We have an SPG review, a Delta award sale, visit Beijing hutongs, a guide on dodging 5/24, an even more awesome Chase non automatic approval/reconsideration guide, go on spiritual travel, read an incredible identity theft story, how people hate airlines, a ridiculous fund manager, Pakistani hippies rolling joints, an update on our upcoming family vacation to the San Francisco area and more!
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Head for Points is doing some excellent reviews of each hotel program. Here come the facts for Starwood Preferred Guest SPG. And his opinion of the SPG program. And this is likely your last chance to status match in a fairly decent manner…as in just 9 nights for Gold or 18 nights for Platinum. Which can carry over to Marriott Rewards too. We will miss SPG so much.
Loyalty Lobby managed to find a list of all 1,175 (not a typo) IHG hotels that were basically hacked. Oh shoot…I see one I stayed in a few days after the affected period, ended. I can’t believe this company still uses 4 digit PINs, WTF!
Delta has a monthly award sale. This month is to South America. Must book by April 19! Good savings if you can find them seats, go!
Well, this is straight to the point: In Case It’s Not Clear, People Hate Airlines. And people really like low fares…too!
27 Spiritual Travel Experiences. An AFAR list. Some cool stuff in there.
What an “identity theft” story! Imagine living for years running into a person with the same name AND same birthday, what a nightmare! And then finally getting to meet this person in real life.
This had me rolling…A fund manager gets divorced and he claims “genius status” to the judge to save paying up, WTF! Anyways, the judge did not buy it. Shaking my head, genius? Some people are born assholes or do they develop to achieve it?
Short Investing Rules. I don’t agree with every single one. But it is a great little collection for sure.
What is it like living in a Beijing hutong?
Stand with the Pakistani hippies rolling up a joint in Karachi. In 1973. Wow.
BLOG BUZZThis section is for advanced level hobbyists and veteran blog readers & personal rants & stuff
Dodging 5/24 Status, what still works.
Unbelievable to see bloggers bitch about Delta closing the loophole (adding a Delta segment to a partner award) when they previously blogged about the loophole, amazing! Remember, they live for the clicks. I thank God every day I don’t have to live from my clicks. Because it would be impossible! Please laugh.
You know how I felt that the hideous pumping of posts about the United3411 incident was beyond ridiculous. I think the poster boys of Boarding Area, View From The Wing and One Mile at a Time, must have dedicated at least twenty posts on the subject. And they are still coming! We are talking WTF to infinity. Anyways, we now have a blogger introducing a month-long series on the United incident! Actually, this is a parody post and made me laugh!
What an awesome chart this is! I found in this reddit thread, thank you! Hey, I could be posting crap with baity shocking headlines to trick you to apply for credit cards but I don’t!
Got me the Fairmont San Francisco on Saturday night in our upcoming vacation to the San Francisco area. In a suite. Using my Visa night and one Platinum upgrade cert. By calling the Fairmont President’s Club Platinum line. I am going to miss them so much after Accor screws it all up sometime this year #sosad. Update: Heck, got the Fairmont Claremont as well in a suite too! Free. Then, in a fit of burning rage , I burned 220k 264,000 Club Carlson points in a Country Inn and Suites at Sunnyvale for 5 straight 6 nights only to find out it is just 1.2 miles away from where son will be staying lol. For the latest update on how our upcoming vacation in the San Francisco area is coming together please click HERE.
And I leave you with this…Children, really?
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.
Cats did their job!
I am at my local Starbucks TBBing. While having free coffee drinks as they are training a new barista! And this guy is good! Oh, here comes another triple venti machiatto soy double shot latte something…I am sooooo wired 🙂
Good thing you like Chinese as there is nothing else left in SanFrancisco…
If we visit a place that has Chinatown…and we don’t go…I am a dead man #nojoke
Interesting story about the women with the same name and the same birthday. Back in the 90s there was some business in New York whose taxpayer ID number was somehow the same as my social security number. This company ended up skipping out on some debts, a fact which I discovered one day when an ~$800 judgment was deducted from my checking account and transferred to somebody who was owed money by the company. I got the money back, of course, but I was not a happy camper.
Really? Oh man, what an unpleasant experience it must have been.
Now THAT will make me angry!
For tomorrow’s post -https://statisticalfuture.org/ranking-all-50-states-by-average-credit-score-of-its-citizens/
I had to right click “view image” to make it readable in the browser. This blog must be new, but it’s damn impressive.
Looks very interesting. How about the Dakotas near the top? It may appear here, not tomorrow.
I added the site to Feedly, thanks.
That Chase graph is awesome!
Yeah, it sure is. And pretty good humor too!
Nice work on booking those hotels in SF—if you had to pay, ay ay ay….that would be a very expensive (for me) trip!
IIRC, the Fairmont SF is on top of a hill. Enjoy the view (and the walk). And be sure to read Lucky’s review (jk!)
Yeah…them Club Carlson points FINALLY came through. Now have 10/13 done. 6 at a Country Inn and Suites in Sunnyvale 1 mile away from son’s place, he can come for breakfast and I take him to work 🙂
Not seeing Lucky’s review of the Fairmont SF
Sorry, it was Points Guy. Please check out the Tonga room with the wife. She will love it.
Ok, I will. Thanks.
Heard about that Tonga room, will check it out.
Albuquerque Meetup reminder……tomorrow 5 p.m……all welcome, Los Pollos Hermanos Restaurant.
Be there or be square 🙂
Gold, FTW! er, um, well, never mind.
Note that you can do a status challenge to Marriott Plat that only requires nine *9* STAYS. Much better option to get to SPG plat. On the back burner for me since I have no idea-r if I will attempt to be a Glob for 2018 but have always found it handy to have top-tier status in two programs.
