Let’s take a ride through some tricks of the trade, learn about the Freddie Awards and TBB Awards winners and a handy complete guide to miles earning from credit cards, travel to South Africa, Ecuador and Japan, and as always a unique assortment of stuff handpicked solely for you! Peppered with a few WTFs to keep to the theme of this speed/goof ball racing without brakes, weeeeeeeeeeeee! All feedback always welcome.
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Mile Nerd shows how to get TSA PreCheck when you book award flights with Avios flying US airlines.
The winners of 2014 Freddie Awards are here. If you care. You should not. I mean, how can Marriott win so many awards every year, come on! These events are a great excuse to party and revel in self congratulatory excess.
Ok, due to popular demand from our 598,000 newsletter subscribers, we present you the 2014 TBB Awards:
Best program: Cash Back
Best Promotion: SpeedyRewards (as long as it “lasted”. If I did pics of my wife holding Speedy Rewards cards it would not last that long lol)
Best Redemption Ability: Anything BUT Delta Skymiles
Best Customer Service: At my local Panera
Best Elite Program: None. Elite is for true road warriors, not you loophole seeking cheapskates. You can’t manufacture this (sing it to the beat “You can’t touch this”…wtf happened to MC Hammer anyway?)
Best Loyalty Credit Card: Amex Blue Cash (old version)
Loyalty Lobby has a way to get Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum Status and a (targeted) Diamond Fast Track. You need to request it as he “…was quite amazed to see only after a short few hours of my original post, this offer appearing on all of the credit card pimping “travel” blogs that have zero original content and did not give LoyaltyLobby any credit whatsoever.”. He is referring to the prior and short lived offer targeted to Microsoft employees. You do what is right for you, I just thought this was worthy to post here. Not sure if it is still alive. Down with credit card pimping (and up with Amazon shopping with TBB’s link hehe)
Chase might drop 5x rewards from Ink Business Cards. By Hack My Trip. Well, I wonder what excuse (sorry, selling point) other bloggers will use to sell these cards if (when?) it does happen.
I guess screaming off the top of your lungs about buying gift cards and taking moronic pictures next to the gc kiosks is not really helping us in it for the love of the game. Hey, I understand, whatever can help push product I guess!
This is Rapid Travel Chai‘s FTU presentation about traveling to obscure places. These are the places I usually dream about but I am too chicken to do it 🙂
Jeffsetter has been traveling in South Africa with his dad and I have been kind of enjoying the trip reports about this country as it is on my target list…
20 spectacular places before they are changed forever. By Matador Network. You better hurryyyyyyyy! Sorry, got carried away for a second, I thought it was the Southwest card links lol.
The Complete Guide to Miles Earning from Credit Cards. By Travel is Free. This was only available to newsletter subscribers but I thought it was so good (mostly for the new ones to the hobby) that I got permission to share the direct link here. While on the site, sign up for the newsletter as it’s pretty darn good. And NO I have not been bought by Drew, my credibility is too important to risk it here. But please feel free to use the hell out of my Amazon shopping affiliate link, hehe.
The 2014 Smithsonian Photo Finalists. At Twisted Sifter, yes I love that site!
Sometimes I wonder about the Japanese, they come up with some really weird crap! WTF is this Zentai???
The 5 Most Important Financial Lessons People Learn in their 20’s (Did you?). By Wise Bread. Yeah, DID you?
I saw a blogger now doing miles/points home seminars. WTF! I bet Barclays Arrival links will be flying like hotcakes! Hey, maybe get some Tupperware to go along too?
Funniest comment read on a blog lately: “We get a lot of comments and emails on the blog…” – Frugal Travel Guy (the blog). Mega LOL
Excuse me I got the hiccups!
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs I Ignore
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First
I give Suzanne Rubin all the Freddies because at least she was contrite. That’s what I like to see in a loyalty program: leadership that will f— over customers, then be contrite, then probably f— them over in the future.
I oppose all “travel is free” posts not carrying the obligatory “(is not)” addendum.
Travel is free – if you’re a pimp pushing enough affiliate links…
although this might be true, i just liked it cuz it made me laugh. i think his blog is one of the best ones.
I treat that one just like Hack My Trip, cringe worthy title, but consistent unique, intriguing content. I let it slide.
