One more day in New Jersey. I had lunch again with Angelina of JustAnotherPointsTraveler and we caught up with all the blog buzz. I gave her my tutorial on how to win contests which resulted in a win by her as we spoke! It appears she won a prize by Virgin Atlantic and we hope it is a flight to London for two. It goes to show you that if you have lunch with me you are a winner, lol! Thanks for the great company and technical help Angelina and good luck with the move! Looks like I will be in Brooklyn this weekend!
Ways to contact me:
email: travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2
Fine me at FlyerTalk and Milepoint as: gpapadop
Lots of great stuff today! Reminder: No daily buzz round up on Sundays, I need a break por favor!
BEST OF
Gary Leff has a great post on the Top 8 Eight Best Uses of Skymiles. Loved the comment ” This is Delta after all, so it’s really tough to come up with 10.”, very funny! I learned quite a few things from this post. And if there is one thing TBB loves…it is learning NEW things! One of these days I will book my trip to Sydney!
Frequent Miler has a blog post about (is it new or was I sleeping?) the Barclays Arrival Mastercard that earns its own proprietary bank points redeemable for travel in the same way Capital One Venture card does. If you can get the 40k offer this may be worthy it for some. Here is my comment at FM’s post:
Good to see another competitor in the proprietay bank currency! They do one leg up on the Capital Venture card with the 10% rebate BUT without waiving the annual fee.
Some things to consider:
1) Doubt that the service in redeeming will be so painless as Capital One (ONLY talking about redemption here!)
2) It is Barclays & they may approve you for the lesser version of the card. One of the most annoying things EVER in this hobby.
3) Good for flexibility…Would prefer to see 50k signing bonus to make me Move on this:-)
Travel Summary had a post on his adventures with prepaid cards. Good to know all the Bluebird limits again. Once they apply to you, you learn them for good:-) And nice job on the new website!
Mommy Points outlines the Ins and Outs of the Ultimate Rewards Shopping portal.
Brian the Points Guy is a PR machine. Here he is on CNBC. I would definitely ask for compensation if they cut me off suddenly like this! Just kidding, come on!
Delta’s CEO, in the official Delta Airlines blog, tells us everything is awesome and the future is so bright we all got to wear shades! All the money spent on enhancements and not a cent spent on the BROKEN award search engine. At this point, only Delta Points calls Delta his beloved airline:-)
Amol at Hack My Trip has a good post explaining what Fifth Freedom flights are and a very thorough list of them, kudos for the hard work!
Hidden camera in Omni hotel bathroom. Very nice move Mr. Director of Engineering! Maybe you should support and perhaps take up Lovotics!
Amol again, at his own PointstoPointsB blog, reviews his 2012 travel year. He has AMAZING trip reports, please click on the ones you are interested! And of course his satire video on the OfficeDepot/VanillaReloads ‘event” is already one of the all time classics in this quirky hobby of ours!
There is another way to Maldives starting in March 2013: Korean Air through Colombo, Sri Lanka. We ‘ll touch base when this gets closer I guess. HT to Ben at One Mile at a Time.
Last words of airline crashing crews. HIGHLY disturbing. RIP
54 best photos of 2012 in Matador. You.Must.Click.This.Trust.Me!
Delta dropping both e-miles and e-rewards. Hmm, a precursor to going all rev? Probalby not, very good analysis here
2012: A Year in Travel Photography Wow!!!!
Beijing and Shanghai no longer require visas if you have a ticket out within 72 hours, hooray!
NOT SO BEST OF
I was struggling to find something here. And this entry probably does not belong here at all! Since it deals with Chase’s new policy for affiliates I made the executive decision to add it here since I find it both great and disturbing at the same time! Miles Momma explains this new policy. Apparently, we will stop seeing alarming titles like “Offer expiring tomorrow, you much click now or you will rot in hell”! I say HELL YEAH!!!! It is also becoming so apparent who is holding the upper hand in this monetary relationship (like there was ever any doubt). If Chase says “Jump” bloggers jump. This is so anti TBB, we cherish our independence here! At the same time, we must be amazingly disturbed to do all this labor intensive work for just the occasional words of support, many insults and several bloggers not talking to us anymore (your problem, not mine! You know I love you all…well, not all, most, lol). Let’s see how long TBB can keep up this pace!
And I almost missed this but thanks to an alert reader I am about to go off again! My friend Rick at Frugal Travel Guy wrote “Passive Income: A Lesson for All“. This was, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION AS ALWAYS, nothing other than a direct attempt to get readers to click on his TopCashBack and Big Crumbs and increase his passive income. It is his blog and he can write whatever he wants. It is my blog whose mission is to review other travel blogs and this passive income sounds very MLM/Amway like to me! These sentences make my stomach turn (my comments in [brackets]):
Particularly those readers that are younger and have many more years to enjoy the benefits and build a network. [Yeah, build it!]
