Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as millionaire migration, the fake oilman, best summer road trips, more devaluations, Fyou money, retirement lessons, adult autism, the wild Rainforest Cafe founder, the best beaches and much more and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of miles and points. See you Friday.
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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to a curated at least weekly post of the best web content along with my commentary. Here to Educate primarily, sometimes Entertain and if I get to Inspire you, well, that is a bonus.
This is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.
PERSONAL FINANCE
I don’t like the term “F— you money” for obvious reasons. But still, it gets across the message I guess. So, check out this article: F— you money. In case you are not familiar with the term, this is what it is:
… if you had $10m saved up in your investment accounts, and you estimated you could get a 5% annual return, then theoretically you would have a $500,000 pre-tax yearly income for life without touching your principal, and if that matched your yearly expenditures you could probably more or less survive no matter what. At that point you’d be ready to tell all the SOB’s to go to hell.
The article veers into many rough guidelines how to retire adequately. But, as you know, we are all different. Like many things having to do with planning for the future, calculating how much is enough is a game of probabilities based on your own real-life version of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. And I really like how this article ends:
It doesn’t hurt to have a number in your head: once you get there you can relax and maybe coast a bit. There’s a middle ground where you could keep working in some capacity, or downshift to a less stressful job…In any case, often the best advice is to save as much as you can, don’t let your lifestyle get out of control, and build in a buffer for unexpected expenses.[bold font for emphasis is mine]
Since we are talking about retirement, you may like this one: Lessons From Another “Faux-tirement”.
Lesson 1: Unscheduled Time Is an Underrated Luxury
Lesson 2: Having a Purpose Is Crucial, Too
Lesson 3: Balance Is Hard!
Lesson 4: Find Your Microjoys
Very interesting: Millionaire Migration in 2024. What stands out is the number leaving China is not higher. And shocked how many are leaving the UK!
SCAMS/CRYPTO/AI/TECH
We have the June 2024 Ponzi Scheme roundup. Back with lots of crypto related entries of course. What stood out to me are again affinity frauds targeting ethnic communities, like Haitian and Pakistani. Always watch out for them and always watch out your mil below lol:
William Logsdon, 55, was sentenced to 9 years in prison in connection with a $2.1 million scheme that he ran with his mother-in-law, Jamie Thompson. Thompson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 5 years in prison. [Out of so many people to do fraud with smh]
I do remember reading in the news how one fraudster on the run was busted after he was seen in a photograph in a charity related news article in a local publication. The Fake Oilman. Alan Todd May passed himself off as an oil magnate, insinuated himself into West Palm Beach high society, and conned people out of millions. Reading about this guy who repeatedly just can’t stop himself from committing frauds makes me wonder if there is a fraud gene or something. Some people just can not be reformed, lock him up and throw away the key please.
ODDZ & ENDZ
I started reading this and could not stop, amazing writing quality on a subject I am exploring more lately: What My Adult Autism Diagnosis Finally Explained. I’d long suspected something was “off.” Then, at 43, an unexpected answer arrived.
The winners of the 1839 Awards in Color Photography, enjoy!
I did not know anything about this guy, wild indeed! The wild tale of the man who founded Rainforest Cafe.
TRAVEL
SAVE $100 FOR 2024 THE EXTRAORDINARY TRAVEL FESTIVAL
Interesting: Best & Worst States for Summer Road Trips (2024). Michigan only #19 and Texas #1, seriously?
This blog likes beaches in case you have not noticed: The 25 Most Beautiful Beaches in the World. Several I was not aware of. Which is your favorite?
Fascinating: Ranked: Countries with the Most Embassies Around the World.
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
Say what? Ants treat certain leg injuries with lifesaving amputations.
Instead of doing amputations, I am doing physical therapy to finally get over the weird numbing sensations in my feet. As I continue to walk 4 miles a day. And yesterday one of those 4 miles was slow jogging. Going to continue jogging more and see how it goes. The comeback continues…
Been wonderful watching the Euro 2024 Tournament this year. We are down to the Final Four now. Here is every goal from the Round of 16. I think the most entertaining game was Austria Turkey going at each other up and down and leaving it all on the field. And this save by the Turkish goalie in the last pay of the game to help them advance was just unreal.