Steve Ballmer, former M$ CEO, launched a new website today: usafacts.org
Basically it’s a non-partisan database showing where your hard earned $$$ are spent by the gov’t — local/state/Federal. I saw some screenshots last week — it’s an Amaaaazing database. Sadly cannot connect with it this morning — keep getting shunted into some endless suspected DDoS loop. But check it out if/when.
Good trip planning Buzz! Will look forward to reading your trip report late 3Q of NEXT year!
#TBBon a clear Tuesday
I tried usafacts.org bit clunky, like MS DOS.
Missing a bunch of granularity. Where does all the defense spending go? How much is spent on nuclear weapons? Mother of all bombs? F35 etc. I would have expected some aspect of that to be present on the site.
Been checking it off/on all day. 80% of the time it just times out. 15% of the time it never times out just loops. 5% of the time I don’t know what it is doing/has done because I’ve had to unplug everything due to nearby t-storms.
The screenshots I saw last week were pretty cool — being an #avgeek (!?) my “test” queries were based on US transportation taxes collected at the top 3 US airports and the % returned to same. Was pretty cool data and was sent back to me in less than 5 mins.
Definitely not ready for primetime. Sad!
I believe the site was still in beta, still a work in progress in a way…and it was not intended to be outed in public. So, it will get better. Interesting idea to say the least.
@GringoLoco: Need to talk about FLL man. Been TBBing to follow up but need to!
I will respond to the comments later.
Super slow today in the blogs. Other than VFTW getting his hands on the Hyatt affiliate cc link and jumping out of the gate first….the others are quiet prepping posts how suddenly “fantastic” the offer is lol. HT: u know who u are fellow BA blogger 🙂
Trying a new place for lunch today. Sushi and extending daughter’s IHG Rewards Club points thu RewardsDining.
Thanks to the reader who just got a Barclay card. One more from hitting the minimum hooray!
Thanks to reader B. who will be doing a trip report on Bhutan soon.
CA trip waiting to finalize night #10 (out of 13) in the Hyatt Carmel Highlands as a Guest of Honor of a Globalist. Took a look at that breakfast…probably not good if you are on a diet LOL.
Only got 3 first nights and rental car to do….Got time. Club Carlson points finally came through BIG time!
See you all later today
Apparently yesterday Chase released the affiliate link on the BA card because the titans all magically announced at the same moment that it was back.
Yep, saw that too but did not say anything.
But I think Hyatt is the first time an affiliate link is out…so it was more fun showing how all of a sudden it became such a “fantastic” offer…which has not changed in years!
That infographic is awesome, had the 70k SP offer card wasn’t auto approved though 🙁 Well over 5/24 but still hoping the best.
Don’t forget you also found out your Sunnyvale Hotel is only 1.5 miles from the dump. Close to family and close to the dump best of both worlds!
Son is 1.2 miles away from the hotel….Hope his place is not next to the dump…no wonder it was so cheap for CA standards 🙂
The smell doesn’t really go past those baseball fields you will probably even be fine at the hotel unless the wind is just right.
His place is in the mobile home neighborhood area with not much around so that is most likely why it was cheap.
Update: approved at 11/24 for SP 70k + 5K offer. Was not auto-approved, the infographic was mostly right. However now it just says you have been approved, blah blah.
The BA 100k offer is pretty sweet. Too bad so many rubes will use the Avios to fly BA. #thisislikesummercamp
Sweet? Have you seen the amazing fabulous U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve Visa Infinite® Card??? Give the bloggers a piece of the pie and US Bank will have to take a $200M loss in Q3.
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/665ad5/all_details_about_the_us_bank_altitude_reserve/
GAMECHANGER!
NO BRAINER!
LIFEALTERING!
2 FREE NIGHTS in any Hyatt hotel plus ANOTHER FREE NIGHT ever year!
GAME CHANGER
Limited time!
Last Chance!
HURRYYYYYYY!
[Note to staff: Add Chase UR cards template, do not mention Chase limitations, add pics of happy people holding Hyatt credit cards.]
[Note to MMS staff: All of the above, add Emily pic 669b.jpg, the one with the dog!]
Lets do this every day u guys, lets win the #1 sales prize, SELL SELL SELL #BIGBonus #hint
If some angry reader asks why the sudden interest in a hotel card offer that has not changed in years…ban them, they are bad for business/conversions!
InChaseWeTrust
In a nutshell, the miles & points blogosphere is described above.
Sad!
If you were all noobs…I would not have to struggle to hit the minimum every month 🙂
Well, at least I make the troll happy this way and we are all entertained…
I am thinking of doing a rant special on the Hyatt card…maybe Thursday. Got Feedly and can do screen shots and show how the tone changed and all…
Had to think of you twice today, George:
– took my boys to the local chase branch near our hotel in Orlando to deposit 11.63 worth of coins we found at home and a very patient teller accepted the nicely sorted and counted coins, then offered candy to the kids and asked me if she should check if I was pre approved for the csp/csr 🙂
– shopped at the gap and of course wanted to claim the 10% using the Gap card as it was Tuesday. Cashier kept insisting my account was deactivated, and wanted to reactivate the card asking for some details. Instead of reactivating it turns out she signed me up for the gap visa 😡 so now I’m down one credit pull like Mrs TBB. Oh well.
A great thing to hear only….
to be followed up by the Gap card accident. I am still mad at her for totally blowing that one. And you should know better man 🙂
You pay for clothes at the GAP?
That Gap Visa card will give you many opportunities to earn 5x on anything. Your family will soon be dressed by BR/GAP.