Sign up through my Big Crumbs Referral Link and then start your own referral network. [build it baby, build,build, build]
You’ll earn passive income from your friends and their friends after them (generation #2) in small amounts, but for years to come. [don’t stop there, get new friends and their friends too!]
You will have developed your first passive income stream.[keep building,the more the better for you!]
Use twitter, Facebook, pinterest, email and whatever methods you have of reaching a network of your friends, associates and acquaintances, and watch that passive income stream grow and grow. [yeah, spam the crap out of everyone, badger them to death please, it is all about the build, no it is all about the network, no it is all about the passive income sorry my bad]
Five years from now, BigCrumbs could be paying your cellphone, electric and cable bill. and with a little effort on your part, maybe even your rent or mortgage. [Well, let’s see if Big Crumbs is still around in five years! Build, build, build. Or better yet get your own blog and get affiliate credit card offers and sell sell sell and build build build…who cares about the actual content anymore!!!!!!!]
Extremely disappointed and saddened…again!
ODDZ & ENDZ
2012: The Year in Pictures by the New York Times
A comprehensive list of all the dates predicted for Apocalyptic Events.
If somebody approaches with you an MLM Amway like opportunity please read this “I Hate Indian Network Marketers So Much” which is probably the best read on the subject. Dear reader, if you are ever approached for such an amazing opportunity, please reread this and RUN, RUN FAST!!
I hope you enjoyed yet another blog post and thank you very much for spending some time with me. I hope you were entertained, educated and enlightened in some way. Now go out and build build build something constructive please!
Thanks again for the mention and the feedback on my new website!
You are very welcome as always!
Solid post. The year in photography links you shared are great.
Thanks a lot, glad you enjoyed them, I sure did!
Wow, I made “best of” twice in one post? I should go buy a lottery ticket … or have lunch with TBB!!
If you have lunch with me, you will be winner for sure! 🙂
Not so best of? Delta Points comes to the rescue with his wife’s churn…
“US AIR 50/40,000 point card – This one also was a simple choice. 40,000 after 1st purchase and makes up for no grand slam this year. There is another link, that you could use if you ARE a US AIR “Chairman” but, like my churn, why risk no points when these are guaranteed (Lisa is NOT a US AIR Chairman). Result was instant approval!”
Hey DP, thanks for demonstrating once again why you are the biggest joke on BoardingArea. Not only do you shill lesser affiliate offers but you have your wife apply for them too, lol.
Nothing surprises me anymore, it is all about the money, screw the readers!
BTW, bonus points to DP for editing his previous churn to lie to his readers about how his US affiliate link “now also offers the same 50,000 point deal”. As we all know, the affiliate link doesn’t waive the first year fee and it doesn’t provide for 10K on anniversary.
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/deltapoints/2012/11/15/the-results-of-my-latest-credit-card-churn-how-did-i-do-this-one-took-some-work/
See above:-)
@Tom – thanks for the two shoutouts!
Thanks for reading DP!
No problem DP. You can rest assured Delta Putz will be a featured blogger on boardingareasucks.com when it goes live.
Ok, if Mohammed won’t come to manhattan, the mountain (ie, Kathy) will go to Brooklyn! Lunch 2day or 2morrow?
Me to Manhattan tomorrow.
Mohammed
Yet again, a great ROI on my time reading this post. Thanks for summing it all up!
Hey Connor, nice to see you here! Thanks for reading. I am all about ROI for readers. Let’s not talk about ROI for me yet as there is none!
I had to read FTG twice before I said holy crap!! He’s trying to increase his ‘passive income’ from, well, me………..LOL
No comment:-)
Man, HikerT beat me to it. I find it extremely hard to believe that Delta Points had his wife apply for the much crappier US Airways card. Please tell me you lied about it to get some extra cash, because otherwise people should really think twice before following your advice (I should make that into a rap). Word to your mother.
Seriously… has even one single person reported not getting the 40k points, no annual fee, and 10k bonus points at renewal after applying for the Chairmans US Airways card???
Are you kidding me?? Why would he have his wife apply for a cc that didn’t generate a commission for him?? Business is business………
The only reason DP’s wife did it is probably because gets paid more than what she is giving up. DP is smooth:-) There are restrictions in place where you do not get paid if you yourself apply and I am not sure if this applies to spouses! If it does, Lisa got the better offer and it is a better story to say “don’t go for the Chairman’s card”? We can never find out for sure of course…so the beat goes on!
