TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
This blog has been a labor of love so far. If you like what you see here, please let others know by passing them a link to my blog, thank you!
TRAVEL
Travel to these places and get FREE land. Yes, FREE! Personal Finance Digest has the details. Hey, not the most attractive places in the US but they are…FREE! What a country 🙂
Ryan Air’s CEO. There is only one…
All right, let’s have some fun with Ryan Air. Guess what? Ryan Air has joined twitter and hell freezes over! Actually, they have decided to invest in customer service! No more $3 to download the app! This airline has avoided social media and called bloggers lunatics (got no problem with that term, lol). But what is really hilarious are the tweets coming from @Ryanair
Here is the first tweet: #Ryanair has joined Twitter! Follow our official account for the latest Ryanair news & special offers. PS There’s no charge for following us
And here is the second: “#Ryanair carries over 80m passengers a year so we can’t write back on Twitter. You can contact Ryanair here: http://bit.ly/dc4MTD
MILES/POINTS
I saw several posts by bloggers now reporting that Lufthansa is “enhancing” some aspects of its program, mainly cutting miles earned in cheapo fares. Please tell these bloggers to read TBB where nothing goes past us 🙂
Hack My Trip posts Banks’ Reconsideration Numbers along with helpful information on how to approach the reconsideration phone call. Ok, I deleted all other posts on this issue in my Evernote and keeping this one for reference. Oh, look it there…Chase Reconsideration phone numbers oh my. I guess many other bloggers do what they are told 🙂
There was a seminar in Europe “Travel Magic 2013“. Lots of pictures in Facebook.
ON MY MIND
It is quite remarkable how much action in the blogosphere dies down in the weekends!
This is NOT what you want to see. As I was going to bed I saw this blog post at The Gate and my heart sank: FlyerTalk Member Shot in Kenya; Wife Still Missing; Dozens Killed in Upscale Mall; Siege Continues Thoughts and prayers for typical and his wife and everyone going through this horrible ordeal. I tweeted this earlier: I would love to see the terrorists in Kenya hanged upside down and left to the families of the victims to do with them as they see fit
ODDZ & ENDZ
The Best Thing To Eat in 35 Countries Around the World. Interesting foods. There is no way I am going to eat your Wiener Schnitzel you Austrians!
The Unofficial Goldman Sachs Guide to Being a Man. These are super hilarious!
A NYC taxi driver specializing in photography of…fights. Kind of fascinating stuff!
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is intended for long time readers and miles/points addicts who follow the blogs in this space. Readers not familiar with this crazy hobby could skip this section! Do not take anything personal. TBB reviews blogs and tries to entertain above all. Call me Siskel.
One of the better Friday interviews at Million Mile Secrets: Military Money Manual. Again, here we go with the value of a niche. I added this to my ungodly long Feedly list. It is much more personal finance than travel/miles&points. Just imagine what can be done with all the newbies in this market, wow! I wonder what this means: ” I’m always looking for ways to boost my income through investing, real estate, affiliate income, blogging, credit card rewards, and more.” Maybe better to pick one or two of these and focus on your family and career? Just a kind suggestion. I have dealt with some military people and they are VERY disciplined. One more excerpt that stood out that I found very relevant for TBB material:
If you’re not saying anything new, you are not contributing to the conversation. You are generating noise, not signal. Noise is distracting. Noise is annoying. Noise wastes your time. Noise wastes your readers’ time.
Please, if you’re going to write something and publish it online, make sure it provides value. Make sure it gives your readers something to think about. Don’t just repeat the personal finance catechism. Be original.
You HAVE NO IDEA what noise is produced in the blogs TBB reviews! Value you ask? LOL, yeah give the readers the same cc links over & over & over & over & over & over…zzzzz. Most of the stuff I read is so…unoriginal it is depressing. So I turn it around to make it entertaining to be able to continue doing it. If you blogger can stand dishing out the Ink Bold for the 845th time, perhaps you should not feel so hurt if someone calls on you that…, you know, maybe overdoing it while your content sucks… at least a little. Maybe if you were not so busy massaging the cc links all day long you would spend the time instead to come up with an original thought and add some value? This is not an angry paragraph, it’s the Truth. It’s out there and TBB is bringing it back in. Hallelujah!
