TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
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TRAVEL
Yep, again. Agiokampos, Larissa beaches, Greece. Where I used to roam as a kid. This photographer is doing an incredible job to promote the place!
Yomadic visits Ani – the Biggest Abandoned City You’ve Never Heard of. He is right, I never heard of it! I never miss his posts, my favorite travel blogger by far!
The most irreplaceable sites on earth
MILES/POINTS
Chase Sapphire Card for 50k Ultimate Rewards, plus another 5k for adding an authorized user. The link is still up, click on the link found at the top of this Slick Deals thread:
Why is everyone so cheery about the Freedom card offering 20,000 points? Yours truly got the card for 30,000 last time. Will the 30k return? Let me look at my crystal ball…The answer is: Maybe!
The new 5x categories for the 1st quarter of 2014 will be: gas stations, Starbucks and movie theaters. Is this tailored to me or what!
Online Travel Review wrote “Convince Me That You Should Not Use a Cash Back Card As Your Every Day Card“. I think he is definitely starting to make sense for more of us. Not me yet but…definitely thinking about it. Heck, the Arrival card should be here any day!
List of expiration policies. By DansDeals.
Time Decay & Depreciation of Miles. By Milenomics. I really enjoy this blog and I am considering to add it to my “Blogs I Like” list…
How to Use ANA Award Search Tool. Solid post by One Mile at a Time.
American launches bid-for-upgrade program. By The Wandering Aramean. You aspiring mileage running elites….you are all just sitting ducks 🙂
ON MY MIND
New comment record yesterday, 134 comments and counting, wow! At the comment department nobody beats TBB 🙂
I added a few referral links in this separate “Support TBB” page. Just Uber, ebates and National Car Rental 12Free promo so far. Uber soon. Thank you for any support.
Please ignore the trolls.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Most adorable pics…Toddler Takes Daily Naps with his 2 month old puppy. By Bored Panda.
Oh my, look at this stingray, wow! Found at Wired.
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is intended for long time readers and miles/points addicts who follow the blogs in this space. TBB reviews blogs and tries to entertain above all. Don’t take this section too seriously or personally, it’s mostly entertainment!
We are already on Part 10 11 in the Ultimate Guide to United Miles at Million Mile Secrets. So, when all this needs to be rewritten again after the devaluations do we need to endure it again? #justsaying And we just started a mini trip report too, let’s see how many different posts we can endure with this one 🙂
Frugal Travel Guy (the blog) wrote a post asking for advice on where to put $100k. The post elicited 16 comments and then I realized there was some type of prize offered. I enjoyed reading the comments. And shook my head with some of the suggestions. I saw that the winners were two suggestions to invest the money (for all the wrong reasons). How about this, BUY BITCOINS TOMORROW (joking!!). Back in the good old days I had a brokerage account that I solely used to take around these brokerage companies for the miles. I called it my “whore” account. Fidelity and E*Trade have banned me 🙂
Apparently there was a Chase Sapphire card offer out for 50k Ultimate Reward Points (plus another 5k for adding an authorized user). And then, in a flash, it disappeared. Only to be blessed blasted with the offer that pays the bloggers for 40k plus 5k. See the link above. There were MANY comments generated by this yesterday in TBB. This is what I posted:
I feel very bad for the bloggers here who were kind of “set up” by Chase. You do the right thing and you could get thrown out like garbage. You don’t and your readers do not get the benefit of the much better offer. I should not feel bad but for some reason I do. I have always been an emotional kind of guy you know…I think this REALLY exposed the huge inherent conflicts of interest present in this business. I mean,the two offers were not even close!”
There was a lot more. I hope this is an isolated incident. Can some big time blogger talk to the people responsible and tell them “Hey you can’t do this to us, come on?”. I hope one day the links are same everywhere so we can all compete on merit. Yeah right…
Points, Miles and Martinis decides to use a reader’s question as an excuse to blast a whole bunch of cc links. Nothing new of course. But what is remarkable is that the non affiliate links were not offered…Unbelievable!
Found this comment in a FlyerTalk thread by Msmcmotown which I thought was great!
