TravelBloggerBuzz

An eclectic journey through the Travel Miles/Points blogosphere

Paddy says “Suck my Click and Pimp my Link”, New Zeeland stars, North Korean weed, Kiev dead guy & more

By

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!

 

Blog Action covering September 27 -29, 2013:

 

TRAVEL

Three Friends, Four Months, and One Stunning Video Road Trip through South America. By Jaunted. Stunning scenery. STUNNING!

In South America: Untamed Winds from Latin America For Less on Vimeo.

 

Lights Out: New Zealand Town Powers Down for Undimmed Astrophotography. By Dashburst. Some breathtaking pictures here!

makiyanagimachiearthandsky7-685x437

 

On Smoking Weed in North Korea. By The Bohemian Blog. Wow. You can read about flat beds and suite upgrades in so many other blogs. I prefer to read stuff like this #uniquecontentWhatAConcept!!

9965131046_afb25686c0_b

 

Kiev, lying taxis, art directions, and a dead guy. By Travel is Free. Different type of travel trip report. We like different around here in TBB. Two guys rolling a dead guy is just a unique sight! Good thing you did not ask them to pose and say cheese 🙂  We apologize to the dead guy and his family, may he rest in peace.

Awesome Time-Lapse Video Shows A Day In NYC By Foursquare Check-Ins This is just way cool, wow!

JetBlue luanches premium brand called Mint. By USA Today. We treat all passengers equally well…some better than others: lie flat beds, tapas and customized amenity kits!

 

MILES/POINTS

Suck My Click and Pimp my Link. By Paddy in the Big Apple. Thank you to TBB reader A for alerting me to this. LOVE the title…hahahahahaahhhaahhaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Oh, while you are there you can check out four non affiliate great credit card offers too!

Suck my Click

 

Canadian Kilometers burned 40k US Air miles and 50k Lifemiles to fly 15 segments/31k miles to Asia and Australia through Guam all  in First and/or Business. Amazing burning if you ask me. Putting this baby together & booking it gives me a giant headache!

This was Travel Magic 2013. Nicely done video. I look at how far this hobby has come and it still amazes me.

Hilton announced its 4th Quarter promotion. Stay 2 nights, get double HHonors points. Stay 3 nights, get triple. Stay 4, get quadruple. Don’t worry, when it is time to register we will have the link up here for you!  And that’s all you need to know.

Miles To The Wild has a great post on how to get to Central America with miles.

 

ON MY MIND

I have been working on several little changes around the site. Added many features such as three new menu tabs. One is Blog Reviews and there is nothing there yet. Please be patient. Then added some disclosures and a Privacy Policy, every blogger has one. Thank you to Lenticular Travel for letting me copy borrow his! I also added a Popular Posts widget on the right hand side. A few plugins also not visible to you. Added youtube social media buttons.  I should have a TBB Facebook page but I am scared it will suck even more time out of me! I tried to add my Twitter feed and it was a complete fail. Any suggestions for an EASY plugin? How about doing a footer? And what the heck is this Jetpack thing that is in my Plug in area and not yet activated?

One benefit of blogging is learning so much every day. And I LOVE that aspect of it! To everyone I also interact with by email, thank you so much for the conversations!

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

The habits of supremely happy people. By Huffington Post. You have seen most of these before. As I get older I do start to appreciate even more “simple pleasures”. And this blogging thing makes me “LOL” a lot too! I certainly need to “unplug” more. But the “good mixtape” threw me for a loop, what the hell is a tape? 🙂

Capture the Colour Photoblogging Contest 2013 entry for yellow. (HT to Travel Junkette)

Yellow-850x566

 

7 Pieces of Freaky Airport Art That Defy Explanation. By Gizmodo. Defy they do! (HT to Fishing4Deals)

Flying corn at ATL

 

How to Get Flat Abs, Have Amazing Sex and Rule the World in 8 Easy Steps. By Be You. (HT to Travel Junkette) Get your mind out of there, this is not what you think. But it sure is inspiring! Be kind. Even to pseudo expert credit card salesmen pumping away. Or just ignore them…

20 Things I learned while I was in North Korea. By wait buy why. This is &*(T%**% awesome!

14 Shitty Sayings: By wait but why.This is just brilliant! [Thanks to Point Princess for recommending this blog to me, I am hooked, how original, wow!]

