We learn how to get FREE Uber, check to see if you were targeted for the Starwood Member Exclusives promo, learn the sweet spots of 11 Airline miles programs, go over LLCs and lots more! I bet you thought you will see my Uber link, just admit it. If there is one thing we suck at…it is pumping you guys!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
You can support TBB by shopping with our AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK or click on the Amazon Banner on the right side, thank YOU!
Buy Uber credit in “redeemable” chunks – The Free-quent Flyer Buy Uber credits at $25 a pop, get reimbursed with Barclaycard Arrival Plus points, yes!
Starwood SPG has targeted Member Exclusives promotions. See if you were targeted HERE (H/T to Loyalty Lobby)
The Best Use (or “Sweet Spots”) for 11 Airline Miles Program – Travel Is Free Great idea to put these together in a single post.
A Complete List of Discount Airlines and Their Route Maps/Fees – Naked Round The World Good list of LLCs. From a new blogger who is, well, really naked!
Stunning 2200-Year-Old Mosaics Discovered in Ancient Greek City – Twisted Sifter Wow, we really owe everything to them Greeks. Be kind to them nowadays por favor!
The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare – Rolling Stone Very long article. Matt Taibi is at it again!
The Wall of Worry, Illustrated – Bason Asset Management Next time when excrement hits the fan, read this to come down.
I have noticed the blog action is down and I suspect it is going to be way down over the Thanksgiving holiday. So TBB posts will be shorter. And next week I am off to Hong Kong (obligatory post showing off my “expertise” is coming soon hehe).
So here is the Buzz action in the blogs. Some people think I am negative and I should then just turn positive and make up with all bloggers, you know, do stuff (pump them about the Southwest Companion Pass or fake excitement every time a new card goes on sale) that will get this blog to be successful financially. I don’t see it that way. I actually see TBB as the most positive blog in the blogosphere that has dished out so much praise nothing comes close. The difference is we praise quality. By condemning the lack of it, we realize we are cutting off potential monetizing streams. But stopping that feels like we do a disservice to TBB readers and, most importantly, to society and human mankind. SOMEONE HAS TO DO IT! Someone has to say something that it is not RIGHT to do stuff like this. For example:
Now Is the Perfect Time to Earn the Southwest Companion Pass – Frugal Travel Guy Ok, we all know about this darn Companion Pass. The writers there just deliver their articles and get paid. That is fine, nothing wrong with that. What IS wrong is that the site only features a link to the card that pays the site and not the other three cards that do not pay the site. I guess the owners of this site find it perfectly responsible to do that to their readers while everyone keeps their mouths shut while they cash their paychecks. So, for God’s sake, if you care about this hobby, never ever let your friends click on any of their links! There are so many other blogs out there who treat readers with actual respect and not like they are morons!
IHG Releases PointBreaks List for November 24-February 28 – The Points Guy With so many employees writing away here, nobody finds time to post this on time so they can actually have a chance to book any of the most desirable properties? I guess other blog posts selling away were higher priority. That’s fine. What is NOT fine is the site trying to sell the Ink cards while keeping mum on the credit card that can actually give their readers 20 freaking nights for free….but that card does not pay the site. And this is why the blogs in the Ignore list are BAD for you! Tell everyone, fight the system! Click on the links of the blogs in the Love and Like lists. Or you can click on mine too, fight back! THINK!
Confused About Timing Your Spending for the Southwest Companion Pass? – Million Mile Secrets If you are still confused about this after reading a gazillion posts about it here, you must be an idiot!
How to feed the hungry and fly for free – Frequent Miler Love the local Ann Arbor charity “Food Gatherers”. Hate 1-800 Flowers, the Cartera of flowers. If you do this and you have problems getting all your points you have been warned. Ordering ridiculously overpriced crap is never a deal, come on FM!
And I leave you with these…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
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Gosh, two in a row.
One more and I get the drumstick!
I predict many drumsticks tomorrow 🙂
Two in a row…WOW!
I am also responding to each comment individually to piss off Ingy who is so bored over there at FTG that he spends most of his time here at TBB for…FREE!
Happy Thanksgiving to you Sam!
First!!!!
First (pun intended)…this is not the First (again) time that this happens!
You are not first until you hit “Refresh” a few times 🙂
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
not claiming any spot. 🙂
LOVE the photo of the “new” mosaics! This is why *I* travel. To see things like this for myself. To find out the answers to: why does it exist, how was it made, its importance in history, etc. I am a new fan to this art medium. Once upon a time, I was all “meh”…until I watch a PBS show (long since forgotten the title) of how people (or person) makes mosaics. I was impressed. Now, I take the time to study them if I come across any in a musuem. I am very intrigued by the longevity of the colors in this particular mosaic. The quality is just outstanding.
Some people travel say they’ve been someplace. I travel to absorb someplace into my own enlightenment. Everyone has their own travel “thing”.