A couple of points to consider about the current situation (I apologize for the length) 
1. The two major sponsors of FF programs in the US–banks and airlines–have only recently emerged from extremely dicey times that had the effect of flooding the market with miles. With the exception of SW, every major US airline went through at least one bankruptcy in the 2000’s. Before going to BK, most survived by raising cash through massive sales of miles and other considerations to the banks. (AA was most notable–in its prolonged effort to avoid BK, it sold hundreds of millions of miles to Citi for a song in order to raise cash and stay out of BK. All those 75k & 100k signup bonuses!)
2. The Great Recession turned the credit card industry upside down, and provided Chase with an enormous opportunity to gain market share. MBNA/BofA nearly disappeared from the CC market, where just a few years earlier they were a top affiliate card issuer. Citi was crippled (all it had were those cheap AA miles!). Amex was severely hurt. Chase was damaged far less, and used its relative strength to go after market share in the CC space, targeting the high end market that AMEX had ruled, and MBNA/BofA had done well in. They significantly increased their affiliate card program in the T&E space, and created UR. They gorged on miles and points at rock bottom prices and dished them out like candy to lure customers to their cards. Providing generous referral fees to bloggers was merely one part of the strategy.
3. In the US, mergers have created an air travel market that is monopolistic. Furthermore, there are far more barriers to entry for new competitors today than there were in the early years of deregulation. With fewer competitors, and the threat of new competitors largely eliminated, the airlines don’t need to rely as much on frequent flyer programs to gain advantage.
4. At this point in time, supply of seats is down while demand is up. On the one hand, the economy has stabilized and gotten marginally better overall (and much better in some markets.) There’s more demand for seats. On the other hand, airline mergers in the US have significantly reduced the supply of seats. We’ve all experience the resulting airfare increases and packed flights.
I think that these factors are whats behind the proliferation of bloggers, miles inflation, and the FF program devaluations. The recent award chart adjustments are just the latest in the devaluation cycle that has been going on since the airlines monopoly has taken hold, and the economy has improved. Consider how much more difficult its been over the last 2 years to cash in those miles for seats! Consider the dwindling number of massive sign up bonuses.
Even if the bloggers were to disappear tomorrow, its hard to see how devaluation would not continue, given the above. I suspect that the airlines will continue to sell cheap miles to the banks–although not as cheap as previously. The airline monopoly in the US is now a fact. If the good ol days of our game are to ever return, it’ll probably be because of another major economic turndown, or a miraculous act of congress that would allow more competition from foreign carriers on US soil.
And I leave you with this…
Stop the first nonsense.
Congrats!
Oh wait…what? Sorry I was just used to doing this congrats thingie you know…
I agree, let’s move on.
I only came here because I was checking car rental rates and thought I should bug you about it again.
And does anyone else find the Chase Freedom 5% fairly irrelevant when you have an Ink Bold/Plus (or Amex Blue Cash Pref.)? Just get the appropriate gift cards at your local office supply store. No worrying about caps/registration/etc.
Maybe I’m missing something.
Briefly:
Starbucks and cinema gift cards are available for > 10% off. Just bought Sbucks yesterday for the wife for 86.3% of face value. No need to use Freedom or Ink unless you need UR points. Of course this advice doesn’t generate card sign up clicks and sweet sweet cash.
Is anyone aware of HP’s twosmiles.com Black Friday promo? 20% of any card, except Amazon. Granted, not a great selection, but some worthwhile deals here with no limits. Oh, promo code is BF20. Can you use an AA gift card to buy a ticket?
Also and nothing to do with our ‘hobby’ but Walmart is considering matching BF deals from competitor ads. This could be an interesting shopping season when we use all the tools available to us.
Yup. To be used 11-29 to 12/2 only. Covered here and here.
Wow, this is big. Thanks for the heads up. I will post this in the next Buzz post. I am no online shopping guru…actually I don’t shop much at all!
Sounds cool, and will try, but the post/comments hint that supplies are quite limited.
