January 26, 2013 – Delta is into us, ultimate flirting guide, SQ FC suites, etc

So much filler stuff on Friday, not much of substance worthy of passing the incredibly tough TBB screens to be featured here.

No daily buzz tomorrow! I may have the $50 Marriott gift card winner and I may have something else, a very long comment on best blogging monetizing practices. Obviously I am NOT the authority on this. I would really like to thank the ONE reader who signed up on e-bates from my referral link! We are talking major cha ching stuff here, watch out for my zippy affiliate links on their way. I am joking. This whole gig is on a perpetual mode of #developing.

I will be at a conference next week Wednesday to Saturday so I expect the pace of my posts will…suffer. I may have a guest post or two. But I need to veto it first as I am very protective of my readers’ time and good sense! I must make sure it is…TBB worthy, yes!

Here we go!

BEST OF MILES/POINTS

Loyalty Lobby first reported that Delta keeps track of a lot of info on us SkyMiles members! He gives HT to this Flyer Talk thread.  You know I have no sympathy for the Delta execs at all. For them to KNOWINGLY ignore fixing the broken search engine & award calendar for YEARS and subject their “valued” frequent flyer members to pull their hair out trying to redeem their miles is…INEXCUSABLE! But hey, look at the bottom line, it’s doing well! So, we part company, no dinero from me anymore. Delta will not miss me at all. Oh, on that database…Gary Leff picked up on it and ripped them. Then many commenters ripped Delta for getting most of this data WRONG! Only to have a Delta spokesperson with the typical corporate BS post in a comment #59:

I’m a spokesperson for Delta.
Like many companies, Delta uses demographic and other data to help provide a personalized experience for our customers, improve how we communicate with them and design offers customized to their interests. While the data displayed was only available to the specific user, we sincerely regret that this code displayed and the confusion it may have caused for our customers. We worked to resolve the issue promptly upon discovering it.

You are all too busy coming up with MQDs huh & try to squeeze more money out of us huh? Your IT sucks and now you make our personal information available for all to see! You know I am against class action lawsuits for mistake fares…but THIS is a class action lawsuit for violation of privacy material! Let me know so I can sign up..at least they will throw me a couple of billion Skypesos to make me go away, lol.

Ben’s A380 Singapore Airlines Suites Class San Fransisco to Hong Kong trip report.  Wow!

A consumer press post that is actually pretty good! From Marketwatch: “Redeeming miles: Now as aggravating as flying“.  Hey Points Guy, it would give us all hope if instead of saying “I firmly believe that’s going to be the next step” redemptions are going revenue based you follow Gary Leff’s line that goes like this “doing this is wrong wrong wrong” so we can preserve our First Class suites and caviar with champagnes! Ok…that last line was a joke. Sadly, I see it as inevitable. The glory days of this hobby are over…only saving grace I see is the prepaid cards/Bluebird mania!

NOT SO BEST OF

Gary from View from the Wing pushes hard the Amex 75k offer! What made me honor it here is the alarming language such as:  “This is a very short-lived offer, available for less than a week, and this weekend is your final opportunity to get it as the offer is scheduled to be pulled Monday morning by 11am Eastern.” [ wait a minute, I thought we were all done with this alarming sky is falling if you do not get this card crap!!] and “This is a pretty strong offer, Membership Rewards points are my third favorite currency behind Chase Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.” [If it was that strong maybe it would NOT be third!]  I am willing to bet we will see such offer again so, I think, we would really appreciate a lesser alarming tone, thank you! You have such killer stuff lately and then bang, you hit us softly with an unnecessarily alarming credit card post. The over dramatic tone set me off:-) See you in the Best Of in the coming days I am sure! I love it when you rip Delta you know:-)

Southwest’s CEO says “Never say never” about fees. Oh oh, you know what that means…your bags won’t fly free sometime in 2014, Boo!

United took back the 5,000 miles bonus some of us received for registering for that promotion. I remember reading self congratulatory posts by bloggers about it. Well, looks like some United (or Chase) employee NOTICED and bang! In the good old days this would appear on page 52 post #4,516 of an obscure Flyer Talk thread and no one would notice.  #toomanyblogs!

BEST OF TRAVEL

Defying death at Devil’s Pool! Wow! I am talking about how close they are to the Falls!

Since many readers are single travel addicts…I present to you the:

Ultimate guide to flirting on the road By Alex at the Crazysexyfuntraveler blog! The last two suggestions by other bloggers are totally hilarious:

– Jeff recommended to ask: “Have you seen my blog?”
– Kate added to the fastest flirting on the road: ”Step 1: Move hand to zipper. Step 2: Unzip.”

ODDZ & ENDZ

World’s Weirdest New Hotel Rooms.

What happens when you dispute a charge on your credit card. From the New York Times.