We bring you the non news that Hilton Honors blows, travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway, visit Prague Old Town, see where all nukes are, how to sell weed with burgers, learn about TSA Pre and Basic Economy,
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Another back stabbing in this steadily diminishing hobby. The perpetrator this time was not Delta, but the Delta of hotels, none other than Hilton HHonors. In a major weaselly move, they threw out all the BS moves how they are “enhancing” the program by allowing you to use cash and points (wow), pool points together (wow), use your points at Amazon (no wow, just lol) and, please sit down, they are taking away one H and they are changing the name to Hilton Honors (double wow). And the assholes buried the BIG change way deep, you know, like Delta does. So, no more award categories and we should trust them that award prices are not going up. Bwhahahahahaha.
Bottom line it for me TBB: The move to revenue base earning and burning is on, it is like a secular tsunami, everyone is there or on the way there. When it will cost you 850,000 miles to fly one way on First Class and 256,000 points for a huge suite, well, guess what pumping blogger?…how in the world are you going to sell your credit cards to the masses huh? Economy seating and staying in a Hampton Inn just does not have the same sex appeal hey?
To learn more about this bomb shell, here are a few posts:
Hilton Unveils Loyalty Program Updates that Borrow from the Airlines by Skift
In a HUGE Negative Move, Hilton to Eliminate Award Categories Entirely by Miles to Memories
Hilton Joining Delta in a Brave New Chartless Award World by DansDeals
So, dear readers, do not depend on bloggers to tell you that this hobby is on retreat with no end in sight! They just can NOT do it, this is their livelihood. They have to keep posting cheery stuff telling friends and family how to travel for free (lol) so they can keep selling the credit cards to more people all the time! So many posting the same old shit every day that I filter through for you! Je suis BS filter!
Riding the Trans-Siberian Railway. One day…Must read if you are interested, very educational. There are actually three trains going different routes. And of course the super-luxe Golden Eagle train with prices starting close to $12k USD.
Here is Loyalty Traveler‘s 10 mile walk around Prague Part 3, now through the Old Town, the Castle area and Charles Bridge, probably one of the most beautiful places in Europe.
Thank you Southwest Airlines for not going along with the Basic Economy crap!
Here all 30 airlines with TSA Pre. If you have it , enter your number in the profile online so you can see it magically in your Boarding Pass!
A Burger King was selling weed when customers asked for “extra crispy fries” lol!
The most expensive sculptures ever sold. Wow, crazy amounts! The one below by Jeff Koons was #10 for just $33.7 million, sold to Steve Wynn.
14,900 nukes, which countries have them:
The complete guide to what every man should keep in his car.
BLOG BUZZ
This is for advanced lever hobbyists and veteran blog readers.
Suddenly, without notice, Club Carlson killed its awesome 2-4-1 and 4-2-1 deals. Who you gonna blame? Those bloggers! Sing it like that Ghost Busters song! This program just keeps getting worse wow!
If you recently got the Fairmont Visa card and have two free nights to use, you should check out this post on the optimal strategy to go about it.
RIP MyCoke Rewards. Some sweet memories of this program. Yeah, bloggers killed that years ago. Time to delete one more from Award Wallet, down to 105 programs tracked, hooray!
And just like that, getting multiple Bank of America cards era appears to be over. Damn bloggers, they ruin everything. Lately this hobby it resembles we are being picked off one by one and just…terminated. Wow!
Booked a local Holiday Inn Express for Valentine’s after a nice dinner. Hey, don’t judge, just 5,000 IHG Rewards points! Oh, and I had an early flight out of Detroit yesterday and it was snowing so I burned 3k SPG points to spend the night at the Four Points by Sheraton (and park my car) instead of having Mrs. TBB to give me a ride both ways #winning. But then I had one of those travel days from hell yesterday getting to San Diego. My bag did not come with me. The only time I checked a bag and I can not believe what happened next. For the first time for me, Southwest dropped the ball…all day.
God Save The Points interviewed himself. No, not linking to it. I mean, really? I will get to the information I was passed on via Twitter about this blog, heavy accusations indeed involving plagiarism!
There are some blogs I should not be reading and mentioning here because they are not worthy of traffic going their way. And I reserve the Blogs To Ignore for heavily conflicted and serial credit care pumping machines…
And I leave you with this…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
TBB
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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
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Where is everybody? Still stunned from Hilton Honors dropping its superfluous “H”?
The French were very confused. They can now breath easier when they visit ilton.
Very savvy comment.
Did you notice VFTW and OMAAT both couldn’t be any more enthused about the (H)Honors program changes? It was disgusting. Yeah anyone who believes Hilton is doing this to make it “better” or that the cap on the points sliding scale won’t go up, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
HHonors was one of the first loyalty programs I signed up for when I was out of college and started working full time & traveling. My how it has fallen…not that it’s alone though. Hotel programs are worthless anymore and while I’ll collect if I happen to stay, I don’t put forth any effort. Still keeping the Chase IHG card since (a) I’ve had it for a long time and (b) so far, the annual free night is still worked out to be a great value – though I expect that to be devalued eventually. Other than that, I’m done with hotel programs.
I’m a railfan, so Trans-Siberian is high on my train bucket list…probably within the next 3 years.
OCaaT’s post today reveals the reasoning — a bunch of credit card links!
