We go on a wild ride again joining ISIS, loving Southwest, learning all about IHG Rewards, flying through the Corinth Canal, watching Alex Honnold climb Mt. Watkins and an amazing Europe timelapse video, learning how important it is to stay solvent and controlling your living costs, laugh at eyebrows, laugh even more on airplane passengers and pants they wear, go inside the Million Mile Secrets World Headquarters and learn about its killer product “Templates”, and then I have enough time in the Blog Buzz section to raise some hell, be called a selfish douche bag (LOL) and in general raise some hell. #megalongsentence!
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MILES/POINTS
DansDeals joined ISIS! Too bad Sprint does not allow the soon to be renamed company. Be careful dropping Bluebird and signing up with Serve, I have read horror stories. I should shop around away from Sprint which I have been using forever. Ever since that stupid new “Framily” Plan I am paying way too much!
Why We Love Southwest. By Miles4More. Great blog post laying it all out. Screw you Delta, I don’t miss you at all!
The Complete Guide to IHG Rewards. By Travel Is Free. Why read other “pseudo” miles/points experts when they are really marketing credit card sales experts, huh?
TRAVEL
In pictures: Red Bull pilot Péter Besenyei flies through the narrow Corinth Canal. This Canal is outside and south of Athens. Yeah, this is the Greek Panama Canal!
Alex Honnold Free Soloing Mt. Watkins in Yosemite. No problem at all, looks like a piece of cake. But all the bugs would definitely bother me so I wouldn’t do it JUST because of…the bugs! 🙂
30 Country Timelapse Tour of Europe. Another totally stunning timelapse video found at Twisted Sifter.
ODDZ & ENDZ
The importance of being solvent. A must read personal finance article by Jonathan Clements of the Wall Street Journal.
This is pure awesomeness! Airplane Passengers as Explained By Their Pants. At McSweeny’s Internet Tendency. Thanks to reader Elaine TWA44 for tweeting this to me! You must click this! Just a few to get a taste:
Tight Black Stretch Pants: Will be a pharmaceutical sales rep named Morgan.
Pink Sweatpants: Will laugh her ass off at the Adam Sandler in-flight movie.
Blue Capris: European on business.
Red Capris: European on holiday.
Plaid Capris: European on way to rehab.
Golf Pants: Will “accidentally” click on a porn link on his laptop.
30 Hilarious and Awkward Eyebrow Fails. At Seenox. Had to add this here because I remembered my Eyebrows blog post from early last year!
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is for long time followers of this hobby and references to blogs/bloggers may not make much sense to you if you are new to this. You are welcome to stay and read it of course but if you go WTF just remember this note!
Some technical glitch happened again at Million Mile Secrets and we see what goes behind the scenes. It’s freaking templates! Here is Template Number 5
Please take some time to grasp what goes on here. We are talking the ultimate manufacturing of blog posts designed to sell more credit card product. No, you were not imagining you were seeing content multiple times as some staffer all he/she has to do is change the red text. What is next? The miles/points robot? WTF!!! This is like the McDonald’s “HappyCrappy Meal” super sized! Yikes. Must be nice to have staff pumping content…Heck, even a caveman can do it with such amazing templates. I wonder how many templates there are in the employee manual! Disclosure: This link was entered in the TBB comments so please don’t even go there! And we are not done…
Apparently, some staffer must have made a mistake as I received in my Feedly all the upcoming Million Mile Secrets posts. Here they are:
Reading the Friday interviews before they appear on the blog is kind of cool. Next up: Road Warriorette and Kambam Adventures (who?). Hey it is good for the clicks I guess but certainly not for credibility imho. DON’T BE A TOOL! Anyways, nothing original as usual, just humongous pics and arrows along with numerous credit card links as usual. Just pumping content that can be found elsewhere MUCH better. At least The Points Guy has its staff sign the blog posts they write. Who knows what writes what in this one! Don’t miss Million Mile Secrets, LLC in the Chicago Seminars. No gracias, nothing personal! I am just wired differently I guess. By the way, I am not angry at all. Hope your mother in law still likes you because mine still doesn’t…I think. Please make a template to explain mothers in law, thanks!
