We bring you more on Covid credit card enhancements, vaccinated travel, YOLO gambling, BTK killer’s daughter, register for the latest promotions, the best Covid-19 coverage, we travel to Myanmar and Syria, learn about the history of flight attendants, learn about the amazing life of the Black Sparrow and way too much more that will keep you busy all weekend long. The blog evolves…will post when I have enough and feel like it. I could split this up in three posts at least and post more often to attract more clicks and ads…oh wait, what ads?
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING:
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.
If you are not into the frequent flyer miles/points game please feel free to skip the MILES & POINTS and most of the BLOG BUZZ section.
Stay positive, test negative!
TOP PICKS
Top picks are not excerpted at all. I recommend you find time to read every word!
One of the most disturbing reads lately. We need some ways to fight back against disturbed individuals doing this shit! Outrageous lies destroyed Guy Babcock’s online reputation. When he went hunting for their source, what he discovered was worse than he could have imagined.
Did you know anything about Black Sparrow? I knew very little. I am glad I gave this more time, it will shock you, what a life, wow!
They called him the Black Sparrow
Will Ferrell explains why he hates Norway. You are welcome for the Lols!
GM Superbowl Ad with Will Ferrell
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 75k CHASE Ink Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 60k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 80k for all three personal Southwest cards (ENDS February 8), 60k CITI Premier, 65k CITI Business AA Platinum Select, 50k CITI AA Platinum Select, 20k CHASE Freedom Flex & CHASE Freedom Unlimited, 75k AMEX Platinum, 85k AMEX Business Platinum, 50k CHASE World of Hyatt, 150k AMEX Hilton Business & Hilton Surpass (and $150 credit!), 100k AMEX Hilton Card (and $100 credit!), 150k AMEX Hilton Aspire, $250 AMEX Blue Cash Preferred, $300 AMEX Blue Cash Everyday, 140k CHASE IHG Rewards Club Premier, and many more! Please use my Affiliate links.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me!
My REFERRAL links for the three 80k Southwest cards (ENDS February 8!)
Newbies: This hobby can be addictive. Be careful. If you follow other bloggers it is very likely this is their full time job and of course it is in their best interest to do things normal people like you should not do! Actually, lots of what they do is ridiculous and they would not be blogging about it if, well, this was not their livelihood. So, don’t get carried away. You got a question? Fire away in the comments.
The juicy Southwest credit card offers offering at least 80,000 signup bonus points are ending February 8. My 18 year old daughter is now about six months past that birthday and she has been using a Discover for students card building up her credit history and credit score to about 770. Of course she has been an authorized user for a few other credit cards over the years and that has helped I am sure. With Southwest’s Covid policy to award a Companion Pass for 100,000 qualifying points I think it is time to apply for her first real credit card. Of course I would help towards the minimum spending required. Goal is to hit 100,000 points as soon as feasibly possible for her Companion Pass to last until 12/31/2022 I think. Of course that means she will get approved so…wish her luck! Cards are available with my links or the REFERRAL links above. #Developing
Amex is really out to get you to keep its credit cards! Here is an updated list: COVID Credit Card Enhancements Ultimate Guide: Now with Amex dining & wireless credits…Just make sure you do load these offers to the appropriate card if required.
Register HERE for Marriott’s new promotion to earn double points and double elite nights on each stay.
Good guide for those days we can burn miles for American Airlines Business Class Seat Guide, 2021 Edition.
Hyatt keeps a list of new hotels that award an extra 500 points for every qualifying stay night.
Chase tries to keep up with Amex doing more spending based bonuses. Here you can enroll your Chase Freedom brand cards to earn 5 points per dollar on gas stations, up to $150 per enrolled card in the month of February. Pffft, ok I’ll take it! 🙂
TRAVEL
This list should expand as time goes on hopefully! These Countries Are Open To Vaccinated Travelers.
Loved this one: Cabin Pressure: The Turbulent History of Flight Attendants. Turbulent indeed, from the great early days to hideous sexism to deregulation to gay men finding job security to the continued crises only to be faced with the mother of all pandemics and dealing with job losses and uncertainty and death and maskholes…
Well, looks like we won’t be going to Myanmar anytime soon. When a coup is going on but you have an aerobics class to teach, lol!
Many travel addicts will read this and will not change. At all. Because the addiction is so strong. Stronger than crack…not like I have ever done crack. I am NOT this adventurous. Yeah, I did travel to Iran in 2016 but there was no war going on and having a second passport sure helped make me feel much better! The reason I am not that adventurous is because I would not want those who love me to go through what this guy’s family went through: American Parents Set Out to Find a Son Lost in Syria’s ‘Bermuda Triangle’.
I am not moving to Florida for many reasons. This is one of them: Florida’s Aquatic Land Cover. It just looks so…boring!
I LOVE this picture! Found here.
COVID-19
We need to get the word out about the Good Vaccine News!
Here’s the key fact: All five vaccines with public results have eliminated Covid-19 deaths. They have also drastically reduced hospitalizations.