 

BLOG BUZZ

I am reserving a permanent page for blogs TBB does not like. Please stay tuned. I am tired of criticizing and the crappy content/relentless pumping/nonstop censoring/pseudo expertise/non disclosing/etc continue unabated. Please give me some time, this blog is not a full time thing for me (even though I spend more time on it than many of these bloggers combined!). Just to pounce on the non negative part, I am also creating permanent pages of my Top Travel and Miles/Points Blogs too.  Look at all the great stuff I have found for you today and you quickly realize I simply don’t have the time to be pouncing on The Points Guy for yet another credit card fest and Delta Points for another “must read” blog post! I also want to test how much the readership goes down with this style 🙂  I reserve the right (hey it is MY blog) to come back to it if I am not finding other worthy stuff to feature here so keep me busy with the worthy stuff if you can por favor!

Friday interview at Million Mile Secrets was with a blogger with niche in France! This is a great niche. What I don’t get it is that French is not his native tongue and has now moved to Japan. No room for French speaking blogs in my Feedly list, nothing personal. What I like is how so many bloggers pop in to make a comment and leave their back link 🙂

Another blog aggregator is slowly taking shape as Saverocity got PFDigest to join him! May the marriage be eternal…or…what do you say in these situations? May death do you part?  Ok, then how about “Congrats and all the best!” This line made me laugh: “Boardingarea.com isn’t really into the personal finance scene, unless you happen to need a Chase Ink Bold credit card”. And how come Matt did NOT hand me “a briefcase filled with unmarked, non-sequential bills”, huh? [Hint: three of them will seal the deal lol]

Filed Under: TBB

Comments

  1. Oliver2002 says

    Hmm… So all the peanut gallery posts will move to a separate section..? … Boo!
    BTW, is the niche of ‘exiled greeks’ filled in the blogosphere? You could pimp stuff to them who want to see their mom… Doesn’t have to be back in Hellas, the occasional meetup in the PH Vendome would be OK too 😉

  2. Raffles says

    Jetpack is the main plugin from the WordPress authors. It adds about 20 features, the bulk of which you can disable with one click as you won’t need them. Key is the stats feature which lets you see page views, incoming links and clicks out. Worth activating for that even if you turn off the rest.

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      I am using Stats Counter and Google Analytics to watch some of this stuff whenever I get around to it (rarely). So, if you think Jetpack’s best feature is to “see page views, incoming links and clicks out” I think I should probably pass. If WP makes it it should not interfere at all so maybe I should just activate it and see what the fuss is all about it and then kill it if it is not a big deal…Thanks!

  4. Tara @ Miles To The Wild says

    Glad you liked the Central American post! It will be linked in the series I am doing about this region so people who find MTTW by Googling a bird species will see right away how to get to the country you can see the bird in.

    I’m clueless about the Jetpack but I can help with the Facebook to Twitter stuff. I have 2 Facebook pages, one for Feathered and Free which is more conservation than travel, and one for MTTW. I use an app called rss grafitti to link my blog’s rss feed to these Facebook pages. Then there is another app for Twitter which auto posts anything from Facebook to Twitter. I also own an old VBulletin 3.x license for a defunct forum which is now used to archive anything I post on the FAF Facebook page which also uses a feed.

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      Have not done anything to properly Google friend my posts. I hope if anyone found me today by typing suck lol

      Thanks for the info. I just want to place my tweet feeds on the main page of my blog. I will get around to the TBB Facebook page after the financial blogger conference I attend next month. I am so afraid of the time suck factor…TBB blog is more than enough 🙂

  8. Steve says

    2 entries today from MileValue into the “shaking my head” department

    1) In a post about how he redeemed 12,500 miles from some intra-Europe jaunt, there is a banner ad at the end for the US Airways card (inferior, of course). A US Airways card which will provide miles that won’t let you do the type of trip he talked about in that post.

    2) In the US Airways share miles post, he has a plug for the SPG Amex. No I’m not kidding.

    So to recap: he has a plug for the SPG Amex in a post about US Airways sharing miles, but not a single mention in his United post about how to rack up United miles

    What were those promises he made again when he first started having affiliate links?

