We bring you more news how AA Shutdowns Accounts, a Seychelles Travel Guide, the Aging Tsunami, Hipmunk Shuts Down, Another Blog Sells Out, register for Radisson Rewards and Kimpton promotions, introduce you to Tempo, yet another Hilton brand, get into your head with Headspace at a Hyatt near you, AA comes dead last in an airlines scorecard, where to eat in 2020, 12 investing sins, best foreign films of the decade, learn why so many people in Vietnam have the same last name, freak out with all the Amish sex abuse, laugh at Rickrolling, amazing ocean photography, United continues to match AA in suckiness and lots more! Enjoy the weekend, see you Monday…maybe!
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS and visiting our LINKS!
You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!
MILES & POINTS
Register for the latest Radisson Rewards promotion HERE. Earn up to 150,000 bonus points for all of your personal stays completed now through March 31, 2020, including Award Night and Points + Cash redemption stays. This is probably one of the best hotel promotions in recent years IF you can do lots of one night stays in a cheap hotel. Remember, the cheapest hotel in this program costs 9,000 points. And yes, award stays DO count! Heck, if you can do 15 separate one night stays in a 9k hotel you can PROFIT. I want to apologize in advance if Radisson Rewards changes the terms of the offer lol.
So you apply for a Chase credit card. And then you…wait. Here is How to Check Your Chase Credit Card Application Status. I remember the days when these apps were instant approvals.
There is a Kimpton sale where you can earn 10,000 IHG Rewards per night. Limited selection of hotels and of course limited time, check out the offer details HERE.
Dear readers, I present to you the new Hilton Hotels brand: Tempo. Apparently, it is described, please contain your enthusiasm, as…”designed for the rhythm of life“. Lol, sure.
This does not have much to do with miles and points but it does deal with one of our favorite hotel chains: Hyatt’s Partnership With Headspace Elevates Wellness Strategy. Whazzup with all this wellness stuff over at Hyatt? Maybe they are on to something?
The new Headspace partnership will give guests complimentary access to Headspace content via in-room TVs. That could include short meditations, soothing sounds to encourage sleep and expert guidance from Headspace co-founder Andy Puddicombe, a former monk. World of Hyatt members will have access to meditation and mindfulness content during their stay through the loyalty club app. They will also be able to receive exclusive Headspace member offers. [Hmmm, okay then!]
TRAVEL
American Airlines, really? #SAAAAAAD!
Fantastic travel/foodie resource! Where To Eat in 2020: The Best Travel Cities for Street Food and Restaurants in 2020. Bon appetit! There are some interesting places on the list, like Milwaukee and Pristina!
Seychelles Travel Guide. Looks very nice. One of these days I am going to burn some Hilton points there.
Another epic travel link for you: 52 Places to Go in 2020.
Many have been using metasearch site hipmunk. Sad to report they are shutting down 🙁
PERSONAL FINANCE
Pretty good take on personal finance: 12 Investment Sins. Try not to be a sinner, ok? And oh yeah, watch for greed. And gluttony too lol!
Epic! The Problem of an Aging Global Population, Shown by Country. Who will be President when the normal retirement age for Social Security becomes 70? And Greece is so screwed!
ODDZ & ENDZ
The 25 Best Foreign Films of the Decade. Lame blogger question: Which one is your favorite?
I actually found this fascinating: Why 40% of Vietnamese people have the same last name. It is Nguyen. The article expands into answering how last names came to be! It was the Chinese who started to, please sit down, collect taxes easier! You could have been reading for the 3,349,385th time why some bloggers love travel rewards credit cards that pay fat sales commissions but you don’t…And when I whine about it you guys let me hear it that I am just like them….Can’t win….But I can blog…whatever…so enjoy my blog while it lasts lol.
This next one is especially for long time blog reader, Nick of Personal Finance Digest. An Oral History of Rickrolling. Yep, Rick Astley, trusted sources reveal, is never giving TBB up you guys. Ok, on a more serious note, this will shock you, it has the complete history of how it all started. Just one hit wonder and this guy’s life changed. For ever. Thanks for the memories Rick…errr, I mean, memes!
This will shock you, I had no idea: Sex Abuse Crisis in Amish Country. As I read it…I lost count how many times I screamed out loud WTF!
This photography is amazing, wow! 2019 Ocean Art Contest.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
In a shocking development, a blog I have not visited in years “Points With A Crew” announced it was sold to Motley Fool and is now part of Soapbox Financial Network…which I never heard of before. But I am familiar with Motley Fool which I made a point years ago to NEVER link to them as their affiliate practices are, well, how shall I put it…they actually make TPG affiliate practices look tame! Congrats I guess. What I find more interesting is…having this entity buy a blog in Boarding Area. And how does Randy Petersen (Boarding Area owner) feel about that and how is this going to be accommodated? My guess is one day this blog will not be hosted there….I guess we’ll find out. I better stop, I said enough. I am not going to miss it!
