We get the latest mainstream media of The Hobby, laugh hysterically reading The Bustle, shake our heads with Award Wallet warning us they are going on a plastic sell sell sell mode, learn how to book AA flights With Citi Thank You Points, get the details of the Citigold Bonus, travel to Marseille, and talk about them humans.
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And the mainstream media publicity barrage of One Mile at a Time continues. In addition to the now infamous Rolling Stone article, appearing in the front page of Yahoo and in Daily Mail, we now see him doing a TV interview with a channel in Australia. Well, like I said yesterday, this quirky hobby thrives under the radar. Every single mention in the mainstream press does NOT help our hobby go on. And calling the airline execs idiots, WTF!!! No wonder the hobby, excuse me, meant to say The Hobby lol, is under attack in the past few years and having many of us pondering its future. Some excellent comments here in this Flyertalk thread, especially the must read #577 by AAExPlat. Then my old friend ingy, the founder of Frugal Travel Guy, who showed up in Post #604. Hey, I will be blogging for three years soon, you were a little off in your prediction dude! And finally, another great comment by Astrophsx #622.
All right, STOP EVERYTHING. Read this article about The Bustle at Shandypockets, a SUPER hilarious parody on the Rolling Stone article. I have not laughed so much non stop for a very long time. I added this blog to Feedly, wow! #blownaway
Then I got an email from Award Wallet telling me that they are going to go full blown sell sell sell credit card mode. WTF!!! Then I see how much the CSP card paid me from the dinky creditcarddotbomb banner I have and it all makes sense. Actually, I need to get Mrs. TBB apply for one again and somehow someway hope that 5 card limit does not get involved #dreaming. My fear is Award Wallet folks get into plastic selling so much that they neglect the actual product, they get hacked and we all get screwed! Having said that, is there anything out there that can do what Award Wallet does?
Travel With Grant has an excellent reference post on how to book American Airlines with Citi Thank You Points.
Doctor of Credit has a Step-by-Step Guide to Citigold Checking Bonus. This can be lucrative but must be careful going about it and this post has what you need.
A comedy video at Shandypockets again about Passengers We Love.
Some awesome aerial photos of Marseille, France.
A very interesting graph showing the countries with the biggest GDP falls since 1950:
A fascinating article at Fortune: “Humans are underrated“.
And I leave you with this:
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First!
Waiting for Spencer F….waiting…
Not sure why people trust such sensitive info with Award Wallet.
It’s not that hard to remember your logins. And we probably know them better than our bank account logins and balances.
It’s not that hard…unless you have over 100 you are dealing with 🙂
I see your point of course. AW has been bothering me a lot lately…
…waiting…waiting…waiting…waiting…waiting…waiting………………
Thiiiiiiiird!
F Lucky………………..Inspired by Travel Codex Scott Mckenzie I will now wear my old Astronaut Helnet from my days with the Mercury Seven in my Gravatar. Try and top that Scott!
Love the avatar. Scott is a genuinely nice guy, his blog in the world famous “TBB Blogs I Like” list.
Oh my…”The Bustle” was a hoot!
Shandypockets parody…haven’t laughed that hard in awhile. Thanks for sharing.
Erik and smittytabb: Yeah I know, I have no idea how that site escaped me to date! That Bustle piece is a classic. And the video is really funny too. Hey Ramsey, you used to pull that crap with the seat belt sign too right?
These shandypockets can do a guest piece here anytime, I will be honored. Because, primarily, this site is about entertainment. Yours 🙂
George, so kind of you to mention me in your post. and I quote:
” Hey, I will be blogging for three years soon, you were a little off in your prediction dude!”
Not really off George. Writing a blog is certainly not the metric involved here. Anybody (and I mean anybody) can type out a blog on a daily basis. The important issue is relevancy, and readership.
Your blog has lost both based on your current readership numbers. You long ago crossed the 200K Alexa ranking and the other “angries forum” on FT is now down to just one or two comments a day. Being angry and whining is no longer in vogue George although there will always be you few holdouts.
