Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as how the Nvidia AI mania is under way, 25 investing mistakes, a State property taxes guide, the dreamiest private islands, that viral losing $50k scam story, more on the two Three Arrows Capital arrogant crypto scammers, another state guide on retiree taxes, track your IRS refunds, Xitter, Putin finally killing Navalny, stop posting about your mental health online, animals, passports, micronations, amazing photography, all of the important developments in the crazy world of miles and points and a lot more. Enjoy the weekend and get started on your taxes now!
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Welcome to my quirky original authentic blog. It all started back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to a curated weekly post of the best web content I find along with my commentary. Here to Educate primarily, sometimes Entertain and if I get to Inspire you, well, that is a bonus.
This blog publishes on Fridays. This is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it white it lasts. I may post on a Tuesday going forward if I get to it.
BREAKING NEWS – BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT
Sometime during the day yesterday I was informed that my site has lost its affiliate credit card links, its main source of income. The reason? Basically, low sales volume. I am evaluating my options. Update: New Credit Card provider, please see details HERE, thank you!
PERSONAL FINANCE
Another stock market record, thanks to Nvidia and AI mania again. I feel sorry for a former wealth management client I let go because he was convinced Joe Biden will go all communist and crash the markets smh. I can’t help if clients don’t listen to advice. Remember, anything is possible in the short term. Sticking to a diversified low cost portfolio regularly rebalanced while making smart tax moves along the way tends to work out just fine. Thank God we are not Japan that just reached a new market high since, please sit down, 1989!
This was a really good post: 25 Investing Mistakes I Made That You Can Easily Avoid. I have no problem with every single one listed here. Maybe #19 not to ignore passive income opportunities. Get the other ones right and don’t worry too much about this passive income thingie until you are in very solid ground, ok?
Are you looking for your tax refund from the IRS? You can check at this site: Where’s My Refund?. Experience to date shows they come up to a week earlier than indicated, ymmv. But please, be careful of scammers again: The IRS doesn’t send tax refunds by email or text.
I also agree with this: Why You’re Better Off Not Borrowing. Not having any debt is a great quality of life enhancer.
I added a State by State Guide to Taxes on Retirees to my collection of Personal Finance links.
Another reference link is the 2024 Property Taxes by State. Kind of shocked to see Hawaii has the lowest property tax burden; I guess they make it up on the income tax, at 11% for Singles earning more than $200k.
CRYPTO & SCAMS
I am going to sneak this podcast link in here because it was great and you all know how much I love Elon Musk #notreally. In the Xitter. Debt. Vanity. Fear. Dirty bathrooms. Sociopathy. Hate speech. Billionaire Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter is going down as one of the most expensive self-owns in history. Guest Zoë Schiffer documents the tragicomedy in her book Extremely Hardcore: Inside Elon Musk’s Twitter.
Crypto attracted so many arrogant scammer assholes, it is really mind blowing. Near the top of this pyramid (pun intended) are the two bros who managed to blow billions given to them by morons. How Fallen Crypto Kingpins Su Zhu and Kyle Davies Are Dodging Prison — and Rebranding. And they were instrumental in the collapse back in 2022 that has landed FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried in jail for decades and many others soon to join him. Hopefully the regulators are building a case against these two and can catch them. If they can find them. Reading this article made me visibly angry, you have been warned. Original New York Magazine Intelligencer link.
Secondly, Zhu framed his incarceration as an almost Nelson Mandela–like experience of transformation and enlightenment, speaking of how it sharpened his senses and boosted his brainpower. “I think that it’s actually a really enjoyable experience overall — like, I would say not to the point of, like, highly recommending it per se, but I would say that it’s something that if everyone got to experience once, I think it’s definitely good for you,” Zhu said of prison in his first English-language podcast since his release. “After, I felt like my mind was so clean. I got much better at basketball as well. Like, you just — the way you can see the ball. The way you, like, see things — completely different. Like, my eyesight got better as well. It’s honestly insane.” He said he read the Bible (both Testaments) and the Quran in Indonesian “front to back.” There were three meals a day plus “lots of fruits”; a freedom to “do all the push-ups you want”; a mat for sleeping on the floor, instead of a bed, which was “really good” for his back; and a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call. “Actually, like, I had the best sleep of my life in prison,” he said. [This piece of shit mocking us all, lock him up! There is a lot more in the article, control your impulses to punch something, you have been warned.]
The author of this article went viral last week: The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger. First, I think it is great to show people how good scammers can be at fooling people. Even people who should know better like this writer. At the same time, I feel like this story has holes and I am wondering if the writer all along just wanted to, you know, go viral? This writer shares my feelings: About That Viral $50,000 Scam Story: I Have Questions. Nevertheless, please keep an eye out on loved ones who may be susceptible to scams like this.