      • Steve says

        Someone argued otherwise about MV’s lack of credibility?

        The guy just put an SPG Link in a post that had nothing to do with the post (you wouldn’t be able to convert in time to US to take advantage of the promo in the post), but didn’t make a single mention of any ways to rack up United miles, something that is entirely relevant to being able to use 12,500 miles to visit 7 European countries

        He’s above TPG and FTG, but just barely. And that might only be because he doesn’t have enough affiliate cards to do something like a 30 day countdown of credit cards. He’d put the SPG Amex 12 times

  9. Andy Shuman says

    OK, George, you’re first :). Let me remind you what I was talking about in my yesterday post. I said that the 56% transfer bonus from SPG to BA Avios was not such a terrible deal to begin with, and that MV post–complete with a link to SPG application–was in no way misleading, as one of your posters had claimed (in much stronger terms, I must add, but that’s fine I understand you don’t censor, kudos to you).

    Sorry, but I’m still there. Nothing has changed overnight. I have absolutely no association with MV, and I have no reason whatsoever to defend him aside from the fact that I believe he posts genuinely useful content. I am much more annoyed by TV commercials than affiliate links, but with one qualification I will mention below.

    Now, Steve. “Someone argued otherwise about MV’s lack of credibility?” Yes, I did.

    To me, credibility is in the pudding, and the pudding is content. I’m just guessing that in your haste, you have confused his yesterday post about United and his today’s post about US Airways. Did you find his today’s post about US Air useful? To be honest, I didn’t because I’m not willing to shell out $500 even though it’s a decent deal. But again, it IS a decent deal for many people, and the post nicely explains why.

    Now to the qualification. The links to US Airways and SPG wouldn’t bother me at all — especially since they are relevant to the topic at hand. However, he DOES link to the lesser US Air offer without mentioning that a better offer is available. This is a serious offence, but it’s the ONLY offense in my book. Like I said, I can’t for the life of me, understand your, guys, disdain with affiliate links. I tried to get to the bottom of it with that old FT thread, but unsuccessfully. When I deal with annoying commercials on TV, I have to physically mute the sound on the remote; with a blog, I don’t have to do anything! Just don’t click on these links, and that’s it. Here is the routine you must follow. Read the good stuff. Don’t click. Problem’s solved! Why this stuff warrants such intense and heated debates is beyond me.

    Now, I can tell you don’t like FTG. That’s your prerogative, of course. Just for DISCLOSURE. I write for FTG, but I have never–repeat–EVER been asked by him or anyone else to write or promote anything. Again: never! I have almost complete writing freedom, and I choose my own topics. I have never been asked to post here or anywhere else on anyone’s behalf. I thought, I’d say that now, because I guess it’s only a matter of time when somebody begins questioning my motives :).

    • Steve says

      “The links to US Airways and SPG wouldn’t bother me at all — especially since they are relevant to the topic at hand”

      Nope, that’s wrong. Flat out wrong

      There is no connection between 25K SPG points and the Dividend Miles 50% share miles promo (and likely no connection to the US Airways offer either)

      No one who signs up for the SPG card now will get the points (and transfer it over to US Airways) in time to take advantage of this. There is absolutely zero connection. If you disagree, please tell me how signing up for the SPG Amex is related to being able to share Dividend Miles for a 50% bonus by October 15th?

      You know what might’ve been useful? In a post about how you can use 12,500 United miles to hop around Europe, to let the readers know how to accumulate United miles. But there was no such information. Just a US Airways link. Of course there was

      • Andy Shuman @ Lazy Travelers says

        No, I agree. I didn’t pay attention to the date. So there is no connection. And yes, he should’ve mentioned the ways to earn miles on United even though he doesn’t (apparently) have an affiliate agreement with Chase. So treat those links as pure advertisements. Pay them no more attention than you would pay attention to commercials while watching TV. I still happen to like his article about hopping around Europe for 12.5K miles.

        But I could bet, if he did push RELEVANT Chase links you’d be every bit as angry:).