With the Ink cards, I didn’t see anything that suggests they are dropping the office supply stores – just giving people the option to use other categories like the simply cash card from AmEx. Maybe I didn’t read the promo material properly though.
What a great eclectic post this is right down the final sea lion! I have been enjoying Jeffsetter this week too. I was in Cape Town a year ago and did pretty much everything he is writing about so it is bringing back memories. That is why I travel. I really like Stefan’s powerpoint. I had gone through it last night. I have seen him give various versions of this presentation. His goals align the most closely with my own general philosophy of travel. Miles and points should not be an end in themselves. It is how they can open up opportunities that appeals to me. I was doing all kinds of crazy travel long before there were frequent flier programs. Sending the finance link to my twenty something kiddos stat. Thanks for keeping it interesting!
Best promotion: 5X RZ points at Best Buy a few months ago.
@ Helixcardinal: I was planning to post First to mess with you guys but you were way too quick!
@ harvson3: So, I think what you are saying is that she is not to be trusted? 🙂
@ Mark and P: I used to mess with him about that! I like his blog a lot. If it is one blog to elevate from Like to Love this is the prime contender. But I think the name is unfortunate. But once you build a brand is impossible to change back to a new name. I also do NOT like the sister blog name:”Freaking Flyers”. I agonized about my blog name for a very long time 🙂
@ William Charles: Chase does cap it but I still think it is costing them more than they would be willing to bear much longer. We shall see. If they do mess with it this will have a huge impact to the daily habits of lots of card holders. Come to think of it, I am out of Panera gift cards again!
@smittytabb: Thanks a lot for the feedback. Love the “eclectic” part of your comment, this is what I try to do. Keep it fun, mix it up and maybe learn a little.
@ NIck: You can do the PFDigest Awards too! <------- Notice the exclamation mark! I have not seen that Merrill card by the way in a very long time...
The Digesties! Who wouldn’t want to win a Digesty award?
Okay, I’ve given this some thought and I’m doing the Digesties for real in my next post. Thanks for the idea George!
Love the name: Digesties lol
Not possible? First?
Okay, not possible… When I looked it was empty… {sigh}
Anyway: “Chase might drop 5x rewards from Ink Business Cards.”
Huh. Good thing I took your advice George, and swapped out my Delta Gold AMEX for the Costco (Cash — well credit at Costco — back) AMEX! Now I don’t have to buy AMEX gift cards at OD, wait a day, drive them to Costco and put on a Costco Cash Card so I can buy my Costco gasoline!! (Yeah, ‘wait a day’ — cause the cards have never seemed to work if I just drove the mile down the road to Costco from OD… {eye roll} But I’m usually at Costco once or twice a week — my fav store!)
For a moment there I was wondering about you being First, must have been a tech glitz or something.
Yeah, these Amex gift cards can be a giant pain. Keeping things simple is underrated.
The HMT article is click bait. I participated in the survey and there was nothing to suggest that 5x ponts at office supply stores was going away.
Ok. If it was it sure worked 🙂
Dan is no longer talking about Amex cards. Lots of guys are not. You would expect a “get your card before the rules change in 2 days!!!” post.
But he is promoting Visa gift cards now. So I guess he makes money off of that? No disclosure.
You won’t see any disclosure from him. It appears that he posts an affiliate link (probably a portal) through which he’ll get compensated when people place their order through it. Of course, no mention that people can use their own cashback portal and get 5%.
I know George is a DD fan but to me that’s quite a slimy move.
what cashback portal are you thinking of?
upromise and discover seem to be offering 5% cashback at Staples. So it seems that buying Visa/MC GC at Staples would be a moneymaker + points maker. Don’t know how long this will last. Sitting this one out because I don’t have a discover card and my only staples order never posted on upromise.
This has been blogged to death lately that I am very wary of Staples pulling a Wells Fargo type of customer service move dealing with the onslaught of orders. I am sitting this one out too so I can concentrate on real work and my little blog that will change the world one day. Ok, you can laugh, I sure am LOL
Yeah I still like Dan’s Deals site. Disclosures were never a big draw there, but content and forums is.
I am mostly out of that game guys. I only reserve it for stuff that makes me flip out. It is generally stuff in one of the Ignore List blogs 🙂
I am actually waiting for the next Milevalue post selling the Frontier card lol.
