We highlight the best comments of the past week for your entertainment. One particular link I found and published here was of this amazing German guy who has been on a 25 year road trip, here it is in case you missed: Gunther Holtorf has Been on a Road Trip Since 1989
Free links or stock tips to anyone who stands up in the Chicago Seminars and either shouts “TBB Rocks” and/or have big sign with “Travelbloggerbuzz is Awesome!”. Bonus points if Rick/Ingy/FrugalTravelGuy(the person) and Delta Points are in the room. Extra credit if you do this to their faces 🙂 You know I am messing with you. Really, enjoy yourselves. Best part of these meetings is being among weird people like us lol.
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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Gems from the TBB Comments September 27 – October 10, 2014
Jed: I’m honored to make the gems of the comments! That is even better than being first!
Louis Rekeyser from heaven: Kumar, phone home.
Sam: Lou-
I saw you give a speech at a business conference back in the 1980s. You talked so long I had bonds mature while you were sipping water…Do you ever run into Dan Dorfman up there or is his application still pending?
Louis Rekyeser from heaven: Dan Dorfman? that little bast@rd is burning in hell.
Marriott Hotels Map, Target REDcard, Delta Skymiles Stabs In The Back, Dubai, Alex Honnold in Yosemite, Mystical Bridges, Ridiculous Amazon Buys, GDP stuff, Zimbabwean Dollars
Saianel: Why are people always fighting to be first?
Karen: Would you rather be last?
BlogBuzz:Mr Money Mustache, Travel Update leaving Boarding Area, and Other Blog Buzzing Stuff
Mr. Money Mustache: Hey TBB, I appreciate the criticism. You’re definitely right to question my motives, as I try to do the same thing all the time. There’s no point making decisions based on money when you already have more than you need, and I have to remind myself of that to avoid the “mindless accumulation” stage that many people continue in long after they should have retired.
Anyway, I thought about an article like this for over a year before actually writing it, because I really don’t want to dilute the message of the blog by being perceived as a pimp for any product that I don’t agree with. I write MMM for one reason only: to coax the wealthier half of the rich world to reduce their consumption of resources.
So the reasons I decided to go ahead with this post were:
– I keep meeting people who I respect that actually enjoy the card optimization, and they do very well at it. They are the ones that got me into it.
– Many other readers have never heard of it, and could save $1k/year just by swapping out their grocery card annually. I wanted them to be inspired by the masters of the craft.
– I would be considered a “newbie” at travel hacking (and will continue to be this way since I only fly a few times per year), but not at cash back collecting. My own family has done at least $20,000 of that over the past 9 years, mostly through the Travelocity Amex and Chase Sapphire Preferred / Ink Bold cards.
If you read the post again carefully, you’ll note that all of us encourage using the cards to reduce spending on existing travel, rather than as an excuse to increase your travel or go first class.
I also trust the audience of my blog to not be overly sheeplike and get themselves into trouble. If you look at the demographics from this older survey I ran, it’s mostly engineers, finance industry workers, and a few doctors. They are a wealthy group looking to do handle that fortunate situation more wisely.
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/09/17/a-one-question-survey-who-are-the-mustachians/
Anyway, I still appreciate the callout – I’m not immune to mistakes and when I do make a bad call with an article, I want to hear about it from guys like you so I can learn from it.
TBB: To Mr. Money Moustache: I appreciate you taking the time to respond here. It would have been nice if my comment on your blog was approved too but we know that sometimes it happens.
I stand by what I wrote. And I see some of my readers have added to it, especially TJ.
What I find incredulous is this:
” I write MMM for one reason only: to coax the wealthier half of the rich world to reduce their consumption of resources.”
How is that possible if someone gets several cards and suddenly is faced from charging up to $15k to $25k in the next three months?
You have done an amazing job of creating a following and monetizing your efforts. I think getting some “expert” to be your card curator (clever) is also a masterful stroke but some of us have been doing this for the past 20 years and we can clearly tell what is pimping or not or what DRIVES the content in a post. In so many times we have pointed this out here…so called “experts” either don’t know what they are talking about or their content is purely driven of what affiliate links are conveniently promoted or both.
I am not going to get into the whole non transparency of the whole thing which is conveniently excused “we are contractually forbidden by law to reveal our compensation”.
Never heard of Brandon and that MD dude was taken off my Feedly 372 blogs I follow because I don’t have much time to waste, believe it or not.
You may be interested in this blog post of mine…but I am sure you know what I am talking about:
Again, thank you for taking the time to contribute here.
[Lots of great questions and just a few answers ensue. Grab popcorn!]
