Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as some of the new Hilton hotels, Bitcoin ponzi, Pepsi’s Soviet submarines, the Omicron tsunami ahead, cheap five-star hotels, learn about cherry drying pilots, how family dynasties shield their fortunes from taxation for generations, a superbly funny video about Covid derby you must click, a Greek running legend, the funniest obituary you will ever read, how to cash in some expiring Hyatt certificates and learn how to find Qatar Airlines business class award space, some personal updates and come back on Friday for another edition of the 2021 Best Lists series. Thank you for reading my blog.
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or visiting our LINKS or Donate
You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!
TRAVEL
Is the perfectly located new Hilton in Iceland the reason to finally visit it? Me thinks so. Here are 10 new Hilton hotels you’ll want to visit in 2022.
No reason to burn hotel points in these properties with such low prices: These 10 Five-star Hotels Around the World Cost Less Than $40 Per Night. Most are in Indonesia, Cambodia and Turkey by the way.
This is not a travel link but it involves pilots and since this is my blog with no advertisers dictating what I post I made the executive decision to insert it here and there is nothing you can do about it 🙂 The Life of a Cherry Drying Pilot. I had no idea this was a thing and I love cherries!
One more unbelievable fact that surprised me…
PERSONAL FINANCE
This made me laugh so much I had trouble stopping: A normal person explains cryptocurrency.
Insulting how the mega rich win again and again: The Great Inheritors: How Three Families Shielded Their Fortunes From Taxes for Generations.
You know, with all the go green ESG stuff we are pounded with, maybe doing away with all crypto shit will go a long way huh? Anyway, here is another warning: Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme.
But in calling bitcoin a Ponzi scheme, critics are arguably being too kind on two counts. First, bitcoin doesn’t have the same endgame as a Ponzi scheme. Second, it constitutes a deeply negative sum game from a broad social perspective.
By contrast to investments with Madoff, Bitcoin is bought not as an income-earning asset but rather as a zero-coupon perpetual. In other words, it promises nothing as a running yield and never matures with a required terminal payment. It follows that it cannot suffer a run. The only way a holder of bitcoin can cash out is by a sale to someone else.
On the second count, another big difference between bitcoin and a Ponzi scheme is that the former is, from an aggregate or social standpoint, a negative sum game. To the extent that real resources are used up to make bitcoin run, it is costly in a way that Madoff’s two- or three-man operation was not.
About 900 new bitcoin a day require most of $45m a day in electricity. Thus, the negative sum in the bitcoin game is in tens of billions of dollars and rising at over a billion dollars per month. If the price of bitcoin collapses to zero, the gains of those who sold would fall short of the losses of holders by this growing sum. To liken bitcoin to a Ponzi scheme or a pump-and-dump scheme, both basically redistributive, is to flatter the cryptocurrency system.
COVID-19
Omicron is moving so fast a lot of great material I find is already obsolete by the time I publish a new post…
First, let’s laugh! Covid Derby. First, the crypto video above. Now this…Hey, my blog is about Entertainment too, MUST click!
As blog readers have been saying about the awful inadequacy of our CDC, here it comes surprising us all with new guidance springing free asymptomatic people after just five days. And then relying on the honor system for them to put on a mask, WTF! And then how do you go from Omicron being at 75% of infections down to just 22%? I mean, these guys are just losing any credibility they had left, maybe it is time for new leadership and blood in there! Anyway, Your Local Epidemiologist agrees with me 🙂 Here is her December 28 State of Affairs update, essential reading imho.
As I have said recently, it is only a matter of time before we all catch this virus. How Long Does Omicron Take to Make You Sick? Seems like each new variant’s incubation period gets shorter…Which makes it tough to catch it by testing, which I think explains why cruise ships continue to be mauled by Covid infections.
People shouldn’t give up on tests, experts told me; they’ll still make a big difference when and where they’re used, especially for diagnosing the sick. But Omicron’s speed is a sharp reminder of humanity’s own sluggishness during this pandemic. Until now, tests offered only a porous safety net; in the era of Omicron, the holes are even wider. We’ll need to close the gaps by doubling down further on preventive measures: masking, vaccination, ventilation, and, unfortunately, cutting back on travel and socializing. Viruses don’t actually move that fast on their own—they need human hosts to carry them. If things stay as they are, though, we’ll keep giving this one the ride of a lifetime.
ODDZ & ENDZ
This is the BEST obituary! If you don’t laugh I don’t know what to say…
I am sure you heard of the time Pepsi owned Soviet submarines, right? The Doomed Voyage of Pepsi’s Soviet Navy. A three-decade dream of communist markets ended in the scrapyard.
