We bring you more hot promotions, introduce the Bakkt wallet, freak out at all the Amex Delta metal cards, unveil the biggest lie in personal finance, an Amex Delta Reserve guide, introduce a new travel app, some amazing travel finds, the sexiest museums in the world, the incredible fall of interest rates, immigration is imperative to entrepreneurship and innovation, some frozen hair stuff, losing a pet, poverty and teen pregnancies map, we unload on Marriott Bonvoy and much more. Have an awesome weekend!
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 HERE for the new IHG Rewards promotion: 4x Offer It is valid for stays February 15th – May 15th
- Earn 1,000 bonus points on your first night
- Earn 2x bonus points on nights 2-5
- Earn 3x bonus points on nights 6-14
- Earn 4x bonus points on nights 15+
If you have the United Explorer card check HERE to see if you were targeted for a spend bonus. It pisses me off when I am not targeted! A little. And then I get over it.
A comprehensive Amex Delta Reserve card guide.
Very interesting promotion by Alaska Airlines. Apparently, the airline will give you some miles for flying its partner airlines.
Could this be the next big thing? Bakkt aims to turn your rewards points into a wallet you can spend anywhere. The vision is below. Worthy vision for sure, executing it though is a bitch!
Wouldn’t it be great if you could open a digital wallet and view the sum total of all your rewards programs for hotels, pharmacies, and bank cards, all in one place, converted into cash? Then, you could spend all those thousands of unused airline miles as dollars to buy an Apple watch or take your spouse to dinner at the corner pizzeria. Loyalty points you don’t even know you have—the average American has more than a dozen rewards programs—are suddenly as spendable as the bucks in your checking account, just by scanning your rewards app at the checkout counter. What’s more, you can even get cash for video game points you could use only to buy, say, a sword to make your team mightier, and trade points for your Bitcoin on the same wallet.
Delta makes a crapload of money from Amex with the Delta Skymiles credit cards. And here I am announcing an enhancement. Here’s why Delta and American Express are issuing metal credit cards. Ok, that was a joke! The article reveals some very interesting numbers:
Delta noted it had added a record 1.1 million new cardholders in the preceding 12 months
Delta projected an increase in contributions from American Express from $4.1 billion in 2019 to nearly $7 billion by 2023. Delta represented 8% of American Express global billings and 21% of card member loans in 2018.
TRAVEL
Old blogger friend contacted me to check out his new app “PlanMoreTrips“. I have no time to check it out and I am really not putting together complicated trips as much as I used to. The app looks very appealing and you may want to check it out. This is NOT a recommendation as I have not played with it myself. I was not bribed to link to it in any way shape or form, I don’t operate that way. If it helps you, great. If it works as advertised I think it will be successful:
PlanMoreTrips = Pinterest For Travel Planning
PlanMoreTrips lets you save potential flight & hotel options directly from ANY travel site.
Everything is organized in 1 place & easily shareable with the people you’re traveling with.
No more travel planning with spreadsheets, Slack, email, or texts!
If you are in New York, watch out! DHS Suspends Global Entry And Other Trusted Traveler Programs For New York Residents!
PERSONAL FINANCE
Must read: The Biggest Lie in Personal Finance. I agree with this and I have written about the subject also. Every time I read about Suze Orman hammering people to not spend money on a latte to get rich I get angry!
Actually, the only “secret” that I know to get rich is to grow your income and invest in income-producing assets. Of course, that is far easier said than done. The best way to grow your income is to increase your human capital and keep increasing it. Full stop.
Visual Capitalist does it again, wow! Visualizing the 700-Year Fall of Interest Rates.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Obviously, I do not agree with stupid walls Mexico was going to pay for and just disrupting the immigration laws to such an extent to stop the flow of immigrant to the US. Because it is un American AND: How Immigrants Drive Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Understand? Remember, Obama deported more illegal immigrants than any other President (I think), it was never about that!
Immigrants, after all, are individuals who are willing to take a risk. To make a calculated investment. And just as good entrepreneurs know that an uncertain landscape is less likely to yield strong returns, many immigrants realize a hostile country is less likely to make a good home.
This will touch you. Dear Clifford. A letter to my childhood dog. Losing a pet and all the emotions…Condolences to the Frequent Miler household for losing their pet dog recently.
Those Canadians again: International Hair Freezing Competition.
Stock markets are holding up fine. Too bad so many don’t get to participate, sad! Source.
Is it because so many are glued to their phones? Source.
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.
Isn’t it odd that bloggers just go out of their way to come up with ANY content that goes along with selling their credit card merchandise? I no longer follow these bank salesmen bloggers masquerading as travel miles points “experts”. And then Frequent Miler has a series of going into everyone’s wallet to see what cards they have. How conveeeeeenient!