Howie’s posts over at the Frugal Travel Guy make me cringe. How many times and in how many ways the same basic things can be told again and again? Do its regular readers go back for the same stuff again and again? How long does it take for new meat newbies to get that the real purpose of the site is to make them buy more credit cards and not much else? Check them out at the Chicago Seminars!
Travel Summary made a post and told him what I felt and one of the readers there called ME a selfish douchebag. I immediately went into an LOL rage. I mean, is this free entertainment or what? Shaking my head. I don’t want to link to the post because the last thing we need is more exposure. I understand the pressure between full time blogging and aiming to earn a living doing this and the incredible fragility of some of the deals out there. I mean, is it any wonder so many of us keep our mouths shut and only tell our close friends we trust? I better stop. I need to take a break and going to eat some of this awesome watermelon I got! My grandfather used to grow watermeleons and taught me how to pick them. It’s all in the sound. Maybe one day I can demonstrate when we go Krogering 😉
Delta Points blogged about how many miles he has and really wants you to click on his Flex and Arrival cards. Also wants you to click on the tiny pictures so traffic can be doubled? Dang! Brilliant if you ask me. Must have been found on a marketing template somewhere! And we are somewhere in Part 65 in the never ending trip report to Sweden (again). Giggles. Bunches. Sorta. Oh wait, SCHEDULE CHANGE! Okay, I better put down the wine bottle. This blogging thing is going to make me an alcoholic at this rate. Just had a brilliant thought. I can buy wine using my Amazon link (after getting 5x using my Ink Bold to buy Amazon gift cards at Staples….dang it, I need to do this Visa Savings Edge thingie sometime…one day…) Self Slap! Ok, I am back on the ground now…
One Mile at a Time loves Lufthansa and…the Hawaiian Airlines credit cards! Zzzzzzzz….
Mega site The Points Guy blogged about…Amazon Payments! Got a little touchy out there…
We go back to the Archives and discover another video of TBB from his early youth! There is only world to describe: Stud!
I just could not resist one more for you!
This post was brought to you with sweat and tears without the assistance of any freaking template. Everything is written by TBB and approved by TBB. All tweets are done by TBB.
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Uno! Now I have to go back and read
How does it feel to be a first First! Top of the World? I certainly do when I sneak in and go First just to get a chuckle out of readers’ reaction 🙂
Second – improved on third from a few months ago. I pick my timing 🙂
You will be First soon,..I know it…I can feel it…Perseverance always wins in the end. Very well trained employees at your malls by the way 🙂
Thank you – despite my empire, I still hang around here with the great unwashed 😉
Third template?
I am sure template #16 is in the production floor as we speak!
To give credit where credit us due, I learned about the popular post on passenger pants from a tweet by Pam Mandel of @nerdseyeview. She not only tweets links to interesting stuff but she can be most amusing in 140 characters – or less.
As for MMS you know the slogan: Reduce (effort), Reuse (posts), Recycle (information).
Explained Avios to my Chase banker today. He admitted to cashing in 40,000 UR points for $400 and using the money to buy an airline ticket. Cringe.
I followed her, thanks. I like her blog. Just someone unique, so many sound like everyone else in the blogosphere!
Yeah, still hard to believe people do that with their UR points!
Isis Serve has been very, very good to me. Losing its most valuable promos though.
I’m shocked that Dan didn’t try to work the $10 refer-a-friend feature of Isis. Unaware of it or not worth the effort?
Probably unaware…which is shocking! Dude is losing the touch lately, still can’t get over the Amex revenue coming in 🙂
Losing touch?
You apparently didn’t get in on the amazon deodorant deal.
Here’s the recent Amazon Payments post on Modest Money:
http://www.modestmoney.com/make-extra-240-per-year/
Don’t know how many of you have heard of this blog, but it’s a personal finance blog with pretty good rankings–Alexa has it around 7,000 (vs 5,000 for MMS). It was published on July 28, same as TPG’s post. Maybe one was inspired by the other? Or maybe it’s just a harbinger of doom? Who knows.
