We bring you the latest IHG Pointbreaks snooze fest list, new shocking card offers, go under for the Thai cave true story, we help a newbie with Amex Membership Rewards awards, check out the 7 engineering wonders of the world, travel to UNESCO sites, Detroit airport gets more food options, laugh with Borat making fun of a Republican state rep, register for online shopping promos, fly to Sweden from Qatar on Qatar, more cheap Marriotts in the Americas and much much more freeeeeeeee!
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
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Latest action in my credit card links:
Added a new offer for the Citi Business AAdvantage Platinum Select World Mastercard for 70,000 AA miles again!
Added the Amex Delta Business Platinum for 70,000 Skymiles/5k MQM/$100 statement credit offer and the Wells Fargo Propel card for 30,000 points (no annual fee and some decent spend 3x categories).
Also added the premium $450 annual fee card for the CITI AAdvantage Executive World Elite Mastercard for 75,000 AA miles.
Wait! One more, the CITI AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard offer is back down to 50,000 AA miles.
If you need help or do not see the card you want, you can search by “Card Issuer” at the top. Or email/DM/Msg me. If my list of best offers is obsolete/wrong, please TELL me! Phew…lets move on!
Well, the latest IHG Rewards Pointbreaks list is out. As usual, the 5,000 points per night hotels stink in general. But you may find some ones you like at 10,000 or 15,000 points per night. I doubt the three Intercontinentals lasted more than a few hours, sad! Here are some ideas for the latest list.
Several airlines have online shopping portal bonuses.
There should be award space if you were planning a trip to Sweden via Qatar! Qatar Airways To Launch Gothenburg Services. I posted this before a credit card salesman blogger discovered it and took a short break from selling credit cards to his readers!
The Lazy Traveler cheap Marriott hotels series continues: Part 4: Marriott Cheap Category Hotels in Mexico, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and the Dominican Republic | Book Now or Wait?
Somehow I had missed the Shine On feature for the Uber driver to find you easier and the color of the Uber car now shows up in the app too: Uber Updates That I Really Like.
HUGE changes in the restaurants in the Detroit DTW Airport! $21 million Detroit Metro Airport overhaul to include Jolly Pumpkin, Air Margaritaville, Anita’s Kitchen.
In case you visit these places: 5 UNESCO World Heritage Sites With Incredible Street Art.
This guy, what a douche bag! The Insane Saga of the Fake Saudi Prince Who Scammed Miami’s Rich and Famous. Only in Miami!
We learn more about this story that captivated the world. The full story of Thailand’s extraordinary cave rescue.
Allright, you may find this offensive. You probably thought Borat was a little too much. Whatever. But Cohen’s new Who Is America? show promises to continue…the tradition I guess. And getting a Republican to say the N word, pull his pants down and attack him with his bare buttocks…well, there is MORE. It will shock you! You have been warned! Watch the Damning Who Is America? Segment That Has Prompted Calls for a Georgia Lawmaker to Resign.
I feel better now! Midlife crisis? It’s a myth. Why life gets better after 50.
My friend and colleague wrote this great article on retirement: 3 ‘Small Steps’ To Take ‘Giant Leaps’ Towards Retirement Goals. I REALLY like the first one, NEVER pass up free money. Same with miles and points 🙂
Amazing photos WOW! Towering Plumes of Volcanic Smoke Mix With Streaks of Lightning in Photographs by Francisco Negroni
And now we visit China where we see its unique tourist spectacles from above.
I LOVE this infographic! Seven Man-Made Engineering Wonders of the Ancient World.
Greece has been hit with freak monster wild fires that have claimed more than 100 lives. By far the worst fire related disaster in its history. Breathtaking unbelievable photos here.
Over at Milenomics, Brandon returns with Ray asking a newbie question how to use his 85,000 Amex Membership Rewards points. It appears here and not above because the answer got a bit complex and I am not sure Ray wanted all that you guys, it probably gave him a headache! This is why Titan bloggers focus on feeding the newbies plastic and easy to chew advice 🙂
A reader got an Amex card through a referral and I was shocked to see that the 10,000 MR points already posted in my account!
