Next sentence all these hits “is” unnecessary. Nut and not very smart seem true.
My wife is a PMP.
When people talk about things they feel passionately about expect others ONLINE to disagree, it comes with the territory. Don’t let it bother you so much. I actually enjoy this backlash I get, it adds entertainment in my life!
This hobby is easy to let it become a monster. DO NOT LET IT. Step back, take off a few days. Just read the blogs you REALLY like and cut all the crap out. Focus on priorities like all of us should. Read PedroNY’s post in the most recent blog post, it is wonderful. Deals die sooner or later. They just die faster in the blog age. Sometimes you can’t do much as another blogger will appear out of nowhere and blog about secrets to just “friends and family” lol.
>>>>>>>>>These are great guys with tremendous potential and i am sad they don’t get the same recognition like Gary or MMS or TPG. I just wanted to ensure these guys dont lose interest seeing no comments and stay away. That would be a disaster for this travel blogging world.
I agree!!! It is unfair damnit! But hey it is what it is. Don’t let it bother you too much, not worth it!
>>>>>>>>>>>Sad nobody understands my intentions. Anyway, i take it in my stride and for now have decided to stay away from all this noise.”
I do. You have no bad bone if your body, you are a genuinely GOOD person Kumar. But don’t get too emotional about this stuff, it’s just not healthy. And it is perfectly okay to step back. We all need to from time to time. I should too but, you know, can’t let my Alexa numbers fall faster than they apparently are as the Troll keeps checking them for me #bizzaro
Ann Arbor Art Fair DO, check FT Community Buzz. Get in the waiting list. No Titans will appear there.
Wow, just catching up on some comment reading, I missed a wild Friday! George, you probably jumped up in some sort of website ranking. On Friday 13th, nevertheless!
Pre-blogging, I remember people getting all jazzed up with new threads on FT opened up, and it was all about how this new thread will kill a deal, or how too many comments will kill the deal, etc., etc. Unfortunately, deals die. MSing is not a right, it’s a privilege with an uncertain expiration date, just approach it that way — and all will be fine.
I still think the best bang for your “buck” is excessive churning. Why no one gets all pissed off about killing that deal, all of bloggers and FT posts talking about applying for credit cards, over and and over and over again. I don’t understand why that does not get the same amount of heat or upset comment posts. No one blamed a single blogger last April when Amex personal cards cut down on 12-month churn ability, I think that was a much bigger loss than a freaking Chime card or Evolve or even Vanila cards, seriously ~ 500,000 miles/points per year for my household just evaporated, that hurt a lot more, no one blamed a single blogger for that. Why not? Should they? No, it’s part of the game, just move on, find a new way. I just lick my wounds and move on to Citi Exec. 😉
Cheers,
PedroNY
Again, what a fantastic comment, thank you! This would have been the MVP Gem comment, no doubt!