I have had Modest Money in my Feedly for a long time. I did not think it was THAT popular! Then again, popularity goes with sucky I guess a lot, just look at the blogs in my Ignore list lol.
Check my twitter feed me going at it with the Miles Professor who, suddenly, discovered Simon Malls and had to tell readers about it all and push her Barclays Arrival credit card.
Good stewardship my you know what!
Actually the Miles Prof bought her VGCs at a non-Simon mall. She describes exactly my experience at my go-to mall for these. I even got a thank you note from them for my purchase and encouraging me to come back for more. But unless I need to quickly meet a minimum spend or boost point balances, I don’t expect to push it much.
Got a call today from my mall to ask the reason for my gc purchases for “audit purposes”. I was shocked.
TBB that is nothing for The Miles Professor. Once she pumped the Lufthansa credit card (because the bonus was going down) in one post and led right into the Barclay Card in the next because it is “a great card those who were maybe thinking about traveling sometime possibly in the future.” I saw two more pumps a piece for both those cards over the next week.
Yep…Would have been okay with it (not really) if that Barclays Arrival was not pushed with it. At least the post is now down so I guess there is room for improvement 🙂
Guest post by William at DOC? What a dumbass.
I do not see the need for name calling.
I see no need for such posts. Then again I am not in the business. Hey DOC, I hear MMS pays well and you don’t have to sign them 🙂
I call it what it is. What else do you call it? Jason Steele in training?
That was by DoC? Had no idea… that explains it, though.
Killer post today! Loved all the stream of consciousness…had to reread it again to laugh again at all the crazinessness in the world!! Thanks!
(Hey. What would happen if these blogs would have integrity? They might act like a certain local shop near me… http://www.columbian.com/news/2014/jul/23/vancouver-pot-store-alleges-price-gouging/ )
Krogering! Ha!! That one kills me!
I can see it now…”Top 10 credit cards to buy weed”. Oh wait, not sure if these places can accept credit cards. I hear they are cash only so screw that then! If that stays as is rest assured no blogger will write about that then…
The craziness of it all the past few days is kind of surreal.
The different ways to just smoothly pump product writing about crap continues to amaze me…
Got a call today from my local mall wanting to learn the reason for my “gift card purchases” for audit purposes. Let’s write more about it and push more credit cards while not telling anyone how much you get paid by selling credit cards.
Ok, I need to relax.
You can always use your Suntrust debit card 😉
Maybe if the new pot stores accept CCs we’ll finally have a Saverocity West Coast DO in PDX, with a road trip up to Vancouver. Just think: we could charter a bus and have a really fun-filled field trip. 😉
I can picture it now…. Harold & Kumar Go on a Mileage Run. Picture the crossover (Chase-y bonus) possibilities. And Neil Patrick Harris teaches them how to churn credit cards. I’d pay to see this trip….
Sounds like a nice movie to me! It will smoke all others when it opens at theatres!
It’s nice that a stop would rather close than sell something inferior. Imagine if the pumpers just shut up instead of pumping something inferior.
(If I took a long hit just before I wrote that, I’m sure I would burst out laughing!)
stop—>shop
Lol, you had me there for a second…
I am waiting for the CHASE MARKETING MACHINE to post something like:
We never close. Keep on selling Chase credit cards–End transmission!
I think the guys at Hack My Trip have been producing quality posts lately, so I was stunned to see todays post. Andaz the Best hotel on Maui?!?! WTF? Four Seasons! Ritz Carlton! Even the Grand Wailea is a better hawaiian experience. Dont’ get my wrong, Andaz is nice but no way is it the best hotel on Maui (not to mention the myriad of stunning and peaceful private rentals available). Some of these bloggers suffer from such a myopic view of vacation accomodations. If you can’t use points from a credit card to obtain the accomodation, or obtain elite status then it doesn’t register. Excuse me while I go and clean up the Cheerio’s that I spit all over my laptop after reading that post.
