Hello and buckle up because we are going on another wild TBB ride through some developments at United, learn of all the no surcharge AA flights to Europe and how to plan itineraries, teach newbies to score some easy wins and also warn them of the dangers of having too many travel reward credit cards, travel to Aragon and Socotra Island Yemen, learn from Peter Lynch on Stock Market Losses, get inspired by a most interesting read introducing the term “the FU fund”, and of course we end with the best Blog Buzz in this crazy little hobby big business!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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MILES/POINTS
United is Making Some Network and Scheduling Changes, and Most of Them are Good. By Cranky Flier. Maybe Jeff is not doing such a bad job and bought some time? Maybe he can do a come back a la Le Bron? 🙂 Anyways, burning United miles flying United remains a good deal to get to your destination! And I would rather read analysis like this instead of at View From the Wing!
I do not like this milescards site. But this is good info that you should know. Every no-surcharge flight to Europe (80+) with American AAdvantage miles Yeah, I could do linking like this more often but I usually tend to skip over posts by Blogs I Ignore.
Hacking Award Seats to the Middle East, India and Africa – All 60 Routes. By Hack My Trip. Hey, they are not mailing in posts here! Hope these tables are maintained #hint.
How to Plan Your Itinerary. By Hack My Trip. Again, what’s up with these guys? Excellent tips here, nicely laid out. Hey other bloggers, it makes a difference when you know your stuff AND know how to write well.
Great blog post for newbies by Frequent Miler: Easy Wins This is a blog post that other credit card sales pumpers look at and start counting all the missed opportunities to push their merchandise! If you just happened to find my blog take some time to read this to see what is possible!
Travel is Free is at it again…United Error Message Decision Making Tree. Great chart!
Credit Karma now shows your full credit report (from Transunion).
The Citi Executive card signing bonus has been stricken with the Ebola virus! Shrinking fast from 100k AAdvantage miles, to 75k and now just down to 60k miles…Next stop?
Another great piece for newbies! Fishing 4 Deals wrote “15 is My Limit on Schnitzengruben, ahem, Rewards Credit Cards“. And this my friends is the reason why it so so dangerous to recommend to newbie readers looking for a cash back card to apply for 7 credit cards at once like the credit card “experts” do over at the Frugal Travel Guy. At the end of the day, we need to help newbies with sensible advice and nurture them along, not maul them from the get go and scar them (possibly) for life when they can’t handle it. Having a good credit score does NOT mean they can handle more than a few credit cards at at time, helllooooooooooooo? Notice something about the post? Yes it has affiliate links, disclosed and they are properly placed in a post that took some time to write! It’s A OKAY when you consider the history of said blogger who tries not to repeat the same old recycled info everyone else does and sure does not pump them every single day! So there!
TRAVEL
Southwest Airlines is going international more and more. Giddy for Points found some maps showing the timeline of the Southwest expansion!
A gorgeous video timelapse of the Aragon winter in the Spanish Pyrenees. At The Adventure Blog.
Socotra Island, Yemen: 15 Pictures Of ‘The Most Alien-Looking Place On Earth . This is the complete opposite of the Maldives and you can bet your 5x cards that no miles/points blogger would be doing a trip report here anytime soon. If you enjoy this stuff please click on my Amazon link, imagine a huge arrow pointing to it right now lol.
30 Most Breathtaking Swimming Spots From Around The World! Whoa!! At Seenox. I had the hardest time picking the one photo to feature here. Breathtaking is an understatement!
ODDZ & ENDZ
This short read by an Indian living in New Delhi really registered with me. Or maybe it is the term he gave: The F*ck You Fund 🙂 I can afford the choice of not working full time—it took two decades of planning and discipline. All I gotta say is that the Amazon link I have here is my FU fund. Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Peter Lynch on Stock Market Losses. At a Wealth of Common Sense. Excellent personal finance read!
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is for long time followers of this hobby and references to blogs/bloggers may not make much sense 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!
Hey, look at my blog. I now have a FREE credit card consulting service. I will spend my time analyzing your situation and recommending the best cards for you. What are you going to do, go elsewhere to apply for the credit cards I recommend for you after I spend all this time for FREE? So many eager bloggers competing to help you travel for FREE! Freeyourlinks, and your ass will follow! Just made this up! I laughed about it. This is not about me by the way…
If you have a blog and you change your RSS feed please let me know so I can add it to Feedly. If you have a new blog please let me know so I can add it to Feedly. I like to give all new blogs a try out period, say two months or so. I periodically go on purges when I give up on your blog (or you give up, it happens a lot!). If I do give up I will not let you know so I will not hurt your feelings!