Good to express yourselves here and make them realize readers are not sheep to be targeted.
I am surprised at the note from John O at Loyalty Lobby about the other blogs not giving him any credit. While John does an amazing job of covering the industry he is just as guilty as those blogs at not giving credit. Speaking from personal experience a lot of bonuses I post on the FFB blog will be seen on Loyalty Lobby a few hours later, with no credit. Based on my research upward of 65% of the bonuses he posts (or any other blog in that case) are seen on FFB first. Do I care? No. I used to but now I’m pretty much say ‘whatever’ there are so many posts on so many blogs that are given credit even though that blog was not the first to cover it or of course no credit is given at all. In fact I’m guilty of it too, John will post some bonuses that I have not posted yet and we do post them as well after seeing them on LL. We used to give him credit but have stopped doing so on FFB but I’ll still give him credit on the Rewards Canada blog when he passes along relevant info for that blog. I even see Gary L and Ben S giving credit to him quite a bit but have not seen John do the same for those two when he posts something that they released before.
Just my two cents on the whole ‘giving credit’ subject.
Sad to see that Hyatt offer go so quick but that’s what happens in the whole Frequent Flyer blogosphere. Once one person posts an excellent deal expect it to spread like wildfire.
It is hard to pin point this “crime”. I have seen some of my own stuff appear in other blogs after I posted it on TBB but how can I prove it? If there is attribution, I guess it is welcome.
It’s a complex issue for sure. I guess the compass should be the blogger him/herself.
Yeah, you post something today on the blogs and it is over before you can scream “Upgrade”
Isnt this how all news media works? You generate some of your own stories and then you pick up some others from elsewhere.
I have picked up the things from LL, but at the same time I respect his original work – he got about 500 clickthroughs from my readers this week when I linked to his list of PC properties changing category for eg.
I LOVE KARMA……Sorry Buzz it’s not travel related, but we all come here as our therapy. Scumbag racist Donald Sterling/ real name Donald Turkowitz is a former divorce lawyer turned Slumlord Billionare gets takin down by his whore/extorionist V. Stiviano/ real name Maria Perez. WTF is with these people in L.A. I am sorry but I hate everything about the place, it used to be wonderful.
Ramsey, who is that on your latest Avatar?
Hey C.M., That’s Rodney Dangerfield, who was briefly in one of my F/A stories and had sex with a young (21) coworker in 1976 who was trying to go Hollywood.
I am a well known anti Flaker fan, I hate everything about that team with a passion 🙂
Anyways, what is the beef with this guy? I am wondering if this is a plot by the Flakers to steal Paul and Griffin so they can make the playoffs again lol.
Here is what I don’t get. Ok, the guy is an asshole. But who is the hot lady next to him, his girlfriend? And then I hear in ESPN or somewhere what his wife said. Excuse me?? Is this guy having both at the same time? Anyways, never got to see a picture of the wife but this girlfriend is, well, very attractive. I wonder if money had anything to do with it. Then I hear he was taped by someone he is suing. Mixed up to me!
I feel for the players having to play for that asshole….I think they are going down to GS. Did you see some protests by their fans? The guy holding the sign “I brought a black man to the game” and a black guy holding sign “I am black”. Hilarious stuff.
I stay away from this crap. Racists are assholes. I can’t believe I wasted my time typing about this incident. As you said…it is therapy 🙂
How convenient that certain bloggers are “finally” swapping out their SPG cards from their wallets after having them in their wallet for a decade.
What was it that caused that sudden decision? After all, SPG points haven’t been devalued in a year, so what could’ve happened that would cause one to now suddenly remove that card from the wallet?
I need to add this to my next blog post, brilliant!
I really enjoyed Rapid Travel Chai’s FTU presentation (even better in person IMO). One of the better FTU events I’ve been to.
I’ll second the RTC endorsement, even though I’ve only seen the slides.
I triple it…and I wasn’t even there lol
I am happy to endorse anything RTC-related. Love his stuff.
Pains me to admit that a Wharton grad is churning out stuff that is way better than the shyster from my alma mater (MMS).
