We bring you the latest IHG Rewards devaluation, we travel to Abkhazia for the holidays, we also travel to Eastern Bhutan, we meet the Internet Giants and how they changed over the years, we learn how Bank of America is tightening the screws like all the other banks, we learn about the Jews of a Greek small town, learn of the most used apps and how the results will shock you, get a recap of 2018 investment asset class performance, an article about FIRE from a weird guy you may know and more!
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In case you missed my awesome TBB Best of Web post yesterday: 2018 Striking Facts, Technology Ranked, Fake Internet, Cable Guy, US Immigration Visuals.
Friendly pumping reminder: The 60k offers for the Hyatt and Southwest cards ending in a few days, hurryyyyyyyyy! Thank you for using my links.
As is almost often the case, this generated in Flyertalk and a bunch of blogs found it, reproduced it and buried the HT at the bottom where almost nobody notices. IHG Rewards Points Devaluation effective January 14th! It’s not bigly but…remind me again about the value of hotel points? And this is a nicer laid out format of all the changes.
Hobby is taking hits from all directions, here comes Bank of America imitating Chase – PSA: BOA clamps down further on approvals.
Were you wondering what ever happened to The Bohemian Blog? Me too! This is a fantastic post about a place we almost never get any reports from. Holidays in Abkhazia. Looks cool to me!
Another surprising find: The top-10 apps of 2018 according to usage data. WTF is Candy Crash and Farm Heroes? What a waste. Hey, don’t judge ok, smh.
Wow, what a find in the Greek press. The Jews of Halkida. I have always been fascinated about the tiny community of Jews in Greece. I grew up very near their small neighborhood and went to school with some Jewish kids. There is a small synagogue but I saw it locked up with a sign for sale the last time I was in my hometown, Larisa.
Tell me your fav weird fact. This may suck you in, you have been warned! And I criticized Candy Crash fans after this lol.
I don’t like doing self promotion as you may have noticed. But some readers asked for it. Here is my article about FIRE in the Wall Street Journal: Financial Independence, Retire Early? Not So Fast. It is behind a paywall, sorry about that. I may have more to say in the comments about it…
Global Gaz goes to the remote, eastern part of Bhutan. I love remote places, give me more! Hint as in guest posts!
This is awesome, look at Yahoo, sad! The 20 Internet Giants That Rule The Web.
Everything was down last year, except cash. Always expect surprises and stop listening to false prophets, there is no crystal ball that works out there!
First weekend of January I hope to stay alive, time to knock out both quarterly and annual type reports! I think I made it…in one piece!
Excited to be back on the court with my soccer “Gasping For Air” team. The team that won the last several championships did not sign up again so we may have a shot for Gold. 8 game seasons, lets go!
Another one of the Mile Nerd final posts: Regrets. I have a few. Hmm, I think he is going to be around he hints. Interesting comments about the “ranting” culture. I may have some thoughts in the comments because I am updating this minutes before my own post goes live! I also tried to help that blogger he is referring to by the way…I better stop.
I guess I will be spending time in this FT thread for the CNB Crystal Visa Infinite card soon.
Got so excited I got my first January credit card conversion…only to see it credited back to December, sad!
And I leave you with this…Rock this week, TBB on!
TBB
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Buzz-
Any chance you could help us TBB regulars over that WSJ pay wall?
I mean-Buzz doesn’t support the Wall, does he?
The WSJ article is quite good. And funny. Never retire! Sounds good to me.
Can’t get over the paywall. Oh well… Bronze!
The 20 Internet Giants That Rule The Web.
Wow, lots of failed companies from the late 90s. I used most of them. How did Google become so dominant in the search engine space? I used to like Altavista and Northern Light. Was it just a better algorithm? Now it’s just pay to play and SEO. I have a hard time finding what I’m looking for using Google. If you want google to stop tracking your activity but still want to use google’s search engine start your search here http://www.startpage.com .
What’s missing on the list? P0rn! Internet wouldn’t have grown this fast if it weren’t for p0rn. Maybe there wasn’t a dominant player back then. It was just all over the place, at your fingertips.
@ Sam: Can someone violate the wall and share this gem here? Actually, I self edited my most controversial comments in the article. And then the editors did the few other semi controversial comments so the final product is, well, kind of boring actually. You know how I feel about walls 🙂
@ DML: Most people just hate their job and working for the man. What if, please sit down, they found something they enjoy doing instead… wow. And keep building that cushion because, well, who knows…Especially in these crazy Trump era days…He announced leaving Syria and slowly at this rate we may have a surge of US troops there by…next week! And thank you.
@ Carl: I asked for help for you to get over the wall…You know by next week the wall will be invisible, right?