Noob Traveler – The Return of the 50,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards offer [Just in case you missed it!]
Frugal Travel Guy – 5 Highest Current Credit Card Offers: Airline and Bank Rewards [ Click on our Ink links, our CEO needs a higher bonus!]
Points, Miles & Martinis – 10x Extra Chase Points Kohl’s Friends And Family 20% Off Sale [ Or another lame excuse to push three more Chase cc links. Would this ever be written without the cc links? ]
Extra Pack of Peanuts – Southwest 50,000 Point Bonus is Back…Here’s Why I’d Wait A Few Weeks [Have you noticed more bloggers are now warning about the proper timing to get the Companion Pass. I did!]
The Points Guy – Maximizing Points For Buying the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c [I guessed 10 cc links when I first saw the title; got 8…2 over, darn it!]
Frugal Travel Guy – Welcome Today Show Viewers. We are experts and we are doing it for a long time. You can always email us for a free consultation! Just don’t expect us to say out loud that we get paid for every credit card you apply from our site. And while you are at it, here is Chase Ink Bold, look at all these benefits, yes you can do it, you can click on it, you can fly for FREE! It’s all marketing, it’s your responsibility to be an informed consumer…just don’t expect this information to come from our site, we are all here to enhance the corporation’s shareholders. What? You did not know this is corporate owned? And so sad to see writer Andy Shuman to turn away from some decent genuine travel material to…”explaining” the differences of Chase Ultimate Rewards vs AMEX Membership Rewards and just dishing out more credit cards, ugh! Update: Congrats to the FTG team for the fantastic PR bang by the way! I saw the Today Show clip and read all about it at Ariana’s Pointchaser blog 🙂 When Internet Brands finally offers to buy TBB out I will make a deal to…keep TBB on the side LOL. To everyone: This is how marketing is done and how to approach cultivate hammer your (newbie) target market.
The Points Guy – Amazes me how creative bloggers can get to keep finding new ways to shove the same darn credit card links down their readers’ throats day in day out. Here TPG lists all the cards he has open. Let me tell you something…These bloggers CAN afford all these annual fees because all it takes is just ONE app to pay for one or two annual fees! They can afford to fly around the world in business and first class for “free” too so you CAN be like them by getting credit cards through their site. It is all marketing!
Delta Points – A great idea for the “fireside” chats and such promising start has now been reduced to the ultimate soft ball questions and internal Boarding Area cheerleading. By the way, this sentence is copyrighted 🙂
I need to work on a separate page that all newbies should read. I am getting tired hammering these marketing oriented bloggers, can somebody help me out? 🙂 Keep it non angry please lol. What would YOU say to a Today’s Show watcher who sees the clip and visits the site?
And I leave you with this…
I’ve never been told anything!
Doesn’t your wife tell you to do the dishes? 🙂
Good to know you are not taking orders. I would have a problem with that, always had issues with authority…since childhood lol.
All those AF are tax write-offs – because they allow bloggers to complete their mission of fleecing, er, “educating” their readers…
Speaking of worthwhile content, WTH can’t someone build a site that tells you the very best redemption option based on your available points? You put in 150K AA, 250K UA, 50K DL, 200K MR, 155K UR etc etc and based on your route, time etc, spits out your options? Why is this so difficult? As it is, you have to remember a zillion different tricks, consult a dozen award charts, or pay someone $100-$200 to book an award for you. I’d pay good money to access a well thought out site like that.
” I’d pay good money to access a well thought out site like that.”
What’s good money? less than $100 I assume.
United does a good job with star alliance. JAL and qantas does a decent job with AA. But you’re right, nobody really wants you to redeem the points. It’s an ever changing landscape.
If it’s so easy there is absolutely nobody stopping you….
There were several startups that attempted this but not sure any single site has survived or has made any difference. This is the holy grail and I am just not sure it can be done from a tehcnology perspective as the variation and pace of change is just maddening. No wonder so many award booking services are out there these days! This is why I like United and absolutely despise Delta 🙂
It would probably take the same amount of time as publishing three trip reports to Maldives.
Then you should give it a try.And if you don’t like, don’t read.
George you sure do attract the Monday Morning Armchair Quarterbacks here
Aren’t we sensitive today. It’s beautiful weather in the boonies. Much better than the cloudy and rainy weather I experienced in London 10 days ago. Looks like your current Maldives report will be wrapped up quicker than the last.
What’s a quarterback?
A quarterback is someone the Detroit Lions did not have until now? 🙂
Number 3. Head hurts from yesterdays Oktoberfest visit, and metro is running. So no wisecrack from Munich today 😉
Told you about Angela. Actually, she is the best thing that ever happened to Greece…hope she keeps up the pressure at those hapless Greeks 🙂
Biltong is good! Try it if you have the opportunity.
I will attempt to try it…but the picture sure is not enticing at all!
Thanks for the mention, TBB!
No, thank YOU. Saw my mention in your blog very late last night. I will make a note of it in next Buzz post. And good find from Barry’s site on the billions of fines JP Morgan Chase has paid in the last two years!
I enjoyed his comment regarding the question “At what point does a thing stop being a penalty and start being a cost of doing business?”
BR-> “When you remove the penalty for criminal behavior, and make everything a shareholder funded fine.Hence, it IS a cost of doing business, nothing more.”
Regarding comment section here http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/09/jpm-fines-8b/
MMS is hiring two folks to run the business (=> same size as TPG). I can’t help but wonder how much a “top” blog makes in commission. Full time employee + benefits, you’re looking at $150k+ in a year for two. ~1000+ Chase affiliate applications in a year….. is probably viable for the top 10 blogs. Still, there is nothing proprietary. A writer can easily defect and start their own blog. Or just turn the blog into a “TFG” (what has IB’s return of investment been?). BTW Chase cards “aren’t” churnable in the classical sense => repeat business is tougher and I don’t see any new Chase products on the horizon (Chase is the gold standard when it comes to commission). Prepare yourself for greater CC push, MMS will have lots of bills to pay. Best of luck!
Gut feeling, based on my UK experience, is that TPG and MMS are easily doing over 10,000 card apps per year. And that probably understates it.
Yeah, for sure those two make over $500K, probably way over… But… Remember brands like Nokia, Palm, Blackberry? Even Apple? They were all super cool, untouchable, impossible to be touched. Look at them now, even Apple is not as “cool” as it used to be and it’s dropping quite fast… I simply cant imagine a blog staying “cool” for a long time if all it does is pimping infomercials. Unless your business is purely based on google and “new victims”… Daraius is a nice guy, I wish him well and I hope his content improves, but thePG after his “how can I survive an economy flight”? How can anyone support his blog? Weird…
>>>>>>>How can anyone support _______ blog?
You said it: “new victims” 🙂
I saw the ads, wow! MMS is stepping it up to be..TPG 🙂 Let’s see if it becomes a mega cc pimping site and whether the mother in law rule stays intact. Ball game changes when you need to meet payroll. The commercialization and continued pumping of this quirky hobby to the mainstream will eventually lead to its demise…I think. Until then, I think the sky is the limit to make money. Love to see bloggers making money while keeping up their credibility and offering something of value. Can it be done or will the pressure be too much to withstand the…need to make payroll:-)
D is a smart hard working guy. I have no intention to hire anyone around here by the way. I always had issues with scaling and delegating properly. In my real job and here I AM the brand. And I like it this way. I keep control of my brand to ensure its credibility stays intact 😉
I always said it and always will: If you are in it for the money, you focus on the newbies!
But if some WordPress whiz person wants to help me out for a % (the lower, the better lol) please apply within 🙂
Application form Q15
15. Publishing a miles and points “secret” usually brings out the “angries” in the comments. How do you decide whether to publish or not publish a “secret?”
I did not go through the app form. This was asked? Wow. I would LOVE to see the responses 🙂
The application questions are fascinating. I love the “Do you shop at Walmart (other than to load your Bluebird?” one! It’s a great opportunity for someone with the time and skills but it does sound really full on! If I were 25 years younger and still lived in the USA it would be a dream job with the ability to work from home but now I like being a “sole-trader” blogger in my own little niche.
If I was 25 years younger I would do lots of things differently lol
Regarding, “Travel Magic 2013“.”, just looked at the speakers and the audience……very cock heavy. Should be called “Manly Travel Magic”. This is a very male dominated hobby.
Well, duh.
Are you surprised or offended? If more men are interested in a thing — does that make it bad in some way? Worthy of a snarky comment? Do you think EVERYTHING should be forced to have equal numbers of the sexes?! (Why? Do YOU want to be forced to go ‘be a number” at some function you have no interest in?)
Argh.
Simple observation. 1+1=2. What’s snarky about that?
I think it is a great observation. Come to think of it in the Chicago and FTU (and now Travel Magic) I just do not remember any female speakers! I think the Miles Professor is speaking at FTU this month…But no other female speaker comes to mind.
I think we need more. I love working with women, they are so much level-headed in their decision making!
I think I have been the only female presenter at these conferences (Chicago Sems and FTU) for a little while, but am thrilled that the number of female speakers at FTU is doubling this year. I think the number of female attendees has also been growing, but I don’t have the figures to back that up.
OMG, what a senior moment by me, how can I forget you? I sincerely apologize, it was not intentional. I need to go flog myself now. You have a TBB pass for the week, go all out on Ink cards 🙂 WN devalued RR, fyi.
Ha ha – no need for an apology. I’m just glad it is slowly moving away from an all boys club. 😉
But I’ve already got the family and career I want, so now it’s time to become financially independent in the next 14 years 😉 Thanks for the shout out. You’re quite right about the points/mile crowd of bloggers just continuing to pump their referral links. As I begin to write about earning points and miles for official government travel, I’m going to ensure that I don’t just become another miles blog pimping my credit card links.
Once you dip your toe in the water, you might as well go all in. Mephistopheles will be there waiting for you.
Spencer: You have a GREAT niche. Keep offering value to your readers and your goal should be achieved. Maybe not as fast as if you became a cc pumping whore but…credibility will stay intact. Credibility counts more than a monetary amount in the bank (pun intended). Credibility and health and family and career—>living the dream 😉
I also want you to know that we heard this ” I don’t just become another miles blog pimping my credit card links” before so we will be watching you 🙂
I was offended by your comments on MMS and think you are one of the bloodsuckers who wrap themselves in the flag.
“We flew on Qatar Airways First Class round trip and stayed at the Berjaya Beau Vallon resort right on the beach, all paid for by the Navy”. Navy? WTF? Those are taxpayers you are ripping off – and from your complete lack of embarrassment, it’s clear such boondoggle trips aren’t viewed as outrageous, over the top illegal shenanigans, but rather a “perk”.
How about this gem: “Usually in the military you have to use a government credit card for travel, which cuts down on credit card bonus opportunities, but there are ways around that.”
Oh, I’m sure there are – and you take full advantage – like a true bloodsucker.
Our “finest”??
Makes me want to spit.
Here are the top comments from FTG’s blog over the pasts week:
So…insightful 🙂
Looks like Hack My Trip got kicked out of the major affiliate program, actually. What are your thoughts on him listing the inferior US Airways credit card offer as his 2nd best credit card?
Hmm…need to queue it up. Now I have a major dilemma for lunch…what to eat!
The first rule of “best credit card offers” is apparently…. don’t talk about best credit card offers. 🙂
Looks like he’s also promoting the 30K UA. Isn’t there a better 50K offer in branch?
