We bring you more about the Capitol mayhem, Chase markets guide, new Hyatt properties, Google hotels engine, we are all over the latest Trump crap and how he went over the line this time, a few Covid-19 articles, some fascinating finds and pray for our democracy to be saved from the fringe lunatics encouraged by a mentally ill totally unfit for the job President enabled by a bunch of sycophant opportunists.
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This goes out to subscribers via email the day it is posted at 8 am. After that I may add something new in the body of the post and I indicate it like this: Update.
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TOP PICKS
Top picks are not excerpted at all. I recommend you find time to read every word!
I have more in the CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS section below. January 6, 2021 will be a day that will live in infamy in the history of the United States of America. For now, you can skip this if you are still traumatized as much as I am:
Intense Photos Show What It Was Like As Trump Supporters Took Over The Capitol
Read this only if you are strong. Saying goodbye to your son who succumbed to depression. One of the most wonderful, stunning and loving pieces I have read lately, it moved me. RIP Tommy Raskin!
Statement of Congressman Jamie Raskin and Sarah Bloom Raskin on the Remarkable Life of Tommy Raskin
I am not sure why I am starting out with really sad stories today. Maybe it is because I am afraid that this pandemic nightmare is long from over. I don’t know. I usually reserve the Top Picks for reads that move me. And this one sure did about this high school football player who had a horrible freak accident tackling an opponent and then had to spend the rest of his life in bed paralyzed. No wheel chairs, in bed. And the dedication of his family, especially his mother was something that, well, I had to stop and compose myself. So, please stop bitching about, well, anything really and embrace the present and find a way to cope and contribute to society!
MILES & POINTS
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If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me please, thank you!
My REFERRAL links for the 100k Chase Ink Business Preferred, 75k Chase Ink Cash and 75k Chase Ink Business Unlimited.
These offers all expire on January 13: 125k Amex Bonvoy Brilliant (and Platinum status), 100k Amex Bonvoy Business (and Platinum status and $150), 70k Chase United Explorer, 140k Chase IHG Rewards Club Premier, 100k Chase IHG Rewards Club Traveler.
Newbies: If you think you are getting objective advice at The Points Guy you need to leave now, thank you. Actually, I have so much going on right now in my life and all the Capitol mayhem sure did not help me to think this one through better so I made short it and sweet for you š
Without much travel, the banks have been trying all kinds of things to get us to stick with using their travel rewards credit cards. This is a comprehensive list of COVID Credit Card Enhancements Ultimate Guide: 2021 Edition. Continuing on the same bank theme, here goes American Express Launches New Offers for U.S. Consumer, Small Business, and Cobrand Card Members and Merchants.
Hyatt has an ongoing promotion you can earn 500 points per night when you stay in a “new” property. But what qualifies as new? Of course this is a moving target and here is the latest list of the 34 new hotels that qualify. No promo registration required.
TRAVEL
If you were considering to visit the Bonneville Salt Flats near Salt Lake City…
I love links with selected amazing educational nuggets like this: Here Are My 50 Selected Facts About Countries All Over The World. Like, did you know that Kiribati has land in all 4 hemispheres. No? Well, now you do!
Really fun, quirky and weird things about The Philippines: the craziness starts in Woodside. I bet you did not know several of these things like me!
As Google Flights has slowly improved to become the go to airfare search engine, it appears Google is also doing the same with its Hotels search engine.
Boeing settled for about $2.5 billion with the US Justice Department to avoid further legal proceedings and of course criminal execution of its executives for the 737 MAX crashes. Vast majority of that will go to the families of the victims who I am sure they would have preferred their loves ones to still be with them if it was not for the egregious mistakes of the company. Do you feel safe flying this airplane now that they fixed the, please sit down, software?
So, Wyndham Destinations bought Travel & Leisure for $100 million. I can pretend I can do an “analysis” of this but I won’t. The whole deal is structured pretty interestingly as all T&L staff will stay on as…part of its current owner. I just expect a lot of the content to dive in quality and links to timeshare resort sales pump pieces will go through the roof, sad!
COVID-19
It is really hard to stay positive with the latest from the virus. Too many strains, too few vaccines, too many people traveling and we are really hammering all our medical professionals. “It all depends on the virus” Dr. Fauci once said, so true! I think when it is finally over sometime in the future, we will learn a lot had to do with the viral load amounts we breathed in when we got infected: Youāre Infected With the Coronavirus. But How Infected?