Theoretically more risk carrying a GC. You can lose it. No purchase guarantee. And you’ll be carrying a “better than a hole in the head” CC rather than many GCs. Imagine the size of your wallet. Folks may think you’re rich. On the other hand the CSP card is so sexy (link), I felt like big time player until I cancelled it when the annual fee came up.
When Chase converted my Sapphire Preferred to a Freedom, the number was the same, so I was able to keep using the metal Sapphire Preffered card.
1. It’s 5.5x with checking.
2. Not everyone has business cards.
3. There are often cheaper MS options with Freedom categories.
Valid points, and I agree with you on #3, but the categories are getting worse for that. They’re replacing drugstore/grocery with specific stores. Unless you’re lucky with a MS-friendly gas station…
Don’t need to get lucky, it’s actually quite easy.
Not all “gas stations” sell gas.
TPG crony Eric got hammered for his latest post on the PH Siem Reap. Having been there recently, I have to agree with much of the criticism – paying ~$350 for a hotel in Cambodia is ridiculous IMO. Coupled with a $100 massage. Looks like the site is making money enough for these guys to burn recklessly.
I get the same feeling about pretty much any hotel in SEA. I rented an apartment in BKK for $400/month with a pool and doorman so it’s pretty hard for me to get excited about burning 10+k SPG points a night!
$100 massage? Bloody hell, you can get a massage at the blind massage place in Siem Reap (the masseurs are all blind), in 2000 it was pretty cheap like $10-ish IIRC. Hopefully it’s still there.
It IS still there! http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g297390-d541884-Reviews-Seeing_Hands_Massage-Siem_Reap_Siem_Reap_Province.html#REVIEWS $5 an hour, I knew it was super cheap and the best thing to do there after you see Angkor Wat. I was there for my 40th birthday. We flew in on Bangkok Airways and they noticed by my passport it was my birthday and gave me a little scarf/hat pin with the airline logo. We stayed at some place that was $20 and advertised in the Bangkok Airways magazine with AC & a pool, very clean too and on the main drag. We walked to restaurants and the market. I don’t remember the name.
I don’t get the excitement about the Chase Sapphire for 50+5k… as I approach my two year mark of cancelling the 100k signup deal they had back in 2010 this 55k offer sound rather bland…
Not only have I heard of Ani, I was there in the early 90’s! I wish I would have had a blog back then!
Lots of bloggers put Chase ahead of helping their readers yesterday
Still waiting to hear if such bloggers will be invited back to speak at seminars that are co-run by people who want to move the hobby back to the good ole days
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t suggest holding your breath on that invite thing… but you make a great point in asking it!
I get the feeling that IB might have intervened to assuage couple of angry bloggers. Speaking of which, DP is still at the FT “Bloggers who censor” thread making changes ……
Who is mailing in the United series on MMS?
I see that recently a change was made on the disclosure front. Apparently now if you click the links on MMS’ posts, you merely keep the blog going…..such is life.
You deleted my comment calling your buddy Dan out.
He slipped in an inferior 40K Sapphire link in the expiration post you link to.
For Shame. Consumer Reports leads readers to inferior offers to support their pals.
The worst part is that it’s not his first “slip up”.
Some readers have pointed out that he conveniently never mentions the Amex Platinum card with the 50k bonus.
Having a family to feed does not excuse pushing inferior offers and advising readers to SM in order to hope to get a bonus bump…
I’ve already said my piece on the Plat card previously, take it or leave it but there might be something you’re missing.
As far as SP the fact that you’d rather see bloggers get fired is disturbingly angry. I’ve emailed George the facts and he’s come to his own conclusions but I have nothing I can say publicly.
bloggers get fired? By whom? You’re employed by Chase?
Or are you just making up things?
There is a lot more compliance crap these financial institutions need to comply with. Basically doing lots of stupid t’s and dots. When regulators come in they need to produce logs that they did perform the t’s and dots. If bloggers get on the radar they may fall under one of these t and dot areas. Some could get thrown under the bus and then they can show the auditors “See, we DO follow our internal control/compliance program”. It HAS happened and it will continue to happen. It is better not to fall under the “higher risk” category of bloggers who “test” waters/limits.
You remember that blogger who is STILL pissed off at Chase for cutting him off suddenly who wrote a mega rant…Forgot who it was.
