TravelBloggerBuzz, Author at TravelBloggerBuzz

Enhanced Self Cult, Retirement Reframe, AI Hate, Iran War End, 100k Chase Sapphire Preferred

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:51:27 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as the enhanced self cult, retirement reframe, AI hate, Iran war end, 100k Chase Sapphire Preferred card offer, Medicare 101, active vs passive ETFs, sad SBF in prison, balloon racing family, rare diseases, best cities for staycations, the best hotel bars, chili peppers of the world, World Cup fever is on, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for Credit Cards or Buy Me a Coffee or click on Links

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy ~~hobby~~ addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

I am pleased to see the site refresh has been well received by almost every blog reader, it’s been a long time coming. I am always open to constructive feedback how to make this blog better for you.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish” – Euripides

MUST READ GEMS

Derek Thompson in his Substack posted an article that was another fascinating read that went over several topics dealing with health, alcohol, exercise, partying, self-enhancement, selfishness, loneliness, death, etc. Not going to excerpt anything, read the whole thing:

The Cult of the Enhanced Self

PERSONAL FINANCE

My main career (blogging is not it) is managing people and their wealth. And helping them get to that retirement chapter in their lives, you know, live the dream. It got to a point some time ago that financial worries are no longer valid for the most part. But of course you will always have people be afraid the money will run out. The main issue with retirement then becomes what comes next, the softer stuff. And this is a great article on the subject: Why Retirement Demands a Beginner’s Mindset.

For years, your value was tied to having the answers. Being a novice forces you to confront who you are when you don’t. Casey recommends a small reframe: stop calling it a retirement hobby and start calling it an experiment. “When you call something an experiment, the pressure drops. You’re not performing for something with a score or a grade. You’re just exploring.”

And there is more useful and practical advice, read the whole thing. And get comfortable in spending as well, the “number” will go down once you stop collecting a paycheck most likely and it’s going to be ok.

Really good comprehensive article on the subject, bookmark it or send the link to someone you care about who is entering this territory: Medicare 101: What You Need to Know.

Another reminder: Active Versus Passive ETFs: Why Lower Fees Still Win. Active ETFs are growing in popularity, but costs and diversification still make passives hard to beat.

I agree with the author’s conclusion:

“My view is that active ETFs are generally better than active mutual funds but not as good as the lowest-cost and most broadly diversified indexed ETFs.”

This chart got my attention, found HERE:

TECH/SCAMS/CRYPTO

Very long article on SBF: Sam Bankman-Fried’s Prison Experiment. This is the first time that I felt bad about this guy. Very briefly.

We talked about his new living arrangement, which is a six-person unit rather than the dorm-style setup he had been used to. I asked him what he’d tell the president if he had a direct audience. He replied that the president had been the victim of politically motivated prosecution and “he’s not the only one.” He praised Trump for unleashing the crypto industry and undoing Biden’s crypto-unfriendly policy of “regulation by prosecution.”

Because these days, as often predicted here, every convicted fraudster is trying for a pardon: Charlie Javice Has Been Seeking a Pardon From Trump After Defrauding JPMorgan.

Scary stuff. “Since You Arrived”. taken. You opened this page. It already knows the following.

Scammers are everywhere. In all kinds of countries and industries. And here is one from Great Britain who managed to blow billions in mobile homes: The Bankrupting of a Mobile Home Billionaire. Lenders poured money into a British caravan empire and made its founder very rich. They’re wondering where it all went. You will learn about caravan living across the pond and hopefully realize that private credit is not something you need or get near to. Amazingly, this guy is not in jail! And he is “coming straight to America” he says. So, remember the name Bob Bull. When you see it, run away fast!

Bull and Nilsen photographed for the Sunday Times in 2023. Photographer: GarethIwanJones

AI

Trying to keep up with AI is not easy! Here are Five things you need to know about AI. From the MIT Technology Review. At SXSW London, our senior editor Will Douglas Heaven laid out how he’s thinking about AI in 2026.

1. Strictly speaking, I didn’t need to show up to give this talk.

2. AI is getting scary (for real this time).

3. A lot of people really hate AI.

4. AI for science is a very big deal.

5. AI is everywhere all at once.

You can automate all this crap now using AI smh: AI Influencer Generator. You read something online, do you think it’s real? Are you sure? You bet that whatever you read in my blog it is here because a human (me) used his judgment that it is worthy to be here. Period.

Ok, let’s lighten the mood, how about some GrankGPT next. A human-powered, fully local and private AI solution. LOL.

IRAN WAR

Hopefully the deal holds, here it is: 14-Point Draft Memorandum Between the US and Iran. Reminds me back in the dot com era when “analysts” used to sell dogs by applying lipstick on them. Or maybe it was pigs? Update: “Shocked” to see Israel is not going along with it and VP Vance canceled trip to Switzerland smh.

Meanwhile, there is no doubt about this: The Iran War Permanently Altered the Global Economy.

The global energy order is being reshaped

China is a major beneficiary

Re-establishing trust will be difficult

The economy has been kicked onto a path of slower growth and higher prices

One of the most bizarre and definitely unintended consequences of this war has been this: For the first time, wind and solar generated more electricity than gas worldwide in April 2026. Rapid wind and solar growth is weakening the case for imported gas even during the latest energy crisis.

ODDZ & ENDZ

Taking a detour back to World War II. I had no idea that this had happened: Operation COTTAGE First Special Service Force, Kiska Campaign. So, there was an invasion to take back Kiska island from the Japanese, over 500 casualties. With only one remarkable fact…the Japanese had already abandoned the island!

Poor guy, can you imagine? Rare tick-borne virus nearly wiped out this N.J. man’s memory and his life. ‘People should know that it exists.’

Powassan is a virus spread to people by the bite of an infected tick…Initial symptoms can include fever, headache, vomiting and weakness. In severe cases, it can affect the central nervous system, causing encephalitis or meningitis. Approximately 10% of cases affecting the central nervous system are fatal and about half of survivors have long-lasting neurologic deficits, such as headaches, muscle weakness, focal paralysis or cognitive difficulties, according to the CDC…

Despite its severity, the virus isn’t as well-known as other tick-borne illnesses like Lyme disease. That could be due to its rarity. Between 2004 and 2024, only 397 cases of Powassan virus were reported in the U.S., according to the CDC. By comparison, an estimated 476,000 people in the United States are diagnosed and treated for Lyme disease each year.

There are lots of sports out there. Many are obscure. Such as this one: The Rise and Rise of Balloon Racing’s First Family. What a story, I had no idea so much goes into doing this. If you love learning new things you are in the right ~~spot~~ blog.

Though everyone refers to these competitions as races, they’re not, really. Judges don’t usually measure speed; they reward accuracy as the competitors try to drop their beanbags (a.k.a. baggies) on a target or maneuver their aircraft toward a specific destination. Pilots can earn as many as one thousand points per task and get penalized as many as five hundred for, say, launching from or landing in forbidden zones. Points are accumulated over the course of multiple days, at the end of which the champion is showered with champagne, awards, and money—most of which will likely go toward balloon upkeep and other costs.

TRAVEL

Interesting list: Best & Worst US Cities for Staycations (2026).

Nice list: World’s most beautiful restaurants of 2026 chosen by Prix Versailles. Maybe some are in Resy so we can use the $100 credits on our Amex Platinum cards you guys…

Going big on lists today: Forbes Travel Guide’s Best Hotel Bars for 2026. I have been to the Cavalieri in Rome and the Conrad in Tokyo on Hilton points of course #winning.

Maybe you are into chili peppers? Not the band. You can travel the world tracking them down, all 176 of them, have at it: Chili Peppers of the World.

2026 WORLD CUP

My miles hobby made my trip to the 2014 Brazil World Cup possible by the way, here is the trip report, I was blessed with unforgettable memories from it.

LOVING this World Cup, watching 4-5 games every day is awesome and a bit exhausting as well. But not having it any other way. Not sure about the expanded format, 104 games in total is a little…too many? But watching Cape Verde holding heavy favorites Spain to a goalless draw are just one of the moments that will be remembered for ever. Which was the only 0-0 game so far (as of publishing time) in this WC and if you bitch about this sport being boring because of the lack of scoring, stick with your baseball and leave us alone ok? 🙂 And Cape Verde’s goalie is also living a dream, what a sweet story: 40-year-old Cape Verde goalkeeper keeps favorite Spain to 0 goals at World Cup.

USA had its best World Cup performance beating Paraguay 4-1 in its first game. Can we keep this going in the 2nd game against Australia which also looked really good beating Turkey in its opener?

Because come World Cup time, you must begin to understand what it’s all about: The Country Where Fútbol Comes First.

LOVE this video: The Best 100 Moments in FIFA World Cup History.

And this one from the Asian Boss: Why Global Chaos Can’t Stop the World Cup.

This is me every four years lol:

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

Got some ideas of some properties to burn a Free Night Cert here: Best Ways to Redeem Hilton Honors Points.

Apparently, we are not the only ones getting Bonvoyed lol: Hotel Owners Are Rebelling Against Marriott’s Loyalty Program. Owners representing nearly 1,000 hotels demand Marriott revise the rules of its popular Bonvoy program to them give a bigger slice.

Of course I could not go even one post without another hit in this hobby: New booking restrictions on Qatar Airways Privilege Club.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

I had no ideas there were so many online restaurant booking outfits out there. And AMEX just keeps buying them, first it was Resy, then came Tock and now here comes The Fork.

Good to see Barclays still trying to become more relevant in this space. It recently did some updates in its card portfolio with Wyndham Rewards:

Introduced a decent new card: Barclays Launches New Wyndham Earner Premier Card – $395 Fee, 120,000 Points Bonus, And Some Credits.

and did several updates in the other cards: Barclays Refreshes Wyndham Personal & Business Cards – Increased Fees, Added Credits, Changed Points Earning.

If you are into Wyndham, knock yourself out I guess. Initial signup bonuses banks give out for us to apply are always worth the bang and you don’t have to keep the card long term. Definitely need to be more strategic these days with travel rewards credit card applications, the old days of never worrying about yet another credit card signup are over. I do not have any affiliate or referral links for Barclay cards, thank you for thinking of me though. On the other hand, all other cards appear to be okay, let me know how I can help.

CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED REFRESH:

This card has become a no brainer for, well, almost everyone. Especially if you are new into this travel reward cards space and absolutely do not care about Hyatt points whatsoever. Let me explain why you should get this card. Well, most of my readers either have this card or can no longer get it again due to Chase Bank’s new severe restrictions eliminating us credit card miles/points enthusiasts. This IS a great card for someone starting out by the way. We all have it in my household and are now definitely keeping it. Because for just $95 dollars annual fee you get:

No foreign transaction fees
Primary car rental insurance
$100 Annual Hotel Credit. (This is per cardmember year, rather than calendar year. Must be booked through the Chase Travel Portal.)
Card earns at the following rates:
- 5x on travel booked through the Chase Travel portal.
- 3x on Dining/Streaming Services/online grocery (excludes: excluding Target, Walmart and
  wholesale clubs)
- 3x on Gas/EV
- 3x on Airbnb, VRBO, Plum Guide, HomeAway, Homestay.com, and Vacasa
- 2x on other travel
- 1x on all other purchases
- 5x on Lyft rides through 9/30/27. 5x on Peloton purchases of $150+ through 12/31/27.
$120 credit once every four years for Global Entry, TSA PreCheck, or NEXUS.
One time offer (not ongoing): Complimentary Apple TV subscription for one year when activated by December 31, 2026.
Transferable points (reminder: Hyatt transfers are 4:3)
Complimentary DashPass membership ($120 value) for 12 months. Plus, DashPass members get a $10 promo each month ($120 annually) to save on groceries, retail orders, and more.
Chase 5/24 rule applies to this card

and of course for just $5,000 minimum spend in three months you get 100,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points! Even if you did not do much with the points and just cashed them out for a penny per point, it means you pocket $1,000. For an annual fee of $95 plus all the goodies above, DO THE MATH! Of course, you can transfer the points out to travel partners like United or Southwest ~~or Hyatt~~ and get way more than a penny per point. Yes, it is a bit more work but it can make this card even more valuable.

There are many places online you can use to apply for this card. For the love of God, do not use the links from The Points Guy or any other big outfit pretending to be “in the hobby” when they are a big business selling plastic for the banks. Maybe prefer a small independent blogger who is into this for the love of the game and been doing it for decades and would still be here most likely if banks stopped paying bloggers to sell plastic for them #hint. Anyway, email me with ANY questions, thank you for the support.

LATEST OFFERS:

Heads up, new offers starting June 15!

CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business: 200,000 Points Sign Up Bonus

CHASE INK Cash & INK Unlimited 100,000 Points Signup Bonus

100k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. Minimum spend $6,000 in three months

A whole bunch of new offers for Delta Skymiles, all expiring on July 15.

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold: Minimum spend is $5,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve: Minimum spend is $9,000 over six months

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold Business: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum Business: Minimum spend is $8,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve Business: Minimum spend is $15,000 over six months

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and always revolving new Chase Southwest credit card offers, the latest: Chase Southwest Personal Cards: 80,000-90,000 Points Signup Bonus.

Southwest Priority ($229 fee): Earn 90,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Premier ($149 fee): Earn 85,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Plus ($99 fee): Earn 80,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

150k AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business PLUS $125 Statement Credit: $125 Annual fee, minimum spend $8,000 in the first six months. For more info on the card’s benefits click HERE. (ENDING JULY 15)

125k CHASE Marriott Bonvoy Boundless + 1 Free Night: Minimum spend is $3,000 over three months.

185k CHASE IHG One Rewards Premier: $99 annual fee. 150,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. And another 35,000 points after spending a total of $6,000 in the first six months. (ENDING JUNE 24)

125k CHASE IHG One Rewards Traveler: No annual fee. 90,000 bonus points after spending $2,000 in the first three months. And another 35,000 points after spending a total of $4,000 in the first six months. (ENDING JUNE 24).

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

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Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

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3. Subscribe

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

150,000 signup bonus for wife’s Schwab Amex Platinum card is in the bank. Always feels so good seeing that, it’s like crack, the addiction is so strong and lasting lol. Not that I have ever done crack by the way, just saying.

I burned 45,000 World of Hyatt points for my first 10 nights in Bangkok at the Hyatt Place in Sukhumvit Soi 1 in late August, so just 4,500 points per night when the cash rate is $81. I am not sure if I will keep this reservation. I have more nights to book in Bangkok. And I am still contemplating paying for 30 nights at the other Hyatt Place in Soi 24 for an average of about $68 per night to pretty much secure World of Hyatt Globalist elite status for another year. Which I am contemplating whether to go for it since the gravy train of free World of Hyatt points from Chase transfers is now severely wounded #developing.

I keep forgetting how we get one World of Hyatt night credit for each Globalist Guest of Honor award we gift. Which I usually do this with my son who is currently in Bangkok. World of Hyatt night credits so far is now up to 21. With four nights booked for the Saigon Park Hyatt and now another 10 at the Hyatt Place above, so easy 35. With more nights to book in Bangkok due soon. So, hitting 40 to get all the Milestone Reward goodies should be a matter of time. But do I go for 60? If Chase had never done the unthinkable (sever that 1:1 transfer ratio) I would go for 60 easy. You think I am struggling with this decision? Yes I am.

With wife’s retirement in less than a few weeks, travel comfort becomes a higher priority. And with Detroit being our home airport it looks like we will come around to flying Delta again. And this decision has absolutely nothing to do with Delta Skymiles which absolutely suck. But flying out of Detroit using American and United has become very sketchy after both airlines totally destroying our plans in several recent trips. Because due to not having many flights, in case of travel disruptions or mechanicals, getting rebooked on other flights is very inconvenient and sometimes causing trauma. So, with the final home renovation bills coming due soon and the opportunity to put some more bigly spend on a card, maybe my wife can go for an AmeX Gold card for 90k SUB and waived annual fee for the first year. It has been more than 7 years since we had this card by the way. Maybe I go for it too if Amex decides to give it to me, which is unlikely. Based on my history, boo.

