TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
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Happy Thanksgiving to all! I should have another post up here on Friday if I am not too heavy and lethargic from all the “exercise” I will endure on Thursday #evilsmile
TRAVEL
The Power of the Ocean. Found at Twisted Sifter. Words can not begin to describe the pure awesomeness of this sight!
Jaunted had a nice comprehensive guide on “How to Experience TSA PreCheck With 9 US Airlines“. Under Spirit it says “Haha-nope!”
Rapid Travel Chai gets interviewed by CNN regarding his trip to North Korea, wow!
I just discovered Bored Daddy. Here is a post “Beautiful photo collection by Matt Wachowski“. Here is one of them:
The mother of all waters slides will open in Kansas. “‘Insane’ Kansas City Water Slide Reaches 17 Stories“. The park is owned by Schlitterbahn who have been doing water slides/parks for many years.
I took my son to the park outside San Antonio for a weekend years ago (with miles of course, come on!) and we thoroughly enjoyed it, he still remembers it! Here he is:
MILES/POINTS
Solid post on “Best Credit Cards for Low Spenders” by Saverocity.
Here is info on the upcoming 1st Quarter hotel promo by Starwood. Nothing to inspire mattress running again, those days are gone! “Earn 2,500 bonus Starpoints for every five eligible nights you stay (up to 10,000 bonus Starpoints and 20 eligible nights). Plus, get an additional 5,000 bonus Starpoints when you hit 25 eligible nights“. Positive development is that there will be no excluded properties. What a promo, I am excited…NOT!
A trip report on the new Andaz Maui by Just Another Points Traveler. Looks awesome, maybe two nights will not do it justice but we sure will aim our best next April!
I think United has some serious issues! They even mess with the wifi at Starbucks, come on! (HT to Amol @PointsToPointB )
ON MY MIND
I am not going to eat too much this Thanksgiving
I am not going to eat too much this Thanksgiving
I am not going to eat too much this Thanksgiving
So help me Lord 🙂
ODDZ & ENDZ
The father of Dilbert‘s creator and all around great guy Scott Adams passed away. He wrote this “I hope my father dies soon” just a few hours before. And this is the most moving and emotionally raw thing I ever read about doctor assisted suicide. And hell yes I am a supporter and feel his pain, so there! No laughs here 🙁
This is neat! “Every John F. Kennedy Street, Park, Airport, and School in the World” Thanks to reader Neil for sending me this one (and for that incredible NYT obituary of that guy from Pitcairn Island!)
I appreciate any help. I read all emails. I may not feature everything here but I do read them all!
BLOG BUZZ
An oldie but goodie: FREQUENT FLYER LIFE. Probably the best parody site ridiculing what we do!
The blogosphere is still buzzing with the latest mistake fare that originated in a tiny Norwegian airline website. Autoslash posted this must read “Norwegians take United for a ride“. Wow, I had a gut feeling something was not adding up as the increased traffic usually leads these things to shut down quickly! But tickets kept being ticketed and it appears they even added more computers to handle the traffic late into the weekend. This will be so interesting to untangle. My gut feeling (I have been wrong before) is that United was indeed taken for a ride and they will just shut up and eat it before they throw more money going the legal route in European courts. I better check my award ticket on Lufthansa and Aegean now, ya just never know with the geniuses in the IT dept at United!
And I leave you with this 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving, all!
[First!]
First time commenting!
Second!
I would have been First, but my wifi is sponsored by United.
I’m going on a mileage run 6 hours from now why?
Travel safe!
i just used my two free nights with the Hyatt card at the GH Kauai. i liked it a lot, and compared with the review above i’m pretty glad i went where i did. also free parking and they didn’t charge the resort fee, so had 0 total cost at the hotel for a couple days. i was pleased.
Sorry George, this “content” is worthless nonsense. Only reason I read your blog was the rips on all the pathetic pimp artists. Now you appear to be positioning to join them.
#FAIL
Just deleted you from list of bloggers I read. Rick and all the other pimps sure did a good job convincing you had something worth monetizing. But the only thing that attracted eyeballs was your rips on all the pimps. The irony is the very thing that got you an audience is the thing you’re killing off – and surprise, surprise, now you’re “playing nice” and in come the affiliate links you so desperately wanted all along. Hypocrite?
To those who continue to read your blog, shame on them, as they then tacitly support selling out -this “hobby” has WAY more than its share of money grubbing sellouts who do it because they “love helping friends and family”. I guess we can add another to that long line?
good bye Paul, you will NOT be missed
Have a thoughtful Thanksgiving, Paul.
Verruct? You mean verrückt or verrucht?
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verr%C3%BCckt
http://www.dict.cc/german-english/verrucht.html
@TWA44: Congrats, thank you and Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
@Shaun: Welcome here. You can try harder (to be first) like Avis 🙂
@Amol: Lol. That was the perfect pic for the current state of United by the way, gracias.