Again, this was just a weird move by Chase. Maybe they are “testing” to see who messes with the big boss? A new round of cutting bloggers off?
I don’t know. All this is based on my own knowledge. Based on my vast knowledge of how these things work (lol) you can make up your own mind.
The whole arrangement is so non transparent is just an inherently murky field. Some bloggers add value; most sell “expertise” they do not have and most exist because of this cushy arrangement. I see this crap every freaking day…I just follow way too many blogs and can’t even get a $10 Uber credit lololol.
My 2 cents
What is it Chase, et al would be upset about w/ a blogger? Posting about non-affiliate links, you mean?
I have no idea, these bankers are weird 🙂
Maybe they wanted to test a particular product’s appeal without the blogger getting involved at all. For metrics and stuff. Some marketing initiative of some kind. Maybe they realized the blog channel is just not worth it as much as they initially thought and they want to justify a reduction in commissions.
You know, stuff like that 😉 That $13 billion in fines need to come from somewhere you know!
My guess is that the “BLOGGER SHUT UP” rule is not being enforced by Chase, but by the affiliate company. (Forgot their names)
Think about it: if Chase is attempting to bypass the affiliate company (and their blogger army) with a good non-affiliate offer, then you bet your life that the affiliate company will fight like hell to deter people from using that link. And, of course, they wouldn’t want any of their foot soldiers to promote something like this…it’s suicidal.
My take is that the bloggers are getting holy hell from the affiliate company and have to chose between “doing the right thing for their readers” and “earning their living”. As I said before, it must suck for these guys. (Sucks to realize you let others control your voice.)
Actually, it is the banks. They cannot control blogs that are not affiliates with them but the ones that are, they can (and do) send down some stiff direction over what you can and cannot push when it comes to public links. It is unfortunate, but because of the compliance issues, Chase could drop anyone immediately if they do not stick with their affiliate offers.
Yeah, it is a murky field. The non transparency that is allowed to flourish drives me nuts. At the end of the day I think the driver of these decisions must be the banks with Chase being the biggest and best payer and most picky about “things”. Barclays will give links to anyone who breaths it appears 🙂
As blogs evolve monetization ways will evolve too. This one is definitely evolving too…Nobody knows the future. Who knows where we are one or two years later.
Thank you.
@ TJ
This is my approach on car rentals (briefly): I get a general idea on rates at Orbitz.com. I see what I can get at National with coupons/etc (FT has threads) and see if there is a promo going. I check if any recent Priceline bids at biddingfortravel.com. I then go to Hotwire & see what I can get there. I check carrentalsavers.com too. I need to now start incorporating the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and/or the costco site too. Depending on these I may bid on Priceline and/or just get it done with Hotwire. Or book a decent refundable rate and then feed the reservation to Autoslash and then just sit back and wait for savings sent to my inbox 🙂
Thank God I don’t do rent cars too often lol. I still need to look at my Maui car rental…but too many comments lol.
Why would you convert your CSP to a Freedom (and bypass the signing bonus I assume?).
@harvson3: Thanks again. I am shocked we don’t read stuff like that too often in the blogs!
@ ABC: Mrs. TBB just canceled her CSP and we just sent it back in the envelope Chase provided so it can be properly disposed of. We will miss the “feel” of this card and the reactions we got. We now both have an Ink Plus and we used the crap out of it lol.
@The Common Man: “Crony” lol. I saw that post in my Feedly list and did not even bother.
@The Deal Mommy: $400 for a month with pool and doorman sounds nice. It would be even better if it came with a massage person too 🙂
@ Tara: Sounds wonderful to me. Retiring in Thailand sounds awesome to me. Low cost of living, massages all day long, good base to travel to so many interesting places nearby, nice culture and food…What am I talking about…I have no plans to retire anytime soon!
I had heard of an Armenian city the Turkish authorities did not want anyone to know. It was Ani. That was amazing post. I need to add it to my list of places to visit but too busy with TBB comments lol.
@Oliver2002: I share your feelings. Got the CSP at 100k each when it first came out. I remember calling up Bikeguy and telling him “Stop what you are doing now, CALL Chase & ask for the bump up NOW”.