Just be relentlessly vigilant, do not let your guard down ever! Because, the scammers are getting sharper and with AI out there, it is probably going to get worse: Pluralistic: How I got scammed.
GEOPOLITICS
I used to think Garry Kasparov was a lune. Not anymore. We should listen to what he says: How Russians and the West Failed Navalny. Look, Navalny was not a saint. But he could have stayed abroad to fight. But instead he went back knowing what awaited him.
Now Alexei is dead, and with him the last gasp of Russian society that failed him, failed Russia and failed the world with its apathy. He was a man of optimism and action in a country of nihilism and inaction, a tragic condition he shared with me and our colleague Boris Nemtsov, who returned to Russia only to be gunned down in the street in front of the Kremlin in 2015.
Latest by Anne Applebaum: Why Russia Killed Navalny.
The enormous contrast between Navalny’s civic courage and the corruption of Putin’s regime will remain. Putin is fighting a bloody, lawless, unnecessary war, in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary Russians have been killed or wounded, for no reason other than to serve his own egotistical vision. He is running a cowardly, micromanaged reelection campaign, one in which all real opponents are eliminated and the only candidate who gets airtime is himself. Instead of facing real questions or challenges, he meets tame propagandists such as Tucker Carlson, to whom he offers nothing more than lengthy, circular, and completely false versions of history.
If you have not seen this film by Navalny, I highly recommend it: Putin’s palace. History of world’s largest bribe.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Starting in 2024, I am spending way less time in social media. My Twitter addiction is gone, thanks to Elon Musk. And I am hardly ever posting on Facebook anymore. Every time I get on there, I cringe and can’t help but think I was also one of them narcissist addicted posters, sigh. I am focusing on keeping it real. And please people, stop doing this! Stop Opening Up About Your Mental Health Online.
So: open up to people you know and trust. Talk to family and friends. If you aren’t fortunate enough to have those, turn to local communities, support groups, professionals when necessary. But stop opening up on the internet. Stop opening up about everything. Give yourself the chance to change organically; give yourself the option of moving on. Bottom line is I don’t think it’s worth exchanging your deepest emotional struggles for that hit of dopamine. Because Instagram being #HereForYou? Hahaha, please.
I had no idea about these 10 Animals with Superpowers. Nature often has some marvelous – and downright terrifying – tricks up her sleeve. From false heads, to poison fins, to killer eyes, these animals all have some incredible superpowers.
Interesting list: 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. At the top: Denmark, Finland and New Zealand. And at the bottom: South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Somalia.
Amazing photography: The Sony World Photography Awards 2024 Celebrate Childhood Joy and Fiery Festivities
TRAVEL
Well, we can dream: The World’s Dreamiest Private Islands, From the Maldives to Wisconsin. Many big time travel credit card sales bloggers were invited to be wined and dined in one of these islands. Of course no one invited me and, frankly, I would not want to be around most of them lol.
We have the latest passport rankings:
The World’s Most Powerful Passports in 2024
The World’s Least Powerful Passports in 2024
I am not sure what is it with these people who just like to come up with their own countries. I am sure making money off them is part of the appeal. And the overall uniqueness I guess. Well, at least this one has a good purpose after all, I guess. Westarctica: The micronation with a real-world purpose. The Antarctic Treaty of 1959 prohibited nations from making new land claims on the continent. But it never mentioned claims from private individuals. I mean, check out some of these people smh.
BUZZING
A section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life and anything else that just does not fit in another section above
I miss running a lot. I am focusing on losing weight and resting my foot by sticking with an exercise routine at my local gym involving a lot of weights and biking in the cardio room. I can’t wait until it warms up enough to get back on the bike again outside. I have an appointment with a neurologist to try to figure what is wrong with my left foot. I have been resting it for so long letting the body heal but not seeing any improvement. Which blows. But it is what it is. At least weight loss is going great and I do look and feel much better, not to brag. I still have visions of getting back to running and, especially, running marathons. This motivates me: Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream.
I am doing great with client tax returns, more than halfway through already and it is not even March #winning.
Ok, let’s have some fun: 12 More Bird Names that Sound Like Insults (and Sometimes Are). Because entertaining my readers is part of my blog’s mission. I had no idea birds can have names like Hornero, Dirty Allan and Nope lol. Hornero, bwahahaha.
This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.
MILES & POINTS NEWS/PROMOS/MY ACTION
It was another week with American Airlines taking the lead increasing bag fees and, more importantly, trying to push everyone booking airfare on its own website away from indirect channels…
GENERAL NEWS/PROMOS/ETC.
This was to be expected: American Airlines & jetBlue Increase Bag Fees. Again, I expect Delta Airlines to take the lead with such measures and of course pushing out a press release praising such consumer friendly measures lol. You can complain about it or, you know, you can fly Southwest where amazingly bags still fly free.
What was not expected was this though: American Airlines Will Require Direct Booking To Earn Miles (Or With Preferred Partners). This is a bold move and we will see if it sticks.
Registration is open for the new World of Hyatt promotion, register HERE.
Remember how pre Covid low cost airlines like Spirit were all the rage beating the legacy airlines in everything? Well, how things have turned. How the Big Airlines Beat the Budget Guys at Their Own Game. Spirit, Frontier and others reshape their strategies to fight back as big airlines offer superlow fares, loyalty programs and creature comforts. ‘We’re playing chess, not checkers.’ After the JetBlue Spirit deal was scratched, I wonder if Spirit will be around by the end of the year. Or there will be a swing back to them as this industry is so incredibly volatile. Or, maybe these budget airlines invest in their loyalty programs for a change? WSJ link.
Is there an airline out there with the biggest PR “news” that are just so way over hyped than Delta? Here is another one smh: Delta has been keeping a secret for the past 20 years—and pilots really want you to ask about it. Delta handed out 1.5 million trading cards in 2023, and is set to launch new designs later this year.
There is a 30% transfer bonus going on from Citi ThankYou points to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
This is a really big deal: Capital One to acquire Discover Financial Services in $35.3 billion all-stock deal. It will be a long time before anything materializes. Way too early for me to comment, let’s see what happens. Be wary of bloggers specializing in credit card sales blogging about industry developments they pretend to know about, ok?
After Seoul, Oneworld Opens Second Branded Lounge At Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. It looks really nice.
NEWBIES
Frequent Miler has a new video out titled Coffee Break. And they talk about the new AmexMarriott Bonvoy Business Card offer with the Five Free Nights Signup Bonus. I think they make excellent points. The most important point is you should have a definite plan to spend these certs at a specific Marriott program property. Below I will leave what I wrote about this card last week. Finally, this offer ends 3/20/2024.
AmexMarriott Bonvoy Business Five Free Night Signup Bonus (50k Each)
Yes, it is a business card, the minimum spend is $8k in six months and the annual fee is $125. The offer translates to 250k points and, well, it is hugely attractive. Especially if you have a specific property in mind! You also get a free night cert (up to 35k points) at every card anniversary. Gold elite status comes with it (late checkout, additional points and even complimentary room upgrades if you get lucky). You also get 15 free elite night credits which can stack with the elite night credits from a personal Marriott Bonvoy card which should get you to at least 30 elite night credits, just 20 away from Platinum status. Earning structure in this card is ok, with 6x on Marriott spend, 4x on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone/shipping and 2x on everything else. If you have Marriott Bonvoy points laying around, you can top off all these free night certs with another 15k points per night to get you in to a really high end property costing 65k points per night #winning. You also get a 7% discount on eligible cash bookings.
MY ACTION
So I am going to a concert in Detroit at the end of the month. And since it will be over way past my sleeping time I looked to book a hotel near the concert location. And I am trying to wipe out points I have in accounts I am no longer accumulating. I had about 32.5k points in my IHG Rewards account but a free night required 39k points. So, Chase Ultimate Rewards point to the rescue once again! I would never recommend transferring Chase points to IHG but, wait, there is a 60% transfer points bonus going on right now. So, all it took was just a 4,000 points transfer (converted to 6,400 IHG points with the transfer bonus) and voila, I had enough points to book me a free night at the Detroit Indigo hotel, first time here. And this is how I roll lol.
I wiped out another account, son’s Radisson Rewards account. He had a business stay in a Radisson hotel in India about three years ago and earned about 3,500 points. So, I was notified by Award Wallet that the points were expiring in a week and I looked around to see what I could do with them. I could get a whopping 200 British Airways Avios points with them but the darn website never really worked. So, I donated them to a good cause and I moved on, good riddance.
I am in the process of transferring my wife’s and kids’ Hilton points to me so I don’t have to renew them by forcing myself to do a dine somewhere. I finished this project and it worked flawlessly. Nice Hilton Honors feature.
I hate it how now Chase does not allow to transfer points to someone in the household via secured message anymore. My wife hates it when I make her call. Hey, nothing is free in this despite what bloggers tell you! Chase rep said they now require calling in “due to fraud”. Fraudsters are everywhere these days.