And we have the 2024 Copa America tournament going on at the same time. Sadly, USA was knocked out in the first round. Mexico was knocked out as well. Anyway, like I said, we are down to the semifinals, thank God.
And Greece will finally make it into the Olympics after 16 years. If there is one legacy piece left undone by Giannis Antetokounmpo is to leave his mark in the Greek national basketball team. Maybe this was the start of it, love this picture of him after the end of the game with his son:
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
I only pick worthy links to share with you. As there is so much crap out there! What stood out was two painful devaluations last week, so let’s start with that:
DEVALUATIONS
Devaluations is a fact of life in this hobby. With so many bloggers and youtubers now out there making this space a mainstream activity there is really no shock at all that devaluations happen more frequently and hurt more. And I bet you that over 95% of all these salesmen would go out of business and do something else to make money instead of selling travel rewards credit cards to the masses. And I will still be here trying to sell the second credit card this month, sad lol.
British Airways Stealth Devalues American Airlines & Alaska Awards. This one hurts me the most as we have been traveling to New York City for years using BA Avios points on partner American Airlines from Detroit. This was devalued about six months ago and then BOOM they were just killed. Sadly, I have more than 150k BA Avios point in the bank so don’t be like me, don’t hoard them. I guess I could transfer them to Qatar Avios but by the time I do it the hammer would reach them too. Truly a big blow, ouch.
Virgin Guts Delta One Awards to Europe with Huge Fees, Higher Rates. Delta does it again, I wonder why this one took so long for them to kill. Not that we were able to book these awards anyway because Delta almost never released award space to Virgin anyway. So, when bloggers scream about sweetspots to sell credit cards…it always leads to the swift killing of said sweetspots.
GENERAL NEWS/PROMOS/NEWBIES/ETC.
In case you did not do this last time. And this is a good way to extend the life of your IHG One Rewards points: 500 free One Rewards points for downloading the IHG app [OFFER EXTENDED].
Chase keeps doing these spending promos: Chase spending offers for Q3 2024 with direct registration links for cobranded cards. This is the regular Chase credit card spending promo link.
And a promo for United cardholders as well.
Speaking of sweetspots, you may want to hurry before these get devalued: The Best Business Class Award Sweet Spots for Flights to Asia.
CREDIT CARD CORNER
Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your credit card clicks below, thank you!
I will indicate with NEW every new section as the rest is the same from the previous blog post and will finally roll off those parts as these offers expire, thank you.
NEW: Sometimes a really surprising entry into the travel rewards credit card space comes along. And we scratch our heads. Like this offer from Imprint (who?) offering a credit card for Turkish Airlines. Wait, the credit card is being issued by First Electronic Bank which I had never heard of before. But you need to do more than offer only 40,000 Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles miles Signup Bonus to take a leap with you First Electronic Bank, ok?
NEW: And, for crying out loud, never ever apply for this LOL:
US banks always have new credit card offers. And Southwest card offers change constantly. So, you should never go for a Southwest card with a Signup Bonus of 50,000 points or less ok? And here we go with two Southwest offering business cards offering 120,000 Points. And all personal Southwest cards are back to only 50,000 Signup Bonus offers again.
Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Business Credit Card and Business Performance Credit Card are offering a signup bonus of up to 120,000 points:
Earn 80,000 points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from your account opening.
Plus, earn an additional 40,000 points after you spend $15,000 on purchases in the first 9 months
Best credit card offers STILL remain the same, see below my TOP THREE travel rewards credit cards right now:
The TOP offer NOW is the 75k Capital One Venture X card. It is amazing what you get for free with this card actually. See more below.
The Signup Bonus for the 75k CHASE Ink Business Cash and 75k CHASE Ink Business Unlimited cards is now 75,000 points. With the recent change in the 75k Chase Ink Business Cash card offer allowing us to earn the Signup Bonus over six months (instead of only three months), this card is elevated to Top #2 leaving the 75k Chase Ink Business Unlimited card at #3.
