TravelBloggerBuzz

An eclectic journey through the Travel Miles/Points blogosphere

Jaw-Dropping Anbang News, Insane Hyatt Promo, Yuge United Awards

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We publish jaw-dropping Anbang news, we register for an insane Hyatt Promo, learn our way around yuge United Awards, fly to Cuba & pick up trash in Cairo & more!<—–the placement of this exclamation mark is just brilliant!

 

TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!

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To reader Ramsey: How do you like my click-bait headline huh? You approve or do I need to take a class to improve?

I told you this Anbang Chinese company trying to buy Starwood is just not a normal company and a normal CEO (married Deng Xiaoing’s granddaughter by the way, how conveeeenient!) . If you don’t know who Deng Xiaoping is, shame on you. Google it! You should read this article (google it if you can’t access it due to NYT paywall): “Starwood Bidder is a Reclusive Chinese Insurer With Opaque Backing“. This is not over….Can the Marriott folks hire me so I can advise them to just hang tight, my fees are reasonable hehe. Just a few excerpts to make you realize what fruit cake we are dealing with here:

“Mr. Wu (Anbang CEO) avoids interviews. The fax number on his company’s website connects to a dentist’s office. And, unlike Mr. Buffett, whose net worth can be easily calculated, Mr. Wu’s fortune is a cipher, lost in Anbang’s labyrinthine shareholding structure made up of 37 interlocking holding companies.”

“Collectively, the group of 37 companies controls enough of Anbang to make any one person one of China’s wealthiest individuals. Mr. Wu is not listed in the documents as a major shareholder, and he does not appear on wealth-tracking lists compiled by media companies.”

You can now register for the Hyatt latest promo: “Stay More Play More“. It should be renamed “Stay More, Pay More”, no thanks. For you road warriors, take advantage of it, you deserve it!

Travel Codex is at it again: How to find Award Space using the United Airlines website and Fees, Taxes and Surcharges on United MileagePlus Awards.

LeClub AccorHotels gets “enhanced” and it sucks even more! These guys took over my beloved Fairmont and I just freak out at the thought of “enhancing” that loyalty program too…

The Hilton Surpass card is now up to 100k points, highest ever! The other no annual fee card is also up to 75,000 points.  So sad you can not get the bonus again one more time. #crying

After reading several posts on the subject, including several trip reports, I had the same exact feelings laid out in this post: “The Fragility of Cuba’s Infrastructure“.  Oh, and Fidel opened his mouth, STFU Fidel!

Some good stuff about Amtrak train travel by the The Free-quent Flyer.

Your personal finance fix of the day: Investors in Search of 7-Minute Abs. There are no shortcuts!

19 things to know before you get to Vancouver. I saved this into my Evernote vaults.

Hey, are you surprised no SPG credit card pumping yet? There is plenty of that crap around the blogosphere, you know what I mean. Thank you to the 2,145 readers who got the SPG cards in my site, I mean….thank you Phil lol.

Incredible 50-building-wide street art honors Cairo’s trash pickers. Wow!

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The 10 best beaches for families in America. If you say so FamilyVacationCritic, whoever you are.

SLEEPING BEAR DUNES NATIONAL LAKESHORE, MICHIGAN: The shore is home to miles of beach terrain, crystal-clear lakes, and dunes that offer incredible views. Plus, you can grab a free Junior Ranger Book, which gives children a list of activities to complete in the area.
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan

 

A well known practice of the Titan bloggers is when they make a separate blog post about stuff they found elsewhere. We all know our attention span is just not that long these days. So, they expertly bury/hide/place an HT link to the original blogger (usually at the very end lol or somewhere in the middle, almost never at the VERY top of the post where it should be!) while writing and pretending they are the ones who discovered said trick/deal. Their readers are just not that bright anyway (hey, it takes special darkness/clueless-ness to click on that 40k AmexPlat link!) so they think their idol is indeed a miles expert. Barf me all over por favor.