It is really not a big deal but I guess it is better than the alternative: Capital One Adds Wyndham Rewards & Accor Live Limitless, Improves JetBlue Transfer Rates.
Remember when Marriott bought SPG and did some positive steps around the merger timeline. To keep SPG members from bolting. And bloggers were praising Marriott for these positive steps. And I was the only one warning/screaming that this company is not to be trusted and there is a hell storm coming. Well, it has been a shitshow ever since, #Bonvoyed and all, here is another “enhancement” Bonvoy style lol: Marriott Bonvoy Makes Another Negative Change, This Time To Its “No Blackout Dates” Policy. Wait, when you think it can not get worse, it does! Brutal! A Look Into The Marriott #Bonvoyed 2020 Category Changes: 1,686 Going Up, Just 499 Going Down, Plus More Capacity Controls. Remember that time The Points Guy had a negative post about Marriott…and then they got a call from Marriott execs expressing their unhappiness with the negative sentiment towards such a huge advertiser and….TPG management deleted the post? #NeverForget
Wife applied for ChaseFreedomUnlimited on January 21, 2020. Using my links of course, this is a family business lol. Kept calling for status update. Recording was always “in two weeks”. I finally saw it in her account online on… February 5, 2020! Be speedy Chase smh. Oh, and the online Application Status sure does not work, fyi!
Sad to see this from Hyatt. Especially there was one property in Greece I was interested in visiting, sad! 21 SLH Properties That Have Changed Hyatt Award Categories Or Disappeared.
Day 7 and the Marriott stay my son had still has not been credited. Waiting…
Son will be flying to India for work. Delhi DEL. He has been matched by AA to Platinum Pro until April 19, 2020 and gets to keep it if he satisfies some requirements. Any partner airline that stands out as far as crediting the best feasible way instead of getting burned? Maybe he ‘ll go through London Heathrow as he would not mind stopping in London for a few days. The kid gets around, maybe it is in the genes? Any hotel that stands out in DEL? Update: Thanks to the Flight Deal with this advice on Twitter:
“if on challenge, can do BA, Finnair or Japan Air to Delhi. on J, just make sure to avoid JL i class fares since that only earns 70% base. one trip in J to DEL would be enough for the Plat challenge. eqd/eqm would be on JL (5k / 40k), then BA (3.7k/30k) and AY (3.7k / 29k)”
Maybe Marriott will send us all a thong too LOL.
Have you been noticing more and more outlets online selling travel rewards credit cards? Well, no you are not mistaken. It is getting ridiculous out there! Even Conde Nast Traveler gets into it….partnering with Card Ratings of course. So many “travel” experts out there these days smh.
And I leave you with this…Another Christian Rock album cover…Swing that Axe LOL
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.
Sweet – First Gold in a while!
The TBB Amazon link has not seen any click for days!
Just wanted to beat DML, hope he is ok 🙂
Hmmm… I always try to do my Amazoning through your link, which I thought I had saved. I know it has worked before. I will double check.
George,
Hey lemme know if my purchase today shows. I redid the permalink I had that was supposed to go through and pay you so I am thinking it worked.
Now my Amazon button on my browser header is edited in properties to go to your Links page and that way I am always sure of a fresh link through yours. Hope it works!
I log in once very early am when I do my bookmarks round, will let you know tomorrow or Monday.
Yeah, many sites hijack Amazon clicks…once you click on one of their expertly placed Amazon product links…that…stays for a while, at least 24 hours. This is why they keep placing them in the body of the posts. Maybe I need to start selling diapers too in my site 🙂
Thank you.
Saw one yesterday Friday, computer equipment related, fyi.
In Detroit going to SFO!
More Delta miles it appears 🙂
Hello from JFK! Going b class on the red eye makes it easier to sleep.
Delta status can be useful.
You keep linking to Doctor of Credit while he keeps linking to links you find while going out of his way to link to his idol Gary Leff while never ever linking to you.
You keep proving you are a moron George, come on!
You cant call someone who is willing to vote for Mike Bloomberg a moron, can you?
Not only that but I recently added DoC to the Blogs I Like…
We have a saying in Greece, something that goes like:
Do the good thing and throw it in the sea (meaning, let it go)
You are afraid of Mike amigo…The Iowa debacle left an opening for him, he is coming to…get your guns 😉
Maybe he can stop and frisk my inlaws just because their pigment is different than his. That’ll be a cool feature of his presidency. Anyway you gonna have to pull the level for Bernie he is gonna be your Democrat nominee. Free money for all. Cant wait to get my 3rd house too.