I am laying low these days and looking forward to that elusive premium World of Hyatt card. I have not tried recently for the Schwab Amex Platinum card for me, I have been constantly getting the Amex jail pop up. But I will not give up lol.

Or maybe I take a shot for another Chase Ink no annual fee card for the 100k SUB. Just for giggles to test the Chase pop up system. Maybe I sneak under it #dreaming.

No other miles/points burning going on, too many World Cup games on TV, sorry not sorry.

I did see Disclosure Day and I have mixed feelings about it.

Home renovation project is 95% complete. Maybe next week the ordeal is all over. Main floor looking really great and we love it. Considering how much we spent and what we could get in Thailand is, well, we are still coming to terms with that. But let’s not go there! Talk about inflation wow.

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Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Backand Rove Miles and more.

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

100k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k CHASE Ink Cash, 100k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 200k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 100k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 80k – 90k CHASE Personal Southwest Cards, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 529,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,233,893 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Let me leave you with this:

Fat George in Fortaleza, Brazil in the 2014 World Cup

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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The post Enhanced Self Cult, Retirement Reframe, AI Hate, Iran War End, 100k Chase Sapphire Preferred appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Growth of Millionaires, SpaceX and World Cup Begin, Insane AI Math, Chase Sapphire Preferred Refresh

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:58:00 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as the growth of millionaires, SpaceX and World Cup begin, the insane AI math, the Chase Sapphire Preferred refresh, retiring is hard, doing fraud with cattle, bank tellers protect customers from fraudsters, Iran war is over or maybe it is not, amazing fugitive family story, palace hotels, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for Credit Cards or Buy Me a Coffee or click on Links

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

The Chase Sapphire Preferred card has been refreshed. And so has my blog after a very long time. Hope you like the new look. I also cut out a lot of salesy stuff, lowered the number of colors in the links and text and just tried to have a much more modern and clean look. To make it easier on your beautiful eyes and just make it a respectable looking site that I can be proud of. The content has not changed, it is something that is not negotiable. But maybe I split it into two posts per week because these Friday posts get way too long?

This venture has now definitely turned into a non profit venture after paying for the site refresh, it is what it is. Definitely appreciate the three readers who chose to use my site’s credit card links to apply for a credit card since May 1st.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The first rule of compounding is to never interrupt it unnecessarily.” – Charlie Munger

MUST READ GEMS

World Cup fever is on, bookmark this page for the complete schedule. And let’s talk about the games in the comments section.

2026 FIFA World Cup Matches

This is required reading for anyone who follows some randos online and taking financial advice from them. No excerpts, read in its entirety. And be careful out there! How finfluencers prey on economic desperation.

This Is Not Financial Advice

Some great stats in this article about millionaires in the US. And I am sure seeing the wave of inheritances happening in my day job…

The insane growth of America’s millionaire class

PERSONAL FINANCE

Today we have the SpaceX IPO so this seems appropriate: How Much Will SpaceX Actually Cost Your Index. I wish indexes did not change their rules for accepting new companies. And we will soon have OpenAI and Anthropic join the money grab fest while it is hot. Could this the top or will this just get sorted out by the market after trading goes back to normal? And big down days are just another dip? I guess we’ll find out…

And just another reminder seems appropriate as well: Nobody Knows Anything, SpaceX IPO Edition. I don’t know, maybe looking back we will recall Morgan Stanley’s prediction that SpaceX’s revenue will reach $3.4 Trillion by 2040 THE top? Anyway, this is why when Wall Street forecasts anything you should see it as another opportunity to just laugh smh.

The world is composed of countless co-variables — not only things we cannot predict, but also secondary effects and unforeseen consequences that are even more impossible to forecast — the further out you look, the number of possible outcomes increases exponentially. So much happens over the course of a year that it makes forecasting challenging; 10-15 years into the future is utterly laughable. Look, I get it, analysts’ jobs are hard enough as is, and many of them are justifiably terrified about being replaced by Claude. Still, ~~f*ckery~~ tomfoolery like this does not give one confidence in this IPO process…

My work is mostly about getting my clients to retire. And it is incredibly satisfying when this happens and they are enjoying this chapter of their lives. And, you know, we all need a purpose so getting my still working clients to get there is a reason to keep working. Or maybe I am trying to postpone my own retirement because I am scared. Anyway, it has been much harder attacking this complicated subject on the personal front. Because: Retiring From Work Is Easy. Retiring Into Life Is Harder. If you are contemplating retirement at some point (yeah, almost everyone) this article is a must read. And I am starting to believe that the way to go is semi retirement and slowly easing into the next chapter instead of that one day you say goodbye to the structure that provided you, well, so much.

The more difficult adjustment is often psychological. After spending decades operating within structured routines and careers that shaped their schedules, relationships, identity, and sense of purpose, retirement can create an unexpected feeling of uncertainty. Even people who are financially prepared sometimes struggle once the structure and meaning that work provided begins to disappear. That reality catches many people off guard because most of us spend years preparing financially for retirement while spending very little time thinking about how we actually want to live once we get there.

The retirees who seem to transition most successfully are often the ones who begin building that life well before their final day of work. They cultivate interests, relationships, routines, and a sense of purpose long before retirement forces the issue. Financial planning remains important, but retirement is ultimately about much more than replacing a paycheck. A successful retirement is about building a life you genuinely want to wake up to once work is no longer deciding how your days will be spent.

TECH/SCAMS/CRYPTO

I had no idea there was so much rampant fraud in the cattle industry. And this guy was really on to something taking so many people for a ride: The Cattle Empire That Turned Out to Be a Giant Ponzi Scheme. Investors and bank loans fueled Brian McClain’s ‘house of cards’ beef operations, which burned through $170 million. Wild stuff, some people are addicted to living the good life and gotta have it anyway they can. Also, amazing how easy financing was doing this, I guess no real inventory controls were present. To be off by so many cattle is unforgivable imho.

I think if you a behavioral scientist your job prospects are very bright. Because banks will want you badly: Customers Are Giving Billions to Scammers. Tellers Are Intervening. With cybercrime continuing to rise, some banks are testing new prevention strategies. JPMorgan Chase hired a behavioral scientist. Be careful out there, watch your aging parents!

Investigation by Reuters. If you are shocked, you are not paying attention: Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don’t. Risking little of their own money, the US president and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they’ve wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.

Sometimes when tech and science converge, we get stuff like this LOL: How often do people pass gas? There’s an app for that.

AI

I have clients who are software engineers. And both my kids are in the tech industry. And their friends read my blog. So, this article appeals mainly to software engineers and anyone who is into this thing that is changing (it appears) everything: AI enthusiasts are in a race against time, AI skeptics are in a race against entropy. Both sides are grappling with a real existential threat, and both sides feel like they are screaming into the void. There is a way to close the gap and get everyone pulling in the same direction.

I agree with this article: An entire industry is being propped by math that is insane.

GenAI is a risky bet that could pay off, or it could well tank the economy. (A more reliable form of AI might be a safer bet.) Certainly, SpaceX will never return the way Amazon did. OpenAI is in trouble, and may not make it. Anthropic has a chance of being profitable, but reaching 10x the IPO price would be amazing. To get to 100x the expected IPO price of $1 trillion would mean a market cap of nearly the entire world GDP (about $125 trillion), another manifest absurdity; 1000x is out of the question.

We’ll see what happens. And always diversify!

IRAN WAR

Is this final deal the one that sticks? Are we sure? Anyone keeping count how many times Trump said we are near a deal? I think we must be past forty times by now…Same old shit. To make all this surreal, we have Iran’s football team (just can’t be saying soccer anymore) playing 3 games in the World Cup in the US…

Iran Embraces a Forever War.

The world, then, might settle into a new normal in which the United States maintains some kind of blockade of Iran, Iran maintains some kind of blockade of the strait, and both sides perpetually engage in skirmishes and perhaps return to outright conflict. Such an outcome will be terrible for Iran’s 90 million residents, who now face a continued collapse in their living standards. It will also be bad for the billions of people across the world who depend on the Strait of Hormuz for oil, gas, and fertilizers. But as far as the regime is concerned, it is not bad for Iran’s government. The Islamic Republic remains functional, operational, and cohesive. It has demonstrated that it can withstand extreme amounts of pressure. Most of all, it has proved that it can single-handedly weaken the global economy—and that it is thus a force to be reckoned with.

And do not forget we have the other war between Russia and Ukraine still going strong. Which has now lasted longer than World War I!

ODDZ & ENDZ

Covid never went away. And people suffering from it are still out there. And we are learning more about it: The Painful Truth About Long Covid. Must read if you are one of those people or just interested on the subject. Some diseases and viruses are just weird and this one sure qualifies. There might finally be a way forward for long Covid treatment—if only you were allowed to talk about it.

Six years since the height of the pandemic, the scientific community remains baffled by long Covid. Researchers still don’t know why some people’s symptoms persist or worsen after the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection has passed. Almost $2 billion and half a decade of international effort have yielded little more than hypotheses about micro blood clots and spike proteins and mitochondrial dysfunction. There isn’t a single approved pharmaceutical treatment, not even a test to verify the presence of the illness.

Incredible story told by a lady who as a young kid of parents drug dealing in the big leagues she had to keep moving to be a step ahead of the law. With Michigan connections. Why isn’t this a movie yet? You Can Run. How can you do this to your own kids? Blown away with what these kids went through and the amazing resilience to just do fraud even from prison wtf!

Emotionally, though, he was the same. Even in prison, he continued to try to control his daughters. For years he told Erin that she needed to become an investment banker, even though she wasn’t interested in finance. He told both daughters where they should go to college. And his appetite for schemes never diminished. After Erin got married, John tried to persuade her husband to go in on a phone-sex business and split the profits with him.

You have never seen anything like this, I guarantee it. Your Internet Radio Dial.

Amazing art project. Or whatever you want to call this. I bring you stuff you probably do not see anywhere else together in one blog post. I would like to think so anyway. Because it makes me feel good: Windows.

TRAVEL

Another interesting travel startup, focusing on small groups: WeRoad. Tagline: “Grab your backpack, we’ll bring the friends Travel in small groups, with people your age”. If any of you traveled with this company please share your feedback in the comments.

This annual list is always fun as we all shake our heads violently thinking who the hell forgets stuff like that! The 10th Annual Uber Lost & Found Index. The Top 10 below

Dentures with 2 teeth
Breast milk
Human hair
Donny Osmond group picture
Ankle monitor
420 donuts
George Washington hospital discharge papers
Sack of marbles
Oxygen tank
Gold mouth grillz

The amazing Sagrada Familia is finally completed.

Do you feel like royalty? Care to stay in a palace? Well, here you go: 33 Luxury Hotels Were Just Awarded ‘Palace’ Status by the French Government—See the Full List.

2026 WORLD CUP

Fantastic resource: World Cup 2026 Guide to all 1,248 players.

FIFA sucks, it is like this amazing fortress of fraud and favoritism and clicques and endemic corruption. And it is like we can not get rid of it becoming part of our lives. Reminds me of Elon Musk, that….ok, let’s not go there, stay positive. And this is a dive on FIFA’s president, this is the guy who gave Trump the (new) peace prize to, incredibly, take ass kissing to never imagined levels. Anyway, this is what we are dealing with and yet…I’ll be watching: The World Cup According to Gianni Infantino. FIFA’s powerful president is remaking global soccer in his own image. Can the sport survive him? Sometimes I do wonder if I will still be watching four years from now…

Of course I want Team USA to go further than ever in the tournament. But, realistically speaking, I just hope we go past the first round and then just give everything and see what happens. Many around the world hate the US and when World Cup time comes around they channel these feelings towards our team. Because, well, it is the one and only World Cup, this is what it does. But you must realize that football here is still the sport that most Americans don’t understand. And our guys have tried really really hard over the years to make it a respectable sport and it has come such a long way. And continues to progress and hopefully we can continue the run. I remember watching our teams back in the 80s and 90s trying to qualify for the World Cup. A team full of amateurs with almost no one playing in the big European pro leagues. I am always with the underdogs and Team USA is the ultimate underdog, let’s go! Kicking and Screaming: The 75-Year Struggle That Forged America Into a Soccer Nation. From a forgotten match in deepest Brazil to the arrival of global superstars on American shores, the U.S. has grown from soccer backwater into host of the biggest World Cup in history.

Reminder: I will be commenting on the games in the comments. And making score predictions. Which will almost always be wrong lol. So, good luck to all underdogs of the tournament. And going out on predicting the winner of this year’s tournament, a shocker: England. Anyway, anyone but Argentina please lol.

I started, my short commentary on:

Mexico 2 South Africa 0

South Korea 2 Czechia 1

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

We have a major event in this space, the refresh of the CHASE Sapphire Preferred Card, please see separate section below.

In the meantime, some more news…

Great Oneworld addition: Philippine Airlines To Become Oneworld’s 16th Member.

We go back to the regular parade of continued hits/devaluations: Choice Privileges Increases Point Requirements At Select Japan Hotels By Up To 200%.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Just when we all thought that maybe Wells Fargo will give the big banks some competition in the rewards space, we are disappointed again: Major Wells Fargo Rewards Program Changes: No More Combined Rewards Accounts, Gifting Rewards, or Automatic Redemptions. If you care anyway because I sure don’t.

CHASE SAPPHIRE PREFERRED REFRESH:

I have my take on it in the MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING section below.

Frequent Miler‘s take on the card refresh is a good one.

If you learn better with video, this was the best video about it on YouTube.

This kid does not screw around and speaks his mind on the worst part of the refresh, which is the awful hit on the World of Hyatt transfers of course.

Just the details of the refresh, see link.

And the two negatives are that Chase Ultimate Rewards points no longer transfer to World of Hyatt 1:1 (it is now 4:3 for a steep 25% devaluation) and the previously announced end of the 10% annual anniversary bonus (which was not a big deal).

LATEST OFFERS:

Heads up, new offers starting June 15!

CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business: 200,000 Points Sign Up Bonus (Starts June 15th)

CHASE INK Cash & INK Unlimited 100,000 Points Signup Bonus (Starts June 15th)

Probably the best credit card offer right now but it expires June 15, huuuuuurry:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. Minimum spend $6,000 in three months

A whole bunch of new offers for Delta Skymiles, all expiring on July 15.

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold: Minimum spend is $5,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve: Minimum spend is $9,000 over six months

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold Business: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum Business: Minimum spend is $8,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve Business: Minimum spend is $15,000 over six months

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and always revolving new Chase Southwest credit card offers, the latest: Chase Southwest Personal Cards: 80,000-90,000 Points Signup Bonus.

Southwest Priority ($229 fee): Earn 90,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Premier ($149 fee): Earn 85,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Plus ($99 fee): Earn 80,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

125k CHASE Marriott Bonvoy Boundless + 1 Free Night: Minimum spend is $3,000 over three months.

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

So, the big news in this miles hobby was the refresh of the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. We all knew it was coming. And yet, it all came suddenly. And amidst all the surprisingly good news (shocked that the annual fee remained at only $95, addition of 3% earning categories for gas, EV charging and Airbnb, doubling of the hotel credit to $100, addition of emergency medical evacuation coverage and transportation) the big hurt remains the end of 1:1 transfers. And it began with the most valuable transfer partner Chase has, World of Hyatt. Which did a double whammy on devaluing its own points recently. Which absolutely hurts and changes, well, everything.

So I am reevaluating my relationship with Hyatt. I am not sure if I am going to reach 60 nights to requalify as Globalist again. Why bother when I lose 25% transferring from Chase? And no I am not going to upgrade to the Chase Sapphire Reserve to keep the transfers to Hyatt at 1:1 because the CSR credits suck. I just transferred all remaining points from the CSR to Hyatt and will be dropping my CSR when the annual fee hits, I believe on July 1st. The Chase Ultimate Rewards points gravy is over with the introduction of severe restrictions in getting its cards more than one time. Which changes, well, everything.