Not there yet but if true that is very disappointing. Looks like my “Best Blogs” list got shorter by one 🙁 At this rate it will be only one left: TBB lol
Ok, I caught up with the post. Excuse the guy, just got married, been a little out of the loop. I find Scott not to be a carpet bagger like so many out there. He is back on my good list 🙂
If you put up a “best offers” page you need to promote the best offers, period. No excuses. How does promoting the lesser 30K barclay’s offer with no mention of the 35K offer make anyone’s good list? TBB is losing credibility here. 😀 SiskelT is in the business of reviewing best offers. SiskelT must give thumbs down here.
Compare to the model pupil, FM. FM promotes the 35K link and does not mention the lesser 30K US affiliate offer. How many bloggers do this? FM also promotes the 50K UA offer(s) up front. Thumbs up from SiskelT, way up.
SiskelT
You guys crack me up!
As far as the US Airways listed as the 2nd best credit card, keep in mind you’re looking at a tabbed view for Barclays cards only. It isn’t intuitive that you need to click on the other tabs to see the best offers for other card issuers. Poor web design IMHO, but might appeal to those with OCRS (obsessive compulsive right swipe) syndrome/disorder 🙂
First I’ve heard this complaint, and I’m sorry to hear you didn’t post it on my blog (where I’m more likely to see it and fix the problem). I’ll look into what I can do.
So for the time being, I’ve changed it to “All Credit Cards” which is really what I meant in the first place. My goal was to list the best offers for each of the many credit cards I knew of (a different kind of “best”). And of course, they’re the best offers I’m aware of. If you find a bad offer, I think it makes more sense to let me know and see if I update it than to call me out as a scoundrel and a liar.
As for the tabs, they’re staying for now. There are almost 50 offers (more?) and I like having them on one page. One page with 50 cards would be very, very long. I’m sorry you don’t like the organization. I’m sure you can always view the HTML version if you prefer it without tabs.
Scott, nobody called you a scoundrel or a liar. Are you saying you were completely unaware of the 35K US offer. Seriously? How often do you read TBB? And you’ve never seen TBB call out milevalue, FTG (the blog), DP, and others for pimping the lesser 30K US affiliate link This doesn’t make you a scoundrel or a liar per se, but if you really are this uniformed about the few cards that pay you a referral you owe it to your readers to NOT advise them about said credit card offers, much less get paid for it. Sorry for being harsh. SiskelT is in the business of reviewing best offers. SiskelT does not sugar coat.
I’ve never been kicked out of any affiliate program for any compliance issues. I was with Chase briefly last fall and doing well when they kicked out a lot of smaller blogs (in January, not recently) in an attempt to focus and regroup. That doesn’t seem to be a black mark on me as far as I can tell. As for Amex, I’ve never been with them, so I can’t be kicked out, can I?
TBB has not been with anybody, bring Madonna’s song in my mind “Like a virgin” 🙂
You are in my Top list Scott. As Siskel used to do…always watching this space 😉
I need to get to bed, soccer game kicked my behind tonight, I will be so super sore tomorrow!
I miss Ingy. (TBB, I think your diagnosis scared him away.)
Also, we (me and my multiple personalities) are curious about who threatens you with legal action. Okay, if you don’t want to say who, can you say WHAT they are claiming is the issue? You hint that they claim “copyright infringement”… huh?
He ‘ll be back.
Let me see how the dust settles. I would like an apology but I doubt I would get that. If the threat materializes, prepare for an EPIC rant that would make my previous one AND Mile Nerd’s last rant appear child’s play 🙂
An illustration of why we angries lionize FrequentMiler: he actually sticks his neck out and completes purchases with the risk that the trick/scheme/shortcut won’t work. Sometimes he loses money.
The successes and the failures go into the FMiler Laboratory.
I don’t mean to pick on Daraius, because he’s far from alone in this practice, but I was reminded of this difference when I saw this line on his Sunday post on the BA card’s 10% discount:
That’s only 90% helpful. (And aren’t airfare purchase mistakes easily corrected within 24 hours?) Bloggers who can provide 100% help deserve praise. Yes, not all bloggers can afford these steps, but the big ones can. To borrow a phrase, go all the way. Eddie would go.