@Kathy: Because you are addicted to this stuff. You sure know how to pick em. Best of luck, you ‘ll need it 🙂
@Mark: Sounds wonderful, great job!
@Paul: It is an honor getting ripped by you. I could go on with a counter argument line by line but I won’t say anything new. Sorry you feel this way. At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own actions. Wish you the best and enjoy Thanksgiving with your family. TBB#notasellout…yet
@ Oliver2002: Will fix, danke.
Happy birthday to me, happy Thanksgiving to everyone!
Happy Birthday, Grant! And Happy Chanukah to Dan and anyone else who will be lighting the first candle tonight!
I sure am glad I am not traveling back east today.
We have a free night at any SPG hotel which we must use by Feb 28. And we have no travel planned except Las Vegas where we got a BRG and where it seem silly to use a free SPG night. Does anyone have a good suggestion for a quick getaway for someone based in PDX? I am not averse to driving someplace…. Any SPG hotels people have liked in Seattle or ????
Happy Birthday Grant and don’t eat too much turkey!
Don’t waste the frree night at the Westin Seattle. Very under performing hotel. I am sure others can have an idea or two, maybe not the best timing to ask this the day before Thanksgiving 🙂
On a 2nd thought I may not have a post Friday…Thanksgivingitis (laziness) is invading my body 🙂
I think the whole miles and points blogging thing is getting old.
I checked a few “mainstream” ones last few days and there is absolutely nothing new or even remotely interesting on any of them. How many times can the same cr@p be repeated, seriously…
There is no interesting trip reports, no “tricks”, the same non-event info or news.
All the bloggers who were at some point excited or at least sounded excited, like Daraius or Summer, sound completely bored and burned out. I know I’m personally not gonna follow any of those blogs anymore, I can check flyertalk once in a while, but I have no interest in “learning” when there is nothing new to learn.
For me the value of a good blog is entertainment and good trip reports, and by that I don’t mean another first class menu or lounge. I want to learn about some great and beautiful places I don’t know about and about some cool experiences.
I think George agrees with me and I completely understand his direction. How many time can he repeat the same stuff about the same people releasing the same cr@ppy blog posts?
I think if George can point me to the best selection of posts which meet my criteria, it’s way more interesting and useful to me.
True there isn’t any Grand Slam or Faster Free Nights style excitement right now, but I don’t think miles and points are anywhere close to boring. Sorry to hear it reads that way, but sure doesn’t feel that way. There have been tons of pretty cool shopping portal payouts and a few black Friday style travel deals that sound cool this week. Maybe not exciting to everyone, but pretty exciting to me. 😉
Always love checking in your photos – those certainly aren’t boring!
Summer, you are the sweetest of the blogging world and that hasn’t/won’t change 🙂
But yes, it is becoming boring. The big titles from last week are “save $10” etc which is nothing to be excited about I’m afraid. Buying magazines for 100 extra miles is not either, you must agree. Especially comparing to the extra cost related to all the devaluations…
Thanks for your last comment, I promise more pics soon, got swamped at work, but that’s not an excuse…
It’s not bloggers fault – they do what Chase lets them do. And Chase doesn’t let them talk about the better CSP offer
So one of the more exciting thing that happened last week, the bloggers were forced to pretend it didn’t exist
Until this past week, has MP ever gone 2 straight days without talking about/linking the CSP?
If the United mistake happened 2 weeks ago, do you think a single blogger would’ve passed up the opportunity to remind people to book on that norweigian site with a CSP due to no foreign transaction fee?
affiliate links get them excited. thus when they can’t provide the links, they naturally get bored. They can only fake Chase Freedom excitement for so long
You’re doing the right thing then by taking a break from the blogs. I’m jazzed over my $100 small biz sat money and that united yq issue over the weekend was also pretty fun, even though I ultimately just window shopped.
Maybe I’m easily amused though. Either way, will look forward to more pics when you catch up with work.
@ Lenticular Travel: Thanks again for the kind words. I know exactly where you are coming from and I agree. There are just way TOO many blogs these days and most repeat themselves. Every once in a while something pops up that is TRULY exciting (like this Wideroe Lehman Brothers like “mistake” hehe). When you add it to the devaluations you see even the same bloggers just can not contain the level of prior excitement levels 🙂
I got tired of entertaining you all about the same things and same bloggers. Time to evolve this baby. Share with you my eclectic taste.
@ Mommy Points: If a book is ever written on how bloggers should reply to comments I would sure hope so the way you do it is included in the book! You are simply the best at it.
You know something is missing in the US when it takes some obscure Norwegians to excite us all 😉
Personally, I could not contain my enthusiasm reading what cards are in Lucky’s wallet
Word 🙂
@TBB @MP – I have to totally agree that mommypoints has a way with answering comments. I’m having a hard time articulating what is so great about it (also without sounding a bit effusive with my praise), but yeah, anyone wanting to learn would do well to read how MP responds to people’s comments. You know, I think it’s the way a mature person would actually talk face to face, rather than in the abstracted world of the internet.
