We learn lots about Air France Flying Blue awards, about the best day to buy tickets, Barclay’s attempt to keep more card customers, Skymiles enhancements, travel to Yosemite, top of France, China’s strange buildings and end with the best personal finance articles and awesome Blog Buzz. Along with some funny (and edgy) pictures…
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MILES/POINTS
Unveiling Flying Blue (Air France + KLM) Miles 101 and Best Uses – Travel is Free Excellent original content. So far this blog has not missed a beat. Less hitchiking stories, more award surgeries!
Forget the “Best Day to Buy Tickets” Garbage and Think About How Far In Advance to Book Instead – Cranky Flier Well, no miles here…other than when to book flights. Domestic: 57 days in advance. International: 171 days in advance. Two fantastic graphs depicting this…notice the steep rise the closer we get to departure! It should not be surprising but, I must admit, this is even steeper than I had suspected.
The Barclaycard AAdvantage Card Options – MJ on Travel For the record, Barclays Bank will try desperately to hold on to some customers by introducing a new set of cards to eventually replace the US Airways credit card. This post just lays out the facts of the cards. Wake me up when the cards offer a signing bonus please. Until then zzzzzz.
It appears that the “free stopover” in Delta Skymile awards is gone without notice. (HT: One Mile at a Time). Who cares really? Or is the amazingly technologically advanced award search engine doing “its thing” again… #developing
TRAVEL
The Most Beautiful Tour of Yosemite You Will See – Twisted Sifter I may have posted this video before. It is worthy of repeating it, wow!
23 Spectacular Images of a Photographer’s Adventure to the Top of France – Dashburst Spectacular indeed!
China’s strangest buildings, from pairs of pants to ping-pong bats – The Guardian I think you should take a look at these, wow!
PERSONAL FINANCE
Bear Markets are a Learning Experience. Really. – USA TODAY Must not forget that…
Managing Money for Retirement – The Aleph Blog Fantastic read.
Top Mistakes Investors Make – USA Today via AdviceIQ This is much harder than getting a signing bonus on a travel rewards credit card obviously! And you would be surprised how many get these things way wrong!
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!
First, Milevalue posted about a “trick” on how to get around the $75 fee for ticketing within 21 days of departure. My first thought was “wow, could not think of yet another way to sell a Barclays card?”. Anyways…Million Mile Secrets was so floored about this “secret” he wrote about it too! If you try to do this and still get charged after you waste two hours of your life on hold and trying different phone reps…why don’t you ask these bloggers to pay YOU instead? Where are you Chris Elliott? Oh, you are busy learning about the affiliate offerings at BA? Thought so! Love the comment by Brian at MMS: “Wow this post just reeks of sleaziness. This seems highly unethical as you are basically relying on the incompetence of an airline agent to get a discount. This is right up there with showing foreign frequent flyer cards to sneak into priority security.” Another reader whines about what else is MMS going to kill and MMS responding with an arrogant “Taking suggestions”. I am sure the owner (who owns the blog anyway?) is very nice and does not care about the money at all. And I am Batman!
Amazingly, the BA blog Ghetto IFE is still doing posts about the trip to BACon. Talk about milking it, wow!
I am sick of looking at pics of Milevalue in flat beds smiling…while pumping plastic. That’s all. Just a reaction, keeping it real!
I can’t wait to see Delta Points fake outrage for a blog post and then go back to being a Delta fan boy and pushing its Amex credit cards (only when they provide compensation that is!). #developing
I need to do a filler post tomorrow I think as my other writing gig is getting way too demanding…I wish they were paying me as they are asking for more of it…for FREE!
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No. Way. First!
October 28, 2014. A day that will live in fame indeed! We bow to you!
I will accept a reluctant bronze.
http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/36aqta
I was going to give you silver…
Silver for me? Sure. I’ll take that.
This is like stealing silver from The common man!
5th? My second highest finish ever! Like the mountaineering pics – always a favorite subject of mine.
You can do better!
Glad you like the mountaineering pics…The older I get the more I want to go back to nature 🙂
6th..but who’s counting. If 4th gets silver what does 6th get? So you’re the real batman?? Lol
You get anything you want here.
Batman
Responding to Andrew’s comment from yesterday:
“Let Drew alone. The guy clearly is running out of ideas how to make a buck on his great site,
the only solution left is joining the so-called “friends”. He doesn’t want to be seen as part of TBB.
So he makes a loud 180, “I love those guys, they are so friendly and nice”. Seriously?
They are a bunch of liars and sellouts. Period. They will make anything to make more cash
as it’s still possible – surely not for long. They know that, he knows that. The whole credit card
game is gonna end soon. So pump, pump baby. I can bet $100 they see the income dive.
There is much less so-called newbies than we think. Most of the readers have all the cards they
can ever get. They will never admit that, but the golden times are over. Leave those poor
guys slowly fade into the darkness George.”
I disagree on a lot of that. There are an endless number of newbies-people are paying to travel to “seminars” where people sell them credit cards. Read that sentence again.
As for Drew, I’ve stayed out of this, other than a few wisecracks. I’ve never met him, but from his writing he seems like a straight shooter. He went from writing about sleeping on benches to a Chicago weekend where it seems he was treated like Bono. Easy to mistake a smile for sincerity, and I’ll judge whether he’s worth my time by what he writes. By the way, on that score, so far, so excellent. I wouldn’t mind him having a well presented card link or two-same for George, though I guess TBB may too far down the road for that.
Folks in the financial services game like me (and George) have been watching this game for most of our professional lives. First round I remember was the whoe life insurance salesmen in the 1960s and 1970s. They made big money and treated everyone like their best friend-birthday cards to your kids, BBQ on July 4. They never mentioned that your first three years premiums went to them as commission, and if you cashed out before about 40 years into the deal, you’d get skinned.
Nest were the annuity guys (often the same whole life guys, moving down the road). These guys could get at most of your balance sheet, with big juice provided by tax advantages. They sponsored the high school basketball team but never mentioned that redemption fees gave you a big haircut if you quit the anuuity in the first 8 years. One more thing-those fees pretty well matched their commissions.
Then in the 1990s, Maria Bartiromo went on TV, everyone got into the financial markets and so did the “expert” down the block (including many whole life and annuity sales people). You paid for his (or her) ‘expertise” not by a share of how much they made you but as a percentage of what they sold you. These guys took you golfing or out on their boat during the year and maybe to Vegas for a weekend. They could afford to, with your money. They never mentioned the mutual fund they sold you with a 5% commission, or another similar one, had another “class” of investors who got the same stocks with lower or no commissions. Why would anyone sell a mutual fund that didn’t pay them a commission? Substitute the word “credit card” for “mutual fund” and you now see how this has evolved.
Since then, we’ve seen many examples where volume rather than results earn the commish. How about mortgage brokers? Rates go down, let’s refinance. We even have doctors who get tickets and trips based on how much of a certain medicine they prescribe. See your mother was right about going to school-doctors won’t have to take pictures of toilets.
To not be too cynical, I should note that each of these products, used in the right circumstance, can be financially advantageous. The problems arise when a good idea is spread around to people for whom it may not be right, and often the ones doing the spreading, while giving out some good advice, are acting like an exoert and like your pal, getting you to like them and then hoping you will buy the product that pays them. It isn’t that they want to sell something you that won’t benefit you, the problem is that they are selling it whether it is or not because it is that product that pays them.
Sam, first you can’t compare today to the 60s or even the 90s.
The speed things change, become popular and boring today is crazy.
Second, everybody and his mother (in-law LOL) has been writing about our (ex-)game lately.
There is simply no way it lasts. Within last 12 months the subject left the “secret” space
and became mainstream. When everybody, I mean everybody is talking about miles, it’s O-V-E-R.
Third with the so-called improved economy, there is no need for the banks to pump the bonuses
the same way they used to. You know you can’t get Amex or Chase bonus anymore and even
the card of the year – Citi Exec has only one little hidden working link left.
Desperation was exposed when a BUSINESS card – Ink, was pushed like crazy last month.
That’s what left, a lame bonus on a card, nobody is able to get anymore (I guess Chase
finally decided business means business…).
Newbies? yes, they do exist and they are who the bloggers abuse and lie to. But I’m 100%
positive even this group is not infinitely growing. I tested it a few times. My educated friends
who could handle the card game easily are not biting. The absolute majority is not investing
any time to learn and do it.
So suddenly we have a situation when everybody KNOWS about it, but they are not doing it.
I think this is the worst for the bloggers. When those who know finally decide to do it,
they will find out there is nothing left to do. No more cards to get. No free tickets to score.
Award availability gone. And all the charts destroyed.
Within last year we completely lost United, Delta was lost earlier, and we also lost programs
like Priority Club. American will follow soon. I guess it already happened, as outside
of a few opportunities, there is zero award availability left on American.
