We revisit the recent American Airlines changes, learn how to do Venice on miles & points, get to register for the latest Hilton Promo, Marriott gives us free Wifi, travel to the Swiss Alps and Kirkuk, check out some unique hotel perks, look at some super ugly blobs & mustaches, laugh at an article about toilet paper, and end, as always, totally misunderstood by our Blog Buzz awesome section!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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MILES/POINTS
Looking at the New American AAdvantage Changes Side-by-Side – Hack My Trip Travel Codex Excellent layout of all the changes. This is the only one you need to read to “get” the changes. I always have admired the clarity (in the design and the writing) of this site, something you rarely see in other blogs.
List of Churnable Credit Cards – Doctor of Credit Must read. For the ever moving target.
Register for the latest Hilton promo offering double points starting with your second stay (November 1 to January 31). Check the long list of non participating hotels in a tiny link at the bottom of the registration page.
Marriott will offer free wifi to its Marriott Rewards members. Unless you are staying in a hotel that is not participating. I guess it’s good, thanks Marriott. Zzzzzzz.
TRAVEL
Swiss Alps from the Air – Matador Network Video, WOW!
Hotel Perks You Won’t Believe Exist – Memolition Infographic. Pet psychic. Hangover concierge. Lol, very entertaining!
My Kirkuk – Roads and Kingdoms On the ground. Devastating.
ODDZ & ENDZ
23 Fantastic Images Of The Incredibly Weird Things In The Ocean
10 Of The Fanciest Entries From The World Beard & Moustache Championships 2014 – Bored Panda WTF, you serious?
Settling the Great Toilet Paper Debate Once and For All: A Practical and Visual Analysis Based on Science – Eric Rosenberg This is MAJOR lol. It starts out with “There is a debate that has been a major part of our society for decades. Ever since the advent of modern toilet paper, and modern toilet paper rolls, people around the world have had to make a serious decision that puts their entire moral fabric on display for visitors to their home. The question: should the toilet paper hang over or under.” and just never lets up.
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 do not get the jokes just remember this note!
“Devi’s Advocate”, who pens a column for Hack My Trip Travel Codex will now also write a guest column for Frequent Miler. I am not sure how that is going to enhance the Frequent Miler “brand” and said so and managed to piss them all off. Oh well, comes with being a blog critic. Toughest part of blogging is coming up with good content and tending to the blog as there is a crap load of crap that needs to be done! Having guest posts sure lightens the load to free up capacity and resources I guess. I have only had one here a very long time ago and I still hear about it. It just feels so…corporate 🙂 Well, good luck with it. I like the Devil’s Advocate writing by the way, I find some of it brilliant and some of it just leaves me with a huh? So, not sure how the quality can be kept up on two blogs now, that’s all. If it is I will say so.
Speaking of writers, I wonder how much they get paid? And who pays the most? I could probably come up with a “travel challenge” in my sleep woohoo.
Well, this is getting so repetitive that I am sick of mentioning. So, you guys, we have had Citi cards offering 50k AA miles for EVER. And we just got the affiliate offers to offer 50k and we get this type of headlines in blogs that only bothered to mention such offers buried in a regular Top 5 or Top 10 post. In addition, we just had the Chase British Airways Visa drop the annual fee offering 50k Avios. Just a few headlines for your amusement:
Chase British Airways Visa Now Free For The First Year For A Limited Time Only! – Dans Deals
Great Deal: British Airways Visa Drops First Year Annual Fee, Still Offers 50,000 Points! – View from the Wing
Maximizing American Miles With Credit Card Bonuses – One Mile at a Time
British Airways Card Now With NO Annual Fee for the 1st Year – Million Mile Secrets
I stopped after a while. The faked excitement with the exclamation marks is so ridiculous imho. Then again what do I know about selling!
A five part about a mileage run to…Phoenix. Really Delta Points, really?
Ok, this is a must read by Personal Finance Digest “Who Owns the Blogs?“. Ask your favorite bloggers if they personally own 100% of their blogs at the next Frequent Traveler University (FTU). Wouldn’t you like to know that? I sure would. It may explain some of the blog content perhaps, I don’t know. Maybe I am just angry or something. Or I am….curious George lol. If a corporation owns all or part of your blog are you legally responsible to tell you readers? Morally?