Steve: It appears we’ve reached the “Chase decides to extend promotional offer, just like they do every time. Bloggers pretend to act surprised at the incredible generosity of Chase while using the news to pump another dozen posts out about the card. Which of course is precisely why Chase always fake-extends it in the first place” stage of the Chase Ink promo
Speaking of which, HURRY 6 DAYS LEFT!!!!!!!
Modified Gentler Blog Buzz: Thoughts and stuff in my head…
bluecat: TBB, this post is very close to EPIC proportions because it talks about “the other side” of this points game that we all play. It is so absolutely true that points are hard to use when you need them—just ask anyone with kids who wants to travel during winter, spring or summer breaks! Sure, if you are booking ONE seat, you can do it. The rest of us: thinking about cashing in for that toaster. 
It gets tiring reading about “GREAT” trips , ala Drew’s “hoppers”. Yeah, it’s POSSIBLE, but (1) I don’t plan trips just to maximize the value of my award (I actually pick a country first) and (2) the idea of multiple stops versus a nonstop does not appeal to me.
It all came home to me last week when another parent on my kid’s soccer team was saying she was cashing in all her CapitalOne points so that she could get to Vegas. I thought it was a bad use of points but then, yeah, try to find 5 award tickets at decent times during MLK weekend—damn near impossible! Had to think later that, hey, she is right to use the points exactly WHEN she needs them. Good for her. (In the meantime, I am searching for connecting flights and alternate dates and going through all my various bullshit flight currencies, hoping *something* will work…)
It’s me: I loved this post. I have reached critical mass in this hobby. I have more miles than I can spend and am lucky that I need at most 2 tkts at a time but usually only 1. I’m tired of the repetition and all the Pushing of how everything is free, free, free. I am taking a break from applying for cc’s as I simply don’t need the points/miles now. I actually am more into 5% cashback MS and that’s a whole other hobby.
And the customary off the wall pics and gifs:
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TBB
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First :X
I read the whole post before writing comment. Should I be first? Thanks.
Bronze!
@stalker Oh great we got a stalker grabbing gold. Maybe he/she is a new reader I attracted after hijacking the #ChicagoSeminars hashtag and directed them all here to find the Truth 🙂
@Nguyen: Friday nights are the easiest times to grab First/Gold #hint Are you assuming stalker did not read the whole post? Hmmm…why don’t you have anything good to say Nguyen? lol.
@ ODTravel: Third is still hardware.
This must be the first blog post commenting contest with the WIDEST gaps in time posting:
12.18
1.20
8.32
WOW….Guess you are all busy on Friday nights. Which is a good thing of course!
Now get out there and go…..Test drive that Cadillac woohoo!
OMG MrPickles pimps the affiliate 30k AA credit card offer. What happened to First2Board was created as a site for miles and points blogs that wasn’t going to pump credit cards? What’s in YOUR Wallet Slot?
Yeah, that one and the Award Wallet and the Uber. Most persistent low key pumper in blogland. I know you read me man, come on, you don’t need that, do you?
I started a monthly “How to support TBB” post in August. Forgot to do one in September. I should copy it for October. I need to find me time to look more into this, another $2.04 yesterday from Amazon and 5 cents from Media.net. Got an Uber referral but lost one as it expired…I had no idea they expire after 6 months…most of them will expire then….phuck noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!
I just got whacked even harder.
There is a London-based Uber clone called Wheely who offer referral credits. The difference with Uber is that you can only use 1 credit per ride.
Last week they reduced their referral credit from £15 to £10. Fair enough. However, they have reduced all the existing credits in my account from £15 to £10 as well! Which seems, to put it midly, a little off.
WOW, that is bold! No relation to the Ink Bold by the way lol
I hope everyone going to the Chicago Timeshare Seminars got there on time. Traffic on the Kennedy Expressway was horrendous yesterday. They certainly shouldn’t miss learning all about the slap in the face that is SkyMiles.
In order to win “gold” in TBB, all tactics have to be used 🙂
Love the picture of the coffee cup. Enjoy your weekend. Thanks.
I was going to note the hour+ gap to Nguyen. But then I thought maybe he was studying the post for an hour.
As the quote of the year went: Who am I to judge?
After all, it’s all about personal responsibility. Or something like that.
I was 47 seconds off my personal best 3 mile run today, boooooooooo!
Finally dragged myself to Target to convert to Redbird. Plenty of cards, but all coded to not be sold. Apparently some “dude” was over yesterday trying to fix the technical issues and finally gave up. Love the hype. It’s all so easy and FREE!
When I hear about the “Dude” it reminds me of THE Dude:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMuFYnvSsZg