Amex SPG Luxury Card, Sapphire Banking, Flight Bump Money, Hacking Electric Grids

We bring you the Amex SPG Luxury card, news of the new Chase Sapphire banking, how much airines pay for flight bumps, some inside news about hacking electric grids, how Venezuelans escape their mad country, how middle class moms get hooked on heroin, we still have issues with the Marriot SPG merging of accounts and more for you freeeee!

TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS, shopping with our AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK & clicking our REFERRAL LINKS

 

This blog is a one man band show!

It is really sad to see one of the few blogs in the world famous TBB Blogs I Like list, Personal Finance Digest, to announce he is done blogging for now. Who is going to be left? Who is going to fight the system man? With Mile Nerd also retiring from blogging at the end of the year, I am close to joining them you guys. This hobby is definitely not what it used to be, sad!

A review of the new Amex SPG Luxury card. You have until August 26 to get it before all kind of punitive unreasonable restrictions are placed on the card. For more details see the article.  My short take? If you are addicted to SPG Marriott hotels this is essentially a $150 card ($450 annual fee – $300 credit ). 100k sign bonus is kind of weak. Earning rates on it are even weaker. You get a free night every year. Again, in a few days all of you hobby veterans will likely not get it, so sad. As of press time, I do not have an affiliate link for the card. Actually, only 3 Titan bloggers got one yesterday. I will update the post here when/if I do.

Still issues with the merger of Marriott and SPG. As confessed earlier, I am not going there until next week. But if you can’t wait I guess…Go here if you want to keep your Marriott number and here if you want to keep your SPG number. And good luck!

Register HERE for yet another National Car Rental OneTwoFree promo.

This may be of interest to some of you. Which airlines let you transfer miles INTO hotel loyalty programmes? I do not recommend it! I think I have never used hotel points other than, please sit down, free hotel stays! So, I agree with the article conclusion: “There are a few ways of moving airline miles into hotel points. The value is generally poor, however, and it is only recommended if you are topping up a hotel account or emptying out an airline one“.

Things I learn while I run through some Greek press sites online: The Iran sanctions led to British Airways and Air France canceling flights to Iran. Ryan Air will start flying three times a week to Athens during winter from Heathrow Luton.

JP Morgan is determined to grab your money #crossselling. Most depressing two words in this hobby: No bonus! JPMorgan extends Sapphire card brand to checking accounts. Even if there is a bonus involved, I would be hard pressed to give access to my money to these guys, sorry!

Here is a series of posts by Loyalty Traveler of all Marriott Rewards hotels that now cost LESS per award night:

Category 1  Just 86 hotels

Category 2  55 hotels now 7,500 to 12,500 points less!

This is helpful, I can not remember the last time I got bumped! What every major airline pays you if you’re bumped from a flight.

1. Alaska Airlines — $1,222 (2.9)
2. Virgin America — $968 (1.6)
3. Delta — $816 (0.6)
4. ExpressJet — $741 (7.9)
5. SkyWest — $610 (5.2)
6. JetBlue -– $570 (5.3)
7. American — $562 (4.1)
8. Southwest — $555 (6.1)
9. United — $544 (2.7)
10. Spirit — $358 (6.5)
11. Hawaiian — $311 (0.6)
12. Frontier — $221 (4.6)

More Delta Skymiles options to Europe too! Delta to Increase Frequency of Amsterdam, Paris, Tel Aviv Flights in 2019.

If you are into roller coasters, you will LOVE this article! From Death Traps to Disneyland: The 600-Year History of the Roller Coaster.

An Instagram account dedicated to abandoned places, one of my fav things!

I feel a little bit better now with them Russian hackers and stuff like that…Hacking The Electric Grid Is Damned Hard.

This is downright depressing: How Heroin Came for Middle-Class Moms. Read it only if you want to get depressed too. Here is an excerpt to understand how depressing it is…

At treatment centers like Family First, patients generally fall into two groups: Women like Donna who started pain medication for a physical ailment like dental surgery, a cesarean section, or back pain, and women who were addicted to heroin. It used to be that these groups had nothing in common. There were women who did pills, and there were women who did heroin. But now these groups have merged. “Most of our pill clients have moved on to heroin,” says Therese Benyola, director, child protection and welfare reform substance abuse programs at the Center for Family Services. “We still get women that are just doing pills, but there aren’t as many.”

I think this is actually great advice: How to make friends as an adult. I need to do a better job at this. And stop being so flaky lol.

You will be hearing A LOT more about this 20% tax deduction. It is going to be mayhem! IRS came out with regulations on August 8 and many extreme techniques were killed. “Crack and pack” was one of them, yeah really! Just throwing this out there to get an idea about what is ahead…The costs of administering and complying with this will be HUGE! Hacking time ahead lol, ask your CPA. I am attending a conference in October and the main speaker will be THE expert at this, I can’t wait!: Your financial advisor wants a piece of this tax break.

It is unimaginable how the current government in Venezuela is still in power! Governance MATTERS people! Fleeing Venezuela’s Crushing Economic Crisis.

We all need to do our part to consume less plastic shit! Where are Plastic Bags Banned Around the World?​ Hey look, maybe the “shithole” countries get this right!

This sure shows how Amazon just dominates ecommerce!

I had no idea TBB can mean so many other things (HT: Nick) My fav ones:

To Be Billed

Teenie Beanie Baby

The Bloody Beetroots

Who got the AMEX SPG Luxury card affiliate link first in chronological order: TPG, MMS, VFTW. OMAAT did not get it and was furiously pumping the other SPG cards and never had the courtesy to provide a direct public link to the card, sad! Of course the first three were silent until they got the affiliate link first $$$$$.

Worst clickbait headline since last TBB post:

Drunk American Arrested for Allegedly Urinating on Fellow ANA Passenger  – The Points Guy

With PFD retiring, the decision will be easier to hang it up. And doing it for $1.25 to $1.75 per day in Amazon is just not going to do it, time to get serious about doing my first marathon. Oh, I am back into running form again after vacation, already 35 miles this week so far with one more running day, muy bueno! Enjoy this while my blog lasts you guys. When that day comes, I will miss it. But mostly I will miss you!

I have been neglecting to do song links for you guys. Mostly because my right ear has been buzzing more than normal these days and listening to music, even in low volume, has become a little problematic, super sad! But here is a remix of a Greek song I like, love the happy beat!

Monika – Stala Remix (Dj Toucan African Rub Refix)

And I leave you with this…

TBB
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Follow TBB on Twitter @FlyerTalkerinA2 and now on Instagram.

You can subscribe to TBB below, winners only!

Leave this field empty if you're human:

Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.