Very educational: This is how America gets its vaccines. We need to go ALL OUT on this!
Sensible policies are starting to get implemented finally: How a US agency hopes to predict disease like the weather.
Now the US is setting up a forecasting service that aims to do for diseases what the weather service does for meteorology. The day after his inauguration, Joe Biden announced the creation of the National Centre for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics for “modernising global early warning and trigger systems for scaling action to prevent, detect, respond to, and recover from emerging biological threats”.
With over 100 million who had this virus, the long term health effects could be devastating: The Forever Disease: How Covid-19 Became a Chronic Condition.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Some good advice in this: If You Want to Buy GameStop Stock for Fun, Here’s Why You Should Think Twice. This was written as the stock was going up…Be careful out there!
This guy has nailed this Gamestop trading pretty good: YOLO Gambling is Reckless.
What we have here is a good ol’ fashioned WHO DUN IT? So. Who dun it? Gamblers dun it. That’s who. People often ask who the culprit is when the financial system goes through a period of turmoil. It’s pretty much always the same answer – gamblers. In this case you had gambling short sellers who were unhedged and caught on the wrong side of a trade. And you had a stock trading application that entices their users to act like gamblers. You had a Reddit forum filled with gamblers who want to make non-diversified “YOLO” bets on stocks. And then the gamblers using that application created order flow problems that not only led to problems with the application, but also caught a whole lot of people on the wrong side of a bad trade. There isn’t just one bad guy in this story. There is just a whole bunch of people trying to get rich quick in a system that is inherently designed to hurt people who try to get rich quick. In the end we come back to a few common narratives here. Short-termism kills. And the stock market isn’t where you get rich. So yeah, it’s true. You Only Live Once. Don’t blow it running with the market mob over the cliff.
If you took money out of your IRA in 2020 you need to be extra careful when you prepare your 2020 income tax returns! What clients won’t see on this year’s 1099-R form.
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
I am still amazed how people can lose it, go completely insane. We call them brainwashed here. In Greece we have a term, which means the “sprayed ones”. They are everywhere, sad! A Pennsylvania Mother’s Path to Insurrection. This one has eight kids and I am thinking she just needed a way to get out and work off some steam smh.
We need to do a better job on mental health! They Called for Help. They’d Always Regret It. Two families called 911 to get help for their sons. They didn’t know that they’d be thrusting them into a complex and often brutal system. I can not imagine the pain being in their shoes…
RIP to Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick murdered while defending our democracy by a bunch of deranged clowns screaming…”Freedom” smh!
ODDZ & ENDZ
You probably know about the BTK killer, what a sick POS. Imagine being his daughter: “I Knew Right Away It Was My Dad“.
Have you ever seen someone jumping rope and dancing to Beethoven? Here you go! Loic Mahy on Instagram
Very cool: Drone Disguised as Hummingbird Captures Incredible Footage of Monarch Butterfly Swarm.
Snowflake Generator. Yeah, generate your own. This will shock you! Ok, it will not but you will say, “wow, this is so cool!”.
I am on a roll today with super cool links, here is NASA’s TESS’s Southern Sky Panorama.
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.
If airlines kill sweet spots during a pandemic, imagine the bloodbath when we are past it! Searching for Emirates sweet spots with partner airline awards [JAL, Copa, and Qantas awards devalued]. The few remaining will be killed shortly, sad lol.
This may help some of you trying to keep track of all them Amex credits raining down on us: Amex Limited Time Credit Spreadsheet: Making Your Life Easier! I actually just use a sheet of paper and a pencil instead 🙂 #simplicity
I am having an awful time setting up an MGM Mlife Rewards account, I get a recurring loop with activating/password crap…I give up! Or am I missing something? I wanted to match my Hyatt Globalist to its top elite level too…
Some time ago I deleted View From The Wing from my Feedly blog list. I just could not take it anymore. I kept One Mile at a Time on it and THIS is what he blogged about in just a few days. So, I am out you guys. I am going to keep it all positive here, I am done calling this crap out. These blogs bring in more $$ in a single day than I do the whole year blogging here. It is demoralizing but I expected it and I am okay with it. What pisses me off is a few haters calling ME out for being like these bloggers! Then again, the internet attracts all kinds of people so it is what it is. Enjoy my blog while each post shows up. When we get back to traveling I will be out there and not here as much…Peace!
All these spending bonuses are getting to be a pain to keep track of lately!
And I leave you with this…
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Thanks for the snowflake generator! Already passed it around.
How COV infection is confounded with disastrous consequence will be discussed for a long time.
Branson’s lates SPAC merging with 23&ME. I was hoping to use my Virgin points for space travel but now have to settle for a lousy genomic test.
You finally wrote a blog without mentioning Q, congratz! TPG next?
I am getting a bit nervous about the inevitable post-pandemic devaluation waves. Like many of us I am sure, this past year of no trips (plus cancellations) has me very point-heavy with PTO being the larger constraint for travel. I have already been bitten by the Virgin Atlantic deval with points stuck in their program.