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      Hi Andy,

      Sorry for the delay, life got in the way. I play soccer every Monday night and I scored the winning goal tonight with 4 mins left in a hard fought 2-1 win! I am still fired up by that even though I am icing my ankle 🙂

      In my self-appointed blog reviewer status I have given myself and from following this space for so long I think I can make some judgments. Am I wrong and/or harsh? Perhaps. Can I speak my mind in my little blog? Heck yes!

      Imho, Milevalue USED to post great content. To the point he made that statement TJ found and posted below. At the flip of a switch, it appears, that blog decided to go all out to monetize. Is it bad to monetize? Of course not, TBB has never said otherwise! After blogging for so long and seeing how hard this thing is I can NOW understand why this “mindset” flip switch occurs. Fine. But when you consistently offer inferior offers, almost never go a post without pushing yet another affiliate link (notice how Chase links are missing!) and then censor pretty much all negative comments well…there is a threshold you pass to the point of no return! Credibility is earned and can be gone and almost never gained back.

      >>>>>>>To me, credibility is in the pudding, and the pudding is content.

      Yes,I agree, up to a point. But it is evidently clear that cc ads DRIVE content. Do you see many articles about NON affiliate cc offers? Hardly. And it is comical when veteran bloggers finally discover cards they shunned when, magically, an affiliate version comes out! And, to this day, offering an inferior offer is to me the number 1 way to lose credibility as fast as you can say Ink Bold (or Plus if you prefer).

      There are several blogs that have passed that threshold in my own standards. And I am making a list. I am sure you are not going to like it. The list includes blogs without evident disclosures that there is a direct financial relationship (of course it is buried somewhere nobody sees it) and the only reason that this is not done is because it REDUCES conversions—> money. In addition, some content is so weak and the promotion of the links so blatant that sometimes I feel violently ill (not really, just trying to make a point). Hint:challenge
      And then blatant censoring and hand picking of comments to publish. And sometimes even offering cc links in the comments! It is…nauseating. You writers do not see this or you see it and you are not going to stop the hand that feeds you. And this is understandable of course for your livelihood. If these bloggers offered something truly useful, worked hard at it (not massaging the links several times a day) to contribute positively to this space, had proper disclosures, did not censor and were not so sell sell sell mode all the time, we could understand it. Obviously, it works for the new entrants to this space because, you know, they just don’t know any better and think these bloggers are offering free consultations purely out of goodness of their hearts. It’s truly a shameful charade in my opinion, pure GREED has over taken my dear hobby. So TBB will entertain and educate in order to save it (always liked impossible goals lol). Hopefully, this explains my mindset just a little bit. Yes I am a little off, I am in therapy, this blog helps me out a lot 🙂

      I have absolutely nothing against pure writers who get paid by the articles (you, Christine K., Jason Steele). You guys are earning it by your writing work and you are not pushing these affiliate ads. Maybe you should ask to get that across so any crap directed at you for this reason is stopped/diminished. But that will surely stop conversions or have them not be so eager to give you more work?

      I am with you about not going for this US Air promo, I can easily use my $500 plus dollars in a myriad better ways. I passed.

      Or it can be done the way a few bloggers do it. Working on that post too. Maybe I will even include TBB on that short list too one day, who knows!

      • Andy Shuman @ Lazy Travelers says

        “I am making a list. I am sure you are not going to like it.”

        That’s fine. You’re forgiven for discovering that gem about smoking weed in NK :).

        “But it is evidently clear that cc ads DRIVE content.”

        Um. no, it isn’t. Interestingly enough, in my response to Steve I had to admit his US Airways and SPG links were not relevant to his post. He was right, I was wrong. Try and analyze his recent posts, and you will see that MV posts about anything while linking the cards that have pretty much nothing to do with anything. Of course, that opens him to being slammed for not posting the links he doesn’t get commissions for, and to be honest this is not what I would do. But it’s either this or that. You can’t, in my opinion, claim that his content is driven by the credit card ads.

        Now, as I said before, I do not condone linking to a lesser credit card bonus without a relevant disclosure. Lame. We’re in agreement on this, I guess, that’s a start.

        Kudos on your soccer game. I’m only a little older than you are, but if I tried that, I would end up in the back of the ambulance. (Deep sigh).

