We bring you amazing AA award space, check out a brutalist Paris map, see how Grand Canyon rocks, have a newbie alert, a great reference post about credit card spending bonuses, warn you about loud noise, we go into a drugs and despair rant and more for you.
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
You can support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS, shopping with our AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK & clicking our REFERRAL LINKS. Thank you!
In the continuing quest to find ways to help you burn your Americans Airlines AADisadvantage miles, here is a Milecards.com post on Lots of AA Award Space in Business Class to Europe in August (some July).
Newbie Alert: The point of this hobby is to earn airline and hotel points at no to little cost and use them to maximize your travel experience in either unique experiences and/or saving lots of money on travel. Yes, a huge portion of these miles and points are earned through the sign up bonuses banks offer to entice you to sign up for their travel rewards credit cards. They are NOT doing that for charity! They do it because they know many of you will screw up by carrying a balance and paying excruciatingly high interest rates for many years. And of course you will use the cards and every time you use them they make some money from the interchange fees. And yes, you will use the credit cards and spend more than you would if you were paying cash. So, it takes extreme discipline to play this game and do it profitably for YOU! Again, the basics: Apply strategically for travel rewards credit cards with big signup bonuses, preferably with credit cards offering no annual fee for the first year, do the required spending to get the big bonus, use the miles/points while others pay actual cash, call for a retention bonus at six months and ten months (it can vary) to squeeze more out of them (it can get addictive, you have been warned!), cancel before the annual fee hits if the particular card is not a keeper….Rinse and repeat. The light bulb will go off and you soon realize…diz shit is for real!
This is a great reference to bookmark: Master List of Credit Cards with Additional Spending Bonuses.
If you plan to go see Grand Canyon, maybe you should bookmark this: How to make the most of your visit to Grand Canyon.
If you have 24 hours in London, here are 24 things you can do.
As I am dealing with hearing loss and tinnitus in my right ear, I am becoming more interested in reading about these things. This caught my attention: Loud noise is more dangerous than we thought. Fascinating research, maybe there is some hope. As a guy who always LOVED my music loud and totally ADORED going to concerts…well, now looking back, maybe that was a mistake. I think gradually my ears paid the price and now I am dealing with a constant ringing/buzzing in my right ear. I remember my mother used to scream at me to turn the music down in my room “Turn it down, you will go deaf one day”. Moral of this story: Always listen to your mother!
Business Advice from a One-Year Old. I enjoyed this. It applies to all but particularly to new parents.
We have seen many examples of brutalist architecture but mostly in Eastern Europe. Did you know there are 40 of these structures in Paris? And we now have a map for it! I could be faking posts about whether to get this card or the other card and always conclude to get both cards because both cards pay me a hefty commission but I don’t! So there, I feel better.
Did you hear about the recent amazing find in a Cairo slum? A gigantic 3000 year old statue of Pharaoh Ramses II was found and it is already deemed as one of the most important discoveries ever. The pictures will blow you away.
BLOG BUZZ
This section is for advanced level hobbyists and veteran blog readers & personal rants & stuff
Another dive into the new Hilton award pricing. How long with the hope last? #developingdevaluing
Doctor of Credit asks his readers about affiliate links. I enjoyed reading the comments. I better not say more. Okay, I will. I will gladly exchange my revenue of this site with the revenue of his site from “display ads”. Over the weekend my site lost $2.71 cents because I am looking at you reader who returned some items back to Amazon, how dare you lol. As long as you are all educated, entertained and inspired I am okay with the crumbs. Thank you for your support, together we can push move Titans mountains 🙂
I know this is not related. But I have been thinking about her since yesterday. You know there are people who beg for money in street corners or off exit ramps. Almost always they have an addiction problem. And it is obvious to tell. And it’s the same people, I guess they claim their corners. Yesterday, I saw a new young lady with her sign. She did not look like an addict and looked normal. You could tell she was new to this as she appeared to be embarrassed being out there. She had stopped holding the sign and appeared to be looking for something in her bag. Or maybe she pretended. And I just felt this incredible sadness and have been wondering ever since what the hell happened to this human being at this stage of her life…How could I help next time I see her? I know giving money is probably not the answer…But I would like to learn her story. Maybe it is not drugs or alcohol…Anyways, good anti-drug lesson for my daughter as I was just talking to myself and she also appeared to be stunned listening to me and looking at her…I lost my dear cousin to a drug overdose almost twenty years ago…oh wait, it was at the same intersection I got the call from my dad telling me the awful news. Moments like this change you…
And I leave you with this…
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!
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.
first
Huh.
How about that ban on laptops while flying from Dubai etc?
That will make the blogs go crazy for sure, right?
If Lucky can’t fly Etihad apartments, it’s clearly the end of the world.
What happened to Andy at Lazy Travelers? The last blog update was mid-January.
Yeah, I finally had to remove him from my RSS reader…another good one bites the dust (?)