So American Airlines is eliminating close-in booking fees and we all know that they are getting ready to drop a hammer on us next…
An update on the AA mailers shutdown ongoing saga. Wait, we have more. A pet peeve of mine is when businessmen bloggers increase their business/conversions by posting deals and then shamelessly come back to post content bitching how airlines/banks killed those deals to, you guessed it, to increase their business/conversions. At least in this post Middle Aged Miles actually did apologize! Locked by AA – My Data Point with Details & Thoughts. I am not going to comment on this…
Wait, here is one more. Milenomics (just in time to preserve its place in the glorious TBB Blogs I Like) also had lots to say: Shop Talk: AA Locking/Shutting Down Accounts. Good luck to all affected…and that should be my last word on the subject.
And then United, boom, killed another one. Sad for all you with Star Alliance Gold using the lounges: United Devalues Partner Lounge Access For Star Alliance Gold And Club Members.
Poor Gary Steiger, he has been around longer than everyone else online and gets no respect. Finds a way to earn AA miles with Bask Bank, posts it….and days pass and View From The Wing reads it and posts it and then….in true Boarding Area brotherhood everyone links to VFTW. It has been going on for years and this shit irritates me. Read Gary Steiger’s response to me pointing out the injustice in the FM post!
And I leave you with this…
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.
I wonder if AA is using the mailers as bait to catch the sharpees. AA surely knows how “secrets” are spread through The Hobby. Confiscating the sharpees’ miles would be an focused way to remove liability from the balance sheet.
Never gonna give TBB up
Never gonna let TBB down
Never gonna run around and desert TBB
Never gonna make TBB cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt TBB
Bronze From the PNW! I am not surprised about Hipmunk going bye-bye. There are so many ways to search for travel info and all and to me, they never stood out from the crowd much at all.
The AA thing is gonna get uglier for a lot of folks, I suspect before it is over. I am glad I don’t play some of the crazy games that some folks do. Middle Age Miles apologized but getting that many of the same card in about a year and change? You are asking for trouble eventually. It is a different world out there than it used to be.
Sad about hipmunk. I used them so much back in the day as an easier alternative to the matrix. But then Google flights came along and I knew the days were numbered for hipmunk. RIP.
Thanks for the link, TBB.
Middle Age Miles: I’ve been reading your blog for a while. It’s very good and I really like all the details.
Buzz: I am surprised that you would criticize VFTW for its hat tipping practices. I bet Gary will post here soon to set the record straight. (And to post the number of the woman stripping in the airport that he had on video a few days ago). As Tori Amos sang “How’s that thought for you?”.
+1 for the Tori Amos Silent all these years quote.
YOU CALL THIS A TRAVEL BLOG??? Then where are the diaper deals!
From a customer relationship standpoint I can’t comprehend AA’s process. I estimate that a good number of AAdvantage members have locked accounts (five figures). It’s been more than a month and ZERO communication. It is poor corporate policy to cancel award travel AFTER a passenger has checked-in. Anyone with a locked account will not be travelling on paid AA tickets. I’m surprised AA lets this take such a long time.
Why will AA or the public have any empathy or sympathy for gamers?
Take your time-I’ll wait.
Sympathy from businesses?
There are many approaches that would make more sense for a bottom ranked airline struggling to make money from their core business. AA could focus on the worst offenders, word gets out on Reddit/blogs and the grAAvy train ends. Next look through the remaining accounts (while letting ppl know they’ve been locked) and make the best business decisions without burning tens of thousands of man hours.
Everybody knows not to sell AA milers. Some who sold only got a warning. That’s how I would have expected AA to handle Citi’s mess.
I think it came down to man hours. Your sensible way of going about this would require A LOT more man hours than how they did it.
Hey, AA is bottom ranked airline for a reason….wait, many reasons!
I doubt it. Your son could easily write a script to identify bad offenders. X times you got a bonus of 50k or 65k in the last 2 years. Anyone above ~ 10x would be automatically excluded from the program. Boom!
But the way AA operates….. this may be a more complicated approach.
If AA was too dumb to get that script in place 3 years ago, why do you expect them to react with skill now?
New thread on AA shutdowns. Any lawyers want to weigh in on how tough it would be to get those T&Cs thrown out on some long shot public policy claim? Looks like a pretty large class with decent sized damages.
I expect AA to be smarter than Citi. But that’s setting the bar really low. AA got paid for all the miles. Citi has been funding the party for YEARS. AA only got involved when the abuse was out of control.
“I wasn’t familiar with your site and appreciate the link.”
C’mon man, how can you write in this arena as an authority figure and not be familiar with “the competition”?
