TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
If you are working the day after Thanksgiving I am so sorry! Maybe this edition of TBB will make you feel better…
First, here are 25 Charts That Will Make You Thankful You Live in America (apologies to my non US based readers!). I am just still feeling thankful all over. This is my favorite holiday and I am thankful for everything and for you my dear readers for taking the time to visit my blog and read what I have to say!
TRAVEL
Amazing Northern Lights in Timelapse. Totally awesome with more awesome music. Turn off the lights, sit back and enjoy! Found at The Adventure Blog.
No idea where this is but this picture is pure awesomeness!
Great “Photos That Will Make Your Stomach Drop” by Bored Daddy.
21 Terrifyingly Beautiful Photos of Incoming Storm Clouds. By Twisted Sifter.
MILES/POINTS
I doubt that this person who contacted Chris Elliott did any manufactured spending or anything like that. But this is how Pay Pal does business. I do not like this company!
Some nice stuff again at PFDigest. Most useful was this website that can generate random credit card numbers: GetCreditCardNumbers.com. “This can be useful in situations where a credit card number is required on a site but no purchase is required–for, say, a free trial–but you don’t want to give out one of your precious credit card numbers.You can generate Amex, Visa, MasterCard, and even Diners Club and JCB. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for the Internet!” Yes indeed, I bookmarked it!
“Sensitivity Training” by Ryan Air’s CEO. Hilarious. If you don’t laugh maybe this blog is just not for you…
ON MY MIND
Detroit Lions made the Green Bay Packers look like a turkey, hooray!
And then this is how Thanksgiving day went…
ODDZ & ENDZ
Some pictures from the 2013 Dubai Air Show. This one was my favorite:
Extreme Art in Balance. At Bored Daddy. Amazing pictures…
The most ridiculous parody video of the song “Wrecking Ball” of Miley Cyrus by this guy with a beard along with viewers’ reactions…Words fail me…
BLOG BUZZ
I do not remember seeing any blogger say “We are so thankful for Chase and other banks and all the affiliate marketing companies for paying us big money for serving credit cards to our readers daily, we really appreciate it”. !
Join over 2,100 TBB followers on Twitter @ FlyerTalkerinA2 and add TBB on Google+
1st
Happy thanksgiving! I have to work tomorrow. Hiss.
This made my day.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/this-epic-note-passing-war-on-a-delayed-flight-wins-thanksgi?bffb
The #1 cause of Paypal account closures: using Paypal.
George, can you please step back and think about that random credit card generator? Are you nuts? As person who works in law enforcement using that site to generate random and valid card numbers is a horrible idea. I don’t care if you are just using it to get free trials. What happens to the mope who forgets to cancel his free trial and a card gets billed? Think it won’t work? They can and do. I know for a fact some tweakers here in Oregon were punching in random credit card numbers online and when they found a number that worked they went hog wild. That website is no different. Scarier in fact. I’m sure michigan has similar laws but in Oregon to be charged with Identity Theft all one has to do is use the personal identification of another (includes credit card numbers) with the intent to deceive and you are guilty of a felony. Stay away from that site.
Agree with Scott here. I just had a chase card number of mine stolen and used 20 times before the fraud department caught it. Meanwhile the card was in my wallet the whole time. It was very inconvenient for me plus I felt violated to a degree.
I hadn’t given it much thought, but I’m inclined to agree with the comments above about the random number generator. It’s probably not worth messing with.
At first, it seems illegal. But if you read how they create the number (it is a long mathematical formula) that replicates how banks generate credit card numbers. The site does not provide expiration dates or CVV values, so no charges will ever go through. This will not work for websites that have a “free” trial but still do a $1 temporary charge to the card.
Great, thanks for the additional info. This is how I was reading it.
@ Sky: Congrats, you are now part of an exclusive club 🙂 And thanks for the wonderful link, wow what a story!
@ Kathy: I am so sorry!
@ Nick: Lol. PP just sucks. So does Cartera. So….could make a blog post about this 🙂
@ Scott and Andy: Hmm, maybe I did not think of it this way. I was genuinely thinking about this site as an extra security measure. It was late at night and turkeyitis had taken over. If you intend to use it for free trials only what is the harm? Of course you should monitor your REAL credit card numbers for fraudulent transactions! Anyone else has a different take on this site?