When to fly “for free” you need to invest tons of time to learn how to move Chase points
to Singapore, sorry, no newbie is gonna do it. And real gamers will not have
any ways left to earn as many miles as before.
Sorry for those unorganized thoughts, I needed a break from my crazy schedule, but yeah,
I’m absolutely sure the game is over and the miles blogs happy times are over too.
You make some great points! I have been saying the same…
This hobby has seen much better days.
With 3 main airlines left, with improved economy and less capacity, they are simply now tightening the screws and returning the Elite treatment to the ones who clearly deserve it.
Don’t get me talking about award availability.
Newbies may still fall after they see Nightline segments with “FREE” mentioned 14 times and gazillions of blog posts with bloggers telling them how to earn the miles to travel for FREE sipping champagne in a flat bed….They do not warn them that this game is probably NOT for them. If they did, it would hurt conversions.
Still value mostly of the MS angle. But that is being attacked too slowly but surely…
It is getting back to what is should be. Saving money taking family to Orlando and Topeka, KS 🙂
Great discussion!
Andrew-
We agree on most thoughts.
But read that sentence again-people are paying to go to “seminars”, where people sell them credit cards. In today’s fast world, P.T. Barnum would say one is born every second.
Yes the pinch is redemptions. But they have to leave enough smoke in the air so folks will still believe. And if it gets too bad, you can always sign-up for the award services, ably run by—-gosh I don’t believe this- it’s those same bloggers!
@Andrew – you are either ignorant about the current miles and points landscape or you just have a beef with bloggers.
First of all, you can absolutely get Chase bonuses again and again. People have been doing it with UR cards for a while and now Chase has even allowed it with their latest T&C update.
As for it going mainstream in the last 12 months, it went mainstream long before that. Awards are still there and people are still booking them. The disappearance of award availability compared to a few years ago has nothing to do with the glut of miles and points. It has to do with the mergers and the decrease of aircraft on some routes. Combine that with larger load numbers on routes and that is where some of the availability has gone.
As to the Chase Ink bonus – that is the highest public bonus offer ever made online. Thousands of people got in on it. It was an awesome offer and just one of the great offers we had this year. This year, we have seen the largest bonuses ever offered on the Amex Plat card – 150,000 points.
The game is far from over. If you are giving up, fine. But don’t assume that just because you are tired of it that everyone else and the banks are done with it as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>>The disappearance of award availability compared to a few years ago has nothing to do with the glut of miles and points.
I think this statement is a stretch…long stretch!
I do not disagree with the rest of your points. It’s all…relative. Game is not over. But the Elite gaming is almost over, if not completely over 🙂
Anyways, the future is not so bright we all need to wear shades you know 😉
Wow, fantastic comment by Sam! I was reading it at Panera next to the Tuesday morning grief support group and I was going “yes…yes…so true” about the trip back to the past decades. I only wanted to add the “kitchen table” references…because, you know, them nice guys always closed at the kitchen table lol.
And I chucked with your point that I may be too far down the road…Judge me by my actions not by my words 🙂 Turtles move faster than me (not on the soccer court!).
TPG’s app is out. Gotta say – there is no way I would every sign up to give my card info and rewards program info away. So, I think it is pretty much worthless. I could care less where in the world he is and do not want to use his app to read his site.
Yeah….there is no way in hell I would ever do that!
It’s just the wallaby app with branding, including inflated TPG point valuations to make those inferior affiliate links look even juicer.
So….it’s like putting lipstick on the pig then & selling the crap out of it?
@Sam. +
I know that you hate One Credit Card At A Time, but why not post the link to him when he actually posts something useful?
Agreed: acknowledging something valuable but not actually linking to it is a total douchebag move.
Nope, calling someone a “total douchebag” who hasn’t shown himself to be one is a total douchebag move.
In fact, for all you young ‘uns out there, being a “total douchebag” takes, in general, far more than just a single action.
So, Drew’s not one, and neither is Buzz.
However “One Douchebag At A Time” has, in fact, a whole bag full of douchebag posts (and actions). So he’s earned that title and doesn’t warrant props just because he posts one useful item per year, or smiles nice, or is friendly in person. And neither does Million Douchebag Secrets just because he can keep a straight face when saying he doesn’t want any more money.
(I find it ironic/moronic that calling someone a D-bag is an insult, since D-bags are clean, and quite helpful for those in need!)
>>>>>>I find it ironic/moronic that calling someone a D-bag is an insult, since D-bags are clean, and quite helpful for those in need!