Please do not let me know via Twitter, Facebook, email or whatever about your latest blog post. My life is crazy enough as it is keeping track of 345 blogs (down from almost 600 after the GRAND PURGE a week or so ago). When you let me know of a link of your post, I feel very conflicted! If I like it and feature it…this may encourage you to do it more and/or you feel that you can influence me. And I do not like that! So, from now on, please keep the links to yourselves. Thank you. Nothing personal. Just like to be more efficient so I can continue to bring you something that makes me proud!
Another blog joins the Boarding Area #wearenotreadyyettojointhemainBA prior2boarding network: The Reward Boss.
The Gate left Flyer Talk and went back to its original location, Boarding Area.
Mommy Points is one of the nicest persons. But seeing blog posts like “Chase extended the schedule” ( OMG, really? Wow!) and the typical “click my Chase Sapphire card and Chase Ink cards” too just really really gets old!
View from the Wing reports that the end is near…Warm nuts in AA flights are no more. Clearly a tragedy! I am expecting One Mile at a Time to weigh in, he must be clearly distraught by these developments. On a brighter note, you can all breathe easier…warm cookies were not cut, hoorAAy!
Personal Finance Digest wants you to: TAKE THE QUIZ! Who wrote it: a blogger, or the Chase marketing department? Proof item #287,457 that bloggers hyping this up are just mouthpieces for Chase and nothing else! Your most important asset is credibility and you ain’t got none!
Posts that make me vomit: “Chase Sapphire Preferred or United Explorer MileagePlus Card Offer?” by Noob Traveler. Template #14CSP and “5% Cash Back Calendar July-September From Discover it” by Points, Miles & Martinis Template #21DIS and this mainstream “personal finance” site Modest Money pumping credit cards giving out “expert” advice in “5 Ways to Earn Airline Miles without Stepping Foot on a Plane” (please don’t go there, you have been warned!).
When will the Delta Points endless trip report and Barclays Arrival affiliate card links thrown in there end, when? Lord have mercy!
Milevalue wrote a pump piece for one of the Thank You credit cards and added the link seven times! Because one or two is never enough. WTF!!!
Please let’s start a movement to prove that pumping does NOT work! Because, sadly, it does 🙁 So….let’s start the revolution anyway. Sounds like fun to me. Friends don’t let friends click the credit card links of bloggers who pump so much, STOP THE PUMPING!!!
Yes he can!
At the end of the day, my site is a joke and is primarily about entertainment. So, did you have a few good laughs? Because I sure did! If you learned something or (shockingly) were inspired by something you first saw here…that’s all a bonus!
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs I Ignore
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TBB
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Oh, the excitement! First time being first!
My feed reader takes too long to update… second!
George-
The last few posts have been truly First Class. Even suites, maybe. Welcome back, though we knew you never really went away.
And congrats to you and all of us for Ingy saying we are juvenile. That’s like Tiger saying “Nice Swing”. Not that Tiger swings, though I think he used to. Oh-how juvenile!
Buzz whatever happened to that broad who called you a slacker couple of months ago?
The picture is Sellin Pier in Sellin,Germany on the North Sea, almost 200 miles north of Berlin.
Thank you for the mention, George…
…and please note that I am listening: you and other TravelBloggerBuzz readers have asked that I post more trip reports; and I have been doing so since The Gate returned to BoardingArea.
I hope you enjoy them — and please feel free to criticize if you do not…
Brian, absolutely nothing personal (honest) but it is a bit scary the way your face jumps out at me every time I open the Boarding Area home page!
I actually agree with you, Raffles. That photograph was not meant to be THAT big!
As someone who likes going to “weirder” places, I’ll note that I did use miles to get to Yemen a couple years ago (and to stay at the Sheraton there). Socotra is a super interesting place. http://www.klugusamy.com/archives/trip-reports/babymoon/socotra/
Well, I commented on a story at PMM. Genuine curiosity on my part. Another poster tried to slut shame me. THAT was truly trying to bully someone. And really odd too.
I’m from Detroit. I’m not having any of that!!!!
