We remind you to never forget 5/24 day, go on the best train journeys, visit Madain Saleh, bid on Presley’s private jet, miracle of compounding, new benefits by Choice Hotels Privileges program, some facts about beautiful Traverse City in Michigan, amazing refugee flow maps and much more. For you. For Freeeeeee.
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Lets get it on…
Choice Hotels Privileges loyalty program, the ugly duckling of frequent guest programs, will add a few minor benefits and a new promotion for the summer. Don’t trample yourselves to sign up, okay?
5/24 Day=Sad Day for us all. Especially for bloggers who find it harder to get paid selling credit cards. It’s a new reality. Anyways, this is a good post summarizing what led to 5/24 and where we are now. As a reminder, my site has some of these cards here! I did not feel as pimpy as before unloading this hard sell, am I becoming like them? 🙂
Can you feel the excitement in the mainstream media about the new premium travel rewards credit card by UBS? Because…I sure don’t 🙂
12 surprising facts about Traverse City, Michigan. I was even surprised by some of them. Nice place to visit in the summertime especially. There is a decent Country Inn hotel there you can burn Club Carlson points when rates in the summer go way high.
America’s best train journeys, ranked. Well, I have done #1 and #4. Free of course. Been thinking about #2, I have the Ultimate Rewards points to transfer to Amtrak. In a sleeper cabin of course. But not feeling it enough to pull the trigger I guess. [Update: Per blog reader Ryan, the Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfers to Amtrak are no longer allowed. I missed it, I am human]
Seven surprising hotel brands, from CuisinArt to Versace. The IKEA hotel cracks me up. I went to IKEA once, putting the darn thing together defeated me, I still have nightmares. And you want me to go an IKEA hotel? Hell no, I won’t go!
Thank you Frances Oldham Kelsey, The Woman Who Stood Between America and an Epidemic of Birth Defects.
The chart that changed this New York Times columnist’s life. Compounding is just awesome. But you must start early. Which means sucking it up you Millennial following your passion and living paycheck to paycheck! I mean, you can be middle aged, bored like me, working your butt off on a blog because you don’t have to but because you just want to #huge lol.
Saudi Arabia’s Silent Desert City. Madain Saleh. Thanks to blog reader GringoLoco for passing this along. Wow, this is Petra without any tourists.
Maps of refugee flows over the past 15 years. These are amazing to look at.
Hey, you wanna bid on Elvis Presley’s private jet?
BLOG BUZZ
This section is for advanced level hobbyists and veteran blog readers & personal rants & stuff
Love this Tshirt! I thought about changing the Amazon affiliate link to mine but I did not, just did not seem appropriate. If you are not into JetBlue miles that is lol. HT:TravelWithGrant
I went to a local Ann Arbor miles and points meetup last night. I like being surrounded by people who understand me. But, at the same time, this hobby does not get me that excited anymore #truth. What is it? Been around it for too long? Nothing super easy any more? Banks clamping down? Elite running, seriously? I could go on and on…It just hit me sitting there, is there time for something new? Like a new goal or something? Keep evolving… #TBBinnervoice
I am cutting down on the quantity of the content here. Changes are coming. I may even stop posting every day. Well, I said that before…Nobody missed the big pic with the pumping fest by mostly Titan blogs, so I am ignoring them…for real!
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.
IKEA hotel! How neat.
Darn good bookcases for the money.
Moved to present home in 2007. My home office is IKEA equipped. It took me days to finally put it together. For about $600. Looks awful but still very functional. I am not a handy man type guy, the experience of putting it together was really traumatic 🙂
I never imagined I’d say this, but: I’d really like to visit Traverse City, MI.
I think you will love it. Maybe one day I do a trip report with all the places we took visitor from Greece last summer. Traverse City area was one of them. I have some pics of the Sleeping Bear Dunes that are breath taking!
I thought I saw somewhere that Ingy lives in traverse city… Maybe you just feel drawn to him?
It’s a love and hate thing 😉
I’m planning another Amtrak trip next summer-ish. Maybe the Empire Builder to Glacier NP and then on up to Seattle. Not sure yet though. Love train travel and wish there were more of it in the US. I may be biased since my dad’s side was mostly railroaders (except my dad himself – he went the automotive route!)
One thing though, UR doesn’t transfer to Amtrak Guest Rewards anymore 🙁 AGR switched their CC provider to Bank of America and after that UR transfers ended. I haven’t gotten the card yet but need to. Bonus isn’t yuge but decent – higher for the annual fee card vs. no-fee but IIRC the fee isn’t bad.