With just two four credit card conversions here this month, hitting ten is a fantasy. When my site loses those links it will not only make minimum wage per hour but it will have a hard time even making prison labor per hour. And it will evolve in a different way. Hint: Forget me doing posts like this! Maybe I do the Sunday Best of Web posts only and then move on #evolving
Thanks for the nice emails and your kind words. But instead of “please keep blogging’ it would be easier to evolve downwards if I got one with “your blog sucks” in the headline instead! 🙂
Just deleted another email to get affiliate links by some visa service company. “We’ve done the math: based on how your blog posts on visas display on Google, you can be making several thousands of dollars a month just in affiliate sales. Our top affiliates earn several thousands of dollars a month.” Yikes!
And I leave you with this…Lets play guess the airline 🙂
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.
Good morning! Off to Eugene. Odd how no blogger pushes this trip.
Eugene rocks.
My friend Eugene in Columbus that is 🙂
I guess the market for how to use points in hotels within walking distance of the university library is thin.
Speaking of markets Mile Nerd let fly the big one today. It will be grey without him.
Hi George, thanks for featuring the Milenomics Article. Glad I’m not the only one who thought their advice on how to use 85K MR’s was to……… get more cards, was strange. I actually wrote the 5th comment yesterday with an actual suggestion on how to use them to get to Europe, which seemed to be what he was actually asking….
I think they tried to be too comprehensive in their response. I liked yours but dealing with Air France may even be a little intimidating to the newbies too. I like their concept, do not like the tagline “Brandon Asks” and can not help themselves getting too deep. Then again, this is not a site for TPG type newbies 🙂
Couldn’t resist and left a comment too, outlining how easy it is to get from LAX to CDG with his 85,000 points. SkyMiles can and does suck, but may still get you incredible value if you know where to look (and the stars align nicely).
Silver
I think it is Bronze.
Nice collection in this morning’s post. Those architectural wonders are awesome! I like street art, too.
I always try to have an eclectic well rounded collection of links. For you all. For freeeeee.
I will give three ducks to the person who lets me in on the transaction price of today’s “NEWS” that I have known but kept quiet 🙂
It’s a busy morning in the commercial pumping blogs:
Frequently Asked Questions About the Ink Business Preferred Credit Card – The Points Guy
How I Justify Over $2,800 In Credit Card Annual Fees – One Mile at a Time
There is a lot of money in the IBP this month and readers are never told that he justifies all these annual fees because he gets compensated for selling them in ULTIMATE times MORE for each annual fee #mindblown
And mini me “Live and Let’s Fly” posted “Even With New Photo Policy, I Still Would Have Been Kicked Off United Flight”. Hey dude, nobody gives a crap about that, wake up!
And then we get: “VIDEO: Woman urinates on airplane floor after being told she can’t use toilet” by Secret Flying. Care to guess how long it will be before VFTW posts about this?
And here is Million Mile Secrets with way #125,589,486 to sell more plastic: “San Francisco: 10 Best Hotels That Are FREE With Points”…Amazing, they have the cc affiliate link after each hotel LOL #sick
Here Are the 10 Best Hotels in San Francisco That Are Free With Points:
The Ritz Carlton San Francisco using Marriott points (Marriott Rewards® Premier Plus Credit Card)
Omni San Francisco Hotel using Capital One Venture miles (Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card)
The Orchard Hotel using Capital One Venture miles (Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card)
InterContinental San Francisco using IHG points (IHG Rewards Club Premier Card)
InterContinental Mark Hopkins San Francisco using IHG points (IHG Rewards Club Premier Card)
Kimpton Buchanan Hotel using IHG points (IHG Rewards Club Premier Card)
Courtyard by Marriott San Francisco Downtown using Marriott points (Marriott Rewards® Premier Plus Credit Card)
Hilton San Francisco Financial District using Hilton points (Hilton Honors American Express Ascend)
San Francisco Marriott Marquis using Marriott points (Marriott Rewards® Premier Plus Credit Card)
Hotel Nikko San Francisco using Capital One Venture Miles (Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card)
Breaking: Mommy Points sells out to The Points Guy Inc.
I knew about this transaction but held my mouth shut to protect my sources.
Questions:
-How much did she get? (will likely never know).
-Did Boarding Area and Randy got a piece for porting her content over to TPG?
-Does this start an exodus of blogs from BA?
-Was this a test transaction before TPG buys all of BA?
-I wonder what the other big BA blogs are thinking…
Checking my email now.
Oh, missed your qualifier ‘big’ blogs.
Favorite t-shirt I saw in Czech Republic this week:
Image of baby with words “Fuck milk. Give me beer.”