Oh, those were the days…
@Steve: Yeah, and that was an impossible bind the bank put them in. I felt sorry for them. Well, not all. I think you may be waiting for a very long time for any blogger to take you up on your offer lol. I was going to say something about my buddy’s amazing review of the US Air credit card that site so smoothly dishes out but I held back myself 🙂
@AgendaGuy: Just noticed the latest edit of the “Censoring Blogs” in that FT thread by my #2 fan. Well, some bloggers have amazing abilities editing links! If they spent the time editing links on improving the content of their blogs…Ah phuck it. You may want to ask MMS that question 😉
@ Consumer Reports & Chris: Thank you for taking the time to comment. I have only deleted one post in the history of TBB. I am sure there will be more as haters are out there. Your post CR must be buried in the spam folder among the hundreds/thousands of spam selling viagra and nfl jerseys. I am scared going there. No one is above everything and certainly TBB belongs in this category! This is an art, not a science. Please consider the body of work and the value add of each blogger. If you do not like my biases I appreciate you calling me out. Hell, I appreciate you all calling all the bloggers out when they deserve it! But please understand that sometimes they are all hung out to dry and what Chase did was absolutely atrocious to them. I have never met DD in person but I like him and admire what he has accomplished so far and the value he adds to his readers. He explained to me what happened and I am perfectly fine with the explanation. I am in peace and I am hungry right now. I think I am going to get me some pizza for lunch. Be well. And thanks “a bunch” 😉
You can’t get my comment out of spam, but you call out others when your comment doesn’t post immediately. Hypocrite.
Your pal Dan snuck in an inferior link to the United 30K offer when there is a 50K offer available. Are you going to call him out?
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/36734
You claim that he adds value, but all he does is line his pockets. He is still promoting the inferior 40K link when VFTW, MP and MMS are not promoting it and linking it in their recent posts.
‘
There is no public 50K UA link. At least none that have ever worked for me.
And people on DDF have a 100% success rate matching the 30K offer to 55K+$50 cash back.
@”TBB is a hypocrite” — I think you need to mellow out about DD. Here’s the big caveat about that site: you have to work. You cannot just read something there and expect an straight answer–you must read a post, read the comments to the post, go to the forums, read the back and forth about everything, post a question, get snarky answers from Dan’s loyalists, and probably a couple more steps that I forgot. After all of that, you will almost definitely have the best possible answer. (And, to agree with you somewhat, sometimes Dan makes it very easy to click on the less-than-best approach. You just need to know that going in…)
Yes, it is more work than reading Mr. Red Arrows but, for those that bother, it can be worth it.
“Yes, it is more work than reading Mr. Red Arrows but, for those that bother, it can be worth it”
Wait, what’s the website again I would go to if I wanted to log into my Chase account?
this reminds me the “teach a man to fish” story 😉
Tried to get that “thinking mode” message to readers when I did not publish my Speedway dial with pics and arrows 🙂
All I want to know is if MMS made it up to Michigan to research my deal or not. If yes, what a complete fail to publish it with those Family groceries. If not, oh well it lasted much longer doing it my way. Congrats to all who figured it out and kept it down low 🙂
The 55K+$50 has been working for me for years, literally dozens of times.
I could make an arrow laden post on it and kill it in a week but WTH would be the point of that??
Besides then I’d be flogged for being a deal-killing blog.
The banks aren’t the only ones putting bloggers in a catch-22, it’s some of the angries as well 😉
I’m a believer in leaving the rewards to those who take the time to do the research. Obviously I have an audience from n00b to expert (definitely confirmed from the audience at the 5 seminars I’ve done) and the trick is to keep everyone equally entertained. At least I strive to.
