 |
| Yeah Norway again (see link below) |
ON MY MIND
Bill, who writes at milevalue.com, also declared his free agency from Delta. Did I start a movement or what? Up yours Delta, tired of your award shenaningans, world class airline with such a horrendous award booking engine, really? No mas dinero from me! I am flying AA to NYC in April and Southwest to Vegas in May, took me five minutes each to book. Take your “three” award levels (two really, stop lying!) and shove them you know where! Now there, I feel so much better!
Did anybody notice how The Frugal Travel Guy churning challenges are now written by “FTG Staff”. Judging from the content, it appears they were written by the same staff person all along!
First2Board is sponsoring the Chicago Seminar! Interesting…Am I sensing two camps forming here? On one is Randy Petersen/Boarding Area/FTU and the other is Internet Brands/Frugal Travel Guy/ and now First2Board? The big winners are the bloggers who speak in both events! Hey, I am writing what’s on my mind, look at the title of this section. My point is with three of these seminars in 2013 (anymore?) and one at the end of 2012 is overkill! Just my two pennies!
Extra Pack of Peanuts is joining Boarding Area, say what!! How in the world one gets invited to join BA is beyond me! Do the other BA bloggers have a say at all? EPOP made my “Not So Best Of” list several times. So much Bluebird, so many credit cards posts. Maybe Chase graduated him too and decided to get on the BA train to get back in Chase’s good graces? All I know is expect even more credit card related posts out of Boarding Area…like we did not have enough!
Dear TBB readers, it is my personality to be fiercely independent and march to my own beat. And I always take the long term view on everything, it comes naturally to me. Thank you for your support and clicking on my affiliate links. Oh crap….where is that ebates link I could throw in here…ah, screw it. I am too tired to track it down. And so it goes…
MILES/POINTS
The awkward moment you think you did the min spend on an AA card but somehow one charge did not post so the statement closes and no 50k AA miles and now you need to wait another month!! Am I losing my touch?
Hey you fellow Ann Arbor CVStore shopper. First you put the Vanilla Reload cards behind the XBox gift cards. Today I found them behind the Overstock (really?) gift cards. You can hide but you can not buy them fast enough, come on! Don’t make me do this, I assure you will never find them. But I don’t do this kind of stuff, it is WRONG!
I am starting to think of hotel award nights as number of trips to CVStores. This is clearly not normal!
TRAVEL
13 Incredible Dust Storms Coming in. From Must Look. WOOOOOOW!!
Living on the edge: 30 extreme photos that will take your breath away. Blog of Francesco Mugnai. WOOOOOOOW!
Nate at Yomadic goes to Nis, Serbia. “Home is a state of mind”. Yes Sir!
ODDZ & ENDZ
An entitled Communist Party official in China goes mad…NEW video with sound! Read what he is saying (translated). Mega LOL!
I will honestly say that as the Founder of First2Board, I’m not in any “camp”. I formed great relationships with Rick, Howie and the team at FTG at the last Chicago Seminar. We’re glad to sponsor the Chicago Seminar becuase of that relationship.
We asked the FTU guys about sponsorship and they told us they were sold out. As a former fundraiser (boy that was a long time ago), I never ran an event that turned away sponsorships.
I blogged today that the Chicago Seminars are unique becuase they donate all proceeds to charity. If I was running an event, and donating all proceeds to charity, I’d take as many sponsors as I could get so I could donate a lot more to charity.
I know you blogged, George, that charity is a personal choice, and I agree, when it comes to personal donations. Let’s face it, the registraiton fee being charged doesn’t cover the cost of one of these events. It’s the sponsorships and donations by individuals at the events that allow charitable contributions. So, in my opinion, if you want to make that statment that your event is unique becuase proceeds go to charity, why limit sponsorships that will enable charitable donations?
I also agree that there are too many events, but as long as people go to them, the market exists for them. If we ever hold a F2B university it’s going to be in Fiji.
Well said, Stacey!
Being that George likes to see himself as an agent of change, perhaps he should find a way to motivate FTU to do some good by finding a way to support a charity with those $100 entry fees? Just my two pennies!
To respond to this or to sleep? Definitely the latter. Until the morning, George.
Have you seen those cheesy life-sized checks that Randy and Tommy have posted of themselves handing out to charities?? I actually think it’s pretty self-promotional, since like George I prefer my charity much lower key.
But best I can tell we haven’t seen where FTG sends any Chicago Seminar charity money (the excess from fees, not the raffle money). He donates his e-book proceeds to Wounded warrior, but has there been a post on what has actually happened to the extra money from these seminars? I’ve never seen it.
Response to VGP by paragraph:
1. Ok. I loved how F2B was staying away from all the aff cc murkiness! Having F2B associated with FTG does not help in that dept. But it is probably a good business decision. IMHO.
2. Ok. It was probably a good business decision by them too as they appear to be very BA blog aggregation focused.
3. Oh, the charity again. You know how I feel about this. Is it ALL PROCEEDS or all procceds AFTER expenses. Makes a HUGE difference!
4. I never said that the cost to attend the event was not a bargain, no apples and all:-)
5. Yes, too many now. And yes as long as the market is there for them they will continue. Kind of like blogs and cc affiliate links:-) I’m in for Fiji, assuming all proceeds go to charity too, lol.
Reply to S&S:
“Agent of change” – that made me smile, thank you.