93 years old, what a legend! I am just trying to be able to run by the time I turn 60 lol. Oldest Greek Marathon Runner Sets His Sights on the Horizon. Ninety year-old Stelios Prassas, the oldest person to finish the Athens Marathon, discusses his philosophy for life and why he has no plans to stop running. Inspirational to say the least. Here he is finishing the 2021 Athens Marathon (which I also ran) with his grandkids by his side:
I can see some readers wanting this so bad, found here.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 100k Capital One Venture X Rewards, 75k CHASE Ink Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 50k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 80k CITI Premier, 20k CHASE Freedom Flex & CHASE Freedom Unlimited, 60k CHASE United Explorer, 60k BANK OF AMERICA Alaska Airlines Business, and many more, including many AmericanExpress cards, including Delta, Marriott and Hilton cards! Please check out my Affiliate links. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me!
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! Feel free to skip this section and parts of the next one if this is not for you.
Newbies: The juice in this hobby has always been the travel rewards credit card sign up bonuses. Of course the hobby became a huge multi million dollar business when banks started paying bloggers to sell credit cards. To this day, many big commercial blogs out there will only sell product they get paid for and/or hideously offer inferior credit card offers simply because they get paid fat sales commissions instead of superior credit card offers they do NOT get paid for. If they don’t sell enough product the banks take away their affiliate links. Which has led to numerous greedy assholes making ridiculous amount of money pretending they offer objective advice. I mean, the banks will not even allow them to say “credit card churning”, go ahead challenge them! You can easily figure out who are the bloggers harming their own readers by doing this: See which offer they publicize for the personal AmexPlatinum card. If it is not this much superior (but not affiliate paying) offer by Resy offering 125,000 Membership Rewards points AND 15x points at restaurants worldwide and when you Shop Small in the U.S. on up to $25,000 in combined purchases during your first 6 months of Card Membership then you know their blog readers are the victims!
If you have expiring Hyatt certificates, you could get some extra points for them: Hyatt’s Holiday Gift.
If you were looking to fly this: How to find Qatar Q-Suites award space.
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.
I added an Amazon Affiliates banner/link again. Thank you for your support. Let’s see how long this lasts…
This blog has had four credit card conversions this month. I think it would have a lot more if it was like One Mile at a Time unleashing “content” like this, here are four posts back to back smh.
I consumed way too much lamb over the holidays so I need to slow down…
I am starting to fear about our Kauai trip in late January, damn you Omicron! Son is thinking about joining us for a weekend though. We also thought there is a small chance our daughter can join us since it appeared there was a high probability the University of Michigan will go virtual starting the next semester as many colleges are doing. But the university reiterated a few days ago it intends to start the semester with in classroom teaching, we shall see.
This is BIG news in my household. I finally replaced my beloved Samsung Note 5 after so many years together. I got me a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra and I am already loving it. My girls also upgraded to iphone 13 from iphone 8. I guess this was our Christmas present in a way. In my household, the boys are Android fans and the girls are Apple fans, what a contrast hey!
In possession now of the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card and back to doing the minimum spend for the 80k miles signup bonus. It was weird not having a minimum spend to be working on 😉
Really sad to learn John Madden passed away, what a legend, RIP!
Let me leave you with this…
Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please pass it on to a family member or friend, thank you!
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is. Or use 12ft Ladder. Or the Firefox browser.
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.
WOOT! GOLD! For the Pacific Northwest! Love that Obituary! You find the darndest things. I will be using that Amazon thing again going forward. Glad you got it back.
Well, Buzz, if this is the last TBB post for 2021, you’re going out in a blaze of glory!
Crypto-I need to read up to understand better why I think this is just a big game of musical chairs. They must grow Bitcoin in the same garden where GameStop stock sells for $146 a share. Still.
Crypto uses too much natural resources? Try asking the players around a crap table at the Mirage if they’re worried about all the energy those neon lights use up. They’ll sign you to open for the singing monkeys for 2 weeks in the back lounge.
That horse race is just great. I sent it to my stepson-his extended family gets together every weekend to party. They had a half dozen positive tests last week and now the ones who are negative are at his house, while the positive ones are staying at his in-laws. I need to call him to find out how the positive ones get over to his place after 5 days or whatever the prescribed quarantine is today.
We spent a lot of time on Kauai back in the 80s and 90s. First time there, they had one traffic light on the whole island. We hiked the whole 11 mile Na Pali coast to Kalalau beach. Twice. First time there, my wife said it was the best night of her life, but of course that was before they opened the Centurion lounges.
France had 94,000 new COVID cases a few days ago, which equates to around 600,000 on a per cap basis here in the US. Sacre blue!
So TBB got 4 conversions this month? I was going to apply thru your link but with around 4 million miles and nowhere we can safely go, I may just send over a Christmas ham or something.