Brace yourselves for an onslaught about the AMEX Centurion lounge opening in San Fransisco. Oh wait, View from the Wing is on it with “American Express Centurion Lounge Opens in San Francisco Next Week!”<————–Notice the exclamation mark? This must be credit card (Platinum AMEX baby!) marketing 101. Which reminds me, I need to take a look at some stuff in my inbox for a week!
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I’d fly AA but I’m SFO captive. 🙁
Top 10 again!
Actually, the digits above are in binary. Quite accurate, you see…
Thanks for the link, George. Really like that piece by PFdigest, for those wondering I own 100% at the moment.
In terms of writer payment: we pay $50 per guest post. Staff writers get paid a flat fee for each of their posts (depending on length, quality, how hard it would’ve been to research and if it was original content) and also earn based on how many pageviews the post gets.
Get in touch with me, one of the posts I want somebody to write at the moment has to do with finance advisers and the differences between fee based, fee only & commission based.
George, I assume you saw the comment on yesterday’s article saying that The Points Guy is owned by bankrate.com? I wonder if that’s true.
>>>>>>>>>The Points Guy is owned by bankrate.com?
I have heard the same rumor recently. I never asked him. Can someone ask him directly? That will explain the legions of staff and the TPG app to go…
Pumping pays. Sad but true.
If one googles “The Points Guy” and “Bankrate” together, there is some funny stuff coming up.
Good call Chris! I think I found a smoking gun:
http://www.trademarkia.com/the-points-guy-85351809.html
The “The Points Guy” trademark is owned by…
Bankrate Inc!
Owned since 6/21/2011 Hey that’s my birthdate, coincidence?
If you do a trademark search on the US Patent and Trademark website, it shows that “The Points Guy” is owned by Bankrate. I can’t provide a direct link because it comes up as a search result, but here is another website that tracks trademarks which shows the same: http://trademarks.justia.com/853/51/the-points-guy-85351809.html
You guys are the best.
If that is not the definition of a sell out I don’t know what is!
What blows my mind is that if that’s correct, he sold out BEFORE ingy did?!
Mind.Blown.Wow!
It’s possible that Brian registered the trademark back in 2011, and when Bankrate bought the website the owner registration just changed. It doesn’t mean Bankrate has owned it that long.
@ Doctor of Credit: Thanks for letting me know. I am going to pass on the $50. I prefer to earn nothing writing for other places and earning pennies with my Amazon link 🙂
Fee Only: Gets paid ONLY by fees by client, nobody else. Fiduciary. Best transparency, no games.
Commission: Must sell, sell, sell to eat. “Eat what you kill”. The conflicts of interest are the strongest. Stay the hell away
Fee Based: This is the commission guys masquerading as objective advisors and confusing newbies by throwing the word “fee” in there to describe themselves Get paid by fees to manage money but have the authority to sell other financial products if the “need” is there. Most times the “need” is manufactured. You know, like MS lol.
Obviously, these are generalizations and some exceptions may apply. I never refer out to anyone who is NOT Fee Only. I guess I am biased too!
Sorry, no time to write for others, I have a hard time keeping it all together lately, so much writing and I used to absolutely despise writing (due to my insane perfectionism and control freakiness lol).
$50? Ha! No offense but that’s peanuts.
Sure,
but what’s the market price writing a piece for yahoo, wsj etc (tons of eyeballs may see it)?
WSJ recently paid “somebody who is supposedly an expert” $500 for a 500 word article
That’s a lot more than I get when I write a post.
Happy Halloween!
Where did you write to FM or Devil’s Advocate and create a storm? I don’t see your comments.
I presume Twitter: https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2/status/527838470480592896. I stand by my comments, I like the Devil’s Advocate writer and I like FM. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
George’s tweet was a bit early, if the new writer sucks then by all means bash them. Although I obviously have a conflict of interest as I also use guest writers.
I was bored yesterday morning and decided to stir the pot, it worked! 🙂
What do you mean if the new writer sucks? DA is NOT a new writer! We have seen his work. Which I like for the most part. But it is obvious to me he is reaching deep to come up with one weekly post…how is he going to reach deeper to keep up with yet another writing avenue…FM’s brand is personal, MILER, just doesn’t fit in. But it makes sense from a business perspective I get it. Frees up the blog owner to do more “productive” things with his time. Same deal with OMAAT. Got a family guest writer writing about…diapers and baby seats….I like that guy’s writing too but it seems SO WAY OFF reading in THAT blog.