I absolutely agree Jamie, thanks!
Andrew, Points and miles didn’t become boring, you became adept at the common things.
I strayed into the darksidr last week with a post on how to get to Asia or Europe for 25k in Biz. That wasn’t boring at all!
The backlash from the community implied that such matters may be beyond the blogs and if you want to take things to the next level you need to find different sources.
The moral though, is that you went through an exciting learning curve and now have reached a level of competence where you feel bored by the common fodder. It’s actually akin to the entitlement concept.
As you know, I love your blog too! And there’s a lot more to learn about the game.
I am bored…
I was going to work on a post tonight to publish it on Friday morning while I recover from a day of eating and football tomorrow…but have no desire. I think I will take my daughter to go see Hunger Games and eat some popcorn (no butter)…
I think you’ve got it Matt. I’m at that point a bit myself. I started this about a year ago (maybe I’m ready to start my own blog now. Ha!), and for months I could read all the back articles on tpg, mp, omaat, ftg and it was great. Now I’m to the point where the basic info isn’t new and exciting to me. I also think that lately there haven’t been many *amazing* deals. There’s been a lot of devaluation. So, if your tapering learning curve has also corresponded with a bit of a lull in the game, then yeah, it can definitely seem less exciting. But as was said above by Andrew and mommypoints, take a little break from miles & points, focus more on travel and I think the excitement will come back.
Just wanted to chime in to say that I agree – MommyPoints really has class. Her replies when someone critiques her content or style are always polite and gracious. I totally agree; she really does win the prize for this.
I don’t think we can expect that bloggers will hit it out of the park with every post. No matter who they are. I will participate in Small Bus Saturday but I am pretty bored with all the shopping hoopla. Someone in this community tweeted tonight that s/he is more excited about Black Friday and Cyber Monday than about Thanksgiving. To my mind, there is something wrong with that…. Much as I was tempted, I did not tweet a reply saying that!
@TBB, thanks for your feedback on the Seattle Westin. I can’t believe I have a free night coming that I don’t now what to do with. Sadly, it is not transferable so I can’t book anything for anyone else either…. In this time of Thanksgiving, I am grateful to have such a first world problem.
Summer has a beautiful smile and she’s genuinely happy. There is nothing fake about it.
It’s the subject. Beautiful places, amazing experiences and great memories will last. Beautiful pictures will help, I’m just saying 🙂
I just don’t get why anyone would wait in line for a few days to get a tv set. Hello, return on investment anyone? How much do you value your 5 days in front of a store? $100?
And maybe, just maybe you don’t even need that tv? What are you gonna watch? Please tell me…
$10 saved if I use my Amex on Saturday. But I don’t really need anything. Am I saving more by not using it at all? I think so.
Please, instead of running like a crazy person to a store to buy cr@p you don’t need – stay at home with your family, plan a trip to an amazing place you have always wanted to visit and spend those miles as tomorrow they will be worth less. Life is short, don’t overthink, just go. There are still amazingly beautiful places to see and those miles will help you get there easily and comfortably. Bring some pictures and maybe George will share them here 🙂
I have never waited in line on Black Friday (or any day actually) to buy some crap. I absolutely despise this tradition!
Well said:
“…stay at home with your family, plan a trip to an amazing place you have always wanted to visit and spend those miles as tomorrow they will be worth less. Life is short, don’t overthink, just go. There are still amazingly beautiful places to see and those miles will help you get there easily and comfortably.”
I am not an avid sports fan but I just saw on Twitter that your Detroit Lions won! I imagine that brightened your day!
Looks we will just do a quick few days away to Seattle/Tacoma and we’ll use that free night at the W in Seattle. Not Hawaii and only a Category 5 – but free is free and that’s all we can do given the time constraints. I am looking forward to seeing more of Dale Chihuly’s amazing glass art, both in museums and at outside installations like the Glass Bridge.
Today we connected by phone to various friends and family who we won’t see later and enjoyed a gorgeous sunny fall day. And now we are off to a 5PM Thanksgiving dinner with my daughter and her husband as well as dear friends. My son is working in LA today (at the LA Auto Show which is open). The first thing they asked him when he interviewed was are you okay working on Thanksgiving? But he did get to go to a Clippers game last night. He leaves for Miami and ArtBasel on Saturday.
Happy rest of the day!
Yeah, I have been a Detroit Lions fan for many years . Most of these years have been crashed due to their ability to keep losing 🙂
I am not a big fan of W hotels. A bit too much “diva” modernity style. Hope your experience is better!
Been doing two dinners every Thanksgiving for dinner. And I take a nap in between. By the time I am home I sleep like a baby.
Zzzzzzzzz
Never been to a W. I picked it mostly because it was a Cat 5 and the other SPG hotels in Seattle were 4’s. We’ll see.
We were never big Lions fans when we lived in A2 but we did enjoy Michigan football. I even had a crush on the quarterback!
G’night.