That is very funny 🙂
I doubt you know what “hate” is.
Rather than asking a question, make an argument on behalf of OMAAT.
Why do you wonder if MMS is the owner of the site? You can own something set on autopilot and hire someone to manage the content.
Well, you can tell that Lucky reads FT because that’s where it was reported first.
The way he wrote the post makes it sounds like he is the one who “discovered” it. Gary had the decency to give credit to the reader who seems to be the same person to have reported it on FT.
@ Aaron: I do not link to blogs in my Ignore list.
@ No Way Jose: Your answer is below your comment. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
@ ABC: There are rumors out there about certain blogs that may not be owned anymore by the founders…
@ Chris: Thanks.
I have posted MANY things first that have made it onto other blogs with NEVER a simple HT (let alone a link back to me) and the ONE time I take the time to at least give an HT I get push back….Well, I respect your view on the matter but I disagree. Besides, the DL is not definitive…I think he was trying to be FIRST out there without really researching this more…happened before you know.
TBB: “I have posted MANY things first that have made it onto other blogs with NEVER a simple HT”
That’s because no one who matters even bothers to read you, only idiots like me.
TBB: “Your answer is below your comment.”
I didn’t ask you a question, and I wasn’t looking for a defensive answer. Remember, comments — especially critical ones — should be taken seriously. Your readers have taken the time to offer you advice, and they represent opportunities to improve. I believe you’ve given advice to bloggers like that in the past.
You should have linked to OMAAT if you thought he posted something of note. Don’t be a douche bag. Just because you think bloggers are doesn’t mean you should be one too.
>>>>>>That’s because no one who matters even bothers to read you, only idiots like me.
Welcome then, you belong. I am the head idiot here woohoo!
Again, thanks for taking the time to comment. TBB management reads all comments.
I will link to the article that lays it all out when the DL situation clears up. Until then, no need to add more readers to that blog and contribute more $$ to it….Perhaps I should have never done the HT like they do and we would not have you lose it here. So please take a breath dude.
The Chinese government is cracking down on strange buildings:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/travel/gallery/china-unusual-architecture/
See what happens after I post about stuff like that lol
Need a laugh? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llBoAvU21IE
Entertainment!
This just in:
Dan’s Deals has 4 Rubber Door Stops for $1:
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/53799
Now tell me nobody who matters reads here.
Wish someone will make me a template to copy Dan’s Amazon deals and insert TBB’s Amazon product links in them #muchodinero #retirement lol
Breaking news from Gary and MommyPoints!!!!! Huge News!!!!!
Alert your friends!!!!!
The Citi AA card is offering 50K miles!!!!!
Granted that’s absolutely nothing new and has been the case for years, but then when you type in “sellouts” into wikipedia, it redirects you to the BoardingArea page
“Best Offer of the Year” HURRY!
But this offer includes not 1 but 2 admirals club passes!!!!
game….. wait for it…. changer
Damn you all, I had to go rubber-neck for myself.
Now that’s just the stuff that falls out the back end of the horse. Nobody should think that Admirals Club passes are worth almost fifty dollars each. (Disclosure: I’ve sold some on eBay, because the clubs (wifi + apples + tower of sodium + someone else’s cell phone conversation) are not worth it and I try to avoid long waits (or even being) in airports.)
In her defense, when you have links, you have to pretend that these offers are novel and inflate their value.
“tower of sodium + someone else’s cell phone conversation” LOL – so true and accurate
Remember Mommy Points is the one who claimed, on national television, the value of 3 United Club mini-muffins is ~$15.
Didn’t see that segment, but… wow. Being a Titan of Travel requires believing (or just saying) some pretty incredible things.
Absolutely ridiculous!
Judging from the newbs who went for it….this game has legs unfortunately.
I should start a “Worst of the Blogs” feature again….oh if there were more than 24 hrs in a 24 hour period.
What got even more ridiculous was the…..Bring back the cookie rant LOL
As Anonymous Douchebag seems to be a very insightful commenter, I’d be curious to know his thoughts on Gary’s rant about…. cookies
On behalf of those people in the first world, I’d like to apologize to those in the 2nd or 3rd world. Gary does not represent us
Tweeted about 10 minutes ago before you posted this…
Bring back the cooooookiiiiiiiieeeeee @AmericanAir Just kidding, I don’t eat them 🙂
And the new cookies do suck. I miss the white chocolate cranberry.
CookieGate!