Is it time to go hotel free agent route? Well, certainly now this is a definite consideration. You know, I have several free nights and hotel discounts every year. Let’s count them: 1 free Hyatt night from the personal Visa card, 1 free Hyatt night after $15k spend on the personal Visa, 1 free Hilton night after $15k spend on the Hilton Surpass card, 2 mostly free FHR hotel nights (or four if we go the THC route) with the new Schwab Amex Platinum card my wife got, 1 free Fairrmont night with my Accor Lifetime Platinum status, $100 hotel credit from the CSP card. And more free Hyatt nights are coming at 30 night Milestone Rewards and so forth. We are already up to 8 (or 10) nights. And maybe I do go back to taking advantage of my Accor Lifetime Platinum status to enhance my stays to finally let go of the World of Hyatt Globalist elite status addiction…

Chase is zeroing in on the people who never transfer any points out. And if you never transferred to Hyatt, these changes are absolutely great. And if you like simplicity you now have no reason to ever cancel the CSP card. And pull it out way more often with addition of 3x on gas/EV streaming/Airbnb and of course, dining. So, we all four in our household are not canceling this card. But I think going forward we will likely transfer to United and just focus on redeeming on business class airfare going forward. And get used to paying more out of pocket for travel, this amazing travel for free period is over. Too many of us around managed to squeeze amazing values over the years from banks, airlines and hotels. And the free ride is over. It sucks but I am grateful for the opportunity of course.

Another 4,520 United miles posted. From a 3x on gas/grocerries/dining spend promo on my United Gateway card. The last two spend promos on the card were not that good so I did not register for them. And this is the first time in a very long time I am not working on a United Gateway spend promotion. Which is kind of strange lol.

Very slowly putting the pieces together on our upcoming trip to SE Asia. We are attending a wedding in Singapore and I just proactively booked two nights at the Singapore Conrad Orchard for 150,000 Hilton Honors points. Only to find out that the wedding party has booked the M Hotel for us those two nights. So I easily canceled my Hilton reservation. All in the Hilton app, which is a good one. I might blow an FHR night at the other Conrad in Singapore, Conrad Marina Bay. Or blow my free night at the Singapore Fairmont again, a fabulous property. Have you noticed how I am no longer thinking Hyatt first? Or is there a must visit Hyatt in Singapore I should check out?

Not adding Krabi in this year’s trip to Thailand. So, it will be Bangkok with 4 nights already booked at the Park Hyatt Saigon before returning to Bangkok. And then on to Singapore for the wedding. So, I am at 20 nights plus the 4 coming, so 24. I am playing around with the Bangkok hotel stays. One of the two Category 1 Hyatt Place properties in Bangkok has a prepaid non refundable deal for 30 nights that comes out to about $67-68 usd per night. This will mean that about 5 or 6 nights will have no one in the room, ghost stays. Or I can burn only 4,500 points per night in both of these properties. Or pay about $81 or $86 per night. So, points valuation comes out to about 1.9 cents per dollar. You see, I never did this points valuation thingie. Because I had an unlimited amount of Chase points transferring to Hyatt. Now the situation has changed. And I am torn on what to do. Will be thinking about it over the next month while watching World Cup games…

Hilton Honors points still remain my alternate points pool to use. And oh did they come handy last week! I decided to meet a client in downtown Cleveland as they were heading to the Brazil – Egypt WC prep friendly game. I thought I would have no problem booking a night at a Hyatt. Well, I was wrong. All the Hyatts were completely sold out. The only room available was a premium room at the Hyatt Regency Arcades property for, please sit down, 11,500 points PLUS over $500 per night LOL. My only other choice was a Hyatt Place for 10,000 points located in Canton, over one hour away from downtown, crazy! And that Canton 10k deal was gone the morning of the day prior to the meeting. I was resigned to just drive early the day of the meeting. Fired up the Hilton app and boom, I booked the home2 suites by Hilton less than 10 miles away from Cleveland downtown for 40k Hilton Honors points. First time in a home2 suites property and I really liked it. Free breakfast (for all) even had some healthy options, great stay.

The New York Knicks comeback from 29 points down in Game 4 of the NBA Finals will be remembered for a very long time. And that last shot will be talked about for ever. It already has a deserved nickname, the Right Hand of God game.

I absolutely loved the movie Tuner. I am glad I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan where we can see such films. Also, I learned about the medical condition hyperacusis which I think I have which led me down the path of online researching. Highly recommended movie. But then again, we are all different.

Big home renovation project is nearing its end. Wood floor setting in right now, carpet installation early next week and final touches hopefully by the end of next week. If I knew how much it will all cost and how long it will take and, primarily, all the meetings and decisions and general headaches this project will bring upon, maybe I would not go for it. But I am glad it is almost over and it is looking really nice. For the record, I don’t love inflation, almost no one does!

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HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve (ENDS 6/15/26), 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 80k – 90k CHASE Personal Southwest Cards, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 484,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,121,793 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Let me leave you with this:

Local Dexter Ann Arbor half marathon race, I used to do this for warmup, now I cheer my wife lol.

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

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Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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The post Growth of Millionaires, SpaceX and World Cup Begin, Insane AI Math, Chase Sapphire Preferred Refresh appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Career Bets, The Real AI, Apocalypse Early Warning, Best Lake Michigan Beaches

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:03:36 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as how to compound career bets, the real AI, Apocalypse early warning system, the best Lake Michigan beaches, century of stock market winners, there is no Trump IRA out there, independent writing in the age of AI, Iran’s new grand strategy, stealing lots of cheese, the greatest bird names of all time, we travel to Nepal and the deepest caves, all the USA World Cup goals and WC ticket gouging, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

If you were receiving new blog posts in your email and suddenly the emails stopped arriving, perhaps Google is doing its thing again relegating them to the Junk/Spam folder. Can you look in that folder for dates on each Friday and if you find one of my emails in there, please mark it as “Not spam”, thank you.

It is very likely the blog will have a new refreshed look next week. And there may be an interruption in emails coming so if you do not get one next Friday at 8 am please surf over here. Or just bookmark my site and come back here to comment about each World Cup game, it is going to be wild!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Fatigue, discomfort, discouragement are merely symptoms of effort.” – Morgan Freeman

MUST READ GEMS

My kids and some of their friends read my blog. So, I want to single out this career advice article to them. And to anyone under 30, you are welcome:

The Career Bets That Compound (And the Ones That Don’t)

PERSONAL FINANCE

There is some excellent personal finance advice here: f.a.q speed round, long weekend edition. Straight in your face answers to these questions:

1. “Surely there’s some trick to paying less taxes?”

2. “I’m nervous about the market. Should I sell everything and wait it out?”

3. “My parents are getting older. It sucks. What should I do?”

4. “What’s the best way to give money to my kids?”

5. Do I have enough money to retire?

…The real question here is less “Can I retire?” and more “What would my life actually look like if I did?” Which is partly a financial question and partly an identity question…A surprising number of people spend decades preparing financially for retirement and almost no time preparing psychologically for it.

Very interesting research findings presented in this article: A Century of Stock Market Winners–And Why Most Stocks Failed to Deliver. The compound buy-and-hold return to the entire U.S. stock market over more than 100 years was 1,504,057%. Yet the median individual stock lost money.

Key Findings:

1. The Market Won Big, Most Stocks Didn’t, but a Few Won Spectacularly.

2. Wealth Creation was Shockingly Concentrated: $91 Trillion—Created by Just 3.7% of Companies

3. Wealth Concentration Is Getting Worse, Not Better

4. Time and Compounding: The Great Equalizers

And here are Five Takeaways That Should Change How You Think About Markets:

1. Diversification isn’t just prudent—it’s mathematically necessary.

2. The average return is not your likely return.

3. Time in the market is paramount—but only if you own the right assets.

4. Wealth concentration is increasing—and this matters for active investors.

5. Treasury bills are a tougher benchmark than most investors realize.

There is great confusion out there around Trump accounts and Trump IRAs. Once and for all: New “Trump IRA Is Fake News”.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

The May 2026 Ponzi Scheme Blog Roundup. It’s the typical collection of fraudsters doing frauds. But was there anything in there that stood out this time? Yes:

They used investor funds for personal expenditures including casino trips, whiskey club memberships, massages, and cryotherapy treatments rather than legitimate investments. [I understand casinos and massages. But whiskey club memberships and cryotherapy? GTFOH!]

Frost marketed the company heavily through conservative and Christian media outlets, branding it as part of a so-called “patriot economy” that would support small businesses and ministries while delivering annual investor returns of 8% to 16%. [Be a patriot, make 8% to 16% every year, Jesus!]

…he raised approximately $12.3 million from about 150 investors in a fraudulent scheme based on supposed proprietary AI-based trading bots that would engage in high-frequency arbitrage in trading crypto assets. [I have warned here numerous times to run away when you see the word ‘proprietary’. You add to that AI and trading and arbitrage and crypto? You know, I don’t feel sorry for anyone falling for this then, come on!]

Rip.so. The Digital Graveyard. Cool site.

AI

Maybe all is not lost for writers? Especially independent writers like me here? The independent writer’s advantage in the age of AI. Sure hope so…Oh, I like the last idea below, charisma and weirdness baby oh yeah.

The value of summary will go down, and the value of secrets will go up

The value of static content will go down, and the value of live interaction will go up

The value of bureaucracies will go down, and the value of founders will go up

The value of polish is going to go down and the value of personal charisma and style and weirdness is going to go up

Booing graduation ceremony speakers when they mention AI is becoming a thing? Harvard Graduation Speaker Unloads on AI in Profanity-Loaded Tirade,Prompting Cheers From Students: “I’m Here to Tell You the Mission of Your Generation Is to Destroy AI”.

From Seth’s Blog, short and sweet: The Real AI.

To quote the great Steve Wozniak, “Actual Intelligence.” The kind we’re born with and can develop if we choose. It’s worth more now than ever before. Alas, it’s rarely taught in school.

The difficult work of making choices

The act of curation [Talking to me?]

Seeking justice

Offering dignity

Knowing when to stop

Investing in deep empathy, not a shallow substitute

Making something that matters

Caring

IRAN WAR

The non sense is still going on…of course, did you expect anything different?

Must read if you are interested in Iran. The generation running things now in that country is not the Khomeini zealots anymore: Iran’s New Grand Strategy.

Rather than breaking Iran, the crucible of war has transformed it in unanticipated ways. To survive and establish new strategic advantages, the Islamic Republic had to adapt and innovate, changing how it waged war, ran the state, and managed society. And it had to do so with unprecedented speed. Tehran is now confident in what it has achieved and determined to consolidate those gains at home and abroad. The war has given rise to a new Iran, one that will reshape the Middle East and influence the course of geopolitics for years to come.

ODDZ & ENDZ

Stealing cheese is apparently big business, wow. The Grate Cheese Robbery. One of the most surprising articles I have read recently, I had no idea that cheese is the most stolen food in the world.

Fun Site! Apocalypse Early Warning System. Well, not until it hits 4/5 or 5/5 that is. Amazing what you find online these days:

In the event of an imminent nuclear apocalypse, we suspect that many people who have access to private jets will immediately take to the skies and escape city centers. This site tracks this indicator in realtime. The current emergency level is reported on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being an indicator of a likely imminent apocalypse.

Time to laugh reading some of these bird names: The 100 Greatest Bird Names of All Time. My favorites, what are yours?

Screaming Cowbird

Oleaginous Hemispingus

Chaco Chachalaca

Diabolical Nightjar

Horned Screamer

Browse thousands of free TV channels from around the world: TV Explorer.

Doors of Chicago. Amazing doors for your beautiful eyes.

Uptown | Clifton Avenue Street Art Gallery

TRAVEL

I am doing my best to boost domestic tourism in Michigan: 12 Best Lake Michigan Beaches for White Sand, Dunes, and Unforgettable Views Across 4 States.

Travel guides for…architecture fans, interesting: Avontuura.

Interesting new outfit, not that many properties on board yet:

Time Chamber Homes

With the tagline: The First Global Network of Homes Designed for Training and Recovery. Unlike traditional booking platforms, Time Chamber Homes lets you book a private room in a carefully selected home that always includes a gym, a sauna, a cold plunge, and the
opportunity to connect with other athletes and entrepreneurs.

Video from Nepal, including being at a funeral and…you won’t believe what happened next.

Did you know the deepest caves are in Georgia/Abkhazia? I sure didn’t! Things you learn reading this blog: The World’s Deepest Caves.

2026 WORLD CUP

I have managed to download and enter all the games in my Google calendar. I need to change my sleeping pattern to be able to stay up late to watch them all. Always so exciting as we are counting down the days before the greatest show on earth begins!

Here we have the 2026 World Cup Squad lists for all 48 teams. Two players for Congo played for my Greek hometown soccer team this year so I am rooting for them. I also see several players from the Greek soccer league as well.

Go Team USA! UNFORGETTABLE USA goals at the FIFA World Cup. When we look back at that Donovan goal we were talking about USA winning it all one day. Which is likely not going to happen in our lifetime or ever most likely. Actually, I hope this year’s team does not implode and somehow can make it past the first round.

To get an idea how tough it was to score WC tickets this time, read this and weep: Ten Months of Searching and $970 a Pop: One Dad’s World Cup Ticket Nightmare.

Mexico has goalie Ochoa. World Cup would not be held without this guy, he is always there! Sometimes he would go without a club team but World Cup time comes and zing, he is on the national team. Every time, amazing, what a legend: Mexican goalkeeper Ochoa set for historic sixth World Cup. I always liked the Mexican team, love the underdogs when they get to the second round and fall fighting lol. I do not like them against Team USA of course.

Please be kind to all the players in the WC teams who get injured just before it begins.

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

The Athens Hilton is gone and we now have in its place Conrad Athens, the Ilisium. Which just opened and here is one of the first reviews, it looks great. I had some great stays in the old Hilton and looking to return here one day to recapture the old magic.

My hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan is still undergoing a hotel explosion. To come soon: new Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites.

Have you been noticing how the negative news in this hobby vastly outnumbers the positive news? And yet, so many online content creators are so cheerful trying to sell you yet another travel rewards card so they can get paid? Anyway, the hits never stop:

Negative Alaska Airlines changes: Increased partner award fees & no points or status points on saver fares

AA has stealth devalued TATL flights on metal by about ~6500 (65000 to 71500)

The more accounts you open with banks the higher the probability to have problems like this: Bask Bank Data Breach – Name & Social Security Number Included. Can’t believe there are still people out there opening new bank accounts for a $100 bonus or so. Not worth the hassle, I don’t get out of bed for a bank bonus that is less than $1,000 these days lol.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

If I get this question one more time I am going to #$@^!: Is it bad for your credit score to open so many credit cards?

This is a positive: Chase Ink Referral Bonuses Increased to 40K, 200K Annual Limit. But do not forget that Chase gives away these points ONLY if the applicant is a NEW business customer. Which eliminates many of us. So, you can be first if you use my own referral link to help support the blog, thank you.

BEST CHASE BUSINESS CARD REFERRAL LINK THAT EXISTS RIGHT NOW ONLINE BY FAR

LATEST OFFERS:

Probably the best credit card offer right now but it expires June 15, huuuuuurry:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. 150,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months

A whole bunch of new offers for Delta Skymiles, all expiring on 7/15/26.

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold: Minimum spend is $5,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve: Minimum spend is $9,000 over six months

90k AMEX Delta Skymiles Gold Business: Minimum spend is $6,000 over six months

100k AMEX Delta Skymiles Platinum Business: Minimum spend is $8,000 over six months

125k AMEX Delta Skymiles Reserve Business: Minimum spend is $15,000 over six months

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and always revolving new Chase Southwest credit card offers, the latest: Chase Southwest Personal Cards: 80,000-90,000 Points Signup Bonus.

Southwest Priority ($229 fee): Earn 90,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Premier ($149 fee): Earn 85,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Plus ($99 fee): Earn 80,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

125k CHASE Marriott Bonvoy Boundless + 1 Free Night: Minimum spend is $3,000 over three months.