Hope I make more sense. Twitter limits you to 140 characters at a time 🙂
Just read the article by DA and it was basically the same content FM writes so not sure why it was outsourced. How to get 5% on Sears GCs? I was expecting something much different.
To take some weight off to focus on other stuff I assume…
For the record: When I ask someone to be a guest writer on my blog, it’s generally not because I couldn’t write it myself (although perhaps that person is more “expert” than me and can do it better). The reason I ask them to write for me is that I enjoy reading what they write. My blog is the ONLY blog that I read every single day. Adding writers to it is like creating my own little Feedly.
And in my opinion, that’s as it should be. If i don’t enjoy the stuff that’s on my blog, I have no business putting it out there.
Scott:
Thanks for taking the time to comment and clarifying your position.
I just have the feeling your position is not very common among bloggers. And I wish my blog is the only one I read every day 🙂
Trick or Treat!
OK Doctor, the only truly churnable card at the moment, by far the card of the year –
you didn’t mention at all. Sorry, but that kind of kills your lengthy post to me…
Everything else is obvious anyway.
On this note – what’s the point of repeating the same stuff over and over again?
Do you really think you have a number of newbies per let’s say month, so you have to
broadcast the same information frequently? I think it pisses the real readers off.
On the same note – what’s the point of blogging about the same stuff?
> the only truly churnable card at the moment, by far the card of the year –
you didn’t mention at all
Somebody asked me to include information on that card in the comments and I’ve now done so. It’s worth noting that the new application links on the Executive card clearly state “American Airlines AAdvantage® bonus miles are not available if you have had a Citi Executive® / AAdvantage® World EliteTM MasterCard® opened or closed in the past 18 months.”
The last successful data point I’ve seen was before the card was rebranded and this language was added. I’ve spoken to people that have told me this fine print is being actively enforced on other cards, but I don’t have any data points if this is the case with the executive card or not.
Do you have any data points that are from after the 22nd of October when this rebranding and additional language was added? If so, why not leave me a comment on my blog so I can add it? I clearly state at the end of the post that I’m sure there are some inaccuracies and that I’d be happy to update the post.
Also, how are the BofA cards not “truly” churnable?
> Everything else is obvious anyway.
My blog isn’t targeted at people who know everything already. I try to post information that is targeted at both newbies and experienced people. The response has been mostly positive and a lot of people who are very into travel hacking have found the post useful (e.g George here).
> Do you really think you have a number of newbies per let’s say month, so you have to
broadcast the same information frequently?
59% of the readers of my blog had never read my site before this month. I think that’s a fairly large portion of my readers.
> On the same note – what’s the point of blogging about the same stuff?
I don’t think I do this. Can you point out a few examples of where I’ve repeated myself? I’m always open to constructive criticism.
I’m sorry you don’t find my content helpful. I like your pictures.
Don’t turn it personal, please.
Yes, there is still at least one link working. Just used it myself. Again.
Alaska card, earning 25K is kind of useless, when you need 4 of those
to fly one way on Emirates, not my cup of tea. But Exec cards gave us way, way over
1 million miles this year. If you remember a better deal, ever, please say so.
Look, you are a nice guy. But the blogging thing about the same stuff is getting tired.
There is no excitement whatsoever in this anymore. I’m only waiting for some special
deals to get more miles, and book some super special trips.
I’m repeating myself, but there is very little time left.
The Alaska card was 50k this year, BofA also combines pulls and the downgrade option to BBR is another $100-$120 per year after the downgrade. With one pull you could potentially have gotten 100k Alaska miles and ~70k hilton and then had two cards downgraded to the BBR card for an extra $240 a year.
I’m sorry you don’t find my content help. As I said, if you have something constructive to add then I’m all ears.
Where did he turn it personal, Andrew? I found his reply to be courteous and explanatory. It seems like you’re upset for some unknown reason. I also think the post was very helpful and I’ve been doing this for a long time so not a newbie by any means.
Look, I don’t want to go there, I thought “I like your pictures, you don’t like
my content” got a bit too personal, but again, I didn’t mean anything wrong.
I honestly thing the game got boring. Boring as not excited. That’s all 🙂
Blogs sold to credit card marketing companies is a bit too much to me.
All the BS, pumping, “my mother in law” etc, I don’t care for this at all.
And I honestly don’t have time to waste on such stupidity.
I’m passionate about photography and great experiences, but being even remotely
associated to the bunch of “bloggers” TBB usually covers – not interested.