With the virus cases just increasing all over the world with new more contagious strains appearing and reaching apocalyptic numbers in the US…I am starting to think if it is prudent to write off all of 2021 too, sad! I hear of more people getting the vaccines but around where I live the rollout has been painfully and sadly slow. With so much spread viral mutations may cause another āvery, very badā COVID-19 wave, scientists warn.
PERSONAL FINANCE
If you are allowing your money to be invested by someone at a bank, I think you can do much much better. Even if the bank is Chase. I like to stick to this bank’s travel rewards credit cards only, thank you very much. Anyways, Chase publishes a Guide to the Markets, which is always full of really good graphs. Here is the Guide to the Markets as of December 31, 2020. Ignore predictions always, they are not worth your time, focus on what you can control. Why? This is why š
We always have changes in the exciting personal finance world. And this is a good reference: Social Security, Medicare and Retirement Plan Changes for 2021.
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
We will remember where we all were on January 6, 2021 just like we remember where we were on 9/11. If you were not incredibly saddened and angry by what your beautiful eyes were seeing on TV, well, WTF can I say! I have been warning here for years that this Trump dude is insane, literally mentally ill! And I have been warning of violence all along and the ONLY surprise I had was that it took so long for his shit to hit the fan! Heck, I almost went to WalMart to buy me a gun for protection but since there was no promotion to earn 5x points per dollar I did not. Ok, I am kidding about that last bit. Trying to soften the mood because I need to link to a few things before I go on praying to make it alive to January 20th!
The rampant lies have been coming in droves for years…just in case you were not paying attention or you had your ass all in tuned to the right-wing/Trump media (looking at you Rams & Ingy!): Where the President Got His Lies About Georgia. While pressuring election officials, Trump borrowed claims from QAnon followers, 8kun posters, and a random Twitter guy.
I don’t know about you but I printed this one out and stored it with some material I check regularly, stuff like Tax Number References, airline alliance partners, hotel company codes, stack of free hotel night certificates and stuff like that š Seriously, for the rest of my life I will check on these names and will do my best to defeat them in EVERY election from here on out! A List of Everyone Complicit in This Coup Attempt.
I like what this guy had to say: “I would be willing to hear these people out if they have legitimate grievances, but frankly they have nothing substantive to offer us, as far as their intellectual ideas and where they would take us if they were in charge. Actually we have seen where their ideology takes us, and itās not a pretty picture. If you look into their ideas, they are invariably reactionary types: neo-fascists, racists, white nationalists and a whole host of other hateful ideologies thrown in for good measure. This is nothing to build a complex civilized government on…Moreover, they are incredibly immature sore losers;Ā nothing redeeming there either…So,Ā basically deplorable behavior. Yes, it was a deplorable act yesterday, incited by a deplorable, rabble-rouser President and the deplorable right wing media that caters to theseĀ deplorable losers who donāt offer us anything of real value.”
I mean, really, there is not much to debate with people like this, ok? I guess he did his research, LOL! Ok, I am crying actually while shaking my head to oblivion.
Can you imagine if they were Black Lives Matter protesters? No? Let me help you.
I better stop…If you are still excusing and justifying what this horrible person does, YOU are part of the problem. I was distraught all day and really wished I could fly away…
ODDZ & ENDZ
Wow, what a story! Never heard about this guy, what a life…talk about finding your purpose! The Secret Formula. Could shrunken heads from the Amazon hold the key to curing cancer? One man thought soāand spent a lifetime trying to prove it. Long!
What a super sad story: The Last Two Northern White Rhinos on Earth. Both female, the end is near…
Amazing! BLACK SUN: Amorphous Flocks of Starlings Swell Above the Danish Marshlands And watch the 1.16 minute video…Oh man, I wish sometimes I could sell credit cards like That Points Guy instead of bringing you stuff like this toĀ your attention, when will I ever learn?
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.
No comments, please keep it clean in my comments šĀ The Man Who Turned Credit-Card Points Into an Empire. I kept shaking my head while reading it and I had to stop before it left my beautiful body. Why is this guy traveling this way during a pandemic? I almost puked and there goes my buyout offer bwahahaha. These articles are horrible for our hobby as these businesses targeting newbies get more popular bringing in more fresh bodies who click on their affiliate links thinking they are getting the best deals out there (lol) and eventually the devaluations will be back with a vengeance after Covid. Actually, I think the end of getting any meaningful value out of this hobby may be 2022. Ok, I really did love this excerpt from the author who I think did a decent job covering what we do but of course had to fall for the TPG bullsh*t because he is a master at it.