ADVANCED
Another one! AwardTool: a powerful new award search too. Don’t get me wrong, the competition in this space is great for the consumer. When PointsYeah debuted and I expressed why the site would not let me spin a search to get a feel for it without opening an account I was attacked. I did come back and later opened an account. Only for my email inbox to be attacked with, please sit down, credit card affiliate offers. So, when I tried to spin a search on this new site it went nowhere and I was prompted to open an account. I am trying to simplify my life and I get enough spam already like everyone else. I will let the dust settle and see if I come back to check this one out. When I wondered why all of a sudden we see so many award search tools, this response by “jed” makes a lot of sense. Finally, having Award Tool and PointsYeah go at each other in the FM comments is, well, not very professional imho. This hobby never lets anything become boring, grab your popcorn.
This hurts: Destinations by Hyatt migrated to Homes and Hideaways, which pretty much kills all value of our Hyatt points on these nice properties. Another devaluation…
MILES & POINTS
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! SKIP if you are not into it!
As of today, I have burned 69,829 miles/points year to date (1,148,286 in 2023) and have 4,703,823 miles/points in the bank. Some do drugs, I do miles lol!
Thanks to US banks, very lucrative travel rewards credit card offers come and go all the time. This section will act as a reference point on the best CURRENT offers. I will designate new material preceded by NEW.
Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance if you ever get a credit card here!
Let me leave you with this:
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please pass it on to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!
TBB
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
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This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.
Wow
Hi guys,
I am no quitter, you should know that by now. Looking at different options and may have found another cc link provider. Which provides links to offers instead of having readers search endlessly in the stupid setup I have had all these years. So, maybe, this was a blessing in disguise. Developing.
Thanks for the feedback.
@David: Got your email, will respond later.
Yes, wow. That’s terrible news.
Thanks for the great link on the $50k “scam” … Maybe if something sounds too bad to be true, it isn’t.
Good morning Buzz,
I am sorry to read the news this morning regarding your cc links. I wanted to apply for the new M card with the 5 night offer. I will make a donation instead for your coffee habit.
I have not left any comments for a few weeks, wanted to give you a little space after the Lions pulled a Vikes in the 2nd half. Painful, and I’m thankful I didn’t watch. I’ve lost the stomach for sports now that betting has become ridiculously prominent, useless phucking twats.
Hey Dave, why don’t you tell George how you really feel?
I think I just did.
Some really great links today, thank you Buzz. I wish I could help with some advice regarding your blog. However, the only social media I read is TBB, MEAB, occasionally an FM article, and scanning The Guardian. I’m not sure that really counts as social media.
I must say again that I am extremely grateful for the effort you’ve put in over the years, and only wish I had discovered this game earlier. My wife and I have had at least one 8 week vacation every year since I started reading your blog about 6-7 years ago. Not to mention the other breaks we’ve had in that time. Frankly, due to this bitch of long Covid, I’ve also cancelled half of the planned trips over the last 4 years…asi es la vida.
Why don’t you tell George how you really feel Dave?
I think I just did.
I hate to say it, because I will certainly miss the blog, but maybe this is your sign to move on and spend the extra time on other pursuits for yourself, and also spend time healing, so you can get back to running around the world. Or to Panera, whichever comes first.
Thank you again Buzz, feel better and my best to your family!
The reply above was supposed to be on its own right about here, sorry.
I am not quitting!
The NVDA situation is absolutely hilarious. This is the Nifty 50 / Dotcom era for the Zoomer generation, I guess.
Good luck with the credit card links.
That Awardtool post over on FM sure smells fishy. Seems like whomever is posting as Awardtool in the comments sure doth protest too much, methinks. They won’t be getting my clicks (Jesus wept, I’m sure).
Well, I have been turned down on my last 2 credit card apps but if you get them back, I’ll try again one of these days! I watched John Oliver on the subject of Time Shares the other day and not only was it a hoot, it seems all of them are even worse scammers than I thought, but then I read this….
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2024/02/22/thousands-of-americans-fall-prey-to-mexican-cartel-cjng-timeshare-scam/72695295007/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Yikes! The cartels? I am waiting until I hear they actually threaten people but this dude in the story? Over a period of years he give out 1.8 MILLION? What a moron!
There’s a sucker born every minute I know, but this guy…. It’s crazy out there and we have to be careful!
Thanks for the awesome links and that lady that SAYS she got scammed for 50k? I do not believe it, or there is a lot more than she is saying.