Recommending a proven inferior offer is WAY up there in my book of worse practices in this hobby. Hmm, one day if I ever find time is to make a “Top 5 Worse Practices of “Travel” Blogging” or something like that:-)
I guess the question is, if he does get an affiliate commission for her application, is it worth more than $89 + 10,000 US Airways miles?
Good question! As cold hard cash is valued more, I would say no:-) Or he chose the better offer and is pulling our leg hoping to get some sheep to click on the inferior offer. I guess we will never know.
Can we just have a separate “best of section” for guys like Loyalty Traveler, Wandering Aramean, OnlineTravelReview etc.
A blog such as yours should do more to highlight the blogs that don’t do credit card pimping, which also (not by coincidence) are the ones that produce original content instead of participating in H/T konga lines.
I’ll throw in Frequent Miler, who technically does have affiliate links, but doesn’t incessantly pimp them or post in a way where his actual content plays 2nd fiddle to “CLICK ON MY LINK DEAL ENDING TOMORROW!!!! LAST CHANCE EVER!!!”. So it’s not really fair to put him in the same boat as the MileValues or DeltaPoints
That is a very interesting request! I thought about it. I initially thought I would stop linking back to blogs I highlight in my Not so Best of section. Then they talked me out of it. I hear where you are coming from, I can assure you of that! But I find it hard to implement it. I just want to feature the best and the worst of PERIOD in this space. Then again what happens if one of the above adds affiliate links too? The economics behind them aff links are very powerful!
We agree that it should all be based on CONTENT QUALITY which must remain PRIORITY NUMBER 1. You know adding something useful, teaching and educating readers, perhaps entertaining them a bit. And not use a blog platform to line up own pockets with such bad quality drivel and sales/spammy barrages!
I am also sensing my posts may be TOO long. Maybe I should not be so thorough and picky??
Anyways, this is a work in progress for sure!
And thank you for your comment!
Online Travel Review has affiliate links, too.
LT and WA have been around forever, so i think it’s a fair assumption that if they haven’t done aff links by now, they’re not going to anytime soon.
Thanks for the correction of OTR. But the fact that I didn’t know he has aff links is a compliment to him. It means he’s not pimping it enough
OTR had a post recently saying he won’t be pimping the cards like others. Instead, he will just keep them in a separate tab. I find that refreshing. BUT I wonder if Flex Offers will let him keep them if the volume is not there? The reason they keep pimping is because they do not want to be cut off! I am not sure…it’s a murky world, full of mud. I absolutely despise the non transparency and MLMlike feel of it all!
Where’s the December 30 post? It’s past 6am on the East Coast of the United States, and after Noon in Europe! We demand fair value for what we’re paying for here at TravelBloggerBuzz! How can you expect to bump up your readership enough to interest the credit card companies if you don’t post promptly each day???
You need to read more closely:-) I have stated there will be no daily blog updates on Sundays, I need a break too! Instead, the Monday pots will cover the weekend. Things tend to slow down in the weekends anyway. And this is worth exactly what you are paying, lol!
“Our 2nd honeymoon to Bora Bora Part 541,918,810: The maid cleaning our room had a minor lisp”
lol, please stop. See you at the next installment, it is coming. I think we may have an India mega long trip report coming soon! We may have two going at the same time, oh nooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You and I need to put our heads together and write a “do’s and don’ts for bloggers” regarding affiliate links and “passive income” (gag!).
Do: Provide insightful, useful, and original content that the reader finds entertaining, helpful, and/or productive and let them know you may get comped if they choose to use your links.
Don’t: Rehash, regurgitate, dumb down, pimp, lie to, or otherwise manipulate your readers.
Is it really that hard?
That’s great advice. There’s been some great advice offered here at TBB.
The problem? Many of the complaints lump all bloggers together, tarring the good ones — those who follow this advice and really add useful content — along with the bad as though there is no difference.
I think the ‘best of’ stuff that TBB highlights is a step in the right direction. It’s a reminder that not all bloggers who receive revenue from credit card signups are bad.
* Disclose
* Provide links to the best available offers, whether they benefit you or not
* Analyze honestly
* Don’t delete comments critical of your take on a card
* Don’t put those links in every post, in the middle of a trip report, etc
* Always add value, only write about credit cards when you actually have something to say
Follow those rules and folks really shouldn’t give the blogger a hard time I think — here by this blog author, here by readers in the comments, or on their blogs.