And do you think this would get better when there are two additional staff on the payroll?
Oh, excuse me, maybe I should hurry up and get my wife a Southwest card now that the program devalued 🙂
Here’s a key metric for the next TBB post. Southwest devalues its points. Which bloggers use that as an opportunity to push their Southwest affiliate links? Which do not? Which bloggers use it as an opportunity to recommend alternate cards? That seems a pretty good Syrian red line for bloggers. What say you TBB?
Great idea BUT….too late! I have seen so many posts already all saying the same thing…that I needed to delete them to make room for the others…sorry amigo, thought about doing exactly what you state here but got….RUN OVER by all these posts about the issue. Need to keep it sane…Or maybe I should hire a managing Editor, anyone willing to work for FREE? lol
I too have been watching the situation at the mall in Kenya. Terrible and so unnecessary. Awful for all victims and their families but somehow we feel it more when a member of our community is impacted. Being someone who travels to Israel and has lots of family there too, I pay attention to terror incidents. In this case, I was proud to see that the Israelis are on the ground helping out. I hope Typical’s wife is not among the victims and that Typical heals well and quickly.
It was a Children’s event they attacked. What horror, makes me sick!
Some more qualifications MMS is looking for in his hiring process:
– Ability to draw lots red boxes and arrows
– Experience holding VRs, CCs and other small rectangular-shaped objects
– Having a gullible mother-in-law a plus
– ok with Darius taking credit for content you wrote without any disclosure
– Capable of writing 500-part trip reports
– Experience navigating FlyerTalk and taking information
– Able to conduct Friday interviews with bloggers who can kinda-sorta locate Africa on a map
So how many bloggers will use the Southwest devaluation as an excuse to push the SW credit card
Follow-up question: how many bloggers will use the Southwest devaluation as an excuse to push a credit card completely unrelated to Southwest?
Follow-follow-up question: how many will do both in the same post?
If anyone can do it DP can. :p
You guys don’t sound angry to me 🙂
VFTW and … wait for it… MMS* wrote about the Southwest devaluation without an affiliate link.
* MMS did include a link to a post with an affiliate link for the Southwest card, but he deserves at least a half a star here.
I should have had all the Southwest posts gathered up and made a separate blog post about it and who did what. But got run over by real life yesterday so I blew my chance for a very entertaining post. I ‘ll try to do this with the next promo, you know it’s coming soon!
I thought to test out Scott’s ethics based upon the grumpies, I looked at his site and it said ‘send email to request link’ which is kinda weird so I wondered why, but applied for the Amex Plat 25K offer, right next to a amex plat MB 50K offer on his site. Of course I was Ninja like about it and used a duff email address.
Here was his reply to me:
Hi John,
Thank you for considering my site when you apply for a new card. If you’d like to apply for the standard offer, you’ll receive 25,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months. The annual fee is $450, but you get a lot of benefits that still make it a fair value.
To apply with a link that earns me a commission, use the link below and follow the instructions after it:
https://www.creditkarma.com/creditcards/browse?pubKey=92DMXCV5E3Q6KTH2
(1) You’ll see several random cards that all earn me a commission. To find the Platinum Card, go to the navigation menu on the right. Select “American Express” under the heading “Search Cards by Issuer”.
(2) There are 16 American Express cards. You may have to scroll through the list and continue to the next page. When I visit the link, the Platinum Card is #13, but your experience may be different.
Before you apply, I want to alert you to another option. Mercedes-Benz has its own Platinum Card with the same benefits as the standard card above. The annual fee is higher ($475) and it comes with 50,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first 3 months. I don’t receive any commission if you use this link, but you should be aware of it:
https://www.mbfs.com/mbfsr/en/misc/creditCard.do
I hope this information is helpful.
