TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
The ridiculous race is on to get readers to click on the SPG Amex 30k affiliate links! Make fun of them and enter to win two AA Admirals Club passes! GREAT odds, only 20 valid entries! Update: Say anything you want now to enter, the Milepoint people do!
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Not much in this post, I had a late start as life got in the way.
TRAVEL
The largest ever picture ever taken. Tokyo Tower Gigapixel panorama. Must click!
60 Seconds Timelapse of the Perseid Meteor Shower in Joshua Tree Park. Found at The Adventure Blog. Wow, sit back and just watch this show!
60 Seconds Timelapse of the Perseid Meteor Shower in Joshua Tree Park from Kai Gradert on Vimeo.
Footage from a time-lapse workshop during the Perseid Meteor Shower. Shot on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in Joshua Tree National Park.
Please note that not all of the light trails are meteors. Some of them are airplanes or satellites crossing the night sky. You can tell by the direction and length of the trails.
MILES/POINTS
Well, two big news dominated the day: 1) It was the day after the Department of Justice decided to become Doug Parker’s worst nightmare and prevent him from becoming what he always wanted to become, run the biggest airline (Hey Dougie, maybe keep your mouth shut huh?) by suing to block the American Airlines and US Air merger. 2) Delta continued with reason #898 to hate Skymilespesos. Why are you still there with your beloved airline, hit them where it hurts and only place they understand! Ok, I need to restraint myself…Breath, breath…
I was surprised to read the Million Miles Secrets piece on the non merger “Why You Should be Happy That the US and American Airlines merger won’t go through“. I thought it was the best out there, even better than the one posted at a View From the Wing (wow!). And yes I am VERY happy about this. Consumers win! I think AA should do a ridiculous promotion now….oh wait. Coming up:-) Hey, I call it as I see it. I am talking to you AgendaGuy, take it easy:-)
Delta, to remain competitive (hahahahhaahaha), decided to “enhance” Skypesos…again! More devaluations & no more award holds. For the gory details read post #1. For the official news release (haha) by Dwayne (no kidding) read post #6. Can you believe the spin? Well, I left last year. So long suckers! Abuse the ones who don’t know better. Yeah, leave! They don’t want you anyway. Bitches, what goes around will come around! Ooof. Yea, everyone else will follow now, that’s the way the industry has rolled for a while. I need to hire someone for the TBB Burning Department!
The specific Delta Skymiles low level Business Class awards change as follows:
US to Europe from 100k to 125k
US to Asia from 120k to 140k
US to Australia 150k to 160k
Us to South Africa 140k to 160k
Then, in a bizarre announcement, AA appeared to let everyone register for an Elite Status challenge for truly ridiculously low elite-qualifying miles. We are talking just 6k for Gold, 12k for Platinum and 30k for Executive Platinum. I even thought about un-retiring from the game (and you could have rightly started calling me Brett Favre?) Well, it appears that some one in AA’s IT Dept noticed and the offer was pulled. Now everyone is waiting (and hoping) that AA will honor the registrations…which, to me, will be quite absurd as it appears that this must have been targeted. Hey, if you do not get it honored, please do not sue:-)
Amol at Hack My Trip wrote “Is Delta Showing You the Lowest Price Award Available?“. Good post. You can switch from “Best Match” to “Miles per Passenger” and you may get lucky! On another note, talk about a day to post this when Delta rips another reverse enhancement to the SkyPesos program.
One of the best explanations on how to redeem AA miles by Saverocity “Getting the Magic Dashes on AAdvantage Reservations“.
IHG Rewards ended its online shopping mall. Did you care? I sure didn’t!
ON MY MIND
Every day it appears to be the same thing. I never get to look into doing some blog enhancements or work on any other (trip report) blog post. I could delete hundreds of my Feedly list and start making up filler stuff for you guys here while I research monetization opportunities but I have been avoiding it for more than nine months. Am I delusional, a communist or just clinically insane? Ok, please don’t answer that. I did manage to post an internship position for a WordPress whiz kid at a local college. We’ll see if anyone responds.
Just a week left with my free Mercedes Benz. Dang it I am going to miss it!
ODDZ & ENDZ
The USA National soccer team is on a giant run these days, something like 13 wins in a row!
BLOG BUZZ
Delta Points on what to do if Delta kills(?) your bag. Not to worry, get the AMEX Delta Platinum, or the Delta Reserve, or the Platinum or the Premier Rewards Gold. Please note that Delta Gold personal is not good for this but the business card IS, wow! How about this for you to consider? First, why are you flying Delta in the first place? And second, why are you checking a bag? And third, why are you reading….ah, never mind.
Noob Traveler, shockingly, had a post about some unexpected points. And I get to the end and I see signed by “Ethan Carter”. Who is that? I was worried something may have happened to Noob…all is okay!
One Mile at a Time, in his ANA glowing short report, has this to say: “The lavatory has a bidet-style toilet. Does anyone really give a crap, though?” Ok, this is hilarious!
Lenticular Travel will be the Friday interviewee at MMS who is super excited by the way to have launched his website! I see SPG AMEX writeups soon?
First?
In all seriousness though, how do you go through so much stuff in your Feedly? I have like 30 blogs in there and don’t have enough time in the day. I love the pictures – always a favorite and opens my eyes to places I have never considered.
Keep up the good work, George!
Gary Leff was an inspiration, if he could do all the things he does why not me? 🙂
I used to see lots of movies, not anymore. So I have narrowed my hobbies down to just…this one and soccer now.
I am on my Galaxy phone…a lot, like…all the time:-)
Thank you for the kind words, if it was not for them I would have given up and regained my easy life a long time ago!