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I have not had time to do any more award searching for next trip to SE Asia. And my award alerts set in Points Yeah, well, pretty much crickets. Let me rephrase that. I did some award searching on the AirCanada Aeroplan site to beat the June 1 devaluation. And what I found was absolutely horrible. We are talking over 300k miles for one way Business Class fares lol. I mean, are the airlines trying to mimic Delta or what? So when a few hits returned business class fares for 87.5k miles I initially got excited. Only to be greeted with “2% Business Class” WTF! Which only shows up when you click on that fare smh. These were the short flights to either Chicago or Toronto from Detroit, the long legs to Asia in Economy. After ovenighting in some airports on the way to Asia. My Google Flights alerts sometimes return a hit for $4k fares in Business Class and I am getting psychologically prepared to actually do this and, I gotta tell you, it is a little weird lol.

I liked the movie Pressure. I am noticing movie theaters are getting more crowded.

The house renovations are nearing the end. And I am exhausted. I can’t believe how people build houses from scratch, so many decisions wow! And when it gets to furniture…forgetdabout it.

I am meeting a client couple in Cleveland on Sunday morning, they are in town for the Brazil vs Egypt international friendly World Cup warm up game. And guess what, no Hyatt rooms available, WTF! No, I am not going to burn 11,500 World of Hyatt points for a premium suite at that Hyatt Regency at the Arcades property I stayed in last year. Of course I would jump all over it if it was just 11,500 points. But it was a Points & Cash rate. And the cash rate was $500+. Can you imagine the prices during the actual World Cup games? I could book a Hyatt Place for 10,000 points in Canton…just a “short” one hour away, nope. I think I am just going to drive then.

Been using wife’s new Schwab Amex Platinum card already. Schwab credit, check. Lululemon credit, check, One Resy Credit, check. Uber Eats (pickup), check. Enrolled in Priority Pass already and got her the Gold elite status for Hilton Honors and Marriott Bonvoy. YouTube premium entertainment credit to be done shortly. And looking for an FHR hotel in Singapore, any suggestions?

The blog will soon have a new look/logo. What I am not sure is which is going to happen first, the new look or the killing of my credit card links for low sales volume again smh. Whatever it is, it is time for a refresh here, it has been ages and I do care about your beautiful eyes. Going to look something close to this by the way, without the fiverr.com reference of course lol.

I transferred my Chase Ultimate Rewards points from my Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card to World of Hyatt before making the call to cancel the card later today. I was able to use up only about $450 of the card credits, how sad. Just the easy $300 travel credit, the two $50 Gift Card redemption and some Door Dashes…and that’s it. I could not get the stupid The Edit hotel credits to work, not even close. Good riddance, Chase continues its descent. They don’t give a phuck anymore, they are #1 and they know it. Heck, in less than a week with the Schwab Amex Platinum card we are already at the same level of credits than what it took to get there on the Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card a whole year!

Here is us taking $100 off a Resy restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor. We haven’t been here since Covid. Good to see this place still makes killer fish tacos. Black Pearl, thank me later.

Black Pearl restaurant in downtown Ann Arbor. Seeing $100 credit a few days later by Amex #winning

I haven’t had the time to make any new posts on Instagram and YouTube last week. At this rate how am I ever going to take this “venture” to the next level? Ok, don’t answer that. Been focusing on the real job to clear up space for the World Cup #priorities.

To the younger readers and pretty much everyone, protect your hearing! It is so precious. I am paying for all the head banging in concerts in my youth. Come to think of it, the two activities I loved, loud music and marathon running, I over did both it appears and I took myself out of them. Sad but it is what it is I guess. Maybe I keep this blogging thing a bit longer?

I am on a holding pattern right now whether I go for 60 nights to requalify for World of Hyatt Globalist status…

Award searching just continues to be dismal, wife has been asking to book her tickets to Malaysia as prices keep going higher, and on it goes…

I just can’t believe the New York Knicks are here and likely going to win the NBA championship, unreal!

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HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve (ENDS 6/14/26), 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 80k – 90k CHASE Personal Southwest Cards, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 444,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,157,782 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Let me leave you with this:

A summary of all the airports we flew into during Covid #badaviationgeekhumor

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

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Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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AI Doubles, Chasing Hallucinations, Planning Retirement Time, Hidden Islands, World Cup Memories

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 29 May 2026 11:10:40 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as AI doubles, chasing hallucinations, planning retirement time, hidden islands, World Cup memories, inside secret family histories, weird ETFs, human web museum, profitable AI or not, chasing cheese downhill, best amusement parks, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” – Aristotle

MUST READ GEMS

This is in essence my personal blog. I curate what I find worth sharing. To assist in the mission of educating, entertaining and sometimes even inspiring. And this article below may not be cup of your tea. That’s cool. But I find that it was worthy placing in this esteemed section. Which means it is a gem and I think it is meant to be read in its entirety, no excerpts here. Amazing writing. And you may find it emotional, especially if you have the same issues revolving around your roots or have a dysfunctional family. Which usually go together. So, you have been warned!

Inside The Secret History of the DeGrange Family

PERSONAL FINANCE

A lot of what I do in my job as a financial advisor revolves around helping my clients retire. And I must admit I am having a much harder time dealing with my own eventual retirement “issues”. And none are about the financial aspects. It goes way deeper which this excellent article deals with: Why You Need to Plan Your Time as Carefully as Your Money in Retirement.

…one word as the key to retirement satisfaction: mattering. [I added the bold font for emphasis]

…research suggests a higher sense of purpose is linked to various health benefits, including a lower risk of death.

Personally, I can not see myself fully retired. Maybe semi retirement is the way to go? My purpose will be to successfully guide my non retired clients to happy retirement. Anyway, it is incredibly humbling and rewarding to be able to make this choice and have the opportunity to still matter. Health benefits are the cherry on top? Or something like that, we are all trying to figure it out. The key is not to give up…

My other purpose to take this blog venture to an eventual IPO still remains you guys, please laugh, I am. I can see my kids now shaking their heads thinking “There goes Dad again laughing at his own jokes”.

Blog reader Vicky had this comment from last week I found to be worthy to post below. It points to a real problem in my industry. How to make that mental shift from being a saver to a spender. Which is really really hard!

I strongly recommend anyone who is getting close to retirement to get onto the same page as their spouse and get their mindset out of the Save mode and into the spend. I know 2 long term 35+ year marriages where the wife has walked in the past 6 months because of the husbands refusal to change from hoarding every cent and not prioritizing their spouses expressed desires instead focusing on wanting to leave a huge legacy to their kids and I see 2 other marriages going down the same path all because one spouse wants to hoard money of which they have more than enough rather than indulge their spouse with a new car or a 2 week holiday.

Very weird! How Weird Are ETFs Getting? Try UFO and Midnight-Bitcoin Funds.

For a while, this trend is going crazy and it appears the pace is even accelerating smh. Avoid this crap!

Cheap, reliable exchange-traded funds are a basic building block of investing. Increasingly, however, ETFs are becoming a high-cost conduit for concentrated, risky or weird strategies. So investors need to start approaching ETFs with caution. All too many of the newer ones are investment junk food. And, just as with candy, cookies or french fries, filling up on them can be bad for you. This year, 466 ETFs have been launched through mid-May, amassing $62.3 billion in assets, according to Morningstar. Their annual expenses average 0.69%. That’s more than 20 times those of many traditional index funds. Six out of every 10 new ETFs carry annual expenses of at least 0.5%, and a fifth charge at least 1% annually. [I added the Bold font for emphasis, yikes!]

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

This is great: Museum of the Human Web. This is the introduction page and it is so beautifully written. And then click on ‘ENTER THE MUSEUM” and ‘enjoy’ what we are losing…

Remember my blog posts about this fraudster? 12 years in jail unless he gets a pardon (and yes he is on it): Insurance Executive Sentenced to 12 Years for ‘Massive Fraud,’ Bribery. Let me refresh your memory about this guy:

He spent more than $100 million on a variety of expenses, prosecutors said, including private jets, a 214-foot-long yacht, luxury real estate, and millions in payments to women with whom he had or sought to have personal relationships. The Wall Street Journal wrote about Lindberg’s unusual insurance-company investment strategy and spending spree in 2019, and later reported on his use of dozens of operatives to spy on women, most of whom he was dating or interested in dating.

AI

This is great: Is AI Profitable Yet? Tracking the spend and revenue of frontier AI companies.

We are starting to see more and more mentions in the news of doubles. You know, some of these tech bro CEOs are all over creating digital versions of themselves. If this interests you, I really enjoyed this article and I empathize and agree with the views of the author: The Copy and the Guru.

Look around and all you can see are gurus under their proverbial banyan trees, who make nothing but impart wisdom. They listen to the same podcast, and then regurgitate. They marvel at humanist manifestos. Some even read the Stoics. This is found wisdom, not earned wisdom. The twin is only possible once you have stopped being accountable to reality. The code either runs or it doesn’t. The piece either lands or it doesn’t. That accountability is what keeps thinking honest. Once you move from doing to narrating, you can be archived. Once archived, you can be distributed to the rest of the planet. The question is not about AI and its tools. It is about the culture that created a market for this. What does it mean that we built enough of these people, finished, distributable, no longer becoming anything, to make the digital twin a product category? It is a monument to a self that stopped growing.

Sign of our times? Chasing the Hallucinations. Ernst & Young (EY) Canada published a cybersecurity report on loyalty program safeguards. We chased down every citation. Most were hallucinated.

Wait, as I was about to hit Publish in this post, the latest newsletter by Derek Thompson hit my inbox titled: “The AI Boom Has Entered Its ‘Wait, Is This Worth It?’ Phase”. Which I am going to spend some time reading while drinking my coffee and walking outside…Which means this has not been vetted to be included in my weekly curated post. So, you have been warned, read at your own risk 🙂

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

IRAN WAR

The nonsense continues. Every day. I think everyone is tuning this whole thing out while the suffering continues smh…Deal, no deal, attacks, counterattacks, insulting everyone, TACO, red lines, cease fires, 30 days, 60 days, Bibi doing what Bibi does always escalating when TACO is close…it just never ends while oil reserves are being drawn down daily and on and on and on.

Meanwhile, the investor class is enjoying the amazing stock market bull run that keeps going while the working class is suffering much higher prices with no end in sight: Key US inflation measure posts largest annual increase in three years. Or maybe this is the TACO deal to stick, you know it is coming…eventually.

ODDZ & ENDZ

This LINK will right away make you scream “WTF am I looking at!”. I mean, really, what the hell? No idea who put this together. But I spent some time clicking around and found some cool aviation shots. And a whole lot of other mundane shots. I wonder how long it took for the creator to put this together. Art baby or something…

Every year we see photos of a crazy event where people roll down a huge hill with cheese things. And every year I think “ouch, my bones hurt just watching them!’. And “these people are nuts!”. Anyway, enjoy these intense photos: Chasing cheese downhill: Inside Britain’s wildest, weirdest race. Be careful if you think you want to do this!

So vicious, so stupid: Trump Administration to Make Green Card Applicants File Overseas. Brings to mind whoever said “cruelty is the point”. Or is it the goal? Or something like that…

Over 1,100, amazing! In a Single Year, Ocean Census Scientists Discovered More than 1,100 New Marine Species.

TRAVEL

Blog reader Sam and world expert on museums commented in last week’s post about the article listing the 27 best museums and had the following two added to that list:

-The Clark in northwest Massachusetts. Funded by Singer sewing machine money. At on time, these folks owned an entire city block in midtown Manhattan.

-The Kroger-Muller in Otterloo, Holland. Dozens and dozens of Van Gogh and Picasso paintings.

Article listing the best amusement parks in the world. According to the Tripadvisor’ s Travellers’ Choice Award:

Futuroscope, France
Beto Carrero World, Brazil
Waterbom Bali, Indonesia
Disneyland Park, France
Beach Park, Brazil
Garden City Water Park, Cambodia
Puy du Fou, France
Siam Park, Spain
Ramayana Water Park, Thailand
Blackpool Pleasure Beach, UK

When you wanna get away: 30 Hidden Islands Around the World. No 6 on the list is the island of Skopelos in Greece. First island getaway trip in my Greek high school years and so many memories. Involving Norwegian tourists, god bless them lol. It’s been downhill ever since you guys #notreally.

Credit:Alamy

Obligatory Thailand link: Thailand’s Deep South Isn’t What You Think (3 days in Narathiwat). Wow, so beautiful, I had no idea. I always thought that South Thailand was not a big deal. A place where separatists still roam and, well, not that safe and nothing special to see. Compared to everywhere else in Thailand. Well, wrong! I am going to explore this area more in the future for sure.

2026 WORLD CUP

The greatest show on Earth is coming…

I still remember back in 1986 here in the US we had a hard time watching the games on TV. Thanks to the Canadian TV channels back then, I got to watch all the games. Something I have done since 1978! That WC final between Argentina and the Netherlands (my favorite team since I resembled the one and only Johan Cruyff, my hero as a kid) is entrenched in my brain so vividly. Netherlands lost 3-1 in Buenos Aires in overtime and I cried for two days straight. I remember my mom pleading to my dad to take me to the hospital and him saying that I will get over it (I did…I think).

Maybe that is why I never liked the Argentina teams. It has nothing to do with that year’s team bribing the Peruvian team to lose in the first round by a five goal margin so Argentina can make it to the elimination rounds. Nope. It has nothing to do with the 1990 team butchering opponents to make it to the 1990 WC Final and, thank God, losing to the Germans. After managing to butcher their way in the semifinal against the host Italians and crush their dreams beating them in Penalty Kicks. And nothing to do with the 1994 team taking the hapless Greeks (making it to the WC for the first time) to the cleaners beating us 4-1 in Boston and me in the stands having the absolute worst luck with my tickets placing me in the middle of a bunch of Argentina fans, yikes. Oh, the memories of World Cup. Where millionaire players still take the stage carrying the weight of a whole nation.

I have been following the USA team ever since those lonely days in the 1990s trying to qualify. I celebrated finally making it to the World Cup in 1990 with that amazing goal by Paul Caligiuri at Trinidad & Tobago and really enjoyed seeing USA play Switzerland at the Pontiac Silverdome near Ann Arbor (stadium of the Detroit Lions for years, since demolished) in 1994. And I remember the excruciating heat that day inside and outside the stadium. And I really enjoyed this video: The Untold Story of U.S. Soccer’s 1994 World Cup Run. I also still remember the senseless murder of Colombia’s Escobar for scoring an own goal at a loss to Team USA. And that almost miracle against super power Brazil. I did have the honor to watch Brazil against Sweden back at the Pontiac Silverdome. Always loved the Brazil fans!

I will be dropping commentaries in the comments during the WC games, come back here to increase the page views and my blog’s ad revenues…oh wait.

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

World of Hyatt is fully aware that many people in this industry are watching the changes post May 20 devaluation. And I fully expect that over the coming months many of the changes will get progressively worse. You know, like them Marriott Bonvoy execs have been doing so for years. Anyway, you can’t sugarcoat this brutality inflicted upon us, sad lol: The Biggest Winners & Losers in Hyatt’s Brutal Devaluation.

Winners: Category 1 & 2 properties, Most (But Not All of) Asia and the Pacific, Treading Water in the Middle (& Category 7), No Big Push Into Pricier Tiers (Yet).

Losers: Category 8, Japan, Ski Season, RIP All-Inclusive Resorts

Good reference to bookmark: Hotel Point Expiration Policies for Every Major Brand.

Just when you thought these surcharges could not go higher, British Airways says they can: British Airways To Increase Cash Portion Of Award Flights.

Actually, this was very good: How to Find & Book the Best Deals with United Miles.

The beatings will continue until them hacking types are all banned. So, don’t do shit that get you banned, play the long game: American Airlines Shutting Down New Accounts of Previously Banned AAdvantage Members.

Maybe Hyatt decided to inject some good news to appease its members? Well, not really. This was already announced that it was coming: World of Hyatt to launch early access bookings for elites and cardholders June 30th. And it is a nothing burger.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

If you have a United credit card, see if you have been targeted for the “It’s The Summer of You” promotion HERE. I swear, United must have hired some former Delta marketing staffers, only they could come up with stupid names like this.

The hits against us continue unabated. It’s like we have become shooting practice or something. Another 5x avenue sidelined and gone soon: Citi Custom Cash No Longer Available for New Applications Starting May 29.