The ones that don’t follow these rules? Flog them mercilessly! Especially the travel bloggers who don’t actually travel or know anything about travel and THEN write silly credit card posts. They TRULY deserve to be mocked!
I am in complete agreement with both The Deal Mommy and Anonymous at 11.19 am! You guys have said exactly what I am thinking! Hopefully my blog is a small step in improving the quality of the blogs in this space!
Sometimes I feel kind of bad for doing the flogging and the mocking. A short time passes and I see another blog post by the flogged/mocked blogger and then I do not feel bad at all, lol.
Tbis is a labor of love for me so far. I have A LOT more to say, I just don’t have the time. When I find some time I certainly will.
And there are things to flog besides credit cards. Like travel bloggers who don’t have actual experience traveling.
E.g. ‘doesn’t fly for work, doesn’t have airline status, flew 32k miles in 2012’
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/newgirlintheair/2012/12/31/a-look-at-the-status-i-forfeited/
I love how Delta Points tries to save credibility today by touting his ethical standards. Of course, no mention of fibbing to his readers that his US affiliate link is “the same” as the better US offer, not to mention this nugget:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/deltapoints/2012/03/03/20-minutes-on-the-phone-21-500-free-points-today/
Actions speak louder than words. Stop censoring comments on your blog, stop pushing crappy offers to make a buck, and start telling the truth. Then there will be no need to proclaim your ethics.
BTW, just posted the following comment on DP. Will Rene have the guts to “approve” the comment?
HackerT says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
December 30, 2012 at 3:04 pm
The other day I encouraged a friend sign up for a credit card offer that wasn’t the best offer but gave me a referral. I felt bad about that, particularly since I had told the friend it was the same offer as a better offer, even though it really wasn’t true. I thought about coming clean and asking forgiveness from the friend, but instead I think I’ll focus on all things that make me a good person.
I agree, what can I say? I am immune to this stuff by now, I just feature the worst offenses:-)
I’m trying to figure out on what grounds DealsWeLike is qualified to be a travel blogger (aside from the “anyone can start up a blog” qualification)
Within a span of a couple of days last week, she:
1) Started a thread about being able to transfer Amex to Hilton at 1:2 (somehow having no idea you could get 1:2.7 when doing it through VA even though it’s made the rounds long ago in the blogosphere
2) Started a thread “US Airways up to 50,000 Mile Credit Card offer. Makes zero mention that those last 10,000 points SHOULD NOT be pursued, and on top of that, the first comment says “I got the 40K bonus last week. Do you think I can bump”? and her response is “I don’t think you can do it with Barclays”, when of course anyone with even the slightest CC knowledge knows you can’t BECAUSE THE BONUS ISN’T REALLY 50,000!!!!
Assuming she is honest, she apparently had no idea that there was the 40K chairmans offer out there. Even though it’s been around for ages and one of the most well known tools in a churners portfolio
These aren’t complicated matters. It’s not one of Luckys “how to conduct an 18 segment mileage run” or FM’s “how to stack 240 points per dollar and United 1K status on your Cheeseburger purchases”…… these are rudimentary tidbits that even the most casual travel hackers know about. So why is she a blogger on BoardinArea?
I agree…again! LOTS of these blogs would not be in existence if there was no aff cc income coming in. You can BANK on that (pun intended). The BS that I see every day is unimaginable and is only getting worse!!
So why not do a feature — I realize it would take guts to name names, but if you don’t what is the point? — which blogs do you think are the “good ones” which are the “bad ones” and which are in between / neither?
I guess since I’m not officially a “points blogger” I have a slightly different take on this one. I actually like the perspectives that folks like new girl, angelina, etc. bring to BA because they aren’t pimping that they “only paid $300 a night” to upgrade to a suite at the Andaz 5th avenue or wondering in amazement that they got flamed when they bragged in a blog post to spending 20K in a single OD run. Our hobby/addiction has different levels and for some of us $300 a night is the difference between going and not going to NYC at all. (rant over for now).
There is only 24 hours in the day. Keeping up with everything is REALLY REALLY tough. I find myself having hardly any time to work on the techie side of the blog and/or doing additional posts like my “Top 10 Blogs”…I know a post like this is warranted but actually sitting down and pulling it all together while blogs keep piling up on my Google Reader is…a humongous task. Time will tell…
The Deal Mommy: I see your perspective and I agree with it. Yes there are different levels to this addiction! I like my luxury hotels and First Class seats but I NEVER forget my roots! I do not think I ever PAID for a hotel more than $150. Only in the last few years I paid slightly over $100 per night. If over $100 I usually Priceline it! To this day I have never stayed in an Andaz. I have no idea what is the affection about dem pancakes:-)