Fairly short blog post today…
TRAVEL
Interesting interview with Gary Arndt at Eye & Pen. Gary has been doing travel writing for a while and I think he has been a Flyer Talk member for a while too (if I am not confusing him with someone else…I tend to do that more and more as the years go by!). To bloggers doing interview posts: Please make them interesting like this!
23 Photos to Inspire Travel. By The Talking Sloth Asia. Beautiful pics!
MILES/POINTS
United again “enhanced” its Mileage Plus program hours after dropping the Revenue bomb we talked about yesterday. When it rains, it pours. Amol at HackMyTrip got the scoop first, even before UA Insider published it! In summary, non Premiers get screwed big time when they want to make changes to their tickets. To cancel your award and redeposit the miles, you are looking at $200. This is just ludicrous. Why are they doing it? Because they can. Two words: Free Agency! And yes others will likely follow.
Or maybe the real reason for the fee increases is this? Lol
In case you missed it, here is where you can activate the 3rd Quarter 5x categories for your Chase Freedom Card.
BLOG BUZZ
Milevalue tells us all about cards about to disappear and they all happened to be ones that pay a commission. Wonder why no Chase cards made the list? Seriously?
Million Mile Secrets is on Part 10 of Rental Cars series. And it’s not over yet….
I can’t stand contests that require multiple entries or having to provide a link back to the originating website. #personalpetpeeve
The Points Guy has a long piece on the state of the credit card industry and is very upbeat about it. At the same time, he mentions several times the words “compliance” and “compliant”. Hmmm. Are the banks about to become even more sticklers and demand even more things from their card pushing blogger armies:-) #hypothesizing
Deals we Like decides to tell readers how to compare…yep, you guessed it, four different Chase cards. Brilliant original content folks!
Getting tired of the quarterly “Activate your Chase Freedom Bonus Categories NOW” and while you are at it here are some more Chase cards. And, come on Points Guy, did you really have to throw in a few Amex cards too? Seriously?
Is it just me or is One Mile at a Time‘s reviews getting to be so similar. I skipped over the LAN review today…just felt I had seen it before a million times: the seat, the nuts, the IFE, the dishes, the menus, the maps, no human beings, zzzzz.
Every time I read a Travel “Challenge” at Frugal Travel Guy I marvel at the beauty of the cut and paste job. And fully expected to see the Chase Ink cards chosen this week. Does this take more than five minutes or what?
ON MY MIND
RIP James Gandolfini. I must admit I never watched the Sopranos. The only TV series I watched was the X-Files and I believe the truth is still out there.
I need to find time to work on the blog. I have been saying that since I started. My real life always comes first, my unreal life as a blogger comes next lol. Remember that song by Gil Henron “The Revolution will not be televized”. In my case here at TBB, I feel like renaming it “The Content will not be compromised”…This came to me…it is 1.35 am as I am typing, oh the insanity!
ODDZ & ENDZ
This is actually some pretty good life advice from a 28 year old travel blogger to her 18 year old self. By The Cultureur. One particular piece of advice stood out: 17. When people spew a stream of venom upon you, take a step back and know that it’s a reflection of what’s happening inside of them and very rarely will it be about you. Sure, it can still be hurtful, but time to grow that thick skin.
Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready to Ruin World Again. By The Onion. Brilliantly funny!
Will Run for Miles posted about her Dream Job Opening: Running Concierge for Westin! Reading the job description will provide instant and multiple orgasms to female travel minded marathon fanatics:-)
Am I actually the first to post a comment today?
Thank you for featuring that chart about the award change fees implemented by United Airlines, George. I appreciate it.
I am not sure about the Canadian Jeff kid, he was always first…what a slacker! And you are very welcome on that chart too.
When did it become a competition? Now I am WATCHING…. 🙂
OMG you said orgasms. I’m appalled.
Keeping it real here at TBB;-)
Hey George: Is professional wrestling real?
Depends on if there is an affiliate link behind it lol.