Maybe Chase is feeling the heat? And relenting on some of its latest severe practices against us? Well, this is a positive: Chase Ink Referral Bonuses Increased to 40K, 200K Annual Limit. But do not forget that Chase gives away these points ONLY if the applicant is a NEW business customer. Which eliminates many of us. So, you can be first if you use my own referral link to help support the blog, thank you.

BEST CHASE BUSINESS CARD REFERRAL LINK THAT EXISTS RIGHT NOW ONLINE BY FAR

LATEST OFFERS:

NEW: There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and always revolving new Chase Southwest credit card offers, the latest: Chase Southwest Personal Cards: 80,000-90,000 Points Signup Bonus.

Southwest Priority ($229 fee): Earn 90,000 points after you spend $3,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Premier ($149 fee): Earn 85,000 points after you spend $2,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Southwest Plus ($99 fee): Earn 80,000 points after you spend $1,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.

150k AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business PLUS $125 Statement Credit: $125 Annual fee, minimum spend $8,000 in the first six months. For more info on the card’s benefits click HERE.

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. 150,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. Lots of benefits and credits and earning multipliers.

185k CHASE IHG One Rewards Premier:$99 annual fee. 150,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. And another 35,000 points after spending a total of $6,000 in the first six months.

150k CAPITAL ONE Venture Business: $95 annual fee. 75,000 miles when they spend $7,500 in the first 3 months, plus an additional 75,000 miles when they spend $30,000 in the first 6 months. Two separate $50 credits: travel credit and advertising/software credit. 2x on every purchase and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal. $120 Global Entry/TSAPreCheck credit. Shockingly, this card will NOT report to personal credit bureaus. ENDING JUNE 8, 2026

50k CAPITAL ONE VentureOne Business: No annual fee. $4,500 minimum spend in first three months. 1.5x on every purchase and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal.

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

75k Capital One Venture X

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

Must read for hardcore gamers: Chase Shutdowns: The New Behaviors. Did Chase hire some Amex RAT staffers recently? Or is this all AI enabled? You can play the short game and get banned at some point down the road. Or, play the long game and…keep going.

We received my wife’s Schwab Amex Platinum card. In a very nice package. After setting it up online, I was shocked to see that the Schwab credit was already in the account! Between that and the Lululemon credit (she can’t wait for that, we have a store within walking distance) and the Resy meals coming up we captured back the annual fee so easily. And the Uber and YouTube premium for the streaming credits are on top. And potential bag check fees or other fees from Delta. Yep, we chose Delta for the airline credit. With her retirement and home airport being in Detroit we are going back to Delta, in spite of them sucky Skymiles. Oh, and we have 2 nights to burn and $600 in some nice hotel to do. And many more, love them Platinum credits, are you listening over at Chase anymore?

I am having second thoughts pursuing World of Hyatt Globalist elite status again. Because the never ending stream of Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to World of Hyatt points is ending. Maybe it is time to go hotel free agent next, after doing this for the airlines back in 2012? I am at 18 nights with World of Hyatt today with 2 more coming from the Chase Hyatt Visa spend. And I have 4 nights booked in the Park Hyatt Saigon in September. I was thinking to pay for a monthly deal the Hyatt Place Soi 24 in Bangkok has for about $68 per night. Taking me to 54 nights. And then I still have some bookings to do in Singapore and Greece so hitting 60 for Globalist will be very easy.

But why? Aspiration Category 8 Hyatt properties have now become ridiculously expensive, it won’t take that long to wipe out all of my World of Hyatt points. There is some value still burning points in Category 1 and 2 properties still. Which are definitely not aspirational. Then again, holding so many points in the bank is kind of stupid, which I am aware. I just always felt comfortable having a fat balance in the bank. Which is definitely not earn and burn mode which always made sense.

I could get several Globalist Guest of Honor certs after hitting just 40 nights. Maybe pass on that 30 night cash deal and just pay or burn points for the actual nights I will sleep on a Hyatt bed in Thailand later this year. Which should not be more than 15 or 20 (was planning to use that Soi 24 Hyatt Place as a base to travel to Saigon and Krabi). Which will free me to book the other Category 1 Hyatt Place at Soi 1 next to Bumrungrad Hospital for several nights since I plan to spend a lot of time there doing health things since my US based doctors are incredibly frustrating to work with.

Maybe I should get reacquainted with my Accor Lifetime Platinum status. And its points can be valuable instead of just burning my free Platinum night in a nice Fairmont each year alone. And try to not focus as much as, you know, what I have been doing for so long and allow myself to do and pay for things I am going to enjoy without, you know, “winning” 🙂 I am getting there…very slowly.

Closing my Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card next week, it is time. Why? Because the credits suck, I did not manage to claim more than just $450, sad.

I am trying to simplify my life in this hobby. Time to wipe out some loyalty programs I track in Award Wallet I have not used in years. Bye buy Ace Hardware and Best Buy and Staples. Got under 100 accounts I am tracking, only 99 now and more wipeouts to come.

You know there is a lot of potential for beating when you see Senator Elizabeth Warren get into the mix with Bilt: Top Democratic Senator Presses Bilt on Troubled Card Transition.

To make matters worse, Bilt’s shoddy customer service – powered by an AI chatbot – led some members to spend days trying to reach a real person … all while dealing with time-sensitive financial transactions like rent and mortgage payments. Warren’s letter also points to a reported 1,300% increase in complaints submitted to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in February alone during the transition. That’s a pretty astounding 13x increase – no wonder the feds took notice.

And what does Bilt do? Instead of investing in customer service, the company goes out and pays Madonna to stop by and play the stupid rent day game with its CEO. Priorities I tell you smh.

Shocking to see the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals. Waiting for Oklahoma Thunder who amazingly are forced to win Game 7 at home against the surprising San Antonio Spurs and its young tall star Wemby. Who at this rate could be Michael Jordan #2?

I can’t believe it is almost June. And I want my house back, this renovation is taking forever!

I have been walking over 10,000 steps a day every day since April 24 and plan to continue…

Sadly my hometown soccer team was relegated back to the Greek 2nd Division. And the owner is selling it and one day when my blog IPOs I will buy it, LOL.

Posted the final 2 batches of photos from our trip to Seattle over Mother’s Day weekend to visit our daughter:

Outdoor Art Forest pics

Miscellaneous pics from downtown Seattle

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Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and Rove Miles and more.

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 80k – 90k CHASE Personal Southwest Cards, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 421,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,157,523 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

Let me leave you with this:

Back at it, this is an addiction lol

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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Retirement Losses, Steve Kerr, AI Breaking Us Fast, The 4% Rule Is Now 4.7%, World Of Hyatt’s Brutal Reality

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 22 May 2026 11:33:40 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as retirement losses, Steve Kerr, AI breaking us fast, the 4% rule is now 4.7%, World Of Hyatt’s brutal reality, making estate planning mistakes, five legendary Apple stories, AI adoption around the world, the endgame in Iran, the best museums, inside the hotel slipper scandal, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe and share it

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

The blog should have a new fresher look soon.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Stubbornness and stupidity are twins.” – Sophocles

MUST READ GEMS

This is one of the best ever written articles on retirement I have read in recent years. As my wife is retiring in about a month and I am getting to an age where this phase of life is not such a long term goal anymore it was refreshing to read about all the “issues” that come with it. As I have successfully guided many of my clients to reach the ‘promised land’ I must admit that retirement is not easy. And turning from a saver/accumulator to a spender is indeed one of the hardest transitions that may exist in the universe. Anyway, if you are contemplating retirement this is a must read, no excerpts, read the whole thing. I may do a separate post all about retirement at some point in the future…

What You Will Lose When You Retire

Another article in the past week that just blew me away was about Steve Kerr, the Golden State Warriors coach who is also stepping away from the NBA. Again, retiring is hard. I have always been a fan of Steve Kerr. And my respect for him after reading this has no bounds. This is a very deep introspective about the man and, this is a warning, it is very long. I experienced a high while reading it I must admit and maybe you will too. I love reading and sharing with you what I find. If you do not agree you are free to go somewhere else, this is a free country. Oh wait, maybe not as free as it used to be, sad.

Why Steve Kerr stayed with the Warriors

PERSONAL FINANCE

Today we are on a binge of retirement related content for some reason. Anyway, we are all aware of the 4% rule. A lot has changed since this “rule” first came out. And it has many shortcomings of course. But I think it still remains a valid simple ‘rule of thumb’ to at least give you an idea how realistic it is to retire. A great benchmark to start out with before, you know, your own specific circumstances and goals come into play to make answering this a monumentally difficult decision. And sometimes you just gotta take the ~~leap~~ risk you know. I often kid with clients that I can answer this question with close to 100% certainty if they can provide me their date of death and market returns every year into the future. Yeah, right. Anyway, looks like inflation has now hit the 4% rule too, here we go:

The 4% rule is now the 4.7% rule. That matters for your retirement.

Sometimes some people mean well but the execution fails horribly. Like this man who wanted to do right for his grandchildren. I read this and my head was shaking so hard it almost separated from my neck. Do not do this to your loved onese! 36 trusts, come on! Can you imagine the CPA preparing these 36 trust tax returns and then billing for them? I can see him/her smiling all the way to the bank. Take steps to ensure your loved ones do not have to deal with such heartache, you owe it to them. Keep things clean and simple and quick to settle and spare them all the costly hassles dealing with the aftermath. Also, I must say that in my own dealings with TIAA-CREF I am not shocked about how the company is inflicting such pain; I think doing this is part of the company’s DNA. And now lawyers get to bleed more of what was supposed to go to the grandchildren, how sad. Read and weep:

One Small Fortune, 36 Grandkids and an Inheritance Stuck in Limbo

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

This French fraudster was in the news some time ago but then he vanished from the spotlight. Until I came across this article that shocked me how come we have not heard more about one of the biggest Ponzi masterminds. And get this, he managed to avoid jail time! And no he did not receive a pardon smh. Gérard Lhéritier lured investors by selling shares in literary treasures. When suspicions grew, he was exposed as the architect of a massive fraud

The French mastermind behind a €1bn Ponzi scheme

The ponzi was about to run out of money when, amazingly, this guy won 170 Million euros in the lottery and injected a big chunk of it into his own scheme to keep it going. Think about this for a second, just wow.

Entertaining read and I am not even an Apple fan: 5 Legendary Apple Stories That Reveal the Genius Behind Its Innovation. I enjoyed them all, even the one that is not true (story #2 about Steve Jobs and that fish tank).

AI

I think we all feel this way lately: The AI Conversation Is Happening Too Fast. The AI boom is meant to overwhelm you.

Silicon Valley’s leaders pay lip service to a societal conversation about what comes next, but their actions say something else: Keep up or be left behind. Humanity rewriting the social contract together sounds nice; less so when you have a gun to your head. Time is of the essence, we’re told. Maybe that’s true. But how can we build a future if we can’t agree on the present? A cynic might conclude that our input isn’t desired at all.

Wait, there is more: AI Has Broken Containment. Once-speculative concerns about the technology have now become pressing matters.

It’s hard to overstate the extent to which AI has crept into contemporary life, even for people who aren’t commonly using the technology. A poll this spring showed that, for Americans, AI is growing in importance faster than any other issue… Silicon Valley has spent ungodly sums on AI and data centers: Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Google alone have already spent more on data centers since the launch of ChatGPT than the federal government spent to build the entire interstate highway system. Those expenditures are set to grow, even as consensus opinions on whether all this spending constitutes an economic bubble fluctuate every few months…Now these same companies are barreling forward to consummate their technological revolution. For everyone else, the AI future is beginning to feel less like something you participate in and more like something that happens to you.

In the meantime, many college commencement speakers are now booed from the generation graduating into a new reality. Maybe the young generation is having enough of AI and major backlash is…brewing?

I am really surprised that here in the US, the leading AI country by most measures, the AI adoption is much lower than expected: AI Adoption by Country in 2006.

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IRAN WAR

Yeah, it is still going on, the negotiations, the threats, the blockade, the nuclear bomb demands, money paid to Iran through Binance to let ships sail through, Israeli government’s shit, the suffering of the poor Iranian people continues as they are caught in this surreal catastrophic environment and I could go on and on smh…

Meanwhile, we pretty much know: Trump’s Endgame Is Surrender. Then again, we should expect the unexpected. Anyway, in the Middle East we always come back to “…in the Persian Gulf will be chronic instability and frequent disruptions in shipping.”

Meanwhile, things are looking up suddenly and amazingly for energy transition away from this Hormuz bottleneck: Dawn of the Electric World Order. Why we may enjoy some increased revenues here in the US from exports of oil and gas, I think the tide is turning…

A carbon energy superpower, the United States looks increasingly like an energy island. Last year, we wrote that the central speculative question about US “fossil drenched” energy geopolitics was whether it would be forced “to watch as others climbed towards the solar uplands, or have the power to crush the spring.” This monumental energy supply shock sets the stage for that question to be answered. A fossil fuel supremacist government has made oil and gas costly and unreliable and accelerated the turn to the electric world order.

ODDZ & ENDZ

I empathize with all international college students in the US. Because I was one of them in the past. It hurts to see that they are no longer welcome. We are going to lose a lot of talent who would love to work here. And stay here, legally of course. Anyway, it is what it is: ‘It’s Getting Unfriendlier’: International Students Race to Find Jobs.

The narrowing of work options could spell trouble for universities, many of which financially depend on international students, who often pay full freight. It could also upend a crucial talent pipeline. In 2025, nearly half of the Ph.D. and master’s diplomas in science, tech and engineering went to international students. Since 2000, more than one-third of American Nobel Prize winners in chemistry, medicine and physics have been immigrants.

Very educational video of the border crossing between Singapore and Johor Bahru in Malaysia. My wife has relatives doing this every day, it is the busiest border crossing in the world by the way: Why Singaporeans Are Fleeing to Malaysia Every Weekend.

TRAVEL

Hmmm, ordering groceries with Airbnb? Whatever. May be a little too late for getting into this? Airbnb Expands Into Hotels, Cars, Groceries.

For all the museum lovers who read my blog, this is for you Sam: 27 Best Museums in the World for Art, History, and Cultural Wonders.

I had no idea about them hotel slippers! Inside the hotel slipper scandal. From China to landfill — how the in-room freebie became a globally toxic menace.

The scale of the problem is huge: with a length of 29.5cm each, if you took every slipper thrown away by just the top 100 hotels in London in a year and laid them end to end, you’d have a line stretching from Hyde Park Corner to Frankfurt. London, it should be noted, has more than 1,500 hotels.

If you recently visited a place that is full of tourists you undoubtedly had similar thoughts: Japan’s Tourism Troubles Are Being Fuelled By Social Media Assholes.

I have travelled all over the world in the last 30 years, and have never seen anything like the density of assholes I just encountered in Japan, but what I found wasn’t a horde of Westerners simply being rude, or spaces where there were too many Westerners, it was tourists being an unbearable menace specifically while on and around their phones…The problem was the tourists with their phones out shooting themselves for a video or taking endless selfies, blocking crowds, barring entrance to stores and just generally getting in everyone’s way in the most annoying way possible. I know simply blaming TikTok and Instagram and YouTube Shorts for so many flashpoints is an overly-simplistic explanation, but also, from everything I saw in my two weeks (where other kinds of rude or offensive behaviour outside the occasional jerk were rare), it was kinda true.

The obligatory Thailand link, say goodbye to 60 days visa exempt stays, back down to 30 days: Thai Cabinet Reduces Visa Free Entry To 30 Days For Most Nationalities, Some Visa Waivers Pulled. I plan to explore a longer stay visa as we expect to spend more time in Thailand going forward.

I am shocked Spain’s tourists are double the size of France and the UK: Europe’s Most Visited Countries.

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

Welcome to the new post May 20, 2026 World of Hyatt devaluation. Combined with the recent stoppage of the never ending earning of Chase Ultimate Rewards points through its (mainly) Ink business cards. Which basically means the end of long held practices of just booking Hyatt hotels with World of Hyatt points repeatedly without ever even blinking just one eye. Notice how content creators in this space whose primary income is affiliate commissions from selling travel rewards credit cards are all very mild in their assessments? This outfit also sells plastic but its main income is a decent travel alert service and they were a little more blunt about it: We Analyzed 368K Hyatt Award Nights … & The Findings Are Brutal.