TBB has no competition bruh
Learned my AA account was locked when I showed up at the airport to fly to Hong Kong. Awesome customer experience AA. I even earned Plat last year. I had 2-4 mailers all biz, not really sure since there was a live no-limit biz link and I think my first one was legit. Say what you want about the morality/legality/ethics of using mailers, AA sure decided to stick it to people! That sort of experience never ends well for the company involved. I suppose AA is too big to go bankrupt, but it will, and we all will be bailing it out again. Maybe we can get our miles back as part of the bailout deal! (Or maybe my lockdown will be reversed, I’ll believe that when I see it!)
More interesting than all the speculation is the response of the blog-o-sphere. White-wash everywhere. Guess blogs target the sheep and the points/miles-o-sphere consists of the wolves and the sheep!
Do shady stuff and get shutdown. We all knew it, dont try to complain about it now. When you dance with the Devil you know what can happen.
@ DML: We won’t know for sure until we get a trustworthy AA insider.
@ Nick: You win the prize for best comment today. Due to eternal low conversions…no actual prize is awarded 🙂
@ Carl: Hard to see how the AA mailer thing can get even uglier. I think (hope) they are done with their shutdowns. Key in this game (especially lately) is to stay…alive. As in not get shut down. Lay low and go for the base hits instead of the grand slams 🙂 Just to make you feel better, woke up with several inches of snow too Saturday morning.
@ Julian: Yes, I agree. It was a pretty nifty tool…back in the day. Got a lot of blog mentions, that’s for sure.
@ Craig: Invoice is in the mail 🙂
@ Sam: I do not expect GaryL to comment here. And to ever give a backlink, these are only reserved for blogs in Boarding Area (and Doctor of Credit) that link to his blog and are not big credit card sales competition for the most part. And Tori Amos—>lol
@ Ramsey: DansDeals had some amazing diaper deals yesterday Friday for sure!
@ ABC: I agree…to a point. Situation has changed on the ground. So, you are pissed off at AA…and lets say you are based in Dallas…What are you going to do? Stay away from AA? Sure, go for it…It looks like they made a business decision to drop the hammer on everyone who attempted this. Hopefully they now go back and review the cases which was unduly harsh. I still think some lawyer can fight back but…you know, they are not cheap 🙂 As Sam indicates, they have the upper hand. Maybe they got really pissed off by some gamer showing off online how he got 42 apps…happens to write for the #1 credit card seller business…so sticking it to Citi…LOL. No apologies from that guy by the way.
@Brenton: Way too early, not enough coffee yet. But what are you referring to again?
@ Ryan: First, I am really sorry that happened to you! “AA sure decided to stick it to people!” Oh, they sure did! I think with just three legacy airlines left I don’t think they ‘ll be going bankrupt anytime soon. It is proven beyond any doubt it is the worst airline in the US by many indicators. I would not hold my breath to see the lockdown reversed. To my knowledge, this has not happened yet (if it happened to a reader, please let me know). Maybe with lots of bitching they can take another look? Maybe get Dan at DansDeals involved to get something going as he has a knack for doing that? But I think he is also not optimistic at all that AA will reverse any lockdown. Or get someone at TPG with a fancy title to do something….yeah, right, that was a joke. Great analogy about blogs targeting the wolves and the sheep. They blog content for wolves to build on the “expert” branding by publishing some deals that should never be out in public for ALL (think RATs) to see to attract sheep who are usually led to slaughter who then are lead to bitch against the business that took steps to protects its shareholders instead of telling the bloggers to go phuck themselves and never give them another click…
‘member when you used to rail against Delta being the worst.
Yes
Nick’s reply on FM about free-quent flyer’s blog.
He said that, seriously?
Thanks.
I wonder if the other Gary thanked him too 🙂
Hat tip to Alan H for finding a screenshot for me…
With Boeing finding yet another problem in the 737 Max planes…do not forget I was the only blogger who predicted these planes will never fly again….And I am not even a travel thought leader!
Not reflected in the stock price. Is the market expectation that Trump will bail out the company?
This must be the biggest loss making product ever launched by a US company.
700 planes grounded at a cost of $100M each adds up to a whole lot of money depreciating every month. Add compensation to the airlines and we don’t see how this company can survive in its current form without interference from the great leader.
It only took about $50 billion (so far) to give away to the farmers….I think that won’t go that far with Boeing. Damn socialists in the administration LOL.
So are we okay with giveaways or not? Cause I want my 1k a month. Im voting for whoever gives me the most stuff. Im not settling for an ObamaPhone either
I see…you voted for Trump because you must be a billionnaire or at the top 1%…because they sure got the most stuff LOL
Lets get dem rich peeple. Am I right or what?
That’s pretty funny while I am supporting Mike Bloomberg and despise both Warren and Sanders (who are now fighting calling each other liars sadlol)