The poor underwrite the fantasies of the middle class, who in turn underwrite the realities of the rich. When credit cards charge high interchange fees, they pass the cost of loyalty programs on to merchants, who in turn pass it back to customers by building the fees into their sticker prices. Those who pay with credit can earn it back in points. Those who pay with debit or cash wind up subsidizing someone elseās free vacation.Ā [One day the interchange fees will be capped and then it will be just a few blogs in this space left doing it for the love of it and not…ah, phuck it!]
Follow up post in FlyerTalk about the TPG article above.
If interested I guess: United Airlines MileagePlus Premier Status Match Challenge 2021 and since we are on the topic of status matching, here is Hilton Honors Gold & Diamond Status Match & Fast Track 2021 too.
Question: With the pandemic related extensions, I guess no need to do the Diamond status matching back and forth from (Wyndham to Caesars) this year? I still show Wyndham Diamond! Anyone?
I am now a paid member of the Milenomics community. Support people who try to do things right and treat you with respect. I hope I can keep up with it all you guys as I tend to be a slacker š . I have no intention to start charging here, I am okay if you just throw me a bone click here and there everyone, thanks. This is not my full time endeavor but always remember we bloggers could be doing other things with our time and each click energizes us because somebody actually cares and no clicks demoralizes us and forces us to quit and go do other things…this blogger will not go work at TPG though lol.
For the record, this blog is written by me because I can not afford any ghost writers, sad lol.
I am angry with what has transpired in our nation over the past two days…if you haven’t noticed.
And I leave you with this…
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Buzz-I donāt know how you have the presence to pull a post together with all this happening.
But thanks.
I have changed how I put them together.
I hired the ghost writer Gary and Ben use!
Just kidding.
I drop things in a draft post now and aim to have most of a post in it. So, for the first time I am in groove so to speak that does not bring me totally stressed out about to put a post together the night before or just a few hours before posting it! Today’s post was mostly in before all the mayhem started, phew. Otherwise I may have even skipped it. I did not get much sleep the night of January 6, I was up at 3 am and got to see bitch Pence do what he was supposed to do at 3.40 am!
Historic times…If there is a single Trump fan left they probably need to be committed…but it is probably too late, they are too far gone like him…
If we make it to January 20th, there should be some big time sales on guns š
Enjoy, I really enjoy blogging and I am trying to control the whining.
Happy vaccination to you! Michigan vaccinated about 20k yesterday….at that rate I may not even make it to Toledo in 2021. Ohio that is!
Boeing; cost of doing business. Executives should go to jail. Just like they should have in 2008/9.
Vaccination: what canāt the big $1B+ hospitals vaccinate more folks? Shameful!
Can we STOP looking into white male Trump grievances. They are allowing themselves to be indoctrinated by FB, YouTube and Qanon.
The articles on the white female criminal revolutionist who died breaking into the capitol are more favorable than I had expected. Maybe a martyr in the making.
I think the problem with the slow vaccinations is…low numbers of medical personnel. We definitely need to do more to support these people putting their ass on the line every day, they must be exhausted!
I am still angry….why are the assholes inciting these fringe lunatics to do what they did…why are they still out there. That fucking Hawley dude had the nerve to bitch on Twitter how he lost his book deal…I mean, amazing. There was even a newly elected Congressman in that crowd!
I donāt know, but Iām thinking you were born in Greece since your Mother is there, but I am touched by your reaction to what happened on Wednesday. I thought Iād faint but guess I was too angry. Iām married to a Spartan and cried like a baby when he became a citizen. He appreciates this country for giving him his livelihood, but he voted Trump. Our fights have been epic the last 4 years – well, mostly me ranting and raving – but I wonāt get into it this time. I pray. Gotta focus on the light at the end of the tunnel.
Yes, I was born in Greece and came to the US in 1984 at just 17 years old to be an exchange student in my senior year in high school and then went to college and…I stuck around to become a US citizen in 1999. Frankly, I really feel like an American, I matured here, even though some long time blog readers may contest that part about being matured š
I know several couples in your situation. It is tough!