I can”t wait to read how she will continue travel with her family flying Southwest back to Kansas City to see them grandparents. For free. Of course.
Love the t-shirt 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to comment Ric.
The space is consolidating. TPGs vision is pretty clear. From a business perspective, where’s BA going? VFTW and OMAAT dominates. There hasn’t been much of an addition in the last 5+ years.
I think FM is #3. Are we missing anyone? MP was running out of gas, I hope she got a nice payout from Bankrate. And it looks like a more stable environment for her, coming with benefits and all.
Business wise, with so much dinero behind this operation, TPG is out to dominate. One time years ago I made the comment one day we will all be working for TPG.
Maybe my amigo Julian can work out a buyout offer for me to do the best curated posts AND write about personal finance on TPG. But condition is they must let me state in every post that credit card debt is evil. Lol…yeah right. Like doing right for the readers was ever a top concern before sales in that site…
Makes sense to add a tab for family members, ” a big win for family travelers”.
I still find TPGs site confusing. I can’t quite see how the target audience (still newbies?) navigates the page.
The press release announcing the transaction made me really hold my nose…
I don’t go there.
I agree on the TPG site being rather confusing. Seems like it would be hard to know where to click and look for things there. Not that I go to TPG very often.
I can assure you she got more than Ingy…who sold FIRST! Lol
I think the TPG site is confusing on purpose so they can give up and just go straight to the credit cards…which are never confusing!
How can you possibly assure that?
As much as I hate both TPG and MommyP**p, given all the comments on the post on the website, it seems that it makes sense financially.
You are tempting me to look…
Naaaaah…
Oh shoot, Feedly is DOWN! OMG, SOS!
Never really looked at MommyPoints – past the time where I have to worry about travel with kids, but she seems decent enough. Wonder how she will do at the shit show that is TPG. I just hope she got more than Ingy.
Hard to see a big future for BA – difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff on there, yet they keep piling more bloggers on…seems like selling out at some point would be wise. MilePoint/InsideFlyer is on borrowed time.
Sorry about such low CC conversions, George. I think because your readership is well-educated, we already have, or have had most CCs. If you had more newbies and such, I suspect more cards, but we are all far along! You’ve done too good at educating!
I have had to slow down on apps myself due to various reasons and am thinking of trying to get below Too Many/24 for some Chase action. My last one was through your links though so hope it showed up!
I totally understand…I am on the same boat, sad!
The only way for the hobby to be saved is…a deep recession. And I would not wish that of course. At the current trend, it will be a sea of newbies excited to burn 60,000 miles on a RT trip to Topeka, Kansas in…Basic Economy lol.
I think I am going to go get me that AA Business card too and join mi familia in holding one. Get something out of them banks before they can my non producing, excuse me, convertingass 🙂
Were it not for my previously-scheduled Aeroplan CEO interview I’d provide a more thoughtful comment
Good luck in your site, you can be Mommy Points one day 🙂
Points with a Crew comes out to congratulate Mommy Points and screeeeeam: “Hey TPG notice me, I am into travel for families too”….
This space…
Just want to say tomorrow’s TBB post will be phuckingAmazing!
I want to go out with a bang!
I’m going to point out that I was doing ground-breaking family travel reports many years ago:
http://saverocity.com/pfdigest/clt-avl-via-hyundai-stop-jd/
Not one but two free drink vouchers? That was the point in the trip report that my mind was completely blown! I think you deserve “Industry leader”, not MommyPoints 🙂
I was instantly approved for the Citibank AAdvantage Business card, another 70k miles on the way!
Just noticed that the Amex Business Plus no annual fee card now comes with a 10k MR points signup bonus. Better than nothing! Damnit, got this card for son last month without a signup bonus, grrrrr!
Racing like mad to hit the 10 card minimum so I can continue to educate/entertain/inspire you all.
Tomorrow’s post is a must read! Ingy will come out for sure. If not…he is probably working on a comeback, so many conversions left to others hey?
I like reading Points with a Crew. I also like the BUZZ.
I have one travel regret… that I didn’t start a blog back in the day (2003). Oh well, at least I left something for George.
Last.
dhammer53
Dude, stop posting Last!
You may be discouraging others to comment!
TBBTheDude.
Never ever tell someone from Brooklyn what to do. We’ll always do the opposite. 😉
What was that spot in the BRT where we looked at that awesome NYC skyline??