Ditto
Bunch of stuff to comment on:
a) Statue of Ramses II is a forgery! Still a cool story: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39298218
b) My hometown brewery makes piss beer! Hint, I am NOT from Golden, CO: http://www.sacbee.com/food-drink/beer/article139629158.html
c) If I open enough browser tabs, FrequentMiler’s post from today shows as: Free BJ’s
d) Often overlooked, and therefore less crowded, is the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Spectacular vistas, awesome forests, and almost zero tourist buses crammed full of nouveau riche Chinese. Shameless plug for my Lifelong friend’s joint, Marble Canyon Lodge. His family has owned and operated the place near Lee’s Ferry (best trout fishing in America) since the Hoover administration. http://www.marblecanyoncompany.com/ Don lives onsite and can take you to places few have ever been.
e) Street art, Esteli Nicaragua style: http://www.therealnicaragua.com/Forum2016/showthread.php/16732-Who-says-Esteli-has-no-culture
f’d up) HHonors is a mess. Even their agents and property room managers can’t get things to function properly. Pro tip: don’t log in and you see different (lower) points pricing! Screenshot and then complain like a mad dog in May! YMMV bigly.
Enough. #TBBon
Thanks for the laughs! (We will have to dub you “Ramsey Jr.” if you keep it up!)
@DML: many have tried to beat ScoottCastle…and gave up.
@Andy: I had the same thought about Lucky. I am sure if he can sell some credit cards though he will…neglect to mention this ban 🙂
@Nick and bluecat:I don’t know what happened. Anyone knows? Andy? We miss you man, hope you are well!n Cool photo in Nicawagua! Let me know if any progress with HHonors (kept the extra H for you).
@GringoLoco: If not Ramses II, it’s another Egyptian ruler so it’s still cool. Thanks for the warning about that beer #yikes. Hope your friend in the Canyon gets some hits. Definitely not a Hyatt 🙂
My new vagina almost ruined my partner’s penis
http://nypost.com/2017/03/20/my-improved-vagina-nearly-cut-off-my-partners-penis/
Omg 🙂
“It was like it had grown teeth,” she said. “His willy was bright red and spouting blood. There was a big red stain spreading between us on the sheets. After that, he was scared of my lady garden and approached it as if it was a Venus flytrap and he was a bluebottle (fly).”
As a born and raised Parisian, I had no idea we had buildings that were this fucking ugly. What were they thinking…
I don’t know but they are so bad…they are good 😉
Interesting thing happened yesterday…
I was browsing entries on Lucky’s blog. Clicked one that ostensibly compared the Freedom and Freedom UnLtd. It hit me that a small nothingstory had something like 20+ CC links embedded. Certainly not a new thing, but I decided to comment facetiously congratulating Lucky on what might be a record number of CC links in a blog entry. I also suggested that this should also be an annual Freddie award 🙂
Went back later in the day to see if he censored it and, of course, he had.
But now the entire “article” has been pulled from his blog! And I’m left wondering if you or anyone else has kept track of the record.
Do we know what the current record among points/miles blogs is for the ‘most CC pimping links in a single blog entry’? Buzz, why not keep a permalink of the “Top 3”?
I think this would be a great public service!!
LOLL geez
Actually I used to keep an unofficial count when in the blog’s angry glory days I was all over them…day in and day out…until I ran out of gas and put them on the Ignore list and then…started.living.again 🙂
At the time I think it was MMS with 36 but I think somehow TPG snuck one in at 44.
No permanent place for it…nope. I still remember MMS smirking at me at a presentation saying how he loves ANY publicity.
And please no more links to these blogs…they get PAID every time someone clicks on them! They get enough from Doctor of Credit and Tagging Miles 🙂
Yeah, Rump said he loves “ANY publicity” once….
I’m disappointed, I think this could be an effective teaching tool for teh stupids, and another fun contest for your loyals–that SC couldn’t game!
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/04/04/chase-freedom-unlimited-benefits/
22 links in this one I believe!
Pfffft, he is an amateur compared to TPG and MMS!
yep, OMAT is king of the links….maybe a movie deal for him instead of King Creole, King Links….
See comment above.
No worries, enough aspiring bloggers out there who idolize these guys and kissing their ass…
Not this one. And I have the non clicks to prove it woohoo!
I can’t believe you guys don’t care about the ban.
For me it’s a deal breaker. My number 1 reason to travel is photography
and I will never check in my lenses or cameras. Many destinations
are pretty much unreachable without crossing Middle East…
For me this is the worst news of last 10 years.
It’s not like we don’t care…it’s just that EVERYONE is writing about it.
It just blows…there goes my award to Greece via IST on TK.
Yeah I will write about it, need to find the best post abt it.
I feel similarly but let’s not get all melodramatic about it.
It’s as simple as one single more connection, and only in one direction.
(Buzz, tryna get you some younger readers with “one direction” 🙂 )
Not as simple as “simple as one single more connection”
It sucks. And it’s a huge pain. What’s interesting is UK instituted similar ban but left out the ME3 airports. And you’re telling me the US decision didn’t have anything to do with the feud between legacy carriers and the ME3? Fuking politics