We bring you a weak Hyatt promo, freak out at worsening AADisadvantage, travel to South Korea on buses, visit the infamous Bone Church, try to pump our own Amazon link with Amazon’s Prime Day, check out the best July Hotel promotions, read more info on IHG Rewards and Room Key, the best personal finance post of the day and the best photo links you have come to expect & more!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
Today it is Amazon’s PRIME DAY and it usually has a lot of really good deals! Start a 30-day FREE Trial with my AFFILIATE LINK Thanks!
You would think that this was the mother of all deals with the hype that it was posted all over the blogosphere. I am talking about the time limited 10% Hyatt Gold Passport rebate when you use them on Points & Cash stays & regular award stays before October 31, 2016. Really? Register HERE.
It’s amazing to me how silent all the American Airlines fanboy Titan bloggers are on their airline these days. Is it perhaps they can’t pump the Citi AA and Prestige/Premier cards as much if they told their readers that the award inventory is making Delta look REALLY generous? Yep, you read that right! AADisadvantage is more like it! DansDeals has another post calling AAdvantage a scam and is encouraging you to file a DoT complaint. Why? This is why #ohthehorror
I figured I’d take another look today at the nonstop saver award space on several routes for travel from 7/13 through 12/31.
Here are the results:
-From NYC to Los Angeles there were 99 available dates on United, 107 available dates on Delta, and only 3 available dates on American. All 3 of American’s dates were Saturdays.
-From NYC to San Francisco there were 107 available dates on United, 104 available dates on Delta, and only 2 available dates on American.
-From NYC to San Diego there were 133 available dates on United, 109 available dates on Delta, and only 2 available dates on American.
-From NYC to Las Vegas there were 75 available dates on United, 125 available dates on Delta, and only 2 available dates on American. Both of American’s dates were Saturdays.
This is simply #unAAcceptable
Loyalty Lobby has some very interesting graphs on the IHG Rewards Club Awards Distribution by Brands & Points Required.
Top 5 Hotel Bonus Stay Bonus Point Offers for July.
I really enjoyed this trip report at Roads & Kingdoms: The Very Cheap Man’s Guide To Crossing South Korea.
Do you remember Room Key? Probably not. It is the site some hotel companies created to fight back against the OTAs. Well, it has not gone anywhere but somehow it is still alive. Great article at Skift: The Disappointing Life of Hotel Industry Booking Site Room Key.
All of the world’s money and markets in one visualization. Wow!
I learned a new word: Agnotology. Which explains all the rampant bullshit in our world lately. Culturally Constructed Ignorance Wins The Day. It reminds me gullible readers clicking on a mainstream website on a travel blogger’s link and then thinking they do it to show friends and family how to travel for free out of the goodness of their hearts and not for the money…sigh.
Your personal finance fix of the day: Scary vs Dangerous. What is scary AND dangerous: “Emotional Investing, employing a high pressure financial salesperson as your advisor, using leverage with a concentrated portfolio.”
Another set of unexpected landmark photos.
Lets visit Sedlec Ossuary, commonly known as “Bone Church“, a chapel where 40,000 bones are a work of art in the Czech Republic.
Danila Tkachenko’s Project: Restricted Areas. The project “Restricted Areas” is about utopian strive of humans for technological progress. INCREDIBLE photographs of deserted places, WOW!
Thanks to the two readers who chose TBB for their latest credit card, you were the FIRST two this month. And of course thanks to all who use the Amazon link.
I was back on the soccer court last night with my “Gasping For Air” team. After a month. And I survived, hooray!
And I leave you with this…What happens when there are clicks around here 🙂
Please help bloggers you appreciate & make a positive difference in your life by spreading the word about their blogs, emailing and commenting and using their few $ links, thank you!
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
TBB
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
Follow TBB on Twitter @FlyerTalkerinA2
You can subscribe to TBB below, winners only!
6.53 am, nobody yet to claim gold? You all must be busy clicking on my Amazon link for Amazon Prime Day! #dreaming
Gold
Well, sure, George, when you mess the promo up! 🙂 It is good on outright award stays as well and good for stays through October 31. With most of my stays being P+C and the bulk of my qualifying nights being in this period, I stand to get a minimum of 8,000 points back, more like 13K – 15K. Not a bad promo on stays that will already happen!