Strong words against FTU buddy! As long as all these numbers are unaudited every one can say whatever they want!
From the FTU website: “FTU also stresses that “the event is priced to cover event costs, though if we’ve figured it right there will be some leftover funds which wind up donated to charity.” Sounds like non profit to me! Tell me how can CS claim the title of the ONLY not for profit event?? Anyone?
Make everything transparent or please don’t throw out to the masses the charitable intent angle. This is how I PERSONALLY feel about it, my two pennies. It’s my blog and thank you so much for reading & taking the time to comment as always.
My late father taught me to do good and never tell anyone.
Response to Anonymous @10.55am:
I think it also went to Wounded Warriors. I don’t remember actually. I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday how am I ever going to remember something like that from so long ago!
If both events are not for profit, why not FULLY disclose the proceeds, the expenses, the charitable donations and all other benefits derived from such events (how many rooms comped, points, statuses, etc.).
If you’re such a big fan of transparency and disclosure, TBB, then why not disclose who you are? Where’s your ‘about the author’ page?
If you’re going to re-reference your father’s teachings in response, then you’re going to have to prove that what you are doing is truly altruistic. Do you think that the blog cuts it? Can all of it be seen in that light?
Just saying…
Time for me to hit the gym and catch up on the entries that I missed.
Regarding the author page, I just have never gotten around to it!! I will get to it someday. Take a look at so many blogs in this space and you will see so many bloggers who do not post their actual names or even pics! The reasons are several and have been talked about here before. Most of my readers know me anyways in real life. As long as this remains mostly a hobby I would like to keep it this way.
“Father’s teachings, truly altruistic, have to prove”. Wow, big words my friend. I could care less if you think this blog does not cut it with you as long as it cuts it with me (it does!).
Hope you enjoyed the gym, I go every day! Maybe I should skip one and work on that “About Me” page?
G-man. Yes you are normal to do the math to figure how many stops for a hotel stay or how many trips to your big box store for a free flight. Sounds reasonable to me.
Sounds reasonable to YOU but to the masses it sounds like I need a therapist:-)
So does that mean you are going to all 3 events 😉
As of now I am going to none! I may go to Tampa. I just think these events are getting way too popular for my quirky type of personality. I did not learn a single thing from the speakers at the LAX FTU! Loved the socializing of course. But prefer free DOs, should not be paying registration fees plus airfare plus hotel to…socialize:-)
Re: Delta independence: easier said than done. I’m working on it, but some destinations from my airport only get service from Delta.
The “independence” commment referred to my personality actually, nothing to do with Delta. I hear you, I am in Detroit which is mostly Delta.
Please please sign me up for the F2B event in Fiji. Seriously!!
Sounds great to me!
Kathy, you know me…I will plan it, so don’t joke.
Its very nice.Awesome photography
Thank you
The other AA CVS shopper is Frequent Miler. No doubt about it. Face it George, your points-fu is not as strong as his.
harvson3
He texted me to give him a heads up on what the inventory looks like, he is a little busy with his 1M project right now:-) Actually, last week a cashier told me “where did you find these?” (hidden behind XBox gc’s) and then proceeded to tell me how another customer drove from a town an hour away and been going to all CVS stores in Ann Arbor trying to find these VR cards…Hard to believe the game is still going with news like this!
Obviously FTU won’t allow First2Board
Randy and the BoardingArea crew know a rival when they see one. Them being “sold out of sponsorship opportunities” is about as uncoincidental as BoardingArea pushing off that 2 day shutdown from the same week that F2B was going live
Although F2B loses a lot of credibility it gained with it’s “no CC link” policy by sending people FTG’s way. Even if you don’t want to send people the way of quality BA bloggers who don’t pimp CC’s (like FM), at least send them towards someone who only posts the best links, like Darius or OTR
I agree!
@Anonymous, I can accept that it may seem hypocritical to say no credit card aff links on F2B and then refer to FTG, but the fact is that some people do want to learn about those things. You, and no one, has to agree with my choice to refer to FTG, but in return, I get referrals for people looking for credit card free content. It’s not something I’m getting from other major blog sites.
Stacey
VeryGoodPoints & F2B founder
The whole “not having CC links because it compromises our objectivity” loses a lot of it’s meaning when you’re alternative to that is sending people towards someone who very much does have his objectivity compromised by them
If you’re sending people towards FTG, then it’s hard to believe that promoting unbiased content was really the purpose of the No CC link policy. Looks like more of a publicity stunt to have your cake and eat it too
I agree with your first paragraph. I will give them to see if the 2nd pans out as you stated. I understand how hard is for a new venture to get noticed and build traffic. But the more I see them two mentioned together the more my enthusiasm wanes with F2B. I now see an almost inactive FTG twitter account has come to life Retweeting F2B tweets. And the sponsorship of Chicago Seminars.
I told F2B how I personally feel about this.
As you know, I am not thinking about hotel nights. But when road tripping to (somewhat) nearby cities, the first thing I check on Google map is if there are any CVS or RiteAid shops there or on the way 🙂
Good one:-)
Packed and ready for Fiji and F2BU !!!
Why do they always hide VRs behind Xbox? Lazy. Sitting right next to the VR area and those black stripes stick out no matter how far back.
At my last ice cream run it went more advanced…different rack and in between Overstock.com gift cards…Almost fooled me:-)