Don’t get me wrong- have spent almost an entire day at an upscale hotel, 3 meals included on the executive level. I am not against any of that- go for the best when one can. Nothing wrong with finding a cheap way to enjoy 1st class luxury. It’s just it seems that some of these bloggers…well, that’s all they do. I don’t understand it. Go outside the hotel and find a local breakfast place. Go for a picnic. We spend so much of our lives in a box (work, home, car)…go outside people. Outside!
I’ll second the mosaic love, those colors are surprisingly vivid.
Well you got bronze 🙂
I agree with you in so many levels!
You should know of the latest finds in Greece. I think what is being uncovered these days is just phenomenal in Northern Greece. Here are some links:
http://ancient-greece.org/art/amphipolis-mosaic.html
http://www.amfipolis.com/
I might be in the minority but I quite liked the FM post. I’m not going to get the CP next year, but I like the idea of offsetting your costs by donating to charity. I agree that there is too much risk involved in doing this for the full CP, but seems like a good option for getting the additional 6k points if you don’t MS.
I agree. I wouldn’t do it myself but I thought it was a great thought experiment and showcasing how to think like a MSer. Not sure if that made marathon man period or not? 🙂 either way felt mite like a ‘ reach a man to fish’ than encouraging a bunch of newbies to order flowers for their entire village. Not perfect but definitely not barf-worthy for me.
I politely disagree. The picture for the $30 apple gift had, what, like 18 apples? And then the food bank volunteer has to unwrap all the packaging (if you’ve ever gotten a gift like that you know the packaging is ridiculously substantial!). Then the food bank is left having to throw away/recycle all of it that isn’t actually edible.
I think machinations like this should make people think twice about elevating miles ‘earning’ above common sense. Give ’em apples or money, don’t hurt your hand patting yourself on the back by giving overpriced designer apples.
Okay, maybe that last part wasn’t entirely polite. Sorry.
I agree with you. The $30 jar of cashews? Really? You could buy ten times that many cashews at the grocery store if you really wanted to feed the poor and without creating a dumpster full of packaging waste.
“Best deal in travel”, but no blogger ever gets it because Southwest doesn’t have First Class.
Not true! I will gladly ride in the back of the plan next to the restroom =)
Fine, I am clarifying, *bloggers with Chase links
Okay. I agree with you then =)
@ William Charles: Nothing wrong with offsetting costs by donating to Charity. The Pudding Guy did it and pudding is so unhealthy 🙂 I just thought this was no deal, too much risk involved and have not heard good things about 1-800-ExpensiveFlowers&Crap 🙂
@jakobv84: Yeah, I liked the out of the box thinking in principle. But sometimes trying to do that gets you way out of the park.
@ DiffPaul: “Give ‘em apples or money, don’t hurt your hand patting yourself on the back by giving overpriced designer apples.” Bingo!
@ TJ: Yeah really 🙂
It’s Naked Round the World, not Around 🙂
Ooopsie, fixed it now.
Sorry, that’s not FREE Uber — it’s using travel credits to pay for Uber instead of other things. It’s a way to SPEND MONEY (and that’s what those points are) on small denomination charges. You, Buzz, should know better than to call that FREE. Enough over the top pumping, eh?
Agreed!
Couple of thoughts:
It took me more than 2 years to figure out that using the world FREE in a headline bumps up traffic so I am making an effort to use it so I can bump up my media.net ads revenue to something north of 50 cents per day #winning
But if you regularly use the Barclaycard Arrival plus card for regular purchases and use it to reimburse some Uber charges…isn’t it free? Don’t want to get into complex debates involving “opportunity costs” and other esoteric stuff like that you guys.
Anyways, the word FREE was used mostly for entertaining purposes to make fun of so many bloggers using it for things that are not really FREE
hehe
Definitely not, that’s a terrible use of the word free.
Ethical or not, a simple Southwest Anytime fare makes it easy as 1-2-3 to cash out those points even if you don’t do any other travel at all.
Going back to the discussion about TPG being sold to Bankrate. If you want more evidence (not that we need anymore) I looked up his whois registration and the admin contact address is for creditcards.com.
https://who.is/whois/thepointsguy.com
http://www.creditcards.com/where-to-find-us.php
Nice finds again for this “common knowledge” stuff. In the meantime, Jason Steele wrote a post about how you can get sign up bonuses if you get credit cards in time for the holidays at TPG 🙂
Jason Steele sounds like an alias those guys use in porn films – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
That is really funny!
I thought about doing a blogger —-> porn star parody post.
Ron Jeremy anyone?
LOL
Buzz that you for teeing up a waist high 80 mph fastball over the middle of the plate for me to hit out of the park……………..Ron Jeremy has to be played by Gleff.
…only from the waist up!
You have a great Thanksgiving too George.
You forgot “nearly”… TPG is tweeting “travel the world in first class for (nearly) free…”
Happy Turkey Day… Will wave when I’m on final into FNT!
It was horrible today in NYC. Raining all day long, and the road got icy for a few short but very scary moments. As luck would have it, had to drive a lot between Brooklyn and LI for work, and there was this one place where my GPS beeped and said: “What the hell, dude? Where are you taking me?” #notmakingthisuporami
Three days till my trip to Panama. I hear it’s warm, and they have beaches. Sweet!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!