Nope my timeline was about correct. Most new blogs die in the first couple years. Yours died when you decided to become the most hypocritical blogger of all by adding and pimping daily your own CREDIT CARD links, yet continued to whine about others doing the same.
Glad you had a “groupie” in Ann Arbor George. To think that 25% of your readership showed up to meet you has got to feel great.
And so glad I sold mine when I did.
Stay angry my friend and keep up that almost hourly twitter “whine” as well
“And so glad I sold mine when I did.”
You would have gotten more if you waited. You missed out on a lot of pumping. Imagine all the INK, CSP and Bold that you could have offered your audience. Instead you spent time selling computers. For some sales numbers are important, for others life quality.
Yeah he did sell way too early!
Anyways, my blog is about providing entertainment first and foremost. It’s the mission, the mission.
“you will fold in 3 months”. Still going 32 months later having fun here. Just a little…off.
You bet life quality is more important than sales! I hope Ben gets his life together, that excruciating jetsetter lifestyle can’t be good for his health!
Hilarious the guy who took credit card selling to such a level whines HERE about my credit card pimping. Wow and yawn!
Got an email from FTG: https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2/status/624570756807004160/photo/1
I only get these emails when they want to sell their readers more credit cards. ONLY. No wow, just yawn.
Relevancy? LOL
Current readership numbers? Bwahahahaha.
From the guy who said “It’s all about conversions”. Oh, doing record (not Titanic of course) numbers there, more than I imagined #schwing
Had a great time in Ann Arbor DO, you should stop by next year. Maybe we can do a session together. We can charge money for it…for charity 😉
Thank you all for reading.
And now salmon for lunch!
Another misstatement from a TBB whiner. I got he same multiple as the other blogs that sold later, but you wouldn’t have that info now would you 😉
And quality of life was indeed a big factor. I could see the goat fck coming and took mine and ran. Absolutely no regrets on my timing. And when the computer market got flooded, I got out of that as well. But those of you that don’t try new enterprises wouldn’t know about that. All you know is whining and demeaning others.
Oh George please get a couple things straight if you can:
1. I am not a fan of your blog
2. I certainly don’t whine about credit pimping here, You have the hypocritical corner on that market.
BTW again, flattered that you respond to the comments and mention FTG on your twitter feed multiple times when I do show up. It confirms that you blog is stale without purpose (other than whining of course) when your tweets are about an old “has been” like me.
Ouch! 239,000 and rising You could hold a TBB readers conference in your living room.
I thought you worked for a bank. A 10x multiple on 100k is quite different than $1M. I rather take a 5X multiple on 1M.
Ingy is like that one guy who left the party too early and spends the next day on facebook looking at all the great pictures that were taken after he left. let him pretend he had the night of his life if that makes him happy. Oh, Ingy, it’s an analogy – obviously nobody would ever invite you to a party in real life hahahaha
More brilliant TBB reader analysis. George, where do you find these guys? When the marketing of credit card goes from one or two players to fifty in the Hobby, as it did after the October 2011 onslaught of new players, what would you expect to happen with the earnings of each blog? They would be less for each blog than if only two players in the market.
Nice try though ABC
You missed the giant handout from Chase from 2011-15 and churnability of AMEX. You had the leader position and would have brought in many,many more newbies. OMAAT and VFTW all collected 7 figures each. The space has cleared out and we are now left with the predominant players. The resulting difference would be to live in a nice condo by the beach rather than a house in the Plantation. You’ve done well and it could have been better. You went with the best deal at that point. You just didn’t know how generous the banks could be and how many newbies you could attract.
Much more reasonable tone to your response. Thank you.
But what makes you think they were the only ones to collect 7 figures 😉 There were and are many more than the two you suggested. George could have been one of them. Now there is a guy with lousy timing. And what makes you think that my earnings ended in January 2012? Ever heard of the term “earn out”? I participated in the glory years without the headaches of compliance and ownership. Yes, to a lessor degree, but the condo on the beach is in easy reach. She just likes it where she is.