@Grant – thanks for attending, I appreciate the organizers giving a pass to allow a non awards and MS topic to slip in, and for attendees to be willing to indulge something a bit different for this community.
Keep up the great work Stefan, what exotic places are you headed to next?
TPG takes a decisive lead in the “biggest asshole in the blogosphere”
He has no shame. There’s is just about nothing he won’t do for a buck. Even MileValue didn’t disclose it. MMS likely would’ve but he didn’t know about it, since he steals all his content from other sources.
Here is a rough timeline I have for how this story will break:
4/1: US moves to Oneworld, doesn’t charge YQ on BA
4/29: TPG reports it, knowing full well that by doing so it’s going to be gone within a matter of days. The other major blogs, who do have some semblance of shame, finally report on it knowing ithere’s
5/1: US starts charging YQ on BA
5/3: MMS reports that US doesn’t charge YQ on BA, even though the deal died 2 days ago
5/15: FTG.com reports that US doesn’t charge YQ on BA, even though the deal died 2 weeks ago. Howie posts an incorrect workaround to avoid YQ on BA is by using Avios to book itineraries that are measured in not kilometers, since fuel surcharges don’t apply to the metric system
Hahaha this is funny. I liked Lucky’s comment in the comments of his post referring to how out of touch with the hobby TPG is.
He seriously is. How sad is it that he couldn’t figure it out until now?
We’re not talking about using Sri Lankan Airlines miles to fly on Air Congo – this was one of the most common mileage currencies being used to fly heavily trafficked routes on one of the largest airlines in the world, booked by agents who are famous for not having any clue how to price awards correctly.
You would think someone who has even the slightest expertise in points & miles would’ve been calling US on day 1 to see if they were passing YQ. Dan and Candian Kilometers sure did. Gary and Lucky didn’t say so, but I’m willing to bet they did too.
Yeah, I think that would be preaching to the choir here.
What blows my mind is people still thinking that this charlatan is an expert.
Brilliant Steve!
Yeah, this is becoming a serious issue to me. I see it like that – bloggers bring no value at all
anymore and all they do is this kind of ugly stuff.
Do you really think “Lucky” or Gary are so much better? Because they act like Mother Teresa?
“I had to reveal it for you my little sheep, now as it’s out there”. What kind of BS is that?
They would go on and on about 5000 extra SPG amex points, but nobody covers the best
deal of the year (multiple Citi 100K cards you can get). They mentioned it once because
they HAVE to to look like they care, but they clearly are very careful, as Citi can ban them
for that, and believe me they care about Citi much more than they care about their readers…
How about MMS getting back close to his sheep and reporting about his economy trip to Kauai?
You simply can’t make this shit up.
“Do you really think “Lucky” or Gary are so much better?”
Than TPG?
Yes
I’m very happy the pimps aren’t blogging the living daylights out of Citi. Just like a certain azul card. So long as they blather on about ridiculous 2% cards, Frontier cards and Inks, I’m happy.
“Ever meet a fellow by the name of Harold Hill? … He’s a fake, and he doesn’t know the territory!”
They’re credit card salesmen. And they all think the other guy/gal gives them a bad name.
Steve, Do you feel better about yourself now? For a guy as brilliant as you ATTEMPT to sound, I sure don’t recall you adding anything positive to the hobby. Your contributions seem to be entirely demeaning others to make you look better. Such a shallow existence. So do you feel better about your self now?
Maybe you’ve had toomanybeers?
Steve, you are on fire! Maybe I should do a weekly summary and title it “Steve’s Gems”. Heck, I will let you have all the dough from that day’s Amazon link commissions LOL.
Chris: I read the comments at Lucky’s post and left a comment. For the first time I thought TBB had a true competitor in comments LOL.
Andrew: You sound really angry, relax a little dude. This is entertainment. Why doesn’t anyone other than ingy make fun of me. Even Lucky gets hate mail and insults. And sheep, come on dude.
Harvson3: Both links, brilliantly right on! Thanks.
FTG is 2 weeks behind the times? LOL That’s actually pretty good for them.
I bet that Thurs-Fri there’ll be a First Friday post.
And do you feel better about yourself after making a demeaning comment? Does it make you feel strong and powerful to demean others from behind the anonymity of the Internet? Is that how you get your jollies? And what have you contributed to the hobby other than knocking down others? Go ahead, others and I are waiting to hear about your contributions.