@ ABC: Great commentary, thank you. Not sure what happened to Altavista and Northern Light, they just faded I think. I am still amazed at what happened at Yahoo. One of my clients worked there in the boom days and got a crapload of stock options and based on my amazing timing ability we sold at a high price…and then the sad decline started after that. I kid with her that she left and the company went down without her lol. Actually, no timing ability…just super LUCKY as hell. Sometimes in life…luck is so under rated! And yeah, great commentary on P0rn as well…lots of innovation started there. And I expect it to continue. Thinking VR sexrobots woohoo!
Who will be the first cc conversion this month?
I need to knock out the last component of the huge “early January” huge project next…
Happy New Year, Buzz. It’s been a long while since I posted. Hope you missed seeing this old time reader in your comment section!
Curious to get your take on all of the “How I did on 2018 predictions” and “My 2019 prediction” posts. I skip over them as I really don’t see how they could be useful to me.
Go easy on the CNB–lots of folks are “going hammy” on it (as my son would say). Let me know if you need any special advice (you know where to find me)!
I really enjoyed your post yesterday–loved the cable lady.
Request for 2019: more special places to visit: pics, articles, etc. (Bonus points if they are not yet on every persons travel bucket list.)
Where have you been?
Thanks for the advice on the CNB. I expect the 4 times credit thingie not to last…surprised it has!
I find the prediction posts as a giant waste time. I don’t read them.
Hope you liked the Abkhazia one today 🙂
Abkhazia seems too post apocalyptic to me…much like a lot of Eastern Europe. And I dont go for gaudy, worn down, and trash-filled so it’s probably not going to cut it for me. Was happy to read about it though!
Hey TBB, I know you are friends with Dia The Deal Mommy…Just wanted you to know that she is getting on with the TPG program…with six credit card affiliate links in her blog post today. Even her girlfriend the blogger formerly known as Mommy Points only had three cc aff links today. Maybe she was reminded what is really important 🙂
My bet is…Mile Nerd gets a Facebook group. I find him doing all he did by email…unbelievable actually.
Is that Leana gal still blogging?
Great read at the WSJ today. Kind of mild for you but maybe this is why you have TBB right? 😉
I am not going to contribute any more than I have to the ranting culture 🙂
I think Leana is still blogging. I tried to help her…not sure it got through.
No idea what MN will do. But he is obviously going to do something, way too many hints…
Space considerations cut quite a bit. And editors on top of it. Not that pleased with the final product…oh well, it shows I am still around and have not been sucked into less than $1 Amazon days and cc whining 🙂
Buzz-
I couldn’t get over, around or through that WSJ wall. Is that concrete, steel slats, or electronique?
The wall will soon turn from a see through wall to just invisible…installed by the Space Force. Believe him 🙂
Use another browser? 🙂
C’mon I already told you guys that there is an add-on for Firefox called “Bypass Paywalls”. It basically rewrites the header of your request to many of the financial sites look like the request came from Google, which unlocks the big beautiful paywall door and lets you see everything…
Apparently because Google doesn’t have to pay for anything, ever.
the big beautiful paywall lol.
Well, what’s your number George?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/heres-burned-3023450-miles-2018-stack/
Well, for a very part timer like me being on call with my mother who can drop at any minute…I did not too bad…as in something like 700k. Without even trying man!
I like the Antarctica posts.
Take it easy on the sponsored posts…way too many lately! Or send them my way 🙂
That reminds me I need to do that annual post too.
Yup, it’s fun to do an annual reckoning. Finally burning more than I earn now, won’t be long before the end is here.
Sponsored posts feed the kids.
As Ingy would say, comments don’t pay the bills!
I miss Ingy 🙂
How are you only using 700k miles/points a year?
Travel x4 is long gone I assume. It’s half price sending only two family members to places. And it’s freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee going nowhere!
Tomorrow it will show you how…
I explain the reasons…
No one asked me, but it was a record redemption year.
2,234,836 spread out over Cancun twice, Belize, Vancouver, London/Paris, Japan, a handful of domestic trips, and Puerto Vallarta and Argentina/Chile both upcoming in the next few months.
I need to get to Vancouver…
Some love to you Buzz from Mile Nerd:
http://www.milenerd.com/the-state-of-miles-and-points/
And he calls out Doctor of Credit for linking to the pimps too.
Meanwhile, I am calling a few cousins with an opportunity, think cc churning and such hehe.
We will miss this guy…
Meanwhile, the pimps are all raging selling the Amex Gold card screwing their readers out of 25k just for the sales commission. How do they sleep at night? Rest assured Doctor of Credit will go out of his way to link to them….because one back link from VFTW is worth 153 back links from TBB. And more traffic—–>more ad revenue.
And on and on it goes…
Meanwhile the first cc conversion at TBB dropped officially…man they are really slow in approvals and eventual payouts this month #wow
Oh oh I can not log into the cc portal…I think TPG had enough beatings from me and decided to take me out…
And this is how I join MN you guys.
I plan to go out with a bang too. Several bangs actually.