        • TravelBloggerBuzz says

          I think MV may be an outlier (as FM is…to the good side that is) as he would write about stuff and then try to cram cc links that do business with MV. Looking around the blogosphere, in my own humble opinion, I still think that cc ads absolutely drive content. Just a couple of points:
          How many posts did you see about the Club Carlson ads BEFORE affiliate links were instituted. Some but not many. After a way to get paid for them was initiated, every blogger discovered the incredible freebie night benefit! I am sure other readers can go and on…need to move on & catch up with my real job.

          Yeah, that weed in North Korea article was such a gem, I had no idea!
          Every time I play soccer I have my phone with me and ambulance # is waiting, lol.

    • Paul says

      Agree. MV is unfairly singled out by some on this blog. Unlike the nauseous plagiarized fluff from the likes of Mommypoints or MMS et al, MV generates original content worth reading.

      • Anonymous says

        You have to admit that the quality of MV’s posts went downhill. But agree, MP and MMS are clowns.

      • Steve says

        We criticize MP and MMS all the time

        That’s why they stopped posting on this blog when they used to be regulars

        Difference is MV actually used to be one of the best blogs. Both are terrible blogs now, but at its best, MP was never more than a mediocre blog, and MMS was never a good blog (I know TBB had a man-crush on him, but his content was always awful)

        MV has just become an utter embarrasment. Censoring, removing the original post about affiliates, shamelessly plugging the 2 or 3 credit cards he gets affiliate money for etc. Just a collosal joke. Imagine how nauseating it would be if he got paid to shill for Chase?

        • TravelBloggerBuzz says

          man crush, really? Come on man!

          Which blog would you send a newbie to if he/she asked “where can I learn about this hobby?”. Think hard. We are talking complete NEWBIES! I would have to answer with MMS…the style of his writing and its clarity is unmatched. Yes, quality has gone downhill lately, appears a little burned out. I am calling it like I see it, we don’t all see things the same! MMS explains things so clearly even cave men can do it 🙂 Not going to go into other issues (killing deals, originality, etc.). Where should we send a complete newbie to start learning? Hope you do not say Flyer Talk 🙂

          • Steve says

            “Which blog would you send a newbie to if he/she asked “where can I learn about this hobby?””

            TBB, duh

            • TravelBloggerBuzz says

              Thanks, I would have to agree 🙂

              I meant about sending a newbie to LEARN how to start earning miles/points. I don’t do much of that here, just too busy trying to keep up with all the blogs! Travel Summary had posted some excellent how to material some time ago.

              Question to all: Your friend learns you travel for peanuts taking advantage of miles/points, credit cards, etc. If you do not have the time to talk in person WHICH blog posts would you send someone who is really GREEN abt this. Obviously (hopefully) you made sure he/she has the mindset for this game! Detail oriented, prudent with money and debt, thinks paying a penny of interest to bank should be a felony, excellent credit score, loves travel, very organized.etc.

              And the key, and where this fails frequently, these blogs MUST BE KEPT UP TO DATE!

              Anyone, anyone?

      • MV is a bad man says

        MileValue is a clown and his posts are often bad info, they just sound complicated.

        He doesn’t know what the he’s doing and yet, in the past he’s made arrogant statements about the other bloggers pushing deals, while he truly understands complicated things.

        really? How about a one to one:
        Take his article on UA routing rules,
        http://milevalue.com/i-dont-know-uniteds-award-rules/

        and then compare it to this:
        http://travelisfree.com/2013/07/19/uniteds-award-routing-rules/
        or
        http://travelisfree.com/2013/06/10/secrets-of-award-pricing-engines/

        The difference in understanding booking here is the difference between a child and adult. So pudding time? Who’s got it.

        He’s scrapping articles together in order to push credit cards, not produce accurate content. I think people saw through it long ago. It was advanced maybe now half of the info is inaccurate and regurgitations of Flyertalk.

        The credit card pushing is shameful. It’s worse than TPG. Why? At least TPG has a full cast of links, MV is writing bad articles and supporting it with bad credit cards. If you have a sense of humor, it’s good for a TBB style read, and no more.

        this makes the link TJ posted ironic.

      • harvson3 says

        I admit that I hadn’t considered the “free” one-way tricks before I read them on MV. I’ve never used them, because I like my open-jaws in the destination countr(ies).