I hope someone writes an obit like that for me. No rush.
On to a great 2022.
Long-time reader, used your link to apply for the Venture X so show my support. Love the blog!
That was some obit! Thanks for the link!
The bitcoin / Ponzi comparison missed how the generic “affinity group fraud” of which
a Ponzi is a particular instance burns up social trust. I suspect the revival of inflation
will also burn up social trust.
Happy New Year!
Update:
Yesterday France reported 204,000 new cases.
@ Carl: Thanks for using that link in advance 🙂 As of right now, noone has used it, you can be FIRST again!
@ Sam: Love your snarky commentary! I just rewatched the horse racing video and I am on the floor laughing…so many awesome parts….contract tracing dead last lol. Made a note on that hike in Kauai. Looking to get son over there, I may have him split the two nights so I can save some of my precious Hyatt points, hehe. I think CDC has given up too around here…and imagine how all these rapid tests, if you are positive, you don’t report it so I am guessing the real infections numbers are WAY higher. Posting on Friday, come back and get that card, don’t make me get a ghostwriter to write “69 reasons I love XXX card”, ok? Huuuuuurry 🙂
@ Michael: Thank you so much, a few clicks here and there justify me keep going in my infected brain 🙂
@ DML: I agree on your two points. I think inflation goes back down after all the pandemic disruptions get normalized…. #developing
Hey, George, are those links right for the Amazon? The one on the side took me straight to a page for TVs and the one in the middle took me to a listing for Abbey Road, by The Beatles.
Used to be I would always go to a specific Amazon link and the URL showed that it was an affiliate link thing. These don’t do that and seem off.
Can you check them out and see? I will hold on on any more Amazon purchases, even though mine are usually small, until you let us know.
Yes, they are correct. You just need to click either one first and…then proceed as usual.
I don’t see a general banner so I had to pick one and picked the one with TVs…and then I had to link to a specific product so I picked the Beatles product for fun…It’s just ridiculous to comply with “compliance” parameters designed to…get them to take them away from me again for “violations”…
So, you can still be first! 🙂
OK! Good to know and you will be my go to again for Amazon. Thanks, and Happy New year!!
Greetings from Chapel Hill, NC! Today we made it back to the NC State Zoo in Asheboro (note: this is not the same city as Asheville) for the first time in many years. At 500 acres, it’s apparently the largest zoo, acreage-wise, in North America. I logged about 20K steps today. Recommended if you’re ever in the area, which you probably won’t be.
George, thanks for one last (?) 2021 post and for another year of blogging. I do appreciate the work that goes into it.
Tomorrow comes another post…that will be the last one for 2021!
Only bloggers (including former) appreciate what it takes to blog regularly.
Nice job on the 20k steps. Yesterday I ran 8 miles with…each mile’s last 0.2 walking…which makes it so much easier. I rewarded myself with a pepperoni pizza and intend to go back again on strict eating plan as my New Year resolution lol.
Never heard of Asheboro, made a mental note, thanks.
And thank you for reading.
Most of us stopped listening to the CDC a long time ago. I’ve mentioned it here before, it’s a political body and it needs to be “defunded” and then resurrected as a new independent body.
I get a headache reading Tweets from PhDs and MDs talking about more testing, tracing etc (and some are of course in that business!). At almost 500k new cases each day (probably an underestimate), more testing won’t move the needle. That train left the station a LONG time ago. I remember ppl whining about Sweden’s more open policy based on the virus possibly being around for ~5 years. From a policy standpoint, I don’t think we learnt much from the Spanish Flu compared to what was done in response to the Black death in the 1300s. I doubt our policies will be better in the next pandemic. On the other hand, we now have amazing vaccine development and manufacturing capabilities! I believe Omicron will force China to change the zero COVID policy.
BTW, what’s up with the AMEX upgrade excitement? 100k to upgrade from gold to platinum…. but the annual fee is $695 and their expensive coupon book just creates stress.
Yeah…it is kind of sad. This latest 5 day thing is really something. Michigan says it keeps it at 10….not like anyone is really checking!
In the meantime, in a Chinese city of millions the locked up residents are running out of food and in another city they are parading people who broke quarantine like the glorious Cultural Revolution days…
What a contrast hey? Anyway, daughter and wife can’t sit still and I am thinking to go in the woods 🙂
Yeah, stress! I thought I managed to get my Amex Aspire credit done following some “expert” blogger data points but fell on my face only getting the taxes reimbursed…I can not imagine doing it with so many cards and annual fees etc.
Just got an email from Hyatt that one of my September reservations went up by one night….I did send an email to Concierge yesterday asking about something else. No reply and…I hope no newbie rep messed with it…
Anyway, the CDC now says to click on my affiliate links everyone LOL