We learn about the new Travel Education Network, the progress in Alaska Airlines, get more details on the Chase Ritz-Carlton 140k card, learn more about reallocating credit limits, bookmark a new resource about Hotel Award Charts, travel to Norway and several places around the world to watch animal migrations.
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Well, Tuesday was a much slower day in comparison to a totally crazy Monday that resulted in a substantial blog post released around Monday midnight! So, this will be much shorter. All you need to know by the way to be clued in! By the way, the weekend Blog Buzz post will be massive and should satisfy the “entertainment” part of out blog’s mission!
In case you missed it, there is a new seminar outfit out there. Travel Education Network. It appears they are setting up seminars all over the country and from what I am sensing targeting newbies to educate them. As I see Frugal Travel Guy references I am taking a wait and see approach to see where the credit card “hook” will come in. I see a Credit Cards 101 class already! Good luck with the venture by the way. If you had told me 15 years ago that there would be so many conferences/seminars about this fringe hobby I would think you are clearly disturbed!
Alaska Airlines Tweaks Its Product for Longer Haul Flying – The Cranky Flier It appears Alaska Airlines is doing pretty good taking the assault from Delta Airlines. I like it!
Chase Ritz-Carlton 140,000 Points Offer–What Is It Good for? – The Lazy Traveler’s Handbook More info about this offer mentioned recently.
Rules For Reallocating Your Credit Limit With Each Credit Card Issuer – Doctor of Credit Really good info you should know before you attempt to do this.
New Site Resource – Award Charts, Elite Benefits & Sign-Up Information for Every Hotel Chain in One Place! – Miles To Memories Another great resource to bookmark—>Hotel Award Charts
Jaw-Dropping Compilation of Nature Timelapses in Ultra HD – Twisted Sifter OMG. THIS IS PURE AWESOMENESS! Or maybe I just dig these timelapse videos a little too much?
Arctic Norway – The Adventure Blog Yeah…another gorgeous timelapse video!
20+ Breathtaking Photos Of Animal Migration – Bored Panda Breathtaking indeed!
America’s Future Hasn’t Looked This Good In Decades – Calculated Risk Yeah, there goes George the eternal optimist. Not for our hobby by the way lol #revenuebased #FCseat1millionmiles #dealwithit
5 Retirement Investing Pitches You Should Ignore – Money This is excellent advice. I may not know much about miles but I do know about money (or vice versa or most likely…both yes!).
And I leave you with this that I can’t stop laughing every time I see it…
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First? Thanks for the link, George. Always good to get some positive feedback. Sunday night/Monday was crazy for news!
Doosra..
Wow… First on the agenda today? We’re honored!!
Thanks for the mention, George. Really great card. Too bad, wife had gotten two Chase’ already with the latest AOR. Wouldn’t have pushed for reconsideration with the CSP if I had known this bad boy would be around again.
Regarding RC card, “Please don’t tell me it’s not easy to cash out.”
I never pay for airline tickets. I have no award tickets planned before the end of the year. I don’t have Delta status and I don’t intend to use airline GCs.
In my situation, is the only easy trick to resell GCs?
Try booking an award with Alaska if you have miles (or BA, Avianca or other airline with low cancellation fees), get the RC credit, cancel the award reservation
Sorry, didn’t see your question. You could buy a really expensive Delta ticket and upgrade for CE seats. Then take the screenshot (just in case) and ask them to reimburse for the upgrade. You could put the upgrade only on the RC card. Just don’t forget to cancel your flight within 24 hours.
Buzz-
Does the Travel Education Network offer reduced tuition for folks who took those courses on how to buy stuff cheap from government auctions? How about graduates of the seminars on flipping real estate and card counting?
I flew one of the new Alaska Cabins that cranky flier is talking about to Hawaii. The seat was comfy and power outlets in coach is a nice perk.
With the kind of useful information Doctor has been providing, i am really surprised not to see his site mentioned in the blogs you like list at least, George. Also time for FM to move up the list with no credit card pumping and full of deals and many other useful info?