Of course, certainly not a good enough promo just to make bookings for.
Oh, BTW, I claim silver, right?
I agree. I have 12 nights already booked with points and cash reservations for that time period. Glad those count and makes for an unexpected haul of points back to me!
Ooops, I messed that up and now corrected it.
My point (pun intended) was that this promo certainly did not warrant all the hyperbolic glorious posts that it received in the blogosphere. We have gone from FFN type awards to just 10% points rebates on awards & P&C stays….oh my, how far this hobby has fallen! THAT was my point, it did not come through because it was the last item added to the post right before I went to bed last night 🙂
No doubt, better than a hole in the wall but…still weak.
TBB Amazon links below!
I am no DansDeals to flood you with Amazon links, just a few:
Amazon Fire 7″ Tablet $33.33 today!
http://amzn.to/29FTJ9o
Amazon Echo $129 today!
http://amzn.to/29Bsrzj
Amazon Tap $99.99
http://amzn.to/29yta1R
Samsung 55 inch 4k TV $649.99
http://amzn.to/29Ku7sj
I could go on with diapers and toilet paper but I will spare you all that lol.
Just part way through, another great column today. Got to run off to work now.
Thanks!
Hello 🙂
I just ordered the $50 Amazon gift card with $10 promo using your link. Seems like every blogger is tweeting this now. I made one of the other employees in the office use your link also. Maybe we’ll splurge and order some of the 4K TV’s also.
Thank you!
I can’t wait to check tomorrow to see if anyone ordered that TV! I thought about it too….but my darn Panasonic I got back in 2006 works just fine!
Loved the world markets/money link. My daughter (age 11) has (sadly) become interested in economics and it is hard to explain the global scales. I sent her this link and she is now researching how to do one for Costa Rica (it’s “mid-year” vacations here).
Dan’s Deals is a hoot — DoT has already made it abundantly clear that they have no authority (nor interest) vis-a-vis the airlines’ “loyalty” programs. I don’t know the back story but from reading the comments, it looks like his post is partially ax-grinding?
As to the lack of award seats — DOMESTIC award seats. Fer cryin’ out loud who the hell redeems for DOMESTIC? What a waste of time and value.
As to the larger picture, did anyone really think through the ramifications of printing BILLIONS of miles attached to a shiny piece of plastic? All those BILLIONS of miles are chasing a finite set of seats. Bloggers (not our Buzz) became fellow travelers, #pumppumppumping the “lifestyle” of Dom and caviar in an Emirates suite on the way to the Maldives in exchange for a shiny piece of plastic.
Guess what folks? That ship has sailed and all those BILLIONS of miles are about as valuable as a drachma.
/rant (not really but I have other obligations!)
NEVER ever ordered anything from Amazon. Don’t intend to start today. Way past tired of the #pumppumppumping by the Titans. This day cannot end soon enough!
And so it goes…
#TBBon
Agreed. These asshole bloggers are part of the problem while pretending that they are people like us.
I disagree on domestic redemptions. They can be useful when using Avios short distance or when redeeming for an international trip in coach. If you don’t have the domestic availability you are left with buying the seat or shelling additional miles to complete your trip.
It does not hurt the cause regarding the DoT complaints. The more they get, the more they will take notice that doing this to their members is…well, not even Delta has the balls to do this, WOW!
But that won’t stop the pump boys selling the Prestige card like it is the card that EVERYONE must get NOW. 7,6,5…you know the drill lol.
I burned another 20k Avios for son to fly to Tokyo from HKG. Business class…omg! The ship has sailed and I am just burning it…as long as the stash lasts!
AA’s stinginess extends to premium international flights as well. They are also pretty much nonexistent.
Here’s a video of the TBB summer intern tallying today’s Amazon revenue:
http://m.imgur.com/HK4BEgD?r
Too funny….so high tech lol
Thanks Nick, got a good laugh out of that one.
What upsets me about the whole AA situation is that, there has been a radical shift in availability yet, AA pretends that it’s business as usual. At the very least, let them admit that they trashed the program. It used to be quite good. Now, as DDs has demonstrated, it is useless. Why would I care about earning AA miles? VFTW used constantly trash Delta over and even coined the phrase SkyPesos . Why hasn’t he or anyone else (other than DDs) said a word about AA?