Re: converting SP to Freedom, I’m guessing it was annual fee time for the SP and downgrading to Freedom was the way the fee was avoided
I was planning on asking MMS directly but knew I’d not make it past the spam filter, since I belong there apparently. Besides I thought you’d know 😉 PMSL
Actually I think someone had broken past the MMS spam filter the other day. It might be a loophole for the plugin in general I suspect. Basically post positive sounding words in the first few sentence(s) like “appreciate”, “successful” etc etc and then you can post something negative if you want without some obvious bad words. This one comment was complimenting MMS a lot on teaching a lot of tricks but wanted him to “get rid of the xxxxx broad in front of the gift card rack”. I felt sorry for the guy. The comment was obviously gone at some point in time but I wondered how it got posted to begin with.
The loophole is kind of wild stuff! I should be peaking in the comments there a bit more…you know, for entertainment purposes!
Peaking? Or piquing?
Peeking trumps them all 😛
What a great GIF. Where do you find this stuff? Where do you find the time or do you subscribe to that off quoted phrase “I’ll have plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead”?
THECHIVE.COM
The weekly Shirk Report in the TwistedSifter.com site.
I would say those two sites above amount to over 90% of the funny/odd pics that make it to TBB.
Every once in a while I find something else somewhere else….I follow over 600 blogs in my Feedly list. I can use an intern lol.
The Msmcmotown FT comment is right with one niggling correction needed: the market for airfares is oligopolistic, not monopolistic. (Only the second word is straight from the Greek; Google “etymology of ______” to get the roots of any word.)
That could be in the running for best comment ever! Love it. 🙂
I thought so myself, thank you!
Actually, neither monopolistic nor oligopolistic is accurate. We’re witnessing the creation of some crazy new forms that resembles the Japanese keiretsu, with an American cowboy twist!
On a related note, the way that Chase left the bloggers hanging out to dry with the recent CSP offer may be a harbinger of things to come. Chase has captured as much market share as they’re going to with the strategy of the last 4 years. Amex has largely stopped the bleeding of customers (although not of dollars being spent on the MR program to plug the dyke.) Also, as TBB noted earlier, the blogger relationships pose some degree of regulatory risk to Chase, and now that Chase is very very much in the regulator’s headlights, do they really need ANY additional exposure? I think it very likely that in 2014 Chase will increasingly tighten the screws, and that many bloggers will be cut off of Big Blue’s Tit.
Great to have you comment here, it’s an honor. Your comment I quoted here was indeed awesome.
I think you are right. This may explain the mega Chase aff link fest that has been going lately. I think all bloggers want to get their numbers up to avoid any potential (inevitable?) ax coming in 2014.
It should get interesting. I hope we are all around to witness it all and entertain ourselves 🙂
If Chase seriously has to pay staff to check each blog on a regular basis to ensure they are not promoting cards outside of the legal guidelines, no wonder they are so keen to chop people. You’d need at least 50 apps per month to justify a few hours of staff time to monitor a site.
The end game here, by the way, is that one day Chase appears on TopCashBack or BigCrumbs and offers 100 bucks cashback for a direct application.
Something is happening over here I think. The level of pumping cards has reached deafening levels starting a week or two ago. My gut feeling is we may see major changes in this business in 2014.
$13 billion, even for giant Chase, is not a drop in the bucket…
#developing
I can say this with some certainty – there are a lot fewer blogs with Chase links than you may think. They are slowly adding some back in but they had cut it down to quite a bit under 40. Also, Chase has a pretty high quota for people to meet now to stay in the program. If someone has and is keeping their Chase links, they are converting more than double digits a month.
Please ignore the trolls, thank you.
Thank you Socrates!
“@Steve: Yeah, and that was an impossible bind the bank put them in. I felt sorry for them. Well, not all. I think you may be waiting for a very long time for any blogger to take you up on your offer lol. I was going to say something about my buddy’s amazing review of the US Air credit card that site so smoothly dishes out but I held back myself”
I don’t have any issues with what the bloggers did. They did what they had to do
But lets be clear here – they are not passing off the best information to their readers, because Chase didn’t let them
I would expect such bloggers to speak and the greedy, industry-insider, not-really-about-the-hobby FTU…
…. but at the Chicago Seminars, which are all about the hobby, returning it back to the good ole days, and not being about corporations doing their bidding….. I wonder if the bloggers who given the choice between giving their readers the best information or kowtowing to mega-corporation Chase will be invited to speak
Basically, I want to know if the event is a “people helping others out” event or a “people helping others out, when Chase lets them” event
😉
I would not be surprised to see Chase sponsoring the Alaska cruise 🙂
Along with a few industry insiders coming along…
Cough
If you didn’t already know that the FTG Travel Challenges were mailed in, fill in the blank shilling, the following was (accidentally, presumably) published through their RSS feed. Oops.