If you didn’t know, SPG is a transfer partner to AGR. They don’t give the 5K per 20K transfer bonus like with airline partners but I’ve used SPG to top up some AGR before.
I had a momentary lapse on the UR to Amtrak route, my bad!
Not going to mess with my dwindling SPG points to Amtrak. And not feeling like going the BofA cards route, at least not yet. I guess the train trip will have to wait. A few years ago Amtrak had hinted about allowing to burn its points for trips on Canadian trains…but I don’t think it ever materialized. I had visions of riding the train across Canada ending in Vancouver. Maybe one day…
Oh that would have been great to redeem AGR for Canadian trains. The Canadian trains, particularly in the western provinces, look spectacular! I haven’t priced them in awhile but they seem to be a bit more expensive than Amtrak in general, though I think some are slightly more premium level than Amtrak (not that Amtrak is bad or anything).
Last summer the wife and I took the Caledonian Sleeper from London to Aberdeen. It was a lot of fun although it’s timed more as a pure sleep journey with not much in the daylight on that route…their London to Fort William has more daylight scenery I’m told. The equipment is aging and it has its quirks but new passenger cars are coming online next year, IIRC, that should be really cool. Still worked out well compared to a night in a hotel.
Some other great train journeys around the world I’d like to try. Maybe one of the Australian long-haul trains next. The Trans-Siberian Express looks like quite a trip – and not all that expensive really.
I haven’t tried myself yet, but the thread on FT tracking what qualifies for the Sapphire Reserve $300 credit indicates Amtrak tickets should code as travel for the credit, FWIW.
The Trans-Siberian Express is in my list for me. Friend is doing it sometime this year so I am eager to learn about it from her!
Hey you guys, I am telling you, MMS will start a yoga meditation guru type venture next, mark my words! He is still trying to find himself it appears…Only to be followed up with next post with more credit card selling lol.
TPG headline this am: “When Should You Choose Chase Sapphire Reserve Over Chase Sapphire Preferred?”
And haters bitch about me…
This space just amazes me sometimes…
Raining in Ann Arbor. Good for the lawn #thinkpositive
“What Card is Best to Pay for My Yoga Sessions?” Who knows, maybe Darius really will find himself and something that he enjoys and which benefits others in the end. Or maybe not, the phuck do I know?!
We had a tornado pass through last night near Dayton – small one but went for quite a distance. Missed our house by under a mile.
“What Card is Best if you are near a tornado!” – I can see that now 🙂
Thank you for blogging, for 4+ (almost 5) years now, enjoyable read everyday. I think you got it right with your paragraph about your thoughts during and after your local meet up. I think I streamlined it as much as I can for now, and my allocation of time towards this hobby has certainly went down over last 12-18 months. My allocation of time towards self-improvement, healthy living, outdoor activities and exercise was raised, roughly in proportion of how much time I used to spend on this hobby. It’s for the best
For 2 SS#s there are still plenty of sign up bonuses and options out there to generate 1-1.5 million miles/points per year and that seems to be roughly what is needed to get a family of 4 on a good vacation or two per year.
As for all that extra time, we may as well enjoy the outdoors more and the river house. George, you still have a standing invitation to come out and have a beer on the deck overlooking the Delaware River, unplug from it all, and just watch the sunset from a 2-star vacation home accommodations — for FREEEE. 🙂
Cheers,
PedroNY
Thanks always for the support. And your generous offer, one day….
I now have personal trainer kicking my ass twice a week, up from once. Min 6 days exercising. And been thinking to do a weekend domestic travel per month…starting mext month #developimg.
Definitely sitting there….listening to MS stories or how tone got upgraded being Delta Silver just felt …a void.
Ha
Dan beat you again.
Don’t mess with the Dan!
Thanks Dan for wasting our tax dollars!
Great for branding and blog business too, Dan is amazing at that!
Has anyone noticed how many fewer mistake fares are out there…I wonder why 😉
BOP, check my links for the new Amex card and lets get some clicks that used to go to the Titans! #winning
LOL, always a complaint.
Did the DoT go out and hire more enforcers or did I give one of them something to do instead of watching cat videos on Friday?
I’d say there are fewer mistake fares because most airlines have implemented fixes to require an override for fares to fall below x% of their historical norm.
At any rate, I’m not even remotely great at branding. OMAAT, VFTW, and TPG have me completely whipped there. I just try to put out a product worth reading and not one where you kick yourself for clicking on an article. I’ve never spent a single day focusing on marketing, SEO, or any of the stuff like RS articles that make the big blogs successful.