I can understand the credit card pumping in a way as I do understand the economics behind it. But doing this HT placing thingie is even more of a pet peeve for me! Of course, arsheholes never even bother mentioning the original source. But what makes this practice even more maddening is when blogs you like and respect fall for it when they find out about the trick/deal from a Titan blog and link back to it. This is where the crime spreads. I mean, do these mega SEO pumping machines need more back links? I left a gentle comment in the DEM Flyers blog (which I like and the bloggers behind it have proven repeatedly they have good ethical values, unlike some other _______ <—– (enter your favorite curse!) blogger and they immediately corrected it.

This is my moronic crusade to clean up this hobby. But you can help too!  🙂

I had a great time at a local miles/points enthusiasts addicts meeting in Ann Arbor. I am still trying to get over someone asking me “Are you the Rene’s Points Guy?“.  Actually, this really happened. I did not respond that way but…I really wanted to 🙂

This is only going to get worse…Some don’t get my humor.  I did a lot of that yesterday for my own safety! I ain’t got time for dat!

And I leave you with this…

funny-teaching-wins-541__605

 

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TBB
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Comments

    • Andy Shuman says

      Delta effect. Several world airlines removed their award charts around the time Delta did. If Delta got away with it, why not others?

      Who said Alaska was the good guy? Wait, I did? I must’ve been on crack. There are no good FFPs and bad FFPs. There are only shitty, greedy and slimy FFPs.

      Frequent flyers are no better. The clueless have no idea when something hits them on the head, and the gamers take orgasmic pleasure in saying “told ya” after the fact. Neither will raise shit to the level that an FFP would notice. One tweet from everyone and they would be forced to pay attention, but no, we are too smart for that and our time is too f#$&*% precious.

      Glad I had my EK “experience” when I had a chance. At least, been there, done that.

      CX is next.

        • Andy Shuman says

          My goodness, they’re actually blaming travel hackers for this. Not kidding! I have to do the packing among a million other things for my flight tomorrow or I would be all over this! That’s just too funny!

          “Why is Mileage Plan making this change?
          Alaska’s premium Emirates awards have long been known as an exceptionally good deal. With the rise of “travel-hacking,” intended to exploit Mileage Plan’s award routing rules, coupled with below-market award levels, our previous award levels were unsustainable. The new award levels enable Alaska to continue to offer Emirates Business Class and First Class as a redemption option.”

          • TravelBloggerBuzz says

            Yep, noticed that and tweeted it, just could not believe my eyes! You know when we are blatantly called out like that…you know this baby is pretty much over…

            the end

            of onboard shower selfies for sure 🙂

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      Yeah, that was the beginning of the end on this one…

      Bet ya his credit card conversion numbers were pretty good though…

      Pumping bloggers are NOT your friends you miles addict whose right is to fly free in First class…oh, scratch that, in economy I mean #RIP #sososad

    • Kumar says

      You were the one who were able to travel to Calcutta at a short notice using United miles to be near your mother, right? Well, enjoy your hypocrisy. What else to say?

      • Oliver2002 says

        Pardon me, but that was with miles I earned on United, and their redemption rates on LH were jacked up considerable ages ago. It was 60k one way from Europe to India.

        I didn’t book flights in EK F to Australia with x sidetrips with miles bought for x000$ and bragged about it. The amount of misuse that was done to the EK F option via AS is mind boggling.

  8. smbayguy says

    Buzz,

    Happy to report that I applied & was approved for my Amex SPG card through your link. This is the least I can do for reading your blog from day one. This is my 5 Amex card.

  11. Kumar says

    Shocking to see that Alaska is responding to many people in Twitter including George, without even he asking for it. And on top of it, the reason they cited for today’s crappy increase – oh my goodness – gaming by travel hackers. Well, airlines are noticing all our Twitter chats and so called travel blogs for sure, big or small. To some stupid people who still don’t get it – Stop sharing deals even through Twitter, if you want the deal to survive. Well, we have Scott of Travel codex acting as unofficial spokesman for Alaska. Don’t get why he needs to be supporting so vehemently, unless he has some business deals with them. Heck, I never flew emirates first or never intend to despite all advertising by bloggers about the shower in the air crap, but the magnitude of hike just hurts big. None of the mileage bank is safe for sure. Earn only for burning and burn as soon as possible. Cash is king.

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