The harm is that it is likely illegal or at least close enough to the line that you don’t want to go there. Here is how ID theft is defined in Michigan. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(gf0sll55ggjop355ahbawjng))/mileg.aspx?page=getObject&objectName=mcl-445-65. Oregon has a similar definition. This is something that should just be avoided. It is a Bad bad idea.
The credit card generators do not give you CVV numbers or expiration dates. They don’t necessarily even you an actual CC number that has been issued; they just give a CC number that could be valid based on the format/algorithm. Like the hilton gold/australia thing when you needed a visa infinite number and people used a cc # generator. The hilton site was just checking that a valid CC number was entered based on the format, not that a CC account with the number actually exists.
The visa infinite # with the Hilton gold/australia thingie was exactly the situation that came to my mind 🙂
Thanks.
You could say we are protesting Black Friday in our family. Not completely but to some degree. Now back when my daughter was in HS she participated in planning “Buy Nothing Day” to coincide with Black Friday. This BTW was a campaign orchestrated by the same ad firm that was involved in early planning for Occupy. Given the growth of Black Friday since then, they did not succeed at all.
Speaking of Occupy the prof in the family who studied Occupy after it got going is now at a demonstration at a Walmart which I believe was organized by Jobs With Justice to protest some bad things Walmart does…. I did offhandledly ask if he’d pop in to put some gift cards onto my Bluebird but knew even before I asked, confirmed by his blank look, that this was a chore I’d need to do the next time I passed a Walmart…. Obviously we don’t avoid that store completely.
Meanwhile I am getting ready to serve leftovers tonight for a small group with whom we will light the candles for the third night of Chanukah. I would love to snag the $19.26/night deal at a Radisson in Philly if it can be used in Sept but I expect they will be snapped up super fast when they go on sale for Cyber Monday. I did buy some Starbuck’s GCs at 15% off on Raise yesterday, I will venture out to do Small Biz Sat tomorrow with 8 AMEX cards and I may swing by an Office Max if the gift card sale there is still on. And we’ll use the 30% Amazon coupon to buy a book the prof needs. But that will do it for us. The Chanukah gifts we’ll exchange tonight were bought months ago. Good thing the economy isn’t dependent on my Black Friday shopping!
Sounds like your Maui plans are causing you grief. I had a similar problem with our Turkey trip this past summer from a cancelled flight. Maybe one more reason for us points junkies to move toward cash back cards…. Arrival, anyone? I hope you managed to work it out. Cheers!
Found the perfect anti Black Friday picture, just posted in on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2/status/406864278214688768/photo/1
Did the AMEX thingie. Just not as lucrative for $10 instead of $25. Got gift cards from favorite Korean food restaurant.
I am so distraught about my Maui plans that I am not going to even bother with it this weekend, too much heartache caused already. I will revisit on Monday again. It’s a whole different universe when you have 4 people!
UofM is playing Ohio State as I type…
Sad to see the currency devaluation, but I understand the economics. Happy Holidays.
It’s all about the economics. Airlines are making money, planes are full, down to 3 legacies, they are in the driver’s seat, we need to adapt!
Chris Elliott in your link:
I agree, there’s a special place in hell for consumers who churn their cards.
Well, good night:)))
Oh oh…I think we are taking the Hell Express!
MMS Friday interview with Points Pinnacle. Started blogging Nov 2, 2013 – http://pointspinnacle.com/happy-birthday-pointspinnalce/
OMG. MMS is really getting desperate for “interviews”. Less then a month old blog and in the game for TWO years…..
You must be proud about graduating from there ins’t is Grant?
Apparently it can bring HUGE traffic. Yah the 5 horsemen and their dogs.
I am waiting for the interview that starts with:
“I just discovered you can earn 1 Skymile per dollar you charge on your Delta Gold Amex card and then you can use 50,000 Skymiles for a round trip to Orlando in coach. So, I started my blog to help my friends and family travel for free by teaching them all the tricks I have learned”
Or something like that…
You should register the domain deltaskymilesrock.com before someone else gets it.