We read more #WestCoastDO Reviews, get 500 FREE SPG Points, learn of an exciting development with visas to China, the El Al program reaches even deeper into hell, some space tourists abort on Virgin Galactic and other non sense for your entertainment to get you to laugh and forget all your problems or whatever.
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#WestcoastDO Debriefing; Questions, and Expanded Answers – Milenomics An excellent recap of the DO and the panel session! I was expecting this blogger to be much older than he is, great wisdom/age ratio! Been in this too long, I can tell the true experts, this guy is one! You can learn from him or go and learn from the bloggers in the Ignore list, I am sure they can be nice too!
You can earn 500 Starwood SPG points by updating your profile. Make sure you have registered for the promotion first. Then log into your SPG account as usual, click on My Profile/My Stay Preferences/change something there and save it and this should do it, just wait from 2 to 4 weeks! Brings memories when we used to update the email address in our Hilton HHonors accounts for 500 points (or was it 1,000 points, memory is not as sharp as it used to be!). Expect MMS to do a whole post about this with twenty six pics and 9 gigantic arrows and of course the whole collection of SPG credit cards! Waiting…
Speaking of SPG promotions, there are some targeted promotions being sent. You can try your luck in the link provided at this post by Loyalty Lobby. Team TBB got nada. These words are so cruel: ” Sorry. Unfortunately, you’re not eligible for this promotion.” Boo!
Marathon Man: “Manufactured Spending is like Card Counting” and my #WestCoastDo Thoughts – Travel With Grant Another excellent recap and an honest take on these conferences. And thanks for the kind words, you are even nicer in person. I wish you would stop commenting at the MMS blog though 🙂 I think I may add these #WestCoastDO review blog posts in my own review of the meeting HERE just like I did with the review of the Charlotte DO!
The El Al Matmid loyalty program is in a special class of suckiness by itself! So, according to this post by Dans Deals, they announce changes to make it suck even more, wow! “I have nothing against El Al, but this is just downright embarrassing.” LOL. Ouch! Why am I posting this here? Well, I think it is entertaining and I pray to all Gods that this Ebola like frequent flyer program suckiness does not infect our regular loyalty programs because that would be truly…horrific!
This is GREAT news! Chinese and US tourists will now be able to get ten year visas instead of just one!
After the crash of the Virgin Galactic spaceship, about two dozen prospective passengers have bailed out and asked for a refund. “Never mind, that was a stupid idea from the get go” they may have said…
Snow-Covered Ski Lift in Sweden – Twisted Sifter No.Words.To.Describe.
IRS Boosts Retirement Plan Contributions for 2015. Adjust your settings as you will now be able to save $18,000 (up from $17,500) in your 401(k) Plan. And if you are over 50 years old, your catch up contribution goes up to $6,000 (up from $5,500). But the IRA Contributions stay at $5,500 per year (IRA catch up contributions also remains the same at $1,000).
Your Life on Earth. How the world has changed during your lifetime? This is pretty cool & interactive!
Where Bribery Works. Greece beats Bangladesh, yes!
And now we are entering Blog Buzz territory. A satirical angry take on the most ridiculous blog posts we have seen the previous day…For new readers, perhaps you should read this manifesto to learn of my extreme biases, inadequacies and in general truly absurd tendencies. My therapist gave up, last I heard she is in the…Maldives! 🙂
Expedia+ Credit Cards and Rewards Program: Worth It or Not? – Million Mile Secrets Of course anyone with half a brain should know the answer to this, NOT worth it! But that did not stop them from offering the credit cards to the readers. So, no big deal right? I would have skipped it as this is pretty much repeated daily these days. But nooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Could not stop selling the following credit cards to the unsuspecting readers: Citi AA Platinum Select, Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve, Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Ink Plus, Citi Hilton HHonors Visa Signature. Wait, not done yet! Add the Barclaycard Arrival Plus, the Citi Double Cash, and, wait for it, the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card again. Not even one comment. I wonder how many suckers keep clicking on these blog posts that pretend to be actual relevant content when they are just excuses to push more product out the door…
Thank You Points Worldwide – Milevalue One of the most ridiculous posts ever…just when you thought it was not possible to surpass the previous record. Looking for any excuse to pump one of the few credit cards that compensates this blog every day! This time? While eating a burrito at a Chipotle in Bogota I looked down and saw an ad for ThankYou Points so buy my card. Whatever this card can do it will never beat what The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard® can do, NEVER! 🙂
Should I Take 75,000 Point Offer for Amex Business Rewards? – The Points Guy Shockingly, the answer was…Yes! But that did not prevent this business to at least insert the crappy affiliate link offering just 25,000 Amex Membership Reward points because, you know, the targeted readers are not so bright and may go for it…I am sure it happens a lot as these sites keep doing it! My credit card tab offers the crappy one so PLEASE don’t click on it as I may have trouble sleeping if I ever find out someone got just 25k pts. I just got a 75k offer in the mail by the way….and I need to get on with the minimum spend!
What’s the Difference Between a Charge Card and a Credit Card? – Million Credit NonSecrets Are you kidding me? Well, apparently no…I play a game with these posts, I try to guess how many credit cards are pumped. I thought this one would be about a dozen. WRONG! 20 credit cards baby, SELL SELL SELL!
2 Cards That Allow You to Choose Your Bonus Categories – Million & Millions of Plastic! Holy mother of Miles! Are we in an overdrive pumping amok here or what? Ok, what was your guess? You said TWO because you believed the headline? LOL, you fool! How about 12 credit card links baby. This is hard work you guys! This drives me nuts and people think I am angry…how can you NOT be?
I Support the Marathon Man Initiative on Many Spends – Frugal Travel Guy Look at all the credit cards on top, bottom, left and right! And check out the credit card “Tool” that is one of the most horrific “tools” that exists in this hobby only designed to convert more site visitors to credit card customers. And nice job for burning Howie letting us know he did not want Marathon Man there. I did not like MM presenting there next to the other mega pumpers. But it is a free country and everyone can do what they seem best. Looking at this site is…revolting. Enjoy the money! When TBB gets bought out we keep editorial control, not negotiable #dreaming.
A Miami Mileage Run: The totals & the flight home – Delta Points Thank God is over! Hey, good for another pump of three more credit cards! And apparently I am the blogger who pumps more than all Boarding Area bloggers combined….I will stop shaking my head; it is dangerous as it may detach from my body, thank you for your concern!
6 Best Travel Credit Card Offers Available Right Now – Johnny Jet Ok, this post takes the cake! The most disturbing development is having bloggers who are clueless about miles suddenly become travel reward cards experts when they taste the dinero. I see that so often is downright offensive and beyond ridiculous. Would you rather take advice from this one? Funniest opening: “As many of you may have noticed, I’ve been writing a lot about travel credit cards lately.” Yep, please stand up, I saw you laughing! Okay excuse me while I stagger myself up again. No dude we have not noticed at all! Of course all six cards pay the site! And here is the crappiest disclosure buried at the bottom: ““Please note that JohnnyJet.com has financial relationships with some of the merchants mentioned here. JohnnyJet.com may be compensated if consumers choose to utilize the links located throughout the content on this site and generate sales for the said merchant.” If you are not angry, what is your problem? 🙂 Well, at least did not have the balls to insert The Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard®
And yes TBB does have a Credit Card tab. And I know I should link to it again in this sentence but I am afraid I will be called a sell out again 🙂 Oh the absurdity and unfairness of it all!
Ok, enough buzzing. How about some innocent laughing to end yet another TBB blog post as I need to get some sleep and rest my legs after a frustrating performance and loss to a team called “Titanium”. I am NOT making this up! It hurt!
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Too kind George. It is entirely possible that I have that Benjamin Button disease and I’m really in my 60’s you know. 😉
Oh… and First. Got to teach this young whipper-snapper Grant a thing or two. Now to bed, well past my 10pm bedtime.
Its too easy, first again! Thanks for linking to my #westcoastdo recap 🙂
Nooooooo #toococky
The amazing thing with the Virgin Galactic is that there are still almost 700 passengers that have not canceled! Those two dozen were probably celebrities 🙂
Buzz, what are some of your favorite 80’s songs?
I love how every recap so far about the DO has been about how nothing specific can be said about the presentations, but they sure were a lot of fun. It makes you wonder why there’s surprise about the big blogs making so much money. At least they’re accessible.
George, it was a pleasure meeting you in PHX and thanks again for the popcorn!
I posted this yesterday but there is a way to make the Amex Business Gold offer appear at 50k or 75k for everyone. The best trick seems to be to copy the link (don’t click it) into a browser on a smartphone (using Chrome I got 75k but using Safari I got a 50k offer).
http://pointscentric.com/2014/11/10/american-express-business-gold-rewards-signup-bonus-increased-to-50000-points/
Of course, you won’t see this at MMS, TPG etc because they wouldn’t dare jeopardize their 25k Affilate link. Some mother in law rule…
@ Sam: Thanks for teaching youngsters like Grant 🙂 I so wish for a 10 pm bedtime but then is when I usually start putting the TBB posts together after screwing around in Feedly all day!