Best,
Scott Mackenzie
I am revealing my secret Identity by reposting this, but I think it is worth the effort. It only took a minute to check this guys integrity and as far as I am concerned he passed with flying colors. Perhaps the frumps out there who postulate about a persons ‘new shift in regard to revenue’ should take a minute to check them out directly and report results.
In my book this guy did fine, though his links are inferior to mine I think he is doing the right thing.
Which link would you use?
Well, 50k MR pts sounds better than 25k to me 🙂
Or I would wait for a (targeted) promo for 75k at least if you intend to get the card. Hard going for less than 50k lately ya know (been spoiled!).
I have had the card for several years and get 3 cards (for $175 in addition to the $450) for my best (and frequent travelers) clients. I love it when they email or text me from another lounge saying thanks. And yes I expense every dollar! For me it is a cost of doing business (my real job, not TBB!)
Yep that is the point. He had the integrity to include a better offer in a private exchange – which he could have omitted in order to personally benefit. I think that is noteworthy.
He’s a good guy. He often has content others don’t and it is well done. He came down to PDX from Seattle specifically to help get a meetup group going here which is when I met him. HMT remains among the blogs I read.
Glad I also still scan MMS because I just won a $50 Amazon GC from the latest contest sponsored by MMS and Pick2Pay!
Too bad it was not a $200 Home Improvement GC 🙂 Congrats!
I like HMT blog and its blogging practices. Ethics too!
The wife of FlyerTalk member typical did not survive, George.
The news about this senseless and tragic killing is horrific.
To all who are reading this: please offer your condolences to typical — who is one of us frequent travelers — on the sad loss of his wife…
OMG, how awful. I can not imagine…Shows what we are dealing with here is just not that big of a deal. &%%&* terrorists.
So sad to learn this. I did not know Typical or his posts. I can’t yet get into Omni and when I looked at FT yesterday didn’t spot a thread in Community Buzz; perhaps there is one now. But please if you do communicate with Typical tell him that even those who do not know him are grieving for his loss. May her memory serve as a blessing.
Love Biltong. A very good protein source.
Ok, I will eat it with my eyes closed!
OTR has a great 50 questions piece up. I agree with almost all of them.
However, this one is particularly awesome and something most bloggers have actively tried to have their readers think otherwise about (do we ever have a top 10 list by OMAT or MP which doesn’t start off with something like “offers are changing all the time” followed by a post with 15 links, 14 of which are the same they always are?)
36) What are the 10 best credit card offers this month?
Probably the same as the 10 best credit card offers last month.
Yep, this one made it into TBB, post coming tomorrow (more like very late Tuesday night). Excellent Q&A and very entertaining too!
And I know that this is in part driven by his affiliate stuff taken away, but in his defense, he was never one of the bad ones
He had occasional posts with the cards, but nothing even remotely appraching the HURRY-ACT-SUPER-FAST-LAST-CHANCE-TO-GET-THIS pushing of other bloggers
i.e. no 35 part series on the Lufthansa mastercard, no regurgitating stuff from SPG.com, no recycled top 10 posts etc.
As always, you are right on the pulse of the blogger space!
Aloha from OGG. Can you believe they have a restaurant here called BUZZ’S Warf Restaurant. P.S. Thank you Chase Fairmont for all the free stuff!
I am half way there next year but still can’t find my way back out of OGG! Oh, that reminds me I need to book me three free nights at the Fairmont Kei Lani! Enjoy the goodies!
Fairmont/Wailea is awesmome place!
Interesting read here about something you always suspected: Yelp is filled with fakes. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/20-of-yelp-reviews-are-fake-2013-09-24
This part sounds familiar to all of us following the “travel blogger” space: “The study, “Free Lunch,” concluded that 85% of the most prolific reviewers are part of “Amazon Vine”— the site’s “most trusted” reviewers — and received free products from publishers, agents and manufacturers. This, Kessler says, can make them unpaid agents rather than consumer advocates. “
Somebody actually generate severely posts I will point out. That is the very first time that I been to internet web site and this point? I astonished together with the study you have made to produce that submit amazing. Magnificent activity!