It’s sad guys like Drew chose the other side. No more room for passion, just money…
How did that get personal? I was being sincere, I do like your pictures. My blog isn’t about money, I don’t run any CC affiliate links and in comparison to my actual wage I make peanuts running the blog.
Most of the money I do make goes to either charity or the other regular writers on the blog. My website is about consumer credit, if you’re reading the wrong blog.
The game hasn’t gotten more boring, it’s gotten more interesting. The problem is you’re just more knowledgeable now than you were before. I find quick reference posts like the one I wrote useful, as do other people.
I don’t know why you felt it necessary to slam my blog but so be it. There are a lot of haters out there and I won’t lose any sleep knowing you’re one of them.
How do you justify your statement that “Drew chose the other side?” Ok yes he did write one crappy rant stating that he liked some of the pumpy bloggers on a PERSONAL basis.
Other than that crappy post, Drew has continued to write awesome and original articles without shoving links down our throats.
Do you actually read TiF? If you don’t, I encourage you to. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
“Everything else is obvious anyway.”
“There is no excitement whatsoever in this anymore.”
So writing anything other than what interests hardcore hobbyists is a waste of time? You might be surprised but there are still naive individuals who find the ability to have free flights and accommodations very exciting and not at all obvious.
I liked the post because you are not seeing these posts with all the banks’ policies in one blog post because affiliate companies and banks frown upon them. I thought it was great to remind us all again and for the newbies to get some good information. At the end of the day, I want newbies to learn about this stuff and get educated properly and not pumped like moron sheep.
I would rather read this stuff than read about the amazing Citi AA cards suddenly offering 50k miles!!!
Targeting blogs to newbies makes business sense. End of story. I want to start a weekly post directed to them but I am afraid Delta Points may threaten to sue me again for stealing his copyrighted content 🙂
And some repetition is obviously good to get the point across and ingrained. That reminds me…I have not repeated my Uber referral link pump in a while lol.
@ Helixcardinal: Thanks for playing along our silly game.
@ Jed and Spencer F: Thanks for the scary wishes!
I found the churnable cards post helpful and I am not newbie. There is so much detail to keep in one’s head in this hobby that posts like that one do help folks keep track. Over at The Forum various members have volunteered to put together wiki-like overviews to track lots of details related to this hobby and they get rave reviews.
The post I’d really like to see – and I’ve suggested it a few times in the comments sections of various bloggers – is one listing all lesser known international airlines and how 1) hard/easy it is contact them by phone; 2) hard/easy it is to make changes in paid and award flights, and 3) hard/easy it is to deal with them if there is an IROP when attempting to fly your itinerary.
I remember MP tweeting during a many hour wait – maybe 6? – to change something, but don’t remember which South American airline it was. Every time a blogger suggests I use my URs on an airline I haven’t yet flown, I wonder if in addition to reserving a seat I am also reserving a time-consuming mess should I need to make a change. My experience flying Turkish shortly after they expanded their flights into the US was great in the air and fine when all went well – but the amazing mess on the ground at IST when a flight went mechanical and the so-called rebooking of a ticket that went awry made me think I’d not fly them again until their not-ready-for-US-prime-time improved a lot.
Anyway, survey posts like Dr. of Credit’s do help consolidate info and that’s most helpful.
Yep I agree.
Your comments should serve as a warning to all when they read stuff from excited bloggers about Korean Air and TAM and whatever airline as crap hits the fan on the ground if something goes wrong or, heaven forbid, need to make changes before scheduled trip…
Even US Airways can be bad when stuff hits the fan. Every schedule change, I had to call to make sure the ticket was not messed up on a complex itinerary. After a couple of those rounds, I got one agent who found that a previous agent forgot to delete the old segment I switched from which created a schedule conflict.
And I had that old segment switched because of the schedule changed that created a misconnect in the first place…
Indeed, we often struggle with our made-in-America airlines too. But there are typically fewer language problems and at least a basic level of service we can generally count on.
Any updates on the crisis over at AA and the chocolate chip cookies?
Eagerly awaiting for the announcement of a change and the victorious blog posts that the customers’ view MATTER.
Virgin Galactic went down man…I am bummed.
I am thinking about attacking the box with the Sinickers…
BOB SCULPIN
October 31, 2014 at 1:20 pm
“Any updates on the crisis over at AA and the chocolate chip cookies?”
Gosh, I love this place.