But based on what we’re seeing here, even diehard Hyatt loyalists should be doing the math for themselves to determine whether their (or hard-earned Chase points) are worth it anymore.

And the people running these programs know that content creators will be all over testing the new rates right away. And they will lay off the bigger hurts until later on, it happens every time. So, you have been warned.

Quick guide for the basics on these still (but less) valuable programs: A quick guide to transferable points programs.

And this is a good one too about What is dynamic pricing? An explanation and its positives & negatives. Well, the negatives sure outweigh the positives by miles (pun intended). This hobby thrived on exploiting the incredible values that FIXED award charts will offer to weird people like us who thrived on digging into the fine print and sticking it to the banks and airlines/hotels. Until, they finally caught up with us species, sad lol. I am really sad typing this as me and you old timers are faced with the harsh reality of separating our cherished cash from our pockets to go towards our (former) right to travel for free #crying.

Amazing deals that none of us will likely get. Hitting the lottery may be easier than winning one of these! Road Trips for 250 Points?! How To Score a New Hilton Honors America Experience.

In case this could work for you now that you are no longer transferring your Chase points to Hyatt: Chase Ultimate Rewards To Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards 30% Conversion Bonus Through June 5, 2026.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

No affiliate links with these AMEX No Lifetime Language Offers: American Express Hilton Increased Credit Card Signup Bonuses (Up To 175,000 Points)(NLL).

LATEST OFFERS:

I will make this section increasingly smaller. Because my posts are too long and nobody clicks on these links anyway…

150k AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business PLUS $125 Statement Credit: $125 Annual fee, minimum spend $8,000 in the first six months. For more info on the card’s benefits click HERE.

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. 150,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. Lots of benefits and credits and earning multipliers.

185k CHASE IHG One Rewards Premier:$99 annual fee. 150,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. And another 35,000 points after spending a total of $6,000 in the first six months.

50k CAPITAL ONE VentureOne Business: No annual fee. $4,500 minimum spend in first three months. 1.5x on every purchase and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal.

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

75k Capital One Venture X

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

Thank you to reader Brian for the generous Paypal donation that covers a good chunk of the costs of running this blog for a month.

I have again applied for the Schwab AMEX Platinum card and, as expected, I again was greeted with that dreaded pop up jail message. I think I am going to have my wife apply for it over the weekend and see what happens…

Not much has happened in the meantime. I get no emails from PointsYeah on some award alerts I have placed for the SE Asia trip later this year. Oh wait, burned 50,000 World of Hyatt points for the Andaz Bali for son +1. Which takes the year to date burning of miles/points to about 421k, not too shabby while not even trying much. But I wonder when these Chase/Hyatt points are depleted, then what?

May 20 World of Hyatt devaluation day came and went and I did not book anything additional other than the Park Hyatt Saigon. I should probably surf there to see if the points required for my stay went down. Highly unlikely but ya never know.

House renovation project is nearing its end, we can use the kitchen again hooray! Everything should be done by mid June and ready for the World Cup.

I am going to be posting about the World Cup games a lot here, join me in the comments so we can increase the traffic in my blog so I can make more money. Oh wait, what money lol.

I made the mistake to go see the movie Obsession. I walked out midway, something I almost never do. I was fooled by the good reviews it received. Again.

I move slow online these days as it has become clear that this blog venture will never head to IPO lol. Anyway, here are two Instagram posts from the most recent trip to see our daughter in Seattle over Mother’s Day weekend. I did not bother taking any pics/videos from the two hotels we stayed in (for free of course): Hyatt Regency and Thompson. There was nothing notable about both hotel stays. Other than the great location and free parking due to World of Hyatt Globalist status. I did not waste a Suite Upgrade on them which was a good move for such short stays (three nights total). I find the Thompson properties to be as over rated at the W properties in the Marriott Bonvoy program. I still can’t believe the front desk guy checking me in tried to upsell me a Suite for only $300 per night, come on man!

Seattle trip pics from around the city

Seattle trip from hiking Ebey’s Landing Trail at Whidbey Island

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Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and Rove Miles and more.

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 421,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,157,402 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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The post Retirement Losses, Steve Kerr, AI Breaking Us Fast, The 4% Rule Is Now 4.7%, World Of Hyatt’s Brutal Reality appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Predicting Stock Market Bubbles, The Money Queen, AI Global Cybersecurity Gap, Best Hiking Trails, Seattle Trip

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 15 May 2026 10:34:35 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as predicting stock market bubbles, the Money Queen, AI global cybersecurity gap, the best hiking trails, our Seattle trip, US stock market average annual returns, the current state of AI, winners and losers of the Iran war energy shock, shocking African funerals, why airlines continue to go bankrupt, world’s busiest airports, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

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No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“In the stock market, the most important organ is the stomach. It’s not the brain.” – Peter Lynch

MUST READ GEMS

There is so much bubble talk these days. And I get asked this question a lot: “Is it a bubble?”. And Jason Zweig over at the Wall Street Journal answered it in the best way possible, must read:

Why It’s So Hard to Spot a Stock-Market Bubble

The whole article is a must read. You can skip everything else if you are pressed for time and just read the articles in this section. If I were you though I would not skip much in this once a week blog post. But I am biased I guess.

Just a few gem quotes:

If the stock market’s a bubble, that’s dangerous. If you’re positive it is—or isn’t—a bubble, that could be even more dangerous.

…bubblespotting is a lot harder than it seems. If identifying a bubble were easy, then we all could do it. And, if we all could do it, then a bubble wouldn’t form in the first place.

The real danger of bubblespotting is believing you can do it…But stocks aren’t a toggle switch that you flip on or off. Few investors should have either all or none of their money in stocks. The future is rarely certain enough for that. Now is a good time to make sure you’re diversified, holding not just the S&P 500 but smaller stocks and international stocks as well. You should also check whether you can rebalance—trimming some winning assets, such as large U.S. stocks, to add some recent laggards like bonds. Also be on the alert for any signs your financial adviser is sure we’re in—or not in—a bubble. They don’t know any better than you do.

PERSONAL FINANCE

In investing you hear a lot how stocks return 8% to 10% annually on average. The key word is average. Actually, returns can and do usually vary all over the place almost every year. On average, you almost never get returns between 8% to 10%! Check out the chart below with annual returns of the S&P 500 since 1950. In fact, only just four years returned between 8% and 10%, that’s it. It is actually just six years that had returns between 5% and 10%. Found HERE:

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

This article had a strong impact in me. No, I am not into farming. But this guy had a really big following on YouTube and one day he decided he had enough and posted a goodbye video. It must be so hard to do this. I have been contemplating the end here and I guess I am just not quite there…yet? Signing off in a world of what’s next.

We live in a world of such duplicity, lies, greed and avarice that seeing everyday people do everyday things is such a nice break…These creators become a quiet, steady presence in your life…They’re the opposite of the announcement economy…Someone is just trying to grow something and be honest about how hard it is…When that disappears, you lose a small refuge. Worth a moment of sadness. Near the end of his final video, Pete said two words. “I’m sorry.” He knew people relied on that rhythm. He felt the weight of leaving. He carried it. That’s character. [Well, I sure don’t have hundreds of thousands of readers and no income stream so it should be easier to end my blog I guess. But yet, I don’t want to walk away from all nine of you lol]

One of the biggest fraudsters out there still free is going to go for what fraudsters in this grifting age do. And that is ask for a pardon of course: Jho Low, Fugitive Behind 1MDB Scandal, Seeks Pardon From Trump. Malaysian financier recently submitted a pardon request, some 10 years after he disappeared amid a $4.5 billion scandal.

Anyone can be anything they want online. Some time ago a blog reader had a quote that went something like ‘on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog’ with a picture of a dog tweeting away. And they can just make shit up selling fake expertise and, wait for it, become influencers. Meaning, they go on tricking innocent victims who fall for their shit. And here is another one who developed a marketing machine calling herself the Money Queen smh: Who Trusts The Money Queen? Amanda Frances made millions helping women manifest their dream lives. Some former clients think they just funded hers.

She regularly drops new video courses with names like “Turning Shit Into Gold,” “Become a Money-Making Coach,” and “Money Mentality Makeover,” her foundational course, which she values at more than $26,000 but can be yours for just $2,999. “Spend as though you are supported, make purchases as though more is available for you, buy things as though you are a wealthy woman,” Frances writes in Rich As F*ck. [Vomited after this quote in the first few paragraphs and after I went through the article I swear I must have lost at least five pounds! Look, you can read my blog for free and I guarantee you will get way ahead of these victims falling for this shit]

AI

Great piece in the MIT Technology Review: Want to understand the current state of AI? Check out these charts. According to Stanford’s 2026 AI Index, AI is sprinting, and we’re struggling to keep up. Yes, check out the charts.

The Us and China are nearly tied

AI models are advancing super fast

But the way we test AI is broken

AI is starting to affect jobs

People have complicated feelings about AI

Governments are struggling to regulate AI

I have been getting some very sophisticated scam emails lately. And I have no doubt they are all AI generated. I think this is only going to get worse, so brace yourselves: The global cybersecurity gap deepens as AI-powered attacks surge. Restricted access to powerful defensive AI tools like Anthropic’s Mythos leaves some companies, central banks, and nations more vulnerable than others.

AI-driven cyberattacks are surging because models can now weaponize software vulnerabilities within hours of their discovery.
A massive global shortage of cybersecurity professionals is compounding the risk of an “AI bugocalypse.”
With the interconnected nature of the global digital economy, leaving smaller institutions and nations vulnerable means that no one is truly safe from the cascading effects of a breach.

In 2018, the median time from a vulnerability being disclosed to the first exploitation was 771 days, so organizations had over two years to fix it. By 2024, that window had reduced to four hours; last year, most exploited vulnerabilities were weaponized before they were even publicly disclosed.

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IRAN WAR

Must read imho: The Winners and Losers of the Iran Energy Shock.

It is kind of weird that in the scramble for more oil…renewables are winning. And China…For now at least, we shall see what happens from here.

Unless they have large stores of oil and gas, the best way for countries to become energy independent is to invest more in renewables, such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy. And the state that dominates the supply chain for these technologies is China. Beijing has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in building up large clean energy firms, and these companies are now exporting their wares across the world. The United States, by contrast, recently abandoned investment in clean tech and redoubled its spending on fossil fuels that few countries want. Beijing, then, may emerge from the war in Iran as its winner—and Washington as its ultimate loser.

And shocked to learn this about Pakistan:

Pakistan is not as dependent on fossil fuel imports, largely thanks to an explosion in renewable energy. The share of Pakistani power that comes from solar energy went from under three percent in 2020 to over 32 percent by the end of 2025, one of the fastest energy transitions anywhere in the world.

ODDZ & ENDZ

Very important article for youngsters who had everything provided by their parents and never really felt the existential dread needing to survive: The Job You Don’t Love Might Be the One That Saves You.Why purpose doesn’t have to start at work and what the “wrong” career can quietly build for you. My purpose after college was to find a job that will get me a green card to stay in this country. And after suffering through seven tax seasons in a suffocating environment such as the ~~Final~~ Big Four (formerly Big Eight) CPA firms I found my purpose I guess starting my own boutique wealth management firm. And the knowledge and experience (and money set aside) suffering for seven years was invaluable so embrace the suffering youngsters 🙂

I have posted about how crazy funerals can get at some African countries some time ago. But this article gets deeper and you will be shocked: How funerals keep Africa poor. Why the poorest people in the world spend fortunes burying their dead.

A modest, mid-level funeral in Ghana costs about $5,000 U.S. dollars; a “befitting” one can easily cost $15,000 or $20,000. And all this in a country with a median income of about $1,500 per year.

and then the article dives deeper, much deeper.

We play this kind of trivia in the car during road trips: The Animals That Kill the Most Humans. #2 was tricky indeed.

Amazing photography: 18 silly finalists from the Comedy Wildlife People’s Choice Awards.

Credit: Warren Price / Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

TRAVEL

Excellent article on the subject: Why airlines are always going bankrupt.

In the last century we’ve groped toward stability through government-approved cartels; then dismantled them; then approved their tacit reinstatement through private contracts; and now the empty-core syndrome has at last raised the question of direct government ownership of a major airline. We’ve admitted to ourselves, by now, what we’re still not able to say aloud: that there’s no such thing as a competitive equilibrium for the airline industry. The only question that remains is who is going to be left holding the bag.

Check out 25 of the Best Hiking Trails Worldwide. Which one is your favorite? Need to do Machu Picchu and Petra while I can.

Obligatory Thailand link: 20 Surprising Things About Thailand Most People Don’t Know Before They Visit. I was surprised I did not know some of them.

The World’s Busiest Airports. When you look at the 106.3 Million passenger number next to the Atlanta Airport (easily #1 on this list) you go wow…

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

Good info to know if you are renewing your US passport in the near future: My Online Passport Renewal Only Took 2 Weeks (Full Timeline & Process).

Register for the latest Choice Hotels promotion HERE. Stay two and get enough points for a $50 gift card for gas. Actually, it is 8,000 Choice points so definitely go for the points here. Then again, with the price of gas these days, it does make sense to market this for the gas indeed.

Bye bye Asiana Airlines: Asiana Brand Will Disappear & Merge Into Korean Air On December 17, 2026. Tough loss for Star Alliance, good pickup by Skyteam Alliance.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

The enshittification of all things Chase towards its credit card holders continues to amaze us, negatively sadly:Chase Sapphire Preferred Ending 10% Anniversary Bonus.

My kids still have this card, it was their first one when they turned 18: Discover It cards moving to Capital One 7/27/26; more bonus spend categories, Capital One Offers access, & more. Nothing received yet, wonder when this card will appear in their own Capital One portal next to their Venture X cards.

Interesting info on where Citi is going: Citi’s Investor Day Gives Clues on Credit Card Direction. Then again, we are dealing with Citi here, who knows if they even know where they are going lol.

In its face, this is positive: American Express Adds $300 ChatGPT Business Credit To Business Cards Platinum & Gold. But after you read the fine print you realize you need to spend more to earn it so pass and go Claude maybe. If Chase cared to improve the Sapphire Reserve…never mind.

Spoke too soon about the positive change above: American Express Business Gold To Lose FedEx As Flexible Business Credit Option ($20 Per Month).

LATEST OFFERS:

I will make this section increasingly smaller. Because my posts are too long and nobody clicks on these links anyway…

150k AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business PLUS $125 Statement Credit: $125 Annual fee, minimum spend $8,000 in the first six months. For more info on the card’s benefits click HERE.

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. 150,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. Lots of benefits and credits and earning multipliers.

185k CHASE IHG One Rewards Premier:$99 annual fee. 150,000 points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. And another 35,000 points after spending a total of $6,000 in the first six months.

50k CAPITAL ONE VentureOne Business: No annual fee. $4,500 minimum spend in first three months. 1.5x on every purchase and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal.

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum

75k CITI Strata Elite card

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I have not done much other than trying to keep up with everything going on. And continuing to pay the crew working on ~~wrecking~~ renovating our house. It is coming together, aiming to finish everything by mid June. Sadly it is going to interfere with the World Cup starting June 11.

The miles and points/travel hacking hobby is dying. The recent devaluations by Hyatt and Air Canada Aeroplan hurt bigly. But the change that hurts the most and is slowly settling us all into a new reality is the restrictions on getting cards from Chase bank. So the transfers to United and Hyatt will slowly vanish. And we are all going to pay for travel going forward. If you are one of those non normal people who are heavily into this by screwing around with advanced “techniques” (that have gone underground) you are also impacted because finding the award space previously plentiful (or at least tolerable) is just much harder. In a way, it is kind of liberating just looking at the prices in Google Flight alerts you set and say “you know, I can afford that” instead of torturing ourselves trying to book using our miles. Chase is huge so the bank doesn’t care and is now pushing the knife on our backs deeper.