Working with a new credit card provider, I should have this up next week. Maybe getting kicked out of creditcardsdotbomb will be a blessing, I lost count how many readers contacted me to tell me how they could not find a specific card they were looking for as the navigation of that site was, well, horrific to put it mildly
@ Nick: Yeah, Nvidia. It is crazy. But it is owned by your index fund so it’s all good? The earnings are there. I have been saying, with individual stocks anything is possible 🙂
@Bill: I share your exact sentiments about Award Tool. I passed. Having not go anywhere using my trusty Firefox browser certainly contributed to it. In the meantime, I unsubscribed from the PointsYeah email list because after they stopped spamming me with their amazing credit card affiliate links, they switched tactics with a clickbaity email pushing their Buy Miles affiliate link. Unbelievable.
@ Carl: I already have THAT timeshares article in the queue for the next post! Great minds think alike it appears 🙂 Yeah, I could not believe that guy wow. Makes you wonder how lucrative for the scammers this can be. Maybe if they lay off the drug trade it could be beneficial for humanity separating morons from their money while leaving everyone with the space to detox and kick the drug addiction…yeah, maybe it is wishful thinking. And yeah, that $50k scam story just, for some reason, does not feel “right”.
The new credit card provide should make it easier to find and click/apply on credit cards, I need a bit more time to have it up.
Here is an AMAZING rant by John Oliver. Decided not to post in a TBB blog post. Because it can be way politically one sided. Which never stopped me before but still, I do not want to attract delusional crazies around here 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE-VJrdHMug
I know you frown upon this sort of thing but I have a lot of money invested in individual stocks, primarily in the energy industry. I’m of the opinion that passive indexing will be viewed less favorably in the years to come as the flows are causing weird things (the mag 7 being one symptom). But I certainly wouldn’t recommend that others do what I’m doing.
My first stock (while in college) went to $0. It sticks with you 🙂
Back in the 90s I was all in on doing my own research, going over 10Qs and 10ks. Got lucky with a few, did average with most and bombed with a few. Then I went all in identifying amazing fund managers. And then boom, something happened with them and…I finally gave up, went the Bogle way all in and never looked back.
I think you are not diversified.
I do have 5% of my portfolio in individual stocks. 4 of them bought very recently because I was bored. And intent to hold them for 10 years, unless something drastic happens to the companies. One of them was Twitter, Elon paid me to take my shares, I would love to give my profit back to bring back the old Twitter app. Oh well…
Whatever works for you. I have found staying humble when investing in the markets and having a disciplined system can work wonders.
Is mag 7 same as Nifty Fifty? Time will tell, time always does 🙂
Update:
I may have a Tuesday post. With five Best of type links. And my brief commentary of course. I have two already: One about the state of our culture today and the other one about how to stop the #1 financial porn source. I need three more…developing.
Enjoy a Sunday morning cafe!
Thank you.
Carl’s sock drawer cards: MVP MVP MVP 🙂
Dear TBB readers:
I think my new Credit Card provider is live! For now, please start here:
https://travelbloggerbuzz.com/credit-cards/
Site is much easier to navigate imho than the frustrating former one! Maybe getting kicked out was a blessing in disguise. If I lose this one due to low sales volume I will sure quit this time lol.
TBB lives on!
I was going to post this morning but I decided not to when I learned that Frequent Miler Nick’s quarterly estimated income tax payment was way more than what this blog brings in the whole year.
I will have a very lengthy Friday post this Friday…and I may post it on Thursday as I am expected to be way up on Thursday night at a concert in Detroit and would rather not be up very early Friday morning to publish the blog post.
Again, I have a new credit card provider up and running and the navigation of the site is way better than the previous one…which I am so glad I don’t have to deal with these people over there.
https://travelbloggerbuzz.com/credit-cards/
If I lose these links due to low “sales volume” it will give me the incentive (bad pun intended) to finally end this “venture”. Frankly, it is shocking that this blog is still standing you guys.
Just a few buzzy things…
OMAAT wrote a post about Shen Yun LOL.
Is Mommy Points still the only one left standing drawing a paycheck in Red Ventures from the old days?
Going to start the new blog post with a MUST read about the state of our culture…Resist what is happening to us. Choose quality, stop scrolling and read TBB to save it!
Also, I burned some miles/points, going to Dallas for a weekend for a concert, blowing two expiring free night certs, BA Avios & UA miles and looking forward to finally checking out the DFW Capital One Lounge.
Going to be 70+ degrees today in Ann Arbor, bring it!
Admirable job burning points and miles!
I will have a new blog post sometime tomorrow Thursday. I save the Best of Web article on culture for next week, possibly Tuesday. Because the post is already the longest one I have ever written.
7 coffees by 4 people, thanks to Carl’s sock drawers. In January and February. Does not even cover the Mailchimp fee for one month after fees!
Will you be first using my new Credit Card links? Please anyone, I am on probation lol.