——–
We are going to show you how a family of three can travel from Washington, DC to Paris, France, for just $___.
She will need to meet a combined $___ in spending requirements within ___ months ($___ per month). After he finishes completing his spending requirements (which she can help with by being added as an authorized user), she can then apply for her card and complete her spending requirements.
Both individuals should have a credit score above 700. Please be aware that your credit will take a 5 point hit per application.
HER APPS#1 – Ink Bold
HER APPS#2 – Chase
ITINERARY OVERVIEW: Fly out of Dulles (IAD) on _______ on ______ Airlines to Paris (CDG). Arrive _____. Stay 6 nights at the _____. Fly to Rome (FCO) on ___. Stay 6 nights at the ___. Return to IAD on _____.
TOTAL TRIP VALUE: $___ ($_____ per person)
(Note: The airline value is based on the cheapest available seats found using ITA Matrix for sample dates in August. Hotel pricing is also from sample dates from this period.)
HERE’S HOW THEY DO IT:
Multi-city trip: IAD – GCD – FCO
Cost: $______ ($_____ per person)
Method: ___ miles
Cards
1. (x2) – miles
a
b
c
d
Explanation:
Out of Pocket Cost: $___ ($___ in taxes per person)
Hotel
Cost: $___ ($___ per night)
Method: Ultimate Rewards
Cards:
1. (x1) – points
a
b
c
d
Explanation:
Out of Pocket Cost: $___
Nice, LOL!
Is this for real or are you joking around?
If it is…I am not surprised at all. This feature is by far the ______ at that blog. They should kill it but it must be bringing mega revenue so it stays. Never confuse quality with commercial appeal 🙂
This was real.
It’s all about the Ink or whatever is on sale this week! Reminds me many many years ago I went to this “Education” meeting for a company I was thinking about joining only to be bombarded by the “guy from HQ” pitching the latest product du jour and how we can get “free” trips to Jamaica if we sold XX of such product. Got turned off and got the phuck out of there…Fast! Wouldn’t touch that piece of absolute $#@t if my life depended on it.
Looking back, others likely made a killing harming gullible people who bought the sizzle…Happens every day 🙁
HELLLLO George! I agree with you re: Milenomics, his/her philsophy seems fairly closely aligned to my own, and I tend to check there every couple of days. I still flinch every time I see a referral link, but it doesn’t appear to be a link fest like most of the AffiliateArea blogs! 🙂 🙂 🙂
I think I will add it to my “Blogs I Like” list. I am waiting for the blog to run out of gas but keeps pumping (in a good way) great content.
Blogging is not easy!
To hua and all: Support good blogging practices when you can.
Hiya TBB,
I see you have a ways to go to catch up to Darius (12,000 additional readers), and 28,000 additional readers until you catch up with Mr. Hyatt. I wish gleff would give the whole Hyatt thing a rest already. He’s wearing out the old timers.
I haven’t had time to add an email list and Facebook page….This is a let’s make it to the next Buzz post operation.
The darn Andaz pancakes are just too good, it’s a love story, can’t let go. Actually, I can’t wait to taste them myself next year in the Maui Andaz!
You do realize those pancakes are at only one hotel, and it’s not the Andaz Maui?
Yes. Word on the “Street” is that these pancakes are so delicious they may spread to other Andaz properties 🙂
I know I’m a day late, but I just read most of the comments on yesterday’s TBB Blog.
I’m embarrassed for many of the posters that wrote such ‘harsh comments.’ Geesh. It’s only a blog. Whether it’s DP, MMS or FTG. Old time readers know how to read the blogs. New readers will figure it our in time.
End editorial comment.
Yesterday was unbelievable!