I’m always curious about what others have to say about Paris. So I read. And sometimes their clueless indifference annoys me. Especially when it’s happily chosen ignorance.*sigh*
I knew better too. LOL I can’t help myself sometimes.
ARGHHH. I really don’t understand how someone can be all over the whole points/miles earning world yet be so comepletely unaware of the destination to which they travelled.
What was the point of earning the method to go?? (see the pun? eh.)
Instead, just go to the French pavillion at Epcot. I like Epcot. I always have fun. It’s not a bad place to go; plus fireworks at the end of the night.
*Never mind me while I take up space to rant. And vent. And ponder the absurdity of it all.*
I just got back from Paris a few weeks ago. On my blog you will see a trip report and my thoughts on the Park Hyatt if interested. I wouldn’t be too harsh on people’s clueless indifference to Paris, for some it just may not be their thing. I research the hell out of most places I go, including Paris. But I have to say I don’t get some people’s love affair with Paris. I liked it, I want to go back (and not stay at the Vendome) but I enjoy other places much more. I liked Rome more. Above all I really like small country towns better than big cities. Maybe it means I don’t get Paris, but I just think it is not my style.
Was reading this last night on Flyertalk. This kid sounds like he is in his 20’s, and has been following the advice of “experts.” The post that I quote below really widened my eyes:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/chase-ultimate-rewards/1600265-chase-closed-my-4-credit-cards-100-000-ur-points.html
Page 2, Post 21
This all really sucks because I hired a “points coach” who worked for TPG for several years and seemed legitimate and yet didn’t mention a single thing about “being careful” and “reading reading reading”. At this point if I were to maintain a blog or offer consulting services the first thing I would ever tell anybody is to be extremely careful, read FT as much as possible and then read more. FML
If you (I mean the poster) hire a points coach in the first place, you are probably asking to be screwed.
Also the guy was probably too lazy to spend time reading FT. No excuse for it. He knew it existed since he posted his problem on it.
If you get tricked by the blogger sales pitch the first time around, I get it. But if you are aware that they are looking for their pockets and not the readers’ interests and still don’t bother to look for better sources of info, then you probably are a dumb moron.
I saw a similar story on another board. He had paid for Chris Guillebeau’s “Travel Hacker” video course. Absolutely no details about credit score, inquiries, etc. First time applying and just did a blast of applications. 6 of Chris’s “Top Credit Cards”. 3 Chase cards. One card was not an affiliate link, the SPG Amex…which still said it was a 30K offer.
Another board member went in to a Chase bank to apply for the Ink Bold 70K. His “business” was renting a room in his house for less income per year than the minimum spend.
I see casualties of the Ignore List frequently.
We never read about the casualties…
Thanks for the linky TBB 🙂 Also love the pics…lets me daydream at work
@ the other carl: How does it feel being First? Congrats!
@ FF: Lol, darn feed feeders running our lives!
@ Sam: Thank a lot, appreciate that. Trying to run TBB on a new template. Attacking Feedly throughout the day before letting the “Unread” snowball to hundreds and updating Buzz drafts as I go. Hope I can keep this up but don’t count on it. It’s August summer time. Yeah can you believe we “angries” are juvenile huh? I laughed at the Tiger Woods swing comment!
@ RAMSEY: I don’t know what happened to her and I don’t really care 🙂
@ Erik: Wow, thank you, that was fast! I knew a TBB reader will know. Hope it is as lovely in real life as it looks in the pic!
@ Brian Cohen: Ok, I am reading, catching up. I can’t believe you have written so many articles! We would all like to know the specifics of $$ credit card earnings from the bloggers. And more on the earning specifics of pure writers too 🙂 I am still surprised you left Internet Brands…from what I hear they pay the writers well. Just not the readers who send in stuff for credit card sale filler posts 🙂 I agree with Raffles too, BA needs work on the design…and get a new guy to do the sketches as he/she probably has not done them in person?
@ bigbrownboy: Wow, great to see someone has been there already! TBB is no hero…I like adventures but safety comes first 🙂 Thanks for the link!
icicle: Why bother commenting at PMM? Yeah, we from Detroit don’t take crap! The point of PMM is to sell credit cards.
@ Scott: You make some good points. We are all different. We sure roll differently. We can’t all get Paris. Frankly, I don’t like to go back to the same place with so many places in the world still to see. I have been to Paris. Done. The only way I come back is to just Vendome it (just kidding).