I think HMT is a better site without Scott’s contributions. I have found his fondness for free hotel breakfast to cloud his judgment when it comes to hotel reviews, so I dont even bother reading them any more. He also comes across as extremely defensive when responding to some of the comments.
Agree with The Common Man, again.
I don’t bother with trip reports/hotel reviews. We are all different with different tastes. I do tend to read some that I may have visited or plan to visit. I read this one and I thought it was very different than what I experienced in the same hotel in April. Wildly over rated imho. I liked the Fairmont much better. I would rather hold making statements the best when bloggers have not experienced many hotels. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice for 2 free nights and free breakfasts with Diamond Trial 🙂
If Hyatt gave me 3 nights to give away I would gladly give them out to readers too but nobody contacts me and I am too proud to go ask because, then, I may be wired to say nice things about them lol.
You know, the benefit of seeing MMS templates is that you can take those templates and make templates for yourself. You even know the schedule now.
I would love to see someone publish the “future posts” that showed up in TBB’s reader. If they are not actually published on a website yet, are they subject to copyright protection?? (DP’s lawyer would know!)
Yeah really.
Stayed away from blogs all day to work on the TBB Templates. Thinking to kickstart this templating project. You know, it’s ridiculous, but would love to take your money if you guys want me to go all template-y LOL
I think I’ve seen more coverage of Citi TYP and Marriot credit cards in the past week than I’ve seen the previous year combined.
So which destination in the USA do you guys think tomorrow’s “Travel Challenge” will get you to by using the Barclays Arrival card and redeeming the CSP for 1.25 cpp? Or as it’s known around here, which city do you think they’ll enter into the pre-populated template?
Yeah, isn’t it amazing how quickly credit cards are suddenly blogged about when bloggers get paid to sell them huh?
I think the “Travel Challenge” template was exposed…last year 🙂
Whew! Thought you really had gotten sick from a VD you caught up Georges ass. Its ok, the value he adds responding to comments here are worth about as much as any of the bitch posts he complains about.
Hope your family enjoys the time you spend on this shit site Steve I bet the kids are happy dad chooses to spend his time here. And for that Marriott card at 70k and a free night who gives a shit if its getting pumped if it is a decent deal. You might be even more of a captain of the obvious than the king of asshats himself.
George, quality followup to Steve’s comment. The wet slimy shit that comes out of my dogs ass provides more value than your words. Keep it up chief.
So stevesucks is MMS? I didn’t expect this much of garbage and foul language from him though.
You’ve figured me out. Excellent detective work, you should teach Steve and Ramsey and perhaps give George a crash course on how you became so intelligent.
Go redeem some miles for a new blender will ya?
You are a coward hiding behind bloggers. This is just ridiculous. Sorry MMS.
Kumar, ignore. Obviously way too much time in his hands 😉
Did MilesProfessor remove a post on buying Gift Cards at a mall because she got it wrong?
I expect she took it down because folks on twitter (led by our fearless leader TBB) objected to how many non-vanilla beans she was spilling. First she added a clarification; then I guess she took it down cuz it isn’t around anymore, although some tweets referring to it are.
I appreciate it that she took it down. I do not expect those type of posts Z (with the Arrival card smooth pumping ) from other posters, not from a speaker in the Saverocity gatherings.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0FZ0AM20140730?irpc=932
They really are vultures. They bought bonds from a troubled country and decided to litigate for face value. Fuvk them. I know Menem and Cavallo shouldn’t have issued as many in the first place, but this is just using the legal system to extract a pound of flesh. Let them squeeze another turnip instead. Oh and to translate this to miles and points-speak: anyone using a credit card in beautiful Buenos Aires is a fool. Click my Hilton link.
I agree with everything you said. Click my Amazon link 🙂
Why is Steve Sucks so fascinated with arses and sh*t?
I miss ingy…
May be he has got a template for that too 🙂
Awww, no troll and less comments. Finding less value day in / out here aren’t you captain idiot?
I Wish I could come up with a template for all you morons here; you’re all just so different in your dumb-schmuckery … but yet all the same group of whiney bitches.
He must be German?