Serious or not?! ‘The easy way to get Hyatt Diamond’ …. By moving to Vegas for 50 days!
http://first2board.com/pointssummary/2013/06/19/earn-hyatt-diamond-elite-status-for-980-or-less-at-the-excalibur-hotel-in-las-vegas/
The easy way is to do a Diamond CHALLENGE in Vegas. 50 days not required
Actually called and checked! Won’t work. Has to Hyatt branded for a challenge.
I think PS is serious but who can spend 50 days changing hotels in Vegas? But I am certain Vegas hotels will help a lot of Hyatt people keep or get higher status…which will certainly lead to a devaluation!
Dia: Thanks for checking, great to know!
Bloggers are up early today milking that ink cow.
Just took my first pass through the blogs this morning…It is just ridiculous!
thanks for the mention.
I did a little research, and did you know that there are studies confirming that some women orgasm from exercise!! wow!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-57400777-10391704/study-confirms-some-women-orgasm-during-exercise/
Wow, amazing! No wonder the gals I see in the samba class at the gym look so happy:-)
I dated a girl that could do this (I mean, I’m assuming she did it cause she could). At first I didn’t believe her. Would probably make going to the gym a little more tolerable.
….
Kathy….not sure if you posted that or the spam tech gods did something to your post. I just want you to know I did nothing to it to make it appear like this, just fyi)
I merely wrote “” to indicate that I censored my own response, and then the system went ahead and censored that! the nerve!
Latest count of spam sent straight to Spam folder with this Akismet thingie I have: 1,175 and growing, wow!
Yet another post on how to use 65k UR points by a friendly neighborhood blogger. Good post though.
Hope it slows down after June 22:-)
Which one? There are so many!
Does anyone here know the difference between Ink Bold and Ink Plus ?
Million Mile Secrets | June 20, 2013 at 2:54 pm |
@misty – I’ll post more on this tomorrow, but the main difference is that the Ink Plus is a credit card which means that you pay interest if you roll the balance to the next month. The Ink Bold is a charge card which means that you have to pay the balance back in full each month.
I am so looking forward to this tomorrow!!!!
Lol…Sure gives me plenty of material for my “Blog Buzz” section:-)
Can anyone here help with how to use 65k UR points?
Lol…good one. They are all so so kind trying to help us put the 65k to good use.
A good explanation of why there are street protests in Brazil. It’s not just about bus fares. (There’s a better summary in an El Pais column, but it’s in Spanish.
The FT front-page pick related to this, “I can’t check in for my flight to GRU because my name doesn’t match; is it the protests?” was among the dumbest things I’ve seen on FT. (And there are some real gems there.) Any idea how threads make their way to being “Flyertalk Picks?” Some of them are just so, so dumb.
Tip of the hat to FMiler for producing useful content in a set of few posts on car rentals. Wow! Amazing! Original content! Daraius did it to, but ain’t no one got time to read that many posts. Someone on MP asked recently how to decide which bloggers’ links to support. Easy rule of thumb: support any blogger with the first name “Frequent” and the last name “Miler.” Done.
Interesting my brother sent me the same video this morning!
Yeah sometimes I wonder about some things you see in FT too;-)
One of these days you can send these guys to FM and TBB, hehe. I am getting to it…but always something comes before I get to it. Tonight is Game 7 of the NBA Finals!
I also had the same thoughts on the car rental posts!!
Anyone else noticing a problem with the Google feed? For me, it no longer updates (even with a resubscribe)
(to be clearer, I mean the RSS feed that puts this blog’s headlines onto my igoogle home page…—not working)
I do not know! I am supposed to move to Feedly before July 1st.
Maybe you just need to bookmark TBB then:-)
iggogle is also being killed. Google killed two programs I used daily and often. Bastards!
iGoogle and Google Reader are both being retired. The mobile version was retired, so if you’re looking on a mobile device, that could be your problem. In any case, you only have a few more weeks to use them!