Great links today, George. Both entertaining and educational! Who would’ve know about he RC card? And Doctor of Credit is on a roll! I do think Calculated Risk is wearing the rose colored glasses as he guzzles the punch. For a more sobering viewpoint, see Mark Bitman’s column in Saturday NYT. One gem from that: from 09-12 95% of all new income went to top 5% of population, and one family–the Waltons of WalMart–have as much wealth as combined wealth of bottom 42% of population! Too few people have enough money to spend for things to get as rosy as CR predicts.
@ William Charles: Yeah, I am the bad blogger who has given more praise than all bloggers combined 🙂
Sunday night/Monday was totally ridiculous. Glad to be back on more normal/slower news days.
@ nv: Missed first by 8 minutes, that is like an eternity in TBB time!
@ Travel Education Network: The order links appear has no relation to importance 🙂 Interesting to see how this develops. Watching. Will Ingy be a speaker and attendees taught how to apply seven cards at a time at a new (after FTG) site? Is Howie leaving FTG? Ticket is kind of high per class…how long is Earning 101 for example? If this is CL, lunch sometime?
@ Andy Shuman: I am taking a little break from Chase for a while. Hope this card is around late next year. If not, no big deal. Got enough airline credits and Marriott somehow always turns me off.
@ Sam: LOL. Probably not but they give 10% off if you buy 30 days in advance.
@ Scott: I would love for Alaska Air to humiliate Delta and run them out of Seattle 🙂 The few times I flew them I enjoyed it.
@ Kumar: At the next TBB Lists update, DofC is up to bat. FM’s place in the Like list is safe for now. Move it up? No way.
I need to make these lists purely personal and I need to disassociate them from their marketing/pumping level practices. Do I really enjoy READING them? Several in the Like list are there because I really like their marketing/pumping practices or what they have meant to the whole hobby (as in other contributions) but I do NOT enjoy reading them or the niche is just too narrow!. Also I want blogs there for readers to go and not wait months for an update. So it is time soon for a clean up, hope they do not take it personally. Besides, we all have limited time…so I need to make these lists more concise.
@msmcmotown: Thanks. I wanted to throw RC’s article out there to show my optimistic side. The stat about the Walton family is depressing, especially considering I was in there yesterday. Thankfully, Kate was in a good mood and escaped quickly lol.
Not CL, sorry, but excited to have her on the team! Iggy will not be leading any classes, but Howie will be – and no, we have no information about him leaving FTG… Why would he? As for the full breakdown of the class times, here ya go:
Schedule (lunch included for those that buy a TEN101 and TEN201 combo ticket).
Our course schedule for both Saturday and Sunday is identical. The days will break down as follows:
9:00am to 10:30am TEN101: Earning (part one)
10:30am to 10:45am Break
10:45am to 12:15pm TEN101: Earning (part two)
12:15pm to 12:30pm Q and A
12:30pm to 2:00pm Break (Lunch included for those purchasing a combo ticket)
2:00pm to 3:30pm TEN201: Burning (part one)
3:30pm to 3:45pm Break
3:45pm to 5:15pm TEN201: Burning (part two)
5:15pm to 5:30pm Q and A
Oy Vey, here we go again.
So…that will be $250 it appears. Definitely not a bargain but could be sustainable/profitable for you guys.
Waiting for the credit card hook 🙂
Hey Travel Education Network-
Wil you have any credit card applications at the seminars or will participants have to bring their own?
When TBB does it I will take it to the next level! I will wear a computerized ipad that will have a button for each credit card to apply for after they insert one of their credit cards and have everything prefilled. I may have to hire the Sony hackers for that though LOL
It’s not a “hook.” We all know that applying for cards is a part of playing this game. It will hardly be a “push it down your throat” type of mentality however.
And again, remember, this is NOT targeting those of us in this community; rather, it’s targeting our friends/family who always come to us (thinking we’d be happy to talk for 10 hours in the middle of the work day about how to get their wife and kids to Disney for $100).