Still waiting on all the bloggers to update their point valuations. Someone more ambitious than I should really recalculate those with some sort of marginal value as the anchor. What good is having 50k points you were going to use on international business if that now only gets you a $250 domestic ticket?
Bill’s nervousness is well justified. Even at today’s award levels, it’s slim pickins.
I just ran a 3 week trip to Europe on Delta in business. Cheapest award was 210,000 miles plus $164 in fees across all flights on their network. A cash ticket is $3,610, less 15% using Amex travel (estimate) and 6.25% cash back using a Amex Plat card to pay. That gets the cash price down to $2,876, which means you’re saving 1.376 cents per mile used. Now you have to add in the time and trouble to acquire, manage and use the miles-no value assigned for any of that.
Some will jump in now and say they MS for free-and some do. Others just enjoy the rest of life.
You’re in luck today, domestic flights for 2000+ DL skypesos. Yep, that’s the best use of skypesos.
I stand corrected.
Today DL changed partner awards using Skymiles to 120,000 each way for US to Europe. So the 210,000 miles for a round trip in my example would now be 240,000, and the amount saved per mile is 1.198 cents per Skymile.
I had a “15 Reasons I love the Delta Platinum Reserve” post ready to go Sam to make some money around here but…now, after this, I may reconsider…in the morning 🙂
Imagine the execs in the other airline are now thinking about it too…
Can’t wait for all the bloggers to lower their point valuation guides…bwahahaha
A week ago I posted here that we will hear more good news very soon. Some (including TBB) laughed. We are 1.5M doses on avarege during the work week days. We are rolling out vaccine shots to pharmacies to avoid the usual government mess (great move). More people saved. My company invited Dr. Ashish Jah to present last week and he was very positive and we should see a drastic improvement in 4-5 weeks.
Now back to travel, one interesting thing I noted looking into the TSA website, there is no real growth in passenger throughput
https://www.tsa.gov/coronavirus/passenger-throughput
Probably, we won’t see any aggressive credit card (travel related) sign up bonus in until summer or untill we see a better demand
Thanks Biden
Let’s stick to facts and for the record:
“Redfield urged the White House and Secretary Azar to promise a more modest and achievable vaccination goal of 4 million doses by year-end, Vanity Fair has learned. He was rebuked by both Azar and Trump himself, who claimed to have better information and told him he didn’t know what he was talking about, said someone familiar with the exchanges. The number they insisted on was 100 million. In the end Redfield’s instincts proved accurate. By January 2, U.S. states had administered 4.2 million doses.“
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/how-the-covid-19-vaccine-rollout-was-hobbled
Who else bought GME at $250?
https://t.co/Sz8JbESLeb
Apparently some missed out on the QAnon cult and joined WSB.
@ DML: The snowflake generator was in the bubble, almost did not get in!
@ ABC: Seriously? There is a lot of dinero floating out there looking for a place to land, like flies landing on some ass or something 🙂
@ Dante: It was not intentional. But I thought the article about that mother of 8 kids, the “freeedom” fighter was enough 🙂
@ Bill and Sam: Just saw Canada banned all cruise ships until February 2022. At first, I thought I was looking at a short update just extending it to the end of February 2021…Maybe the devaluations will…take a while if this expands? Oh yeah, bloggers updating points values…TPG will likely increase them lol. Nice digging into Skymiles Sam, it is so so sad. I think I will continue enjoying life and just earning what is in front of me without much effort running around 🙂
@ Pav: I remember our little back and forth on vaccines. But I thought we were debating the performance of the vaccine rollout compared to the promises they had made and had concluded without any doubt that it was disastrous, to put it mildly. Of course it was going to pick up eventually and with Biden’s policies it surely has…so Mike is right 🙂
As Dr. Fauci said, “it all depends on the virus”…I don’t think we’ll see any devaluations before June, my gut feeling. I am certainly not even thinking about going anywhere before then. The vaccine may change that but so far I am not even close to getting it!
@ ABC: I tried to warn them, I am in peace. I hope no readers got hurt. This is dangerous stuff!
To all: I finally heard back on that vaccine rollout study at the University of Michigan! No more volunteers needed as the two studies are completed. One was the J&J one…But they have more coming the email said and would like to keep my name in file….I better have it by then lol.
Of course leave it to Delta to pull out yet another devaluation…
DeepF***ingAssholes
Seriously what the hell. There is no point in trying to accumulate any Delta miles. And I say that as someone in a Delta hub. Time to burn my remain modest stash and be done forever. Guess I’ll start crediting to my comrades at Aeroflot.
Can’t wait for the pumping boys Gary and Ben to post “69 Reasons I Love this Delta card” next, hurrry!
I think TPG will likely increase the point valuations instead, sad lol.
Even Skypesos is a compliment
I think the next TBB post will drop Monday. If not, Tuesday for sure.
I have already inserted some AMAZING finds in it.
Thanks TBB 🙂