Many creators are also pivoting. Simply because the revenue from credit card sales is going down. Both total volume sold and per credit card. We all know many former hobbyists who went on to work at The Points Guy (and almost everyone has been let go or moved on from there). I think the only one left in that joint is Mommy Points. But you know what is the ultimate sign of this hobby running its course? Seeing former hobbyists going to work in companies that directly run rewards programs. And they are inflicting the pain on us from within while having the audacity to think they are still one of us (looking at you Richard Kerr at Bilt) and bracing for the hurt over at Air France Flying Blue who just hired Tiffany Funk from One Mile at a Time to be its CEO. Kiss goodbye to the sweet spots in that program by the way, it is a matter of time. Anyway…

I haven’t seen a movie lately, I look at what is showing and I just lose interest.

The Detroit Pistons imploded in Game 5 against the Cleveland Cavs at home after losing a 9 point lead in the last three minutes of the game. Likely going down at Cleveland in Game 6. Great season but…

We had a wonderful time in Seattle with our daughter over Mother’s Day weekend. Both Delta and Alaska Airlines flights were just fine. Two nights at the Hyatt Regency were fine and then moved to The Thompson for one night. I used two Free Night Certificates and 15,000 World of Hyatt points for the three nights. Because…this is what I do. For a little bit longer I guess. Both great locations. Free parking as Globalist is great. The stays were fine, no suite upgrades and just nothing spectacular. I did not even bother taking pics or videos for Instagram and YouTube, just not cut out to be a frequent poster there I guess. I spend enough time producing this blog to post once a week. At some point I will post some pics on Instagram. When I get to it. After staying in two Thompson properties (the other one in Chicago) I realize I am just not a fan of this brand. And I am no fan of Kimpton hotels in the IHG program. And W in Marriott Bonvoy. Let me keep going and add Andaz to this list (my wife loves Andaz by the way). In all these brands I have had consistently bad or subpar experiences. It is what it is.

Just a few pics from the Seattle trip.

The Thompson hotel is just steps away…

Lovely outing at this park

Amazing views in the Ebey’s Landing hiking trek

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Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and Rove Miles and more.

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 421,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,173,657 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

Let me leave you with this:

I have become my dad lol

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

The post Predicting Stock Market Bubbles, The Money Queen, AI Global Cybersecurity Gap, Best Hiking Trails, Seattle Trip appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Wall Street Traps, AI Distorting Everything, Hantavirus Cruise Nightmare, Missing Spirit Airlines

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 08 May 2026 08:29:16 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as Wall Street traps, AI distorting everything, Hantavirus cruise nightmare, missing Spirit Airlines, investing during uncertainty, AI hyperscalers spend binge, Vladimir fraudster gets busted, more magical Artemis II photos from NASA, more on the sub-2 hour marathon triumph, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe and share it

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and Subscribe to my YouTube channel

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

First big life change revealed: My wife is retiring from Ford Motor Company, her last day of work is June 30, 2026. Not going to make a difference here in the blog, unless she applies for an open internship position. The job interview will be intense because blog management is only looking to hire the best. My kids say I laugh at my own jokes, it is true lol.

More changes coming soon. The blog will stay on someway somehow but going to be different, stay tuned.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Always beware the man who stops digging for gold and starts selling maps to the gold mine”

MUST READ GEMS

One of the best photo collections I have posted here in my own biased opinion:

Photo contest finalists tell stories of the planet’s natural wonders and the people who study them

Two Atlantic puffins perch on a grassy cliff at the Dyrhólaey Peninsula, overlooking the ocean and the iconic black sand beaches of Iceland’s South Coast. PhotoCredit:EmilyCheng

PERSONAL FINANCE

Great read: How Not to Invest During Times of Uncertainty. Especially two really bad ideas that always pop up during such times, market timing and portfolio concentration (on what’s currently hot).

We have an incredibly strong instinct to act and to do ‘stuff’ – don’t just sit there, markets are moving! For investors that often means trying to make predictions about what happens next. While the urge to do this can feel irresistible, it flies in the face of the evidence about what is likely to work for us over time.

Being diversified means owning things that are performing poorly and that, in certain environments, we should expect to perform poorly. It is incredibly difficult for investors to embrace this idea – we just want to hold the good things that have been working.

The sense that markets are unusually uncertain is the time when behavioural discipline matters most, but also when we are highly likely to abandon it. Market timing and portfolio concentration feel right, but really they are just the easy options that make us feel good, while being very unlikely to work.

Needless to say I agree 100% with the above. So, diversify!

Lots of good sensible advice in this as well: Wall Street Trap. Remember, Wall Street is not your friend.

For almost 100 years, the data has been clear that stock-picking is counterproductive.

Over the past 10 years, fewer than 15% of funds benchmarked to the S&P 500 managed to beat the index.

…the accuracy of Wall Street prognosticators is approximately zero.

[many of the new funds]…funds were overpriced to the point that their expected return was actually a bit below zero. How were they able to market such an inferior product? Henderson’s hypothesis was that the fund companies designed them to be intentionally as complex as possible in order to exploit individual investors.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

Remember when I posted about this guy who managed to scam a Mexican billionaire? And I wondered out loud why is this guy still out free. Well, justice caught up with him and is now behind bars: Lender Who Used Astor Family Name Is Charged With Fraud. Vladimir Sklarov, who operated under several identities, offered loans to company founders who had wealth locked up in stock.

This guy is a piece of work smh:

In spring 2021, Sklarov, a Ukrainian-born American, negotiated terms to extend a $115 million loan to Ricardo Salinas Pliego, one of Mexico’s richest men, the Journal previously reported…Sklarov, calling himself Gregory Mitchell, and another man, calling himself Thomas Mellon, allegedly told Salinas Pliego’s representatives that the Astor family would be funding the loan from an entity called Astor Asset Management…Astor on its website said it was built on the highest principles of John Jacob Astor, the German-born fur trader who was credited as America’s richest man when he died in 1848…The loan to the businessman was secured with around $450 million worth of stock. Sklarov paid Salinas Pliego the proceeds of the loan from the stock, which he sold without telling the Mexican billionaire, the grand jury alleged. Sklarov and others then kept the remainder of the proceeds, according to the indictment…The money was sent to multiple accounts controlled by an unnamed co-conspirator, according to the indictment. From there, it was sent on to Sklarov, Sklarov family members and others.

His first big financial success came from his role in an alleged Medicare fraud, and he later said he turned $1 million into $60 million by investing in real estate…Names of companies he used to advertise the lending included Bentley Rothschild, Cornelius Vanderbilt Capital Management and Shearson Lehman.

Mind blowing graph showing: Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality.

Another amazing investigative article on New Orlean’s Car Crash Conspiracy. High-speed accidents, crooked lawyers, and poor people desperate for cash—it was the kind of scheme that could have been cooked up only in the Big Easy. Definitely in a different league than the Vladimir dude above.

AI

Yes you were not mistaken. The money spent on AI is mind blowing: What I Learned about Hyperscalers’ AI Spend.

The four biggest hyperscalers reported earnings this week. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet collectively told investors they will spend roughly $700 billion on capital expenditures in 2026. That is nearly double what they spent in 2025. Three of the four raised capex guidance during this week of reporting. Only Amazon held its number, and only because it had already published a $200 billion forecast in February 2026

The headline says hyperscaler capex is roughly doubling. The platform shift to a new tech stack is real. AI revenue is growing fast. None of that is wrong. What is also true is that funding is increasingly off the balance sheet, that supplier relationships are being prepaid, that lease commitments are being deferred for as long as accounting rules allow, and that a meaningful portion of the AI revenue and AI investment gains are flowing in a circle through the same small set of AI labs. The platform shift is real. AI engineering is real. So is the financial engineering. Let the good times roll.

This is pretty much what is going on these days: AI Is Distorting Practically Everything About the Economy.

Until recently, artificial intelligence was a welcome tailwind for U.S. growth. We’re beyond that now. AI is more like a hurricane-strength weather system making itself felt across the entire economy. It is distorting the stock market, profits, the speed and composition of economic growth, trade and even our moods—especially about the job market.

AI thus feeds the disconnect between what the data say and how people feel. It lifts the spirits of businesses and investors, while doing the opposite for ordinary workers.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

IRAN WAR

This is turning into an absurd mess. So, phuck it, the answer is to laugh (instead of crying):

Hegseth and Patel Iran Press Briefing Cold Open – SNL

Colin Jost and especially Aziz Ansari are just perfect impersonating Hegseth and Patel! And they sum up the Iran war so well too.

ODDZ & ENDZ

Interesting: Slang Dictionary. Hard to keep up with the younger crowd with some of these slangs. I never heard of these below:

almond mom – a mother who pushes her daughter to be skinny, through diet

41 – a nonsense expression used by teens

choppelganger – a less attractive version of someone or something

Amazing: Magnified Sand. All about sand, wow.

The world is still stunned about this: Sabastian Sawe, Adidas and the Sub-2 Hour Marathon. Also, the article gets into the shoes and more, enjoy.

Take the time splits for Sawe’s marathon run…they are mind-boggling:

a pace of 4:33 per mile (the record for one mile is 3:43 and he kept the pace 26x)
or 2:50 per kilometer (he did it 42x)
his 100m pace was 17 seconds (which he did 422x)
he was faster in the second half (59:01) as compared to the first half (60:29)
the average speed was the same as Kipchoge’s at 13mp/h (21km/h)
the average men’s marathon time for 5km is ~30 mins (Sawe’s 5km pace was 14:10 mins, which he did ~8x)
the world record 10km track run is 26:11 (Sawe’s 10km pace was 28:19 which he did ~4x)

Amazing dump of over 12,000 photos: NASA Releases Thousands of Unseen Artemis II Photos.

TRAVEL

I remember when Covid started a colleague was quarantined in one of the first cruise ships that was caught at sea with Covid rampaging aboard. I remember how horrific it all was. I still think about that when people mention cruises. And then, it is hard to imagine happening again. Hold my beer: The Horror of a Hantavirus Cruise. I just hope experts can get a handle on this because, you know, we’ve been here before and this particular virus is no joke. It is the virus that killed Gene Hackman’s wife by the way. I think I may put Antarctica off the future plans. Because ships leave from Argentina where this outbreak probably started. A lot unfolding, it certainly has a similar feel to the first reports of Covid cases, doesn’t it?

More horrors revealed here, some YouTubers are on board, this was an experienced group of travelers paying $29,000 per person for this cruise: The 33 day ‘Atlantic Odyssey’ That Turned Into a Hantavirus Nightmare.

Welcome: UNESCO names 12 new Global Geoparks. Greece gets one and Malaysia two, nice!

For my aviation geek readers: 15 innovative, wacky airplane seat designs. Which one is your favorite?

All of us travelers will miss Spirit and the low fare competition it contributed in this super competitive industry. Until it lost the battle sadly: I’ll Miss Spirit and the Haters Will, Too. The demise of the low-cost airline, the butt of plenty of jokes, will leave all travelers worse off. Especially in my home airport in Detroit. If you were caught in this, this may help: Spirit Airlines What To Do Next: Rescue Fares, Chargebacks, Points, Credit Cards & More.

Follow me on Instagram and Subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

Alaska Airlines keeps growing in methodical slow and steady ways, I am impressed. Well, I am flying them this weekend so give me a few days to confirm these initial positive feelings ok? Alaska Airline’s First-Ever Europe Flight Takes Off – Here’s What It Was Like in Economy.

I predict this is the next shoe to drop: Why suites are now the sweet spot inside World of Hyatt.

Us in this travel hacking hobby are natural born deal hunters. So, here you go: The Ultimate Guide to Birthday Deals: Restaurants with Free Food & Discounts.

Happy 13th birthday to Grant and his Travel With Grant blog. Hard to believe we are both still around blogging away and…has it really been that many years since that Phoenix meetup, wow!

One of these days I am going to start using Rove, after I get that first Rove referral lol: Rove Adds Aeroplan As 1:1 Transfer Partner + 25% Transfer Bonus.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

These are great…if you can get them that is: American Express Charles Schwab & Morgan Stanley Platinum 150,000 Points Bonus.

LATEST OFFERS:

I will make this section increasingly smaller. Because my posts are too long and nobody clicks on these links anyway…

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve: $795 Annual Fee. 150,000 points after spending $6,000 in the first three months. Lots of benefits and credits and earning multipliers.

To learn more about these IHG new offers above, please click HERE. The Premier card offer is great that comes with a Free Night cert every year that can be topped off.

50k CAPITAL ONE VentureOne Business: No annual fee. $4,500 minimum spend in first three months. 1.5x on every purchase and 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal.

Amex is going all out on both Business Platinum and Gold cards!

As High As 200,000 Points on the AMEX Business Gold after spending $15k in the first three months

As High As 300,000 Points on the AMEX Business Platinum after spending $20,000 in the first three months

Excellent new Bank of America Alaska Airlines Atmos card offers as well:

100,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Summit after spending $6,500 in the first three months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

80,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Ascent after spending $4,000 in the first four months. And a 50% flight discount voucher

85,000 BANK OF AMERICA Atmos Business after spending $5,500 in the first three months

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard

175k AMEX Platinum & 300k AMEX Business Platinum & 200k AMEX Business Gold

75k CITI Strata Elite card

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

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3. Subscribe

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

Will be in Seattle over the weekend to celebrate Mother’s Day with our daughter. And looking forward to meet long time blog reader Carl, one of the joys of this blog.

I deleted two Spirit Airlines miles accounts from my Award Wallet. The life simplification continues lol. For the record, there were no miles in either account.

When we get to Bangkok and Singapore and Vietnam later this year, thinking about hitting Krabi for 2-3 nights too. Any hotel recommendations? Or areas to stay in? I guess taking boat tour(s) to nearby islands is a must…

It didn’t take long but the next United Gateway card spend based promo appeared yet again. This time is to spend $3.5k in the months of May, June July to earn 1,750 bonus miles each month. And if done all three, then earn another 10,500 miles. So, it works out to 1.5 miles per $1. I registered for it but I don’t think I am going to do it. I can get 2 points on my Capital Venture X card or Ames Blue Business Plus. I would be all over this promo up to last year by the way. This year? Not feeling it anymore.

The enshittification of this hobby continues. The Aeroplan business class awards are going from 70k+ to 93K on June 1st. Of course we all know the mega Hyatt devaluation on May 20. And airfare prices keep going way up. You may say, well, miles/points can go further. But award availability is getting absolutely destroyed too. I hardly get any emails from PointsYeah anymore based on my alerts I have set. And Chase has cut the gravy train that made unlimited generation of its points. And Amex does not like me anymore. I mean, I think the only credit card my household got this year was the no annual fee United Gateway card for my wife. Because I guess I was bored.

I am going to try again for the Schwab Amex Platinum card, especially now that the signup bonus went to 150k from 80k. But I have no doubt I will get the pop up jail message denying it to me, it has happened numerous times, so sad. I may have my wife apply for it, just to see if she gets the same popup. I think she had the regular Amex Platinum many years ago, before Covid for sure. But she won’t keep track of the credits. So I will have to do it. I am used to this. After I come back from Seattle I will give it another shot.

I still have not done it. Spend my cash for business class fares that is. Because, you know, I am the miles guy and I fly up front for free. Anyway, with the current dreadful situation in this hobby I keep looking at the cash fares and I know I am getting closer to pull the trigger. Because I can. But, you know, it is so hard lol.

Many bloggers in this space make a living out of this hobby. And it is in their own self interest to keep hyping you about it to keep you involved. Don’t fall for it. The value is steadily getting too distorted to stay in it. I can tell you this because I have a good job that pays the bills and thank God I do not rely on this blog for anything other than psychic rewards. This is what happens when so many flood this hobby, led by opportunistic bloggers who suddenly discovered (how much banks pay them to push plastic) and wanted to share to the world how they fly for “free”. Don’t get me wrong, it has been a hell of a ride and we should be grateful. Also, these bloggers also keep pumping crap like this to get the $ clicks:

View From The Wing: Video Shows Rental Car Returned With Spaghetti On The Seat

If you click on shit like that you don’t belong here in my blog, please leave.