@ Grant: If I had a dollar for every comment posted while another comment was posted a few seconds before it LOL.
@ Charlie: Yeah, really. I think we are far far away from making this route as safe as today’s airplanes.
@ Rich: TOO MANY to count! One that comes to mind FIRST is “One Step Beyond” by Madness!
@ Smith: You may have a point. In these meetings most of the golden information is given talking to others one on one or in small groups. There were a few given out in the presentations though and I hear MMS got his ghostwriter busy 🙂
@ Ralph: Nice meeting you too. I think I saw this this morning at Panera, maybe it was in your post. I was always a bit wary of editing said links as I am paranoid they can track me down. So others check it out…I just need to get my ass to the mall and be done with the $10k spend for my own 75k Business Gold Rewards card!
Read your previous post – which included your thoughts on Kimpton – while I was in the Admirals Club at PHX last night, and composed the following reply in the air. It was great to see you again and thanks again for the ride!
Just chiming in to say my experience and reaction to the Kimpton was different. I also status-matched to Inner Circle and arrived at the same time as George 😉 . I was not upgraded, and given the large number of ICs there for the weekend, I didn’t expect to be. My balance of zero nights with them would surely mean they’d do better upgrading someone who had at least paid for a room once or twice!
My room was initially on the second floor. Because my cousin was joining me for the second and third nights of my three night stay, and she was recovering from knee surgery, I needed to move to a first floor room. This was accomplished quickly and easily. The amenity that was left in the first room was delivered in moments and matched my stated (albeit unhealthy) preferences. The sugar cookies were fine and huge. They couldn’t figure out how to leave me ice cream so they gave me a voucher to have the flavor of my choice at the bar. The Pinot didn’t compare to my favorite Oregon Pinot but I appreciated the effort. It seemed that me that every time I came back to the room there was some new goody there. And while the room wasn’t the best ever, it was perfectly fine and very quiet.
The staff was also very accommodating in helping me arrange an informal women’s meetup on Sunday morning. They didn’t mind our completely rearranging the patio furniture and even took breakfast orders for the women who wanted to eat, complete with separate checks. When I asked on Monday morning, they gave us until 4PM as our late checkout.
I usually avoid hotel restaurants but we did have one meal there and it was quite tasty. We mentioned being IC while chatting with the person who seated us – I’ll admit it, I was curious what the result might be – and the waitress brought out complimentary appetizers. My cousin and I were more tired than hungry so we split a salad and main dish; they plated them separately for us without our even asking and the service was exceptional throughout the meal.
We took advantage of the free hotel shuttle a total of six times over the three days. We went to Old Scottsdale as well as the mall and 5th Avenue; we did not wait at all when we left the property and never waited more than five minutes for the shuttle to come to pick us up to go back to the property.
One would think they’d treat all ICs equally well. Perhaps they were just a little overwhelmed and I got lucky. Or given my twitter handle, they thought I was well known in PDX 😉 . At some point during my contacts with the hotel to arrange the women’s meetup, @Kimpton started following me. I also tweeted a bit about #KimptonKarma before I arrived, based on a suggestion I’d spotted on twitter. It said something like good things come to those who tweet….Maybe these pre-arrival contacts made a difference. And speaking of arrivals, yes, my Barclays points will cover it for me too.
So while the room didn’t match some of the fancier rooms my points have paid for, my overall experience with the hotel was quite positive. For any TBB readers out there who have a Kimpton stay coming, I’d suggest befriending @Kimpton on twitter. I think it gets you noticed and, if you want to experience the so-called #KimptonLove, that makes a difference. At least it did for me.
Thanks for the feedback on Kimpton.
I filled out my survey today. I let them hear it. Love and Karma, I definitely did not feel it at all. I found the Twitter staff also doing their social media thing and not really listening. Definitely the IC crowd had something to do with it. In retrospect, I should have saved the Arrival points. Oh well, plenty of hotels with points to spend on.
Only 50 more shopping days left until Visa Savings Edge disappears from Staples? I hope not!…..BYW my favorite 80’s song was that wonderful duet by Michael Jackson and Boy George, I’ll Beat It For You.
“Just Beat it” by Michael for me, thanks 🙂
“A Miami Mileage Run: The totals & the flight home – Delta Points Thank God is over!” – Ha!
At least it was shorter than that last freaking Sweden trip report – My recent American Airlines DFW-HKG roundtrip in coach was shorter than that.
Seriously…does anyone actually read those???
Someone must be clicking on the credit card links by accident so they keep on coming 🙂