Hey George, did you see “Live and Let’s Fly” Klindt’s post accusing UA of “weaponization and balkanization” of the Star Alliance? He simply made accusations that were simply untrue and then deleted almost all of the comments earlier today. That dude needs to chill and stop being so angry that UA kicked him off a flight…
Oh, THATs’ the guy from that UA saga. I may have missed it or did not come through yet in my GR feeds. I liked his Afghanistan stuff though, brave soul or…nuts!
I just don’t have a good feeling about the game tonight…
Oh ye of little faith!
Yep, that’s him. That dude also worked for Star Alliance for quite some time and never, ever referenced it in his blog…he is a doosh
That sounds like a detail that should be disclosed:-)
Close game again. Green must be unleashed. Ginoobli too.
Rocketmiles is back with a new first-time booking bonus with Virgin America. That’s great for us “angries” because Rocketmiles is a true rorschach test for points/miles blogs.
(1) who doesn’t realize the bonus is stackable with the new member referral bonus? they shouldn’t be blogging.
(2) who gives their own referral link and earns themselves 1000 miles vs who gives VFTW’s link so that their readers get 2000 miles?
It sure is, isn’t it? U give your link, you do harm. U give your link because you don’t know…why are you blogging?’
Gary is smart giving this up…makes great business sense:-)
It would have been smart if other blogs had actually linked to it. Give up miles, get traffic and reputation. But I haven’t seen many (any?) of them doing it. So he just gives up miles. Kind of a chump if you ask me!!
Can we just put Milevalue out there as the one who really pushed his own referral link for this? Man, that just made me sad inside.
“Brilliant original content folks!”
Really?? You’re going to bash other people’s unoriginal content? You, Mr. TravelBloggerBuzz, whose entire blog exists just to rehash what other people have put on the web?? Pardon my language, George, but you’re an a$s.
This is one of the most enjoyable aspects of blogging. Reading comments and making a connection with my readers:-) And I absolutely enjoy interacting with the angry 1%.
SVB: I am sorry you feel that way. My dig on that specifically referred to the specific post which was pretty much a cut and paste job with the Ink card benefits we have seen a gazillion times.
My blog reviews other blogs. My original content is…my incendiary commentary on the daily blog posts I review. Nothing more, nothing less. You must like it to read it, no?
I have been called many names worse than that, come on, make it original next time.
And thank you for taking the time to comment. Feel free to speak your mind.
@SVB you want original content how bout dis. Congratulations to Courtney Stodden for giving birth to her new double D’s. Everyone is doing well after the surgery. Dis broad is smart!
I had to google her. Wow:-)
Just posting at the end of the day so that you’re feeling the love. What will you do when firsttoboard or whatever it’s called, closes down for the weekend?
Catch my breath? 🙂
I think it’s sad the carpetbloggers are now going so far as to manufacture posts promoting the 25K Ink singups as well. Would any of us recommend to a friend they to burn a Chase inquiry on a 25K Ink bonus? What horrible advice in my opinion. There are ways to churn the higher offers, but I suspect the carpetbloggers don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them. According to one blogger, “There’s no question these are all great cards”. Sigh…
One blogger had 3 of 4 of them Chase links. Want to guess why? Very disappointing.
I have more on new blog post June 20. Too bad Boarding Area will be down, talk about bad timing! I expect non BA blogs to be on super attack mode on Firday!!
As an X-Files fan, you may have noticed that Fringe was a complete rip-off, even copying many plots. I was less surprised when I learned of the influence that Chris Carter had on JJ Abrams.
I finally convinced Megan to watch X-Files with me to prove how much better and more original it was. We’re almost done with season 8. When we finish, this will be the fourth time I’ve watched it from start to finish.
Wow, four times!
There was another one I watched…but the name escapes…The Peak something, Dennis Hopper was in it.
I watched the first episode of Lost, missed the 2nd one, watched the 3rd one and was just completely lost so I gave up.
That’s it.
Oh, sixty minutes I never miss:-)