The Detroit Pistons finally won a playoff series. After going down 3-1 to the Orlando Magic and scaring us all. Cleveland Cavs are next and we are up 2-0 already yeah!

The trailer for the new movie The Odyssey looks epic!

I finally got around to posting a video of the room we had in The Shinola hotel in Detroit. It was an AMEX FHR stay for the $300 credit, the $100 dining credit and the other FHR benefits.

Follow on Instagram and Subscribe on YouTube

Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and Rove Miles and more.

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 300k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k AMEX Business Gold, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 200k AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant, 175k Marriott Bonvoy Bevy (ENDS 5/13/26), 100k BofA Alaska Atmos Summit, 80k BofA Alaska Atmos Ascent, 85k BofA Alaska Atmos Business, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

As of today, I have burned 371,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025 and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,206,464 miles/points in the bank.

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

The post Wall Street Traps, AI Distorting Everything, Hantavirus Cruise Nightmare, Missing Spirit Airlines appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Petty Tyrants, AI Uncertainties, $Trump Coin Club, Marathon History, 150,000 Chase Sapphire Reserve Offer

TravelBloggerBuzz — Fri, 01 May 2026 11:04:02 +0000

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as petty tyrants, AI uncertainties, $Trump Coin Club, sub 2 hour marathon history, 150,000 Chase Sapphire Reserve offer, college cost facts, financial advisor compensation methods, software eating itself, Iran war energy crisis spreading, losing a daughter, best luxury hotels in US National Parks, most walkable cities, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. And much more. Enjoy the weekend.

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

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe and share it

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and Subscribe to my YouTube channel

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

This blog is my own crusade to do my part to fight rampant enshittification on the internet. I bring to you handpicked web content worthy to pay attention to. Because nothing matters more than what you pay attention to.

Thank you to everyone who reads my blog, I am grateful you chose to stop by here in my little corner of the web that acts as my outlet for personal creativity and keeps me busy and out of trouble. When I find some time I hope I can upgrade the look of my blog because I know it sucks. And also upgrade the look of the email to subscribers. One day I promise…

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“He who has overcomes his fears will truly be free” – Aristostle

MUST READ GEMS

This is very important:

The Rise And Fall of ‘Petty Tyrants’

History shows that bad leaders can successfully undermine democracy — but the story always ends the same way.

These images will blow your mind:

Winners of the GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2026

PERSONAL FINANCE

A few college related links for you, there is plenty of great stats in each post:

Average Cost of College & Tuition

Financial Aid Statistics

The average in-state student attending a public 4-year institution and living on-campus spent $27,146 in academic year (AY) 2022-23.

The average private, nonprofit university student living on campus paid $58,628 in AY 2022-23; $38,421 of that cost went toward tuition and fees.

I have been a member of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors NAPFA for almost thirty years. It was this renegade tiny group of financial planners proud to be fiduciaries who banned any compensation that did not come directly from the clients. Fee Only compensation defined us. We swore off ANY sales commissions and believed in fully transparent compensation. Paid ONLY by the clients. Anyway, after many years the brokers, insurance and annuities salesmen and all sorts of other species looking for that big sales commission started confusing the public that they too are somehow fiduciaries and now they are compensated by fees. But fee based. Which is a bunch of crap because in that way they get paid by fees AND allow themselves the juicy sales commission by selling you the fancy and totally unnecessary and incredibly expensive (hey, someone has to pay that sales commission to them!), yikes. So, if you are looking for a financial planner these days, I recommend the following:

Must have CFP (Certified Financial Planner)

Independent Registered Investment Advisor RIA

NAPFA member

Comprehensive financial planning advice

CPA or Enrolled Agent (EA), offering integrated full tax planning & preparation

Here is a resource with what questions to ask prospective financial planners you are interviewing: Financial Advisor Comparison Tool. For more consumer resources, please check HERE.

Most people spend more time planning a vacation than finding a financial advisor. Our industry has a bad reputation because it is filled with charlatans out there hunting for their next victim. Take your time finding one, it is probably one of the most important decisions of your life.

Good luck finding one these days. For the record, I am in the back end of my career and not looking for new clients.

Fee Only still matters today. By one of the co-founders of NAPFA:

“In the early years, we were simply trying to do the right thing. Fee-only compensation is a logical concept for anyone who stops to think about it. Would you rather have your financial advisor focused on their personal compensation, or on your well-being as an investor? Fee-only financial planning is straightforward. It removes the product incentive and keeps the focus where it belongs — on the client.”

To learn more if interested: The Radical (at the Time) Concept That Led to Client-First Financial Planning.

More than 40 years later, their core insight remains relevant: How an advisor is paid can influence how advice is delivered. For investors seeking advice that prioritizes their interests, the pioneers of fee-only financial planning left a simple message that still resonates today: When advisors are paid directly by their clients, the relationship starts with clarity, transparency, alignment and trust.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

This one is more about AI than software and I made an executive decision to place it here. It is amazing the speed of decisions in this venture when it is only run by just one human lol. Software Eats Its Own. A grim overview of what is taking place lately…

The people who build software are busy wiring up the machines that will build software in their place. Call it automation. Call it augmentation. Call it whatever makes you sleep. What it actually is, is software industrialization, happening right in front of our eyes.

Writer gets invited to party with billionaires at a Jeff Bezos retreat and you would not believe what happened next. Actually, what happened was he never got an invite to one of these parties ever again lol: What I Learned About Billionaires at Jeff Bezos’s Private Retreat. For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.

The latest Ponzi Scheme Roundup for April 2026 is out. It’s the typical stream of fraudsters promising the moon, crypto crap, etc. But once in a while we get gems like this:

Vincent J. Camarda, 62, pleaded guilty to charges that he ran a Ponzi scheme as an investment officer. He is the ex-CEO of A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors and used investor funds on plastic surgery for himself and luxury goods. [Thou shalt not steal…even if you are that ugly to do it for plastic surgery, come on!]

Taino Lopez aka Tai, 48, was sued by the SEC on charges that he was running a $112 million Ponzi scheme. Tai is a YouTuber who sold get-rich-quick advice courses. [You Tuber selling get-rich-quick advice courses…it’s a dead giveaway!]

Grifting era smh:

AI

Excellent recap where we stand in AI and pondering what happens down the road: Our Uncertain Uncertainties. It begins like this below and it gets better, enjoy:

Even the experts inventing AI don’t know what will happen next. Is artificial general intelligence even possible? Can scaling continue? Will we need massive compute centers to make AI, or can we do it with a mere 25 watts like we do in our brains? What will humans do as AI gets smarter? What does the future of the economy, of warfare, or civil society look like?

I may have posted this before, this is not a good trend: AI Articles Have Overtaken Human Written Ones.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

IRAN WAR

We are doing okay here in the US, thanks to our own oil. But the world is suffering, this is very well made: See How the Energy Crisis is Spreading Across the World.

Doing okay I mean as far as no shortages are involved. But costs are another (painful) matter. Ever since this war started I spent over $65 to fill up my car. It was mid $70’s a few times before it went down to about $65 for the next two weeks. I filled up my car yesterday for $85, the highest ever, thanks Biden.

ODDZ & ENDZ

This is one of the most devastating articles I have read: On Losing a Daughter. It clearly belongs in the MUST READ GEMS category but I really did not want to place it there because it will make everyone who reads it way too sad. I hope no one feels this kind of pain, you have been warned. Think twice before you click ok?

The people we were died at the exact moment our child did

Can you imagine you run a marathon under 2 hours? And, please sit down, still lose by 11 seconds! Feel so sorry in a way for the guy who came in second. Sabastian Sawe breaks two-hour barrier to make history in London Marathon. As a (former) marathon runner, when you contemplate what it takes you just shake your head in disbelief!

Imagine running 100 metres in under 17 seconds – and then keeping that pace up for another 26 and a bit miles (42km).

I like art. This is what it looks like when a photographer decides to take photos of EVERY single object in the house and put it up in this website: KATALOG. You have never seen anything like it, I guarantee it. Creativity at its very best. I see my blog as art…

As a soccer fanatic (my #1 sport, by far) and World Cup diehard, I absolutely loved this article about the last country on earth to field a national soccer team and play in a game: Marshall Islands. The Wayfinders. The Marshall Islands’ first national soccer team discovers what “home” can mean—on a field in Arkansas.

Under normal circumstances, you’d expect a team shut out 4-0 to be disheartened, especially one built up so much over the last several weeks. And yet nothing about the atmosphere suggested failure. Even as the clock wound down, seven players subbed in within the last 14 minutes, each getting a brief chance to play for their country. The crowd poured down the bleachers and stood at the front railing, cheering on the team that had given it their all. “Marshall Islands!” the announcer yelled as the crowd burst into cheers. “Give it up for your first national team playing their first international match!”

TRAVEL

Very handy hotel list: 15 Luxury and Boutique Hotels Near U.S. National Parks. These look nice!

Nice list as well, I think I guessed them all right before I checked the article out: 6 Tiny Countries You Can Walk Across in a Day.

Liechtenstein
San Marino
Tuvalu
Nauru
Monaco
Vatican City

When you next visit Amsterdam, maybe you should add the Embassy of the Free Mind to the list of places to visit? Take a tour of the online catalogue to see its digitized books. Love the expression Free Mind by the way, it brings up the other expression, Free Your Mind and YourAss Will Follow woohoo.

The World’s Most Walkable Cities

Seoul at #1. And many Scandinavian cities.

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

MILES & POINTS

So, here we go again…

I think if you just read Frequent Miler, Doctor of Credit and my blog you would cover most of what you need to know in this hobby…

United has been in the news a lot lately. Actually, it is more like the CEO of United Airlines is. With a huge piece in the Wall Street Journal: United’s Card-Counting CEO Made a Huge Bet—and It’s Paying Off. This industry sure attracts some characters. And this guy has been on a wild streak lately. Like, did we really need to know this?

Before he started in the airline industry, and long before he was the CEO of United Airlines, Scott Kirby was a serious gambler. He taught himself to count cards, raking in money on trips to Atlantic City and Las Vegas. To this day, he brags about getting kicked out of casinos all over the world. He’s still on the banned list in hotels up and down the Vegas Strip. With its CEO trolling American Airlines, his former employer who dumped him, .non stop.

There is no doubt that he has managed the airline very well and profits are rolling in and the stock price has more than doubled. So, no argument there. And, after copying every move by industry leader Delta Airlines, it is making a serious run to unseat them from the top. And then, boom: United CEO’s Statement About American Airlines Merger Idea He Has Floated. I agree with this blogger’s conclusion below by the way:

It seems that Mr. Kirby has some serious beef about his previous employment at American Airlines, where he was basically shown the door, and now he is on a revenge tour. There have been a couple of features about Mr. Kirby in the US media over the past week, and based on the excerpt I have seen, he comes across as a card-counting psychopath who probably should not be running an airline, but he is. He should drop his fixation on the issues he personally has about his previous employment at American and move on.

After the awful (for us in this hobby) updates from World of Hyatt and the new award charts now having FIVE different higher award levels (up from three), maybe the company should have taken a breather and not chosen to go along with its annual update of hotel award categories? Well, no mercy (for us), here we go, it is a new reality starting May 20, 2026: Hyatt Award Category Changes & “Dynamic” Awards Live On May 20, 2026. 112 hotels went up 1 category and 24 hotels went down 1 category. So, make some bookings now like I did booking the Park Hyatt Saigon for 4 nights for 80,000 using a Globalist elite Confirmed Suite Upgrade. Some of my thoughts going through the hotel category changes:

Are there any category 1 hotels in the US left?

There was just one Cat 1 hotel left in Michigan, the Hyatt Place in Flint, not anymore. Not only that, even the Hyatt Place in Windsor, Ontario went to Cat 2. No more mattress running nearby, so sad.

My favorite Hyatt property in Greece, the Thessaloniki Hyatt Regency also went up to Cat 3 from Cat 2. It was Cat 1 for years up until the last few years or so, boooooooo! Not only that, even the Grand Hyatt in Athens went to Cat 4 from Cat 3.

All Columbus, Ohio properties appear to go up 1 Cat. I sometimes stay there when I visit clients.

Wait, there is more. I was looking forward to visit the Hyatt Regency in Kuantan Malaysia but that one also went up one category to Cat 2.

The 5th Avenue Andaz in NYC going to Cat 8 from Cat 7 is a sad joke.

The Frequent Miler does a Hyatt devaluation deep dive. Yeah, it’s bad.

Maybe I should add a DEVALUATIONS section? Here we go, they never stop:

Air Canada Aeroplan Flight Rewards Changes Effective June 1, 2026 – Miles Required Up By Max 67%!

LifeMiles Strikes Again: Another Devaluation Pushes Award Deals to the Brink

As I have been doing this the past four years traveling to Thailand and Malaysia: Best ways to get to Asia using points and miles.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on travel rewards credit cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Whenever I hear Wells Fargo in our space, I automatically think ugly duckling. But it is getting better I guess: Wells Fargo adds Cathay Pacific as a transfer partner.

From blog reader Carl, watch out!

My AAdvantage cards just changed from Barclays to Citi. THE VERY NEXT DAY I got fraudulent charges on one of them, including the Buy Me A Coffee charge. All my monthly small subs and charges were on that card, and now in the middle of changing them all. Watch your AAdvantage card charges closely!

Yes, this bank is just getting worse: Chase Points Boost is becoming a Points Bust: Some redemptions now only 1.15 cents per point.

And just when you think it is time to say goodbye to the Chase ecosystem and pick another one…and you take a look at Citi and its cards that always came with excellent earning mulitpliers. Well, again, Citi says hold my beer lol: Citi Ending Points Sharing Between People On 5/16.

Another site to check out: Pointauctions. Looks a little better than the other one I had here last week.

I think Amex is trolling Chase and showing them how to do it in this space: Amex Gold Card Adds New and Enhanced Benefits. Meaningful positive benefit changes: 5x on Amex Travel, Hertz Five Star Status and updating of the dining credit with the addition of Buffalo Wild Wings (yes!) and Wonder (what is that?) and the deletion of Goldbelly (wtf was that?) and wine.com. So, with Five Guys and Buffalo Wild Wings there is no excuse not to use your $10 dining credit every month with the Amex Gold card.

But wait, maybe the Chase execs looked at the dwindling numbers of the Sapphire Reserve and finally realized they must do something? Drum roll please…

CHASE SAPPHIRE RESERVE NEW HIGHEST EVER 150K OFFER

The minimum spend is $6,000 in the first three months. The annual fee is $795. The card earns:

8x points on all purchases through Chase Travel, including The Edit
4x points on flights booked direct
4x points on hotels booked direct
3x points on dining worldwide
1x points on all other purchases

Bunch of credits, the easiest are the straight forward $300 travel credit, free Apple TV and Apple Music subscriptions, along with Priority Club lounge membership and entry to Chase Sapphire Lounges. And then a whole bunch of harder to use credits, such as $500 on The Edit hotels, $300 Stubhub, $120 Lyft, $300 dining, $300 DoorDash and many more. For a complete list of all the benefits of the card please click HERE.

If you have never had this card you are eligible for it.

Is it worth it? Look, for bloggers in this space, it is ALWAYS worth it for us lol. Because we get paid by the banks to sell their product. Do I think it is worth it? For the signup bonus and some work to squeeze some of the credits? Hell yes. For this card to be a keeper after the first year? Hell no. But we are all different, learn more about it, ask some questions if you have any and make an educated decision.

Why are cards with fat signing bonuses almost always worth it? Because 150,000 points means $1,500 in cash or statement credit alone. Of course if you transfer 150,000 points out to an airline or hotel you can burn them there for a lot more than just a penny per point. But you say, you have to pay $795 annual fee. Correct. Ok, do the math, $1,500 minus $795. Of course I am pretty sure you can use some of the credits this card gives you like the super easy $300 travel credit. If you can not use $300 travel credit per year why are you even here reading this section of my blog? And I am certain you can use more of the card’s annual credits. So, the math gets better!

For the record, you can support the blog if you obtain travel rewards card with this blog’s links. Never hesitate to ask questions in the comments or email me.

LATEST OFFERS:

You can always email me to ask anything about these offers