Have you made a positive statement about anything? Or is it just slashing others so you can raise your own low self esteem?
Biggest a-hole in the blogosphere? Having no shame? TPG reported factual information.
He didn’t erase someone from a ballot.
He doesn’t troll while making apologies for bad information on his blog.
He doesn’t commit theft by posting lounge wifi passwords.
He doesn’t commit fraud by putting his foot under the scale at check-in.
All four of the above items are more shameful in my eyes.
“TPG takes a decisive lead in the “biggest asshole in the blogosphere””
Clearly you aren’t counting yourself in this race. Winner by a mile.
“If I have a hotel specific co-branded card for where we are staying, then I try to bring that card along so I can earn bonus points on hotel charges. For example…..”
– MommyPoints
Anyone want to take a guess what examples she gave? And what examples she didn’t?
Well, for sure not the SPG amex, which BTW she LOVED so much before…
You get partial credit
You forgot to list every other hotel credit card except for the 2 cards that pay her money
like for example, the Amex Hilton which gives more points at Hiltons than the card she did link to
Why couldn’t the example be the card that pays 12 HH points/dollar and not the one that pays 10 HH points/dollar?
And how much more content such as this does she have to put forth before she gets slotted in the appropriate section of TBBs blogs list?
3 more days till First Friday….. if only she could remind me which cards to use for my big mac
How about the post above? Did that make you feel better about yourself as well? Do you have anything in your life positive to say about anyone or we all just so beneath your level?
Guess what? We are way above.
Glad someone else sees how big a pimp MP is. Buying her 4 yr old a biz seat on a trip to Paris where they spend time in a generic playground (I guess Parisian playgrounds are so much nicer that a 4 year old will remember?) Sure bet that’s a rational decision for most families reading a blog about how to maximize low cost travel for families. But not, apparently if you pimp your readers and are paid to be a FTU speaker…
I guess a 4 year old’s trip to a Parisian playground is so much more important and “enriching” than her college fund. Contemptible!
I for one was quite pleased to see that she finally took her kid along with her. I had a fantastic time with my 3yo, wife, and parents in Paris.
I give MP points (pun intended) for the Amex Platinum Benz card mention. To me, she has not reached the Ignore level yet. Besides, she is so nice and handles criticism the best.
she doesn’t handle criticism any differently than any other blogger here, except for 1 person
i don’t think “she doesn’t act like a sociopath when people criticize her” should be relevant in the quality assessment of the blog
She pushed an inferior Hilton card for the situation she brought it up “Hotel Specific Cards – especially for domestic travel”, because it paid her affiliate commission, and the Amex version which has a better earning does not
If that was MileValue, you’d be going to town on it. Different standards for different folks
Yep, we are all biased.
MV would never post the Benz card when the Amex affiliate links were still around 🙂
You’re as biased about MommyPimp as you were about MMS. MP is a definite Blog To Avoid – shame on you for not ripping her like you do MV (who actually provides some worthwhile original content occasionally).
Thank you for your comment.
Free one ways, hooray! 🙂
ALOL at Steve’s timeline.
But as you can see just from right here, the bloggers truly are darned if they do, darned if they don’t.
One guy wants to know why the info has been withheld for a month while the other is mad it was disclosed.
One guy is mad that bloggers don’t talk about the churnability of the 100K AA offer while the other is furious that I wrote about getting 6 of them.
Personally I try not to write about deals that I think will be killed, but obviously that’s a fine line and a judgement call. You can’t get it right all the time and there will always be haters even if you do always get it right.
I kind of like my system of sharing some tips at DD seminars and seeing how long they last. I’ve done 9 to date and some of the tricks from the first one are still alive and well and I’ve yet to see them pop up on any of the blogs yet. Many though have been killed, even without ever having hit the blogosphere, go figure.
At any rate, some of ya’ll take this hobby too seriously. Relax and remember to have fun 🙂
The guys who are mad are inevitably the lazy and the incompetent. How disconnected do you have to be to not have heard about the US Air no YQ in the last month? How about people err on the side of discretion? How about not spelling everything out in excruciating detail? If people are remotely motivated, there is such a thing as PM, DM, email etc where they could get the info.