Strongly recommend this Loyalty Traveler piece on the Hilton devaluation …. Even the hotel OWNERS hate it! http://boardingarea.com/loyaltytraveler/2013/08/14/sunstone-cfo-says-2013-hhonors-point-devaluation-impacted-its-times-square-hotels/
I read it of course. I thought about featuring it but then I thought…this can’t be surprising. Hilton is the Delta of hotel points now:-)
I’ve planning on giving up Delta and its Skypesos — until I flew United biz class for the first time this past June. (ATL-DEN-LAX) and was completely UNDERwhelmed!! Horrid old plane (no TV — in the ENTIRE biz section!? Not that it mattered cause I had my tablet, but it never occurred to me — a biz class seat without entertainment?!) I was looking forward to my wee bottle of water at my seat when I boarded… Nope — and it was well into the flight before they began asking what we wanted to drink… Took Delta biz class home from LAX (nonstop cause it was $$ not points) and had my usual fantastic, comfy seats, great service… I had thought maybe I’d change allegiance — but whew! Can’t beat Delta for product, even if they are miserly about points!
No doubt about the quality of the Delta onboard experience. It is the Skypesos program that is absolutely brutal and it is even getting worse!
Photos on the Lenticular Travel site look great. Never heard of the Sony NEX camera before but it might be time for me to ditch my crappy iPhone shots in favor of a real camera!
Yes, good photos there and I am waiting for the post how to get them with a camera bought with…an SPG Amex card:-)
My friend came back from his vacation and he showed me the pics he took. They were stunning and all taken with his…Samsung Galaxy 4 phone!
Until someone can show me a way to fly on an Airline that happily allows me to get/earn miles at a fraction of the cost, I’m sticking with Delta. You can disparage my new favorite airline (since april 2012) but you certainly havent convinced me yet why I would want to pay more and earn less miles with other airlines.
Say what? If you are flying domestic for business I can understand this. If not, and you are aiming to fly up front internationally, I am not sure it can be justified using Delta. Wait for Dwayne to announce reason #932 to hate Delta then:-)
Thanks for the inclusion George, tried to keep that post short and simple, though it goes against my instincts to do so…
BTW Re Delta, I have never earned miles with them, but I have heard that they can be the best airline to earn on, probably the lowest manufactured cost and if they cost that must less to make, then using a few more of them hardly matters.
I am not so sure that the “lowest manufactured cost” is greater than the “using a few more of them” factor! That “few more” is getting larger and larger as days go by.
Besides, as a principle, I do not like to support businesses who treat me as a moron. So, I will not patronize Delta any longer and I have given them $0 as of 1/1/13. And I LOVE it!
Where else can you earn 1m miles for less than $700. Show me that path and Im off their ship completely. Until then its Damn the torpedoes and forward march
Painful to see you call the sport “soccer”.
I absolutely understand what you mean!
As a guy who has been around US soccer since the mid 80s…I have come a long way. I now have “acceptance” that it is okay to use the term “soccer” even though I hate it as much as you because it avoids unnecessary confusion and misunderstandings. I gave up on using “real football” term too:-) And I no longer will spend any time whatsoever trying to show that thinking soccer is boring and baseball is exciting does NOT make any sense whatsoever. Denial then, acceptance now:-)
If you want to stir the pot a little bit, you can start using the term “American football” to refer to what is played here. 🙂
Also, http://www.nbcsports.com/soccer/premier-league/coach-ted-lasso-full-film
Mega lolololololololololol
Oh, priceless. Thank you!
To repeat the Nurse Traveler’s comment, I love the pictures in your post, and look forward to see them daily. Regarding to soccer, it reminded me the good old times in VN when playing in the rocky street without shoes, using our sandals as goals, one team had t-shirt on and the other without it, and kicking the plastic soccer ball… Thanks.
Growing up in Greece I played soccer non stop! Sometimes barefoot & with anything resembling a ball. Good times:-)
Today, Milevalue writes “Tell each of your parents to get the Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express”…………….Buzz, you are too young for this, but it reminds me of Soupy Sales, the comedian, RIP. He got fired from his kids show, when he told all the boys and girls watching to go into their parents bedroom, take the change from their pocketbook/wallets and mail it to him (Soupy).
I stand corrected, after further research on the intranet, I found out Soupy Sales only got in trouble for that gag mentioned above, not fired. He actually got fired for telling the kids this “I took my girlfriend to the baseball game last night, I kissed her between the Strikes and she kissed me between the Balls”………………I loved that show!!
I was going to pick out that MV statement about the parents as the “most ridiculous statement to date on the SPG Amex promo”…Unbelievable!
Oh, my, Soupy Sales! I never liked him but I do remember the fuss around his go-to-your-mom’s-wallet-and-send-me-money shenanigans. He received lots and lots of dineros s a result.
Just got very distracted by an amazing rainbow. Ramsey, did you see it too this Portland evening?
Today I met someone who grew up in A2 and attended EMU. I did not ask him “Hey, do you know George?” but I thought about it!
@TWA44 sorry missed it here in Tualatin, or maybe view blocked by my giant Fir trees………….I knew you would remember Soupy, maybe he was on TV only in N.Y. along with kids shows like Wonderama, The Sandy Becker Show and Officer Joe Bolton showing the 3 Stooges. Those were the days.!
I do not remember Soupy but I have heard his name!
Yeah, I went to EMU for 6 years (two degrees, NOT on the 6 year plan). Had a great time there. I still keep in touch with some professors and am involved in the alumni group.
Looks like MileValue got his Amex links back, so expect him to suddenly treat the SPG Amex with the attention that other bloggers (who had the link the whole time) have been giving it the past week
Just a coincidence though!
Yep, he is on it at full speed! Check what I have to say about it at my August 15 blog post…coming up shortly!