I think I always emphasized that TBB reviews blogs (that are, let’s face it, big businesses) and have offered constructive criticism in my own entertaining manner (which many may take it the wrong way).
And I have always encouraged readers to be civil and polite.
If you could only see my email inbox man…This is child’s play in here.
And I always believed others offering criticism is noble and a fundamental feature of our democracy and culture! All bloggers need to hear dissenting opinions and some names once in a while because it is good to keep us grounded and “with the people”. Bloggers who ACTIVELY discourage any differing opinion is by itself, alwyas imho, sad.
I see my blog as a platform to raise awareness and lift the blogging quality (which has fallen to obscenely low levels since those good old days) and make the world a better place by bringing eternal peace & curing world hunger. Or I am smoking something. Sometimes I wish I did like back in my college days lol.
The plan is to post a “bad blogs” list and stop the craziness in the Buzz posts. One day…them blogs just never stop coming in my Feedly feed!
Give me a heads up on your next Brooklyn Reality Tour. Dates yet? I would try to make it!
Thanks for taking the time to comment as always.
Holy filler, Batman!
Is MMS really going to write long winded content on how to use United miles to get to X?
Step 1: When you want to see which airlines fly to a specific airport, use Wikipedia
Step 2: When you see which airlines fly there, and from where, look at the post I made about booking
There, I just save MMS about 250,000 words of posting
I think I should start having contests asking readers to guess how many parts the latest MMS series will get up to 🙂
Nice to see Ariana doing a post featuring ONLY the good US Air offer that does not pay anyone. Only to see afterwards a cc carpet bombing on “holidays” shopping and then Howie telling readers to buy a Macbook using gift cards and not with an Amex to get the additional purchase protections & warranty because, you know, computer things break a little.
I think the staffers there get paid by how many conversions occur based on their posts?
Check to see who has been editing the wiki on the “Censoring blogs” FT thread. They are linking experts, I still have not figured out how to do this FT post linking thing. I do move slow lol.
In other news &%$$%# Comcast has me all over coffee places all day today because of an “outage”.
The bigger question is are the recent hyatt love fest from bloggers coming from undisclosed financial and status benefits. I am not talking about the fake disclosures at the top mentioning commissions.
I am with the anonymous poster from the other day who said it is absolutely stupid to let big blogger get cc money.
George you need to let this FTG hatorade go. Please. See ingy backing off ? I dont know if it his own decision or under directives due to the most recent round of stupidity but help us take your side. Whatever you said in the above comment you can substitute any big name and it willstill be correct so why pick on them. You will lose focus an support if you keep taking this personal.
Re Hyatt: I don’t think so and I sure hope that is not the case. At the end of the day Hyatt’s loyalty program is one of the major loyalty programs left out there that does the loyalty thing very well.. Even after the latest devaluation which was peanuts compared to HIlton’s!
Ok, I got the message about the FTG hatorade. But you know he ‘ll be back 🙂
I need this extra time to devote to actual content that could add some value. Entertainment is part of the mission here and it may take a little hit but, you are right, this has gone on long enough.
You all know how I feel about pushy blogs by now lol. I think most of my readers are intelligent enough to figure it out. I wish some new readers can “get it” too without the back and forth here…
It is time to move on…
to publishing my “Blogs I Ignore” list. I will do it in December. And keep track of these sites monthly.
i can hear a huge sound of relief/phews now from the usual suspects that are a layup in making my list.
Thanks for the feedback. Back to Feedly & more Ink links oh my 🙂
George,
If the BRT happens, it will probably be June 14. Yeah yeah. I know. I’ve been threatening to cancel the tour since BRT 8. 😉
I usually post the date after January 1st in the Community forum of http://www.flyertalk.com
< Needs to know schedule before folks start making plans.
Ok, good to know. I am definitely a maybe 🙂 That’s the last week of school around here…Too early to say for sure.
Gary, we get it. Delta’s currency is nicknamed skypesos
It doesn’t warrant a post every time someone refers to it as such
I know, right! Give it a rest Gary. I mean, it’s not like it was that clever “Sky” + “low value currency unit name”
It’s almost as much as the “Buy Milepoint” membership 🙂