@ guera: Wow. Hired a “points coach” who worked at TPG! Flog me now please…This is how pushing newbies looking to learn about this fun hobby to apply for 7 credit cards at once after you make them go through a moronic “credit card tool” like they do at FTG should be…a felony! But hey, don’t you ever forget, it’s all about conversions, isn’t it? I am getting a little angry now 🙂
@ Giddy for Points: Those were great maps you found, very educational. Enjoy the thousands of hits your traffic will get now, invoice is in the mail 🙂 You certainly need more excitement at work, glad to oblige as always. TBB is not a bully #fulldisclosure #messingaround #gettingintobloggersheadsnotyours:-)
ATTENTION ALL BLOGGERS! Okay we get it, we got it good, we should check all our Amex cards from time to time for Amex Offers. Buzz I can only imagine how many blog articles you have read on Amex Offers. I am at the point where I would rather see Trip Report Toilet Photos rather than another Amex Offer post……………….how come no one ever mentions to check RetailMENot before ordering anything online?……………….Am I wrong to assume that SteveSucks is Rene Deltapoints?
Did Frequent Miler hire Travel by Grant? In today’s FM post http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2014/08/06/easy-credit-card-spend/#comments Grant is answering all the questions in the comment section, WTF, that’s Doctor of Credits job.
Perhaps TBB should get an Elf to help out in the comment section. A young eager and aspiring male. The ancient Greek used to love that kind of relationship.
You guys crack me up!
I was having the same thoughts about these Amex offers earlier in the day….I am SICK of them, I don’t want to pay $100 on some retailer I never heard of to get $10 off. I think making separate blog posts about that is just crap and just plain….SAD! I think DofC run out of gas. This blogging thingie takes a lot of stamina! Nice dig ABC, liked it!
I think I may need to adjust my focus. While Steve does indeed suck, Ramsey and Kumar — you two may be the dumbest of dumb schmucks here.
Do you really think Rene or Rick would actually post like this? I know they are Georges favourites but seriously you twits need to get your head out of the toilet or whatever you’ve got it stuck in.
Yet another summary of drivel from your fearless leader lemmings. Bang up job crapadopoulos! Keep up the monkey shit.
Right because Delta Points is a high class dude who would never stoop to such a low level. He always maintains his dignity. Just like FTG who, likewise, always composes himself with dignity and the utmost respect with people who disagree with his world view. Both are shining examples of Chasie-ness. Sorry meant classiness.
You don’t know how to spell favorites? Ramsey and Kumar Go To White Castle, coming to a theater near you this Christmas…..What is a schmuck, that.s a silly sounded word, what language is it?
Great movie…but I liked the other one even more when they end up in Guantanamo and in W’s ranch and party with him 🙂
Your first photo reminds me of a restaurant in Lima, Peru called Rosa Nautica. Been there twice, both times I was in Lima. Not sure where your photo is, but for a similar view and some good seafood, RN is totally worth a trip.
By Erik, comment #4 (just missed the medal!!!):
“The picture is Sellin Pier in Sellin,Germany on the North Sea, almost 200 miles north of Berlin.”
I did a round of credit card apps today (obviously for only amazing “fringe” cards, no junk CSP, Hyatt, Arrival, Hilton that are pumped endlessly). I thought to myself, who do I like enough to give these apps to? But I couldn’t think of any blogger worthy enough….
So that begs the question, when are you putting up your referral links?
Thanks for thinking of me, really appreciate it.
Mentally I am not ready. Practically, I don’t have the time to go after this issue in a serious well researched manner and my very limited knowledge in it makes me want to avoid becoming associated with the companies involved. I fully realize how much potential revenue I am leaving on the table. And I am okay with it. I still find it very hard to believe I am still blogging and could fold this baby any day…so I take things Buzz post by Buzz post sticking to the mission of the blog and having a good time while doing it. Waiting for an intervention…to change direction 🙂
I am also very afraid I may like the money and then get on that bandwagon and become like the rest of the bloggers having to pump 24/7. And that….will make me look myself in the mirror and hate myself. Which is not kewl.
I will figure it out. I do know that Amazon link is a joke when you compare it to the credit card source. But it feels a lot more honest.
Developing…
Enjoy the ride…I am!