People think that I am a hot blooded Democrat, I am not, really! I identify as an independent and I have voted before for Republicans (but not for US president). I am socially liberal no doubt but I do have conservative fiscal views that the Republican party was supposed to uphold, right? Well, every time they get elected they go on to spend like the so called Socialists they say they despise and put us in a hole the next Democrat President has to dig us out of. But since they sold their soul to this orange buffoon and just continued to justify every damn disgraceful thing he says and does…I drew the line! The Republican party has to hit rock bottom to be saved. Amazingly, these phuckers just went on objecting to the election even after they went to hiding for hours, unbelievable!
I am still angry as hell, they ARE laughing at us now all over the world!
On the other hand, Trump DID Make America Great Again! In 4 years he lost the Presidency and the Senate and the House of Representatives while telling his minions they will be so tired of winning…LOL
Thanks for taking the time to comment…
I think the US Democracy will survive after this blow from within! Now if we could get to January 20 FASTER because this mentally ill person kills us all1
I often see people say they are (in some words or another) a version of socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I am genuinely curious what you mean by this.
Do you mean less, for lack of a better term, government waste? No one is for that. Do you mean you want to pay less in federal taxes? Well, you canāt hope to achieve advancements and equality in education, housing, prison reform, policing, medical care, on and on and on without large scale government investment in these things. You just canāt. Otherwise youāre just venturing into pull yourself up the bootstraps territory, which is language codified in racism.
Republicans fiscal beliefs are (allegedly) rooted in free market invisible hand shit will sort out lack of government intervention. Which once again for the folks in the back, not only does not work but actively creates more disparities:
https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2020/L-December/Tax-cuts-for-the-rich
TL;DR: Being socially liberal and fiscally conservative aināt a thing. Well, I guess unless you already donāt have to worry about the whole money thing.
I think the major issue is fiscal responsibility. Balance the budget over a 5-10 year cycle. Initiatives, wars and programs will have to be appropriately funded. Some of Bernie Sander’s favorite countries have successfully adopted this approach while reducing the tax burden.
Good points Bill…hated actually saying “fiscally conservative”…it is kind of vague. As is the word conservative too in a way.
Fiscal responsibility, as ABC points out, is probably more appropriate. I do not subscribe to MMTheory by the way. I did not agree with Trump’s tax cuts as most of the benefit went to the ones who did not need it, including me. I am okay paying more taxes to help people who need it man! I just think we need to run a tighter ship in general and runaway deficits will eventually harm us all. Some programs suited to national governments, especially now fucking public health, should of course be proritized!
As an entrepreneur and small business owner, you know, I see the incentive to create jobs if more money is left in my pocket after I pay my taxes too. There is something about THAT in making the US the country it is. These big companies with thousands of jobs just does not happen in other countries to the extent that it still happens here.
This topic got away a bit. I just wanted to point out that I am no hardcore Democrat as people think I am. We can work together with the other side and with the country so divided we must! Lots of people who voted for Trump hate his guts but they somehow did not think that voting for Biden will be better for them. And if Biden can capture a small chunk of these voters whoever runs in 2024 (Harris) should win easily. The scenes of January 6 will not be forgotten by then.
Very much in the same boat as you politically, I see many D as just trying to throw money at problems while not really solving them, getting people to be better off financially with good paying jobs and government not dictating every move.
Social issues oth Iām strongly D, I evaluate each candidate as they come up and donāt stick to party lines
When I run for office I will ask you to be my running mate then! š
I hope Biden/Harris do not fall flat on their faces because the next Trump in 2024 will not be as a moron that Trump was!
Bill, It is actually quite easy to be both socially liberal and fiscally conservative. But it would involve the U.S.A. NOT SPENDING ~$700,000,000,000+ on ādefenseā every year.
That amount is ***50%*** of the USās ādisposableā annual income (excluding entitlements, interest, etc.).
TL;DR: Being socially liberal and fiscally conservative IS a thing. Well, I guess unless you piss all your money away on guns and ammo.
Take even a fraction of this bloated defense spending and use it for services that help people? I couldnāt agree more. Or even just spend less on defense? Also fine. Iām pretty sure the last time we actually needed any new fighter jets Goose was still the copilot.
But thatās a nonstarter for Republicans who tout āfiscal conservativism.ā So Iām not sure what your point is.