        Beyond that, he changed when he got links and I found less and less useful content and so stopped reading him. Put me in the “youstabee useful” camp.

        For the record, blogs in my feed: FM, MilestotheWild, Saverocity. Sites I check daily to get/see “mainstream” news: VFTW, FT, TBB. I do like Lenticular’s camera work, though.

  10. Andrew @ LenticularTravel says

    Guys, check out the US Air crazy bonus deal on “shared” miles. I just put it on my blog, Gary also has it on VFTW. You get 100% bonus on up to 50,000 miles shared for the total of 50,000 bonus miles for $567 in fees. I think it’s the lowest I’ve seen for the purchased miles.

    • Anonymous says

      Gary wrote about it first, everyone and I mean everyone has written about it. That’s all well and good. What’s truly amazing is that TPG threw in affiliate links to three credit cards explaining that they are cards that will NOT earn bonuses when you charge the transfer fee. My head is spinning.

      • Andrew @ LenticularTravel says

        Geeze, I feel embarrassed, I noticed it this morning when checking my US Air account, but was busy and posted it during my late lunch break. It seems it became some kind of a race, a really silly race. IMO it’s a great deal and I jumped right away. If someone thinks it’s good for him and can do it too – great for him! I’m really not into any kind of stupid racing competition…

        • TravelBloggerBuzz says

          Yes it ban be a great deal if you have an award in mind AND can book it…tomorrow 🙂

          Airlines are in control, they should be flying passengers not keep selling/gifting miles. I was always against this crap. And then they can always change the rules on this…tomorrow.

          Yeah this has been blogged to death. I saw someone saying he saved X thousands of dollars when in the same paragraph he said he would never buy a Business Class ticket.

          Besides, I have too many miles and no time to burn them. This bothers me but I can live with it, it’s my own firstworldproblem I guess.

          I still have my $500 plus dollars in my pocket and enough US miles and about 1 million AA miles, sure don’t need more!

  12. Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot says

    Why doesn’t Bill O’Reilly write a book titled “Killing Bill O’Reilly”?

  13. Anonymous says

    TPG really is “next level” stuff. Next level credit card pimping. Several bloggers wrote about Delta MQMs for Hilton stays. TPG followed up with his own coverage, and if you like Delta MQMs here are links to two Delta credit cards that offer them too!

    And of course no disclosure. What would disclosure look like on his site? “TBB reviews blogs. I cut and paste other bloggers. Cut and paste is hard. Please click my link, apply, and pay me so I can keep hiring ghost writers to do the cutting and pasting for me.”

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      What I do not like about TPG (the blog, always the blog!!!!!) is this constant barrage of credit card links. Content may be okay at times, certainly better than most blogs out there but there is only so much sell sell sell I can take. It is obviously working. There is payroll to meet. Add the lack of visible disclosures and it is, sorry to say, on my bad list. It hurts me each time I throw one in that list. It hurt Siskel too when he was thumbs down I bet too! Well, at least Siskel had a syndicated show. I have you, some friends and one family member (wife when she gets around to catch up here). So, key question is, are you entertained? Educated? Inspired? If yes, thank you for reading and your support 🙂

      • Anonymous says

        Only TPG could manage to write about the first day of the government shutdown and throw in Amex links.

        Global Entry offices are still open! So get your Amex cards and have the fee rebated!

        His post fails to consider that no reasonable pundit would expect by the time you get your Amex card, apply, and schedule your appointment the government shutdown will still be underway. And he only writes that the interview offices are generally open, not that new applications are being processed So his readers could follow his advice, ka-ching!, and if the government is even shut down when they get their cards they could find that applications really aren’t being processed even if the interview offices are open.

        Doesn’t he owe his readers better than that? Or is he just about convincing them to make that instant application?

        • TravelBloggerBuzz says

          This whole space has veered so much towards “convincing them to make that instant application?”

          Then again, TPG’s posts today about the 10 best economy awards and hotel credit cards offering free night do provide some valuable content. And links to better cc offers too.

          But, the theme to sell, sell, sell just runs wild in this blog. It turns me off. Maybe me and you are just different 🙂

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