I wrote for 3 years before the affiliate game began and at 61 had enough of the daily grind and enough chips in the bank by the time I was paid out. And quite frankly, the game has lost its spark, as even you “angries” have noted.
We lived the dream of seeing the world at prices we could afford, have little interest in anymore international travel having seen all we wanted, and have way more miles than we will ever use. I’ll call my timing “just perfect” for us. And again, thanks for the civilized tone.
I saw Ben’s interviews on one of our Aussie breakfast shows, you can see it here. https://au.tv.yahoo.com/sunrise/video/watch/29020809/how-frequent-flyer-ben-schlappig-travels-the-world-without-paying-a-thing/#page1
The thing that really amused me was the naivete of the two hosts who don’t really have a clue on how to use their own miles. What Ben doesn’t realize is that for Aussies, there is only one way for normal Aussies (exceptions being dual citizens like me) to get AA miles which is via Amex MR – SPG – AA. The vast majority of Aussies who are in The Hobby (that term cracks me up) use buy-miles promotions such as the defunct USDM, now Lifemiles is the preferred program for *A and sometimes AA’s buy-miles deals. The Aussie Hobby is more about getting F or J for the price of a paid Y ticket, not getting free tickets. Most Aussies who have AA or UA miles are BIS business travellers, not credit card churners or MSers.
We don’t have MS products such as Bluebird, Serve, etc. We do have reloadable debit cards but you can’t use credit cards to load them. Fixed value Visa cards have a $5.95 fee for (I think) $200 so not worth it, plus you can’t withdraw cash from them. Our credit cards rarely have waived annual fees and they can be very steep, plus QF has ridiculous fuel surcharges.
Thank you so much for your Aussie perspective!
I really don’t like it when 2 good guys ‘fight’ in public.
Having met them both more than once, and having been told many stories (granted they are biased, and hearsay only), I question the phrase “2 good guys.”
George is pretty awesome.
You are awesome!
Never understood why someone who is not a fan of a blog keeps coming back here whining and insulting us whiners! To top this off, keeps checking the Alexa web ranking numbers which are meaningless, especially to a blogger like George who has not checked them in years. How messed up is that!
Ramsey has not commented on the flight attendant video yet, waiting…
Whoever wrote The Bustle just nailed it, thanks for posting it!
Thanks for the comment. I did not bother to respond above anymore. I mean, not a fan of my blog which is with no purpose but all it does is whining and demeaning others and takes the time to keep commenting and checking MY blog’s Alexa (is she good looking?) web rankings!
Just so you all know (if you care) about how the latest “fight” started see posts #603 and #604 here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/external-miles-points-resources/1483373-one-mile-time-omaat-discussions-merged-41.html
I was minding my own business, just had read the Rolling Stone article and in a fragile state of mind I made a comment in a relevant thread about OMAAT. And then bang (at #604). I did not respond. Then I made a reference on my blog (hey it is MY blog and I can write whatever I want without being “reviewed” by any bank!) that ingy is alive (I was worried!) and he was a LITTLE off that my blog will fold after three months and we are nearing three years of TBBiness lol.
On Twitter I directed people to the blog posts because, lets face it, whenever ingy appears it attracts clicks…which increases conversions…which is “what’s is all about”. So thanks man!
Totally ludicrous…Ludicrous lol.
So, to all readers, just ignore. For the record, I have not been in the FTG blog in months. Except for one post which a dear friend sent me about a post of her trip to Thessaloniki.
Never EVER get 7 travel rewards credit cards at once if you are looking for one cash back card! Even if you do it with my links, please don’t let me know…I would not be able to sleep at night because…even veterans should not do that (well some).
Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/bigpicture/2015/06/30/great-barrier-reef-risk/9gTDGsCw4KBXwHbsVF1IVL/story.html
The contrast between a fragile reef threatened by acidification and rising temperatures and a port shipping coal out depresses me.
Excellent pics of the reef. Yeah, kind of depressing indeed.
I tweeted this earlier on Sunday:
Really appreciate the support from your founder @FrugalTravelGuy Such a.loyal reader & commenter. I never visit or troll your site. Thanks!