We spend so MUCH on defense and can’t even defend the capitol from a bunch of mass deluded deplorable buffoons? I think it IS time to prioritize people before pissing off all the money down the “defense” shithole…Let’s start with $100 billion and give the money back to the people to…afford them to fly to Washington to protest and breach the Capitol to listen to their leader who does not even have a Twitter account LOL.
I think our defense budget is bigger than the next five countries combined…or at least it was. It is plain ridiculous. And now wait to hear from idiots screaming at us that we are not patriots.
Oh, while at it, if we are going to build phucking walls it is plain obvious we need to make them higher, sad lol. Just saw another video of these cop loving blue lives matter assholes and I am even more angrier!
11 days guys
Good morning.
Thanks for hanging in there.
We need to hang on for the vaccines and competent people to govern us:)
Good morning Buzz, thanks for another great post.
Sycophant is far too gentle a word for some of these folks.
I agree , the travel bloggers that have actually been traveling are a big part of the problem. I swear the word “airborne” is in the dictionary.
…I apologize profusely. I just looked it up in the Trump dictionary. It says “anything transported or carried through the air, magically transforming to disinfectant upon being exposed to sunlight and/or a radical, right wing agenda. Mixes well with bourbon, no mask necessary”
I wanted to say traitor mfers but I thought my affiliate cc provider will ban me š
Yeah, the author never pushed back on the traveling during global pandemic…she did not want to ruin her future employer prospects š
I am surprised you haven’t posted this tweet
https://twitter.com/YousefMunayyer/status/1347026407294201863?s=20
Yeah, I saw that…just too much material to post and the post was already pretty yuge!
According to my friend, many pax complain about the line “please ask a flight attendant to be moved.” LOL!!!
To Trump lover Rams…
Stop posting crap, that belongs at VFTW for the clicks, not here.
You back from Washington DC yet? Still proud of your leader who managed to lose the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives and his Twitter account in just four years. Tired of so much winning yet?
He has been inciting a bunch of massively delusional “patriot” buffoons to violence and 5 dead. Well done amigo, well done.
It is never too late to accept that you were wrong. I was wrong for going easy on mentally ill Trump and his sycophant traitor enablers.
You enjoy the weekend…and bebest ok?
Oh man, you know this guy is far gone when even Pinterest bans your ass…
Pinterest!!!!!!
Only the KKK and Breitbart apps are functional on his phone.
I don’t care about impeachment as much as congress making sure he can’t ever run for a federal office again. That will make sure media doesn’t follow him constantly for the next 4 years.
I was not for impeachment the first time. But now I think it is different. It is ALL different post January 6, a day that will live in infamy. They need to stand up and create a precedent that you just can not get away with shit like that. And also have the Senators (if it gets to that) stand up and vote to acquit.
The phone call to the Ukranian President was perfect. How about the call to the (Republican) Georgia Secretary of State looking to find 11,780 votes. The lies that the vote was stolen all the way up to the StopTheSteal march and march to the Capitol and…I mean, it is all on tape! If this is not incitement to insurrection I don’t know what the phuck IS?
All the enablers (not that many, lol) are still defending him and the more slick ones trying to get away from him NOW is just beyond pathetic. An embarrassment of a President that it will many years to recover from. In the meantime, nobody is talking about how BIG of yet another mass spreading event this was!
Stay thirsty…and angry!
At least I’m not banned on TBB. From now on I’ll reach the masses by commenting here.
LOL, thank you for the laugh early Sunday morning, we needed it!
Asking for a friend, if youāre granted a presidential pardon, does that only apply to ONE specific federal crime or ALL crimes?
https://twitter.com/petercorless/status/1347965109075730434?s=21
Wow, crazy!
We are in peak crazy every day it appears.
George I am surprised not to hear stronger words from you re BA execs, monetary punishments in corporate America are a joke, the cost of doing business.Corporations and local governments need to be held personally and criminally liable in cases of criminal negligence!! No more hiding behind LLC or being racist because you are in government
I still blame Obama and team for not hauling bankers to jail. Under Trump I did not expect anything less. It is sad and…it is what it is I guess.
I think it will happen again with the MAX plane š
47 million doses of Covid vaccine have been “allocated” to the government, less than 7 million used. Fcuking joke!
Time to give 65+ access at local pharmacies.
The Brits are insisting that anyone who wants to give the vaccine complete 21 training courses first, including fire safety and race relations. We could be a while.
Seriously?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13671460/covid-vaccine-inject-anti-hate-training/