Why are you presuming they are watching cat videos? Maybe they are reading TBB 🙂
So you helped some overly entitled readers to blow some money in the Maldives so they can brag they did the XX mistake fare while keeping DOT workers that WE are paying for their salaries with our taxes from doing something more constructive. And looking good to your readers AND making it into the WSJ…I mean, that IS brilliant!
Dude, I admire you, really! Take this as constructive criticism. I am an equal opportunity blogger terrorizer, I piss them all off, nobody escapes my wrath 🙂
If I was spending all this time to learn what is SEO and stuff like that 🙂
Hey-
Lay off Dan. He’s unique, he’s good at what he has chosen to do and I think he’s sincere. Even if some of those card links disappear at….uh….timely times.
Trust me on this one- I’ve been following him since he was in (or at least into) diapers.
Unique indeed…
Just don’t like the DoT angle…we won with the press pressure against Fairmont Living Social Lifetime Platinum deal (I know, I know…not an airline).
Just got wife the new 2% Amex Blue Business Plan…with my links woohoo! Just LOVE getting money from banks 🙂
Can’t wait for the people that booked those fares and hotels with points to learn that it’ll cost double what they already paid just to get to their hotel, plus ridiculous meal costs every day…
That so rarely gets mentioned by the bloggers when these “deals” pop up! It’ll be quite the sticker shock for some!
On his success post, a reader asked “what’s an award flight?”
Hey, bragging about how you scored that low cost mistake fare on Emirates is #priceless
🙂
Let’s be fair.
I laid out every details of what it will cost in the original deal post:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/114676
Anyone that read the post and booked knows exactly what the hotels will cost, what the transfers will cost, what another one-way will cost with miles, etc.
As for food, my primary market will do what I did, bring their own kosher meals from home and not spend anything extra for that.
And I fully expect that the person who asked what an award flight was probably didn’t book. So that wasn’t directed at your readers specifically, but more anyone that felt a rush to book a mistake fare without knowing what they were getting themselves into. I don’t think it’s anyone’s job to babysit their readers either, so hopefully if they take a trip for 2 that cost a couple hundred dollars to get to MLE, but then another $1,000 on getting to the resort, plus $100*2 or more/day on food, maybe they’ll learn their lesson on doing their own due diligence.
There was a great FT post once by a guy who booked Conrad Maldives on points and then flew in with an entire cooking set up (including portable cooker and all ingredients) so he could cook every meal in his villa for FREE ……
Livin’ the dream.
Gracias amigo for the H/T!
I’ve taken several of those trains — love me some train travel. Had my eye on this one for the last (mumble mumble) years:
https://www.amtrak.com/ethan-allen-express-train
Trying to time it with fall foliage — and before it gets toooooo cold. This Gringo owns two sweaters and one coat and is NOT prepared to give up the daily “uniform” of aloha shirt, shorts and Tevas for more than a day or three.
#TBBon
Yeah, I heard about the Allen Express train, looks so neat!
Raining all freaking day today…
The Points Guy today posted about the Elvis Presley private jet on sale and the mother frackers HTed CondeNastTraveler.
Phuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!
To all:
The new AMEX Blue Business Plus Credit Cars IS AVAILABLE with my links. I will NOT do a separate post about it with an exclamation mark (or two) at the end…
Oh, the Delta cards too!
TBB comes back, the whining stops NOW!
Thank you dear readers, together we can take money from banks and fight the Titans 🙂
The new 2% Amex Blue Business Plus card is, I hate this word, a game changer. No annual fee, 2% up to $50k, transferable to airlines/hotels, does NOT count as 5/24 for Chase cards AND 20k signup bonus #wow.
Wife is in for it just a few minutes ago. I will apply this weekend….Anyone know when the 20k bonus will end…don’t see it last too long.
My wife used my links. If not, I was going to call a divorce attorney LOL
50k max a yr. What a sad state of affairs. I wanna punch whoever calls it a game changer then has to mention 50k a yr in the next sentence. hahahaha
Lol. Game changer for up to 50k spending, forgot the asterisk 🙂
It is…
Amex is back baby, it is not dead…it is not going to go down without a fight! #goodnewsforus
I don’t read Dan’s Deals every day. Big mistake for me. We’re flying to SIN on the $343 RT fare from JFK. Would have loved to 1 way it to the Maldives, then head back home. #cheap
Speaking of Amtrak and the California Zephyr, I took it from Denver west. Passengers that boarded from Chicago said the trip was boring CHI/DEN.
On spite of warnings from Buzz, I survived the trip in a Roomette. 😉
Last.
Thanks for the Zephyr data point, good to know.
I still can’t believe you did the Romette! Looking back, I must admit that sleeping in a sleeper cabin bed was the best quality of sleep I ever had in all my travels! #bestflatbed