Remember the titans are NOT in business to provide advice for great travel deals. It’s ALLLLLL about the conversions.
TL;DR: don’t shit where you eat?!
I also spoke with Hilton yesterday. This is more about encouraging small balance collectors to book direct and redeem 5k points for a $10 discount and continue reducing Expedia’s presence.
Whilst as I wrote myself today the lack of categories is a big risk, this the scheme that went from a 50k to 95k top tier overnight.
Remember, their worst nightmare is that you decide Hotels.com Rewards is better than HH and you start putting volume through them at 25% commission.
Cash and points going up. When available, this was great for some places. #Devaluation
#9 #9 #9
Not too sure I would accept any of those sculptures as a gift. Well hell, maybe all my taste is in my mouth?
When’s that FREEEEEEEEEE bag arrive Buzz? Does WN even have a reimbursement program for buying necessities?
HEADS UP: LifeMiles is having a 100% on TRANSFER miles until 08 Feb. It’s $15/1000 + tax. Don’t know if that’s a deal or not — just an FYI.
Enjoy SAN, Buzz. Grew up there and watching some of the golf last weekend at Torrey Pines made me homesick. Holler if you want any suggestions for your down time at the event – ha!
#TBBon
now for a mad dash to book those nights before the chart disappears. I can see those cheap roadside hotels going for 95K…
Went to Macy’s last night and got me underwear, socks and two shirts. Bag is supposed to land at SAN at 10 am and Southwest is supposed to call me to go get it. They offered to take it to my hotel within 4 hours (!!!) but said no, I will come to pick it up so I can give them my Macy’s receipt for reimbursement (only up to $50).
WN also sent me a $100 voucher. Great, more WN vouchers/certs. They have been really nice dealing with me but the cluster of phuck ups yesterday was too much to handle. The reason I checked a bag was to fill it with swag to give my mother in Greece, she takes it to the village to the Syrian refugee families. If you ever go there, you will see all the kids dressed with mutual fund company Tshirts LOL.
The Four Points by Sheraton is great. Sold out so I got a room with two double beds and a connecting door…and I moved to another one without the connecting door. I had booked a King bed room on points (which is a great bargain!). Nice walk down to Manchester Hyatt, the conference hotel. The cook at the Four Points is amazing, had the most awesome soup last night while downing two margaritas (free, got front desk to give them to me).
I should have a Buzz post tomorrow, today is preconference day so not that many must attend sessions, laid back.
I just hope I get my freaking bag, if not I am so screwed!
It is not the end of the world with Hilton but the writing on the wall is there….Getting ridiculously tough to get outsize returns in this hobby, too many playing along, too many bloggers.
Sorry I can not respond to every comment, it will be like this until next week when I return to base!
Tomorrow Thursday David Cameron is the headline speaker, so I am going to start practicing egg throwing so I don’t miss him!
TBB on!
“two margaritas (free, got front desk to give them to me)”
Please reveal the hack.
“Hey I booked a king you gave me 2 doubles, I need a margarita or two to get over my deep disappointment”.
Eike Batista flew AA business class JFK to GIG to thence to prison. Now you know.
Just got a call from clueless WN baggage staffer who said they can not find my bag, had no clue it was supposed to be in Chicago. Unbelievable!!!!
I see this as the 3rd big Honors devaluation. They were fantastic 12 years ago. Somewhere along the line they dropped their air&hotel rewards that I had been saving up for. I was sooo going to the Seychelles! But oh well. Even after their huge point inflation a few years back, I could still find amazing value. But this end-of-chart really looks like the end of outsize value to me, esp. coupled with Citi’s restrictions on churning.
Doctor of Reddit is changing. New staff is not so good.
I got the Fairmont card at the 11th hour so that link was quite helpful. I am currently at the Park Hyatt Vendome and I have to be honest, it is really, really overrated. I used my IHG free night last night at the Intercontinental and I liked the standard room there better than the suite here. Don’t believe all the hype folks. I had to try this while I was still a Diamond, but wishing I had done fewer nights here. Sad!
Vendoming is not for everyone !
It’s perfect for thought leaders (selling credit cards).
Ha ha. Well, I asked to be changed to a different suite (which I never do) and I just got back from my day trip to Provins and I am so much happier with my room. But honestly, I think that a lot of people LOVE PH Vedome because that is the only Paris they know. And Paris is Paris. I have been to Paris about a dozen times and I do adore this city, but I also have stayed in lots of different neighborhoods and much of the mystique of Paris is lost on me. I speak French fluently and don’t need to be in an American hotel to cope. So I am looking at this place comparing it to other hotel experiences with no Paris bias there.
Hello.
So, after not hearing anything from Southwest, I decided to get to the San Diego airport and look for it myself. And I found it! It was just laying there…unbelievable. Agent was apologetic but still could not answer how long it has been laying there. If this baggage tracking system does not suck, I don’t know what is! Gave me a voucher good for 1 year for $250 when I produce Macy’s receipt for $172. If this is not a cruel joke, don’t know what is!
Bags fly for free….maybe or it may take 38 hrs for you to get it.
I don’t feel comfortable flying this airline again
Question: I have vouchers and gift cads. Any way to convert the for cold hard cash instead of having to do by buuying gift cards.
too.many.margaritas
night night everyone
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