Always check my TOP THREE TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARD OFFERS RIGHT NOW below.
MY ACTION
Follow me on Instagram please.
I am getting ready to apply a couple of Ink Business Preferred cards in my household. To add more than 250k Chase Ultimate Rewards points. Because this is what I have been doing for many years. So, I canceled one Ink card and now I have to get my wife to call to cancel one of hers, she hates calling. But she loves them Hyatt suites too so she will just have to endure the ordeal of calling.
I finally closed son’s Citi American Airlines AAdvantage card after several years. I guess I got tired of getting a retention. But I still tried via chat and got a rep who would not make an offer over the phone and required calling the 800 line. I said ok the time has come to say goodbye. One less bank to deal with. And I needed the room because of the paragraph above this one.
Been looking for tickets to New York City over the Christmas holidays and is it just me? Fares are very high, much higher than prior years. And now that I can’t use any more British Airways Avios to book us all on partner American Airlines miles this is a problem. Because I may have to pay which is something that feels so unnatural around here lol.
ADVANCED
If you were affected by this, I think you will be okay #firstworldproblems: Bad News for Schwab Platinum Cardholders: 1.1cpp Redemptions Will Be Limited to 1M Points per Year.
In the old days I would jump at this. Because, Platinum baby, look at me. But I am trying to consolidate and simplify my life and, yes, focus on fewer banks/airlines/hotels/etc. So, go for this if you can and have the mental bandwidth for it: Quick & Easy Status Match to Sonesta Travel Pass Platinum Status.
Wait. Ok, maybe you are not into Sonesta hotels. But what if you or someone you know happen to have British Airways elite status? If I did have such elite status you bet I would jump on it! Crazy …. match your BA status to SAS (SkyTeam) which you can match to Lufthansa (Star)!.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 75k CHASE Ink Business Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Business Unlimited, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred(wait for 120k offer), 75K CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CHASE United Business, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 150k AMEX Business Platinum, two 120k CHASE Southwest Business cards, $1,000 Cash Back CHASE Ink Business Premier, 75k Citi Strata Premier, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!
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 1,109,513 miles/points year to date (1,148,286 in 2023) and have 4,164,375 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.
TOP THREE TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARD OFFERS RIGHT NOW
The Capital One Venture X card offers a 75,000 point Signup Bonus after a minimum spend of $4k in the first three months. If you like simplicity and looking for one (premium) card, I highly recommend this card (and yes, I have it myself!). It has an annual fee of $395 but it comes with an easy $300 statement credit for travel booked on its decent travel portal, essentially turning it into a $95 annual fee card. But wait, there is more! On each card anniversary you earn 10,000 points essentially making it FREE! Every dollar of spend earns 2 points and flights booked on the travel portal earn 5 points per dollar. You get access to Capital One and Plaza Premium airport lounges and a Priority Pass Select lounge membership and, this is important, you can add FOUR authorized users FOR FREE who can also have their own Priority Pass Select airline lounge membership and, this is BIG, they can bring in unlimited guests with their FREE Priority Pass card! You can transfer your Capital One points to up to 18 Transfer Partners. No foreign transaction fees. Free Hertz President’s Circle rental car top elite status. Cell phone protection and PRIMARY rental car coverage. Awesome seats at baseball stadiums for just 5k points each. And lots more.
The Chase Ink Business Cash and Chase Ink Business Unlimited card offers are back down to a 75,000 Signup Bonus! These are NO ANNUAL fee cards.
The Chase Ink Business Cash earns 5x on office supply stores and internet/cable/phone services and 2x on gas and restaurants. Why don’t you go to Office Depot and buy gift cards of the stores you usually shop at, hello 5x Amazon! The card now offers the 75k Signup Bonus in two stages (and a 10% relationship bonus if you have a Chase business checking account) after $6k spend in the first six months.
The Chase Ink Business Unlimited card works differently, it just earns 1.5x on everything. So if you were going to use a credit card to earn 1x why don’t you pull this one out instead? Bottom line, I think these are still the BEST business travel rewards cards out there right now! The 75k Signup Bonus can be earned after $6k of spend on the card in the first three months.
Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!
Let me leave you with this:
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
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Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com and tell me what you like and don’t like about my blog and, more importantly, what you would like to see changed and/or what you would add or delete. All feedback is very appreciated.
George
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Glad you are back jogging!
Too many links to read this morning! Tonight?
Thanks.
Yeah, today’s post got away from me again. But I blame last Friday’s missed post so…I think we will get back to normal here this Friday.
Spain vs France semifinal today at 3 pm EST!
*I* don’t think it is too many links at all, but then again I never do. Just takes me a bit more time to read all the good stuff you post! I did see the Autism article somewhere and it is pretty interesting for sure.
Go slow on the return to jogging/running. But I am rooting for you! Too many health issues here lately but I am on the mend and hey! Down 25 pounds since late March! Had to buy some new pants, even! Gotta be looking good at my High School reunion next month!
Thanks as always for all the good blogging, George. I know lots of people do not comment but it remains the best blog out there, at least in my opinion!
You are the only who wants many links in single posts, the others need to take a breather 🙂
Trying to find a groove posting twice a week, not easy. Stuff happens. I do get motivated when I score a credit card sale though. Coffees/donations too. It is natural I guess.
We are supposed to get the remnants of Beryl tonight up here. All the best with the health, without it we are all poor!
Yeah, comments help too, thank you.
Actually, I also enjoy your long posts, thank you
great stuff George
end of an era for BA intra US awards. I recall the 4.5k awards, so sad
What’s with your Macchu Picchu trip? I recalled using 7.5k avios for LIMA-CUSCO. Haven;t checked now but probably 30k each? sad.
Yeah, end of an era for sure. I have been sad all day and then France lost to Spain which certainly did not help the sadness lol. France just never got going this Euro, strange.
Never proceeded to plan for Macchu Picchu, maybe next year.
Hey George, long time no see. Thanks for linking to my Sonesta status match post. I hope you are doing well 🙂
You are welcome, still dig how you post original content. Things are great here trying to keep the blog alive. Wish you the best and see you around one day, been a while!
Thank you, I appreciate the compliment. I see myself like Dory from Finding Nemo. Everyone is looking over there at the same thing, meanwhile I’m swimming the opposite direction chasing something that no one else seems to notice or care about 🙂
I just got back from Dublin, Helsinki, and Stockholm, so I have a few posts to write about since I didn’t bring my personal laptop on the trip.
Any summer plans for you?
So, next link to appear from you here I will reference “Travel With Dory” then, ok? 🙂
July is when I take this blog to the stratosphere. Well, not really. Nothing bigly at all, just a weekend in mid August in a Michigan town next to a lake. And then 4 nights at the Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency in September for a conference. I think you are by SFO, not LAX.
Travel with Dory, haha. Close to SFO, but I fly down to SNA often to see my relatives 🙂
i stumbled upon a rainforest cafe at the opry! it was great! i thought they all closed. definitely don’t have any up here in maine and only heard about the chain thru random youtube videos.
I remember going to one many many years ago and I enjoyed the experience.
Good luck jogging!
Interesting read on autism, I wonder how many hardcore points / miles people have Asperger’s?
Another variation of a 4 mile walk/jog…with 2 miles of jogging. Going okay so far, slow and steady.
I bet a solid % of us hobbyists have some aspect of these conditions.
Oh boy, the 120k Chase Ink Business Preferred affiliate links are out, prepare for the blogosphere to EXPLODE.
Looking for my second cc sale you guys…will it be one of you before me and my wife become clients 🙂
So email me for a link or you know where to find it, thank you.
George, great content as always! I also love seeing your comments on WSJ personal finance/credit card articles. Keep sharing your knowledge!
FYI, your wife can secure message Chase to close a card. No need to make her call in.
Great, thank you!
For a little while, this was not allowed. Not sure what it was, maybe some tech issues. Did unload a secure message and they did it just like old days. So she was relieved she did not have to call so all is good now, ready for more. She is like me, she never gives up on her businesses 😉