Hope it is not Bernie. He brought us Trump because he did not concede earlier and never fully endorsed Hillary….who is right about Bernie. The lunatic keeps going even after a heart attack…I think he is the other Russian asset, you know who is the other one.
Bloomberg apologized for the frisking. You need to find something else to pick on him.
I think I am going to Bloomberg’s Ann Arbor campaign office opening today, will get to meet some NFL dude who played at UofM too. And eat some free snacks too lol
Bernie has nothing to do with Hillary’s loss to Trump. Voter turnout is essential to win. And there was zero enthusiasm around Hillary. Maybe her loss to Obama 8years before should have been an indicator. Obama and Trump both exploited Facebook. Hillary didn’t. She ran flawed campaigns both times. Emotions are essential, you either want voters to be angry or enthusiastic and believe in change.
@ ABC: She got 3 million more votes than the phucking moron. As Anonymous Bernie lover indicated below, it was the perfect storm. I believe if he had conceded earlier AND fully endorsed her we would not be undergoing almost 4 years of Trump. Obviously, we can not find out but I am sticking to it. They still hate each other by the way.
@ Anonymous: If it is Bernie vs Trump, the Dems will suffer a HUGE blowout loss. You wanna bet? Bernie comes off as more crazy than Trump always pointing his finger at everybody, railing about them billionaires and same old blah blah blah BS he spewed out 4 years ago. Even after a heart attack the guy would not quit, what a narcissist he might be. He caused the debacle in 2016 and he will write his own bigger debacle if he does not go away.
Went to a Mike Bloomberg Ann Arbor office opening yesterday. I was late but I got me a free Tshirt. And I had a really tasty sub sandwich. For free 🙂 Met a local real estate entrepreneur who recently sold his company to a bigly company run by two old dudes and we had a very interesting chat. The takeaways:
-Bernie needs to go away. And take Warren with her. Hell, they all need to go away and let Mike run things and possibly unite us, we need to heal as a nation.
-When I asked him if he is keeping busy, he said:
NEVER retire. I still go to the office every day, they gave me a fancy title but nobody reports to me and I don’t think I am even there…but it sure beats staying at home.
-You must admit Bloomberg’s ads are the best.
@ Anonymous: I obviously disagree about Bernie. You are falling into the trap Trump and his supporters are throwing for you as they would LOVE to run against Bernie. At this point, after the Iowa debacle, I am starting to think we deserve our elected governments….SAD!
1. It’s about the electoral system. Popular vote doesn’t matter. She lost the rust belt. 2/3 of non-college educated white women voted for Trump. You can’t blame that on Bernie. It’s time for the D party to put on their big boy pants and pick a candidate that will bring out more voters.
2. I am surprised the real estate market hasn’t been disrupted by SoftBank. How can an agent still charge a 6% fee? Just set up an online system where I can download the right documents etc and have someone review them and the fee should be half. Most go window shopping on Zillow.
TBB, stick to financial info, your political intelligence is pathetic. In a perfect storm election no one factor is to blame. Here’s some edifying info: more Bernie supporters voted for Clinton in 2016 than Clinton supporters voted for Obama in 2008. It’s a mistake to buy into the manufactured Bernie Bro stories which you’ve swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
Your understanding of democratic socialism as well as Bernie’s policies are quite ignorant as well. I don’t have the space nor the time here to educate you, perhaps you should try and educate yourself?
“Democratic Socialism” from the guy who owns 3 houses. Cant believe other US citizens fall for this garbage as if someone/anyone is gonna give you something for free. These “Democratic Socialists” are sleepwalking thru life thinking stuff is going to get handed to them. You gonna have to work for it, even if it eventually means fighting your own countrymen for it.
Legal immigration is a wonderful thing. see USC Title 8
We are all glad the caravan was stopped 😉
Open Borders, Free College, Free Healthcare, Vote from Prison for all !!
In principal I have no problem with “free” education. It works reasonable well in may countries including the EU. However, anything “free” in the US will just be abused by the universities. The administrative costs have skyrocketed at universities and indirectly funded by 6 figure student loans. The faculty to student ratio has not changed. Talk about screwing over students. It’s time to remove the tax free exemption for universities. They no longer serve the public.
Anonymous-
Very astute observations today.
Wait, I misspelled a word there.
Hubby approved for SWA card through your links. Applied Jan, approved Feb. I applied CSP in Jan and also get “two weeks” on phone. Hope it goes through for me, and you.
Thanks for all your posts.
Thank you!
Chase getting slower these days I think…not sure what it means…if anything