Let’s go on a wild ride through Award redemptions, Silvercar, watch another “As Seattle turns” episode, mourn with me for the loss of my mvd card, UA awards, Quantas, Amex gift cards, travel to Caves, South America and Japan and more!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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This is an excellent article by a Robert Dwyer guest blogging at Travel Summary “10 Lessons Learned While (trying to) Redeem 1,000,000 Points & Miles“. I think it totally captures the agony of burning miles/points, especially with a family!
I had not formed a good opinion of Silvercar, the rental car company with only Audi A4s. But this article at Hack My Trip is making me change my opinion “The Cheapest Rental Car Might Be Silvercar“. Very interesting analysis. Still tiny in just five locations and hope they get bigger to provide some more competition in the marketplace. One more thing about HMT, its design is so much better than the standard Boarding Area site!
Cranky Flier with a hilarious version of the Alaska and Delta love quarrel going on…in the “As Seattle Turns“. Or, the Widget vs the Eskimo. Sure made me laugh. “Tune in next week (or, you know, whenever there’s news) for more drama on As Seattle Turns”
Frequent Miler was also nominated in one of these awards that are mostly self promotion and PR schemes. Anyways, he made a funny post about his “leaked campaign strategy” and how he will beat the other contestants. Here is how he will beat:
- Travel Blogger Buzz: Need to be careful here so as not to endanger position on his “Blog’s I Love” list. Leave it to Frugal Travel Guy to go negative here.
- View from the Wing: Full time job, owner or partner in numerous businesses. writes 40 to 50 blog posts per day. Alien? Cyborg? Talking points: still researching (need to check that Cyborg angle)
I would not even post the link to vote today. If you want to vote please see the link in yesterday’s blog post or in FM’s blog post. It appears Delta Points really wants to win this thing as on twitter he managed to take the time to alter the screen image and inserted 11 (yes, eleven!) arrows pointing to his blog and even managed to delete my own blog from the image, WOW, smh.
I certainly appreciated readers voting for me, I am honored.
Please join me in a moment of silence for MyVanillaDebit card that has finally entered the inglorious Spend down mode, boo! I was primarily using it for making estimated income tax payments, oh well, all good things come to an end I guess.
“7 Common Problems Many People Encounter When Trying to Book Award Tickets on United.com” by Dealspin. Good info to know here.
The Wandering Aramean wrote “Qantas Frequent Flyer switching to a fixed-earning scheme“. WTF is that Qantas? “The company is shifting from a distance-based earning scheme – plus class-of-service bonus for higher fares – to a somewhat distance-based scheme with regions, zones and up to nine different fare categories to earn in. To say that the new scheme is excessively complicated might do a disservice to the word excessively.” At least they did not go revenue based all the way. I just think this company is in such distress that they came up with something like this.
“Should you be buying American Express Gift Cards?“. By The Free-quent Flyer. Good stuff.
The 2014 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest. Incredible Photos!
© Marcelo Castro / National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest
20 Unbelievable Caves to Visit in This Lifetime. At the CHIVE.
Japan in the 1950s. At the Atlantic. Wow, these are fascinating!
I will be toning it down here over the next week as I am on a mission to finish everything in my non TBB life before getting out of Dodge to Maui, the countdown is on! No staff to take over, sorry!
Ok, I found this link at Bored Daddy about a grandfather leaving behind a letter for his five grandchildren. Ok, a little tiny part of TBB is about inspiration. And this one certainly inspired me so I am going to post it here:
Dear Ryan, Conor, Brendan, Charlie, and Mary Catherine,
My wise and thoughtful daughter Rachel urged me to write down some advice for you, the important things that I have learned about life. I am beginning this on 8 April 2012, the eve of my 72nd birthday.
1. Each one of you is a wonderful gift of God both to your family and to all the world. Remember it always, especially when the cold winds of doubt and discouragement fall upon your life.
2. Be not afraid . . . of anyone or of anything when it comes to living your life most fully. Pursue your hopes and your dreams no matter how difficult or “different” they may seem to others. Far too many people don’t do what they want or should do because of what they imagine others may think or say. Remember, if they don’t bring you chicken soup when you’re sick or stand by you when you’re in trouble, they don’t matter. Avoid those sour-souled pessimists who listen to your dreams then say, “Yeah, but what if . . .” The heck with “what if. . .” Do it! The worst thing in life is to look back and say: “I would have; I could have; I should have.” Take risks, make mistakes.
3. Everyone in the world is just an ordinary person. Some people may wear fancy hats or have big titles or (temporarily) have power and want you to think they are above the rest. Don’t believe them. They have the same doubts, fears, and hopes; they eat, drink, sleep, and fart like everyone else. Question authority always but be wise and careful about the way you do it.
4. Make a Life List of all those things you want to do: travel to places; learn a skill; master a language; meet someone special. Make it long and do some things from it every year. Don’t say “I’ll do it tomorrow” (or next month or next year). That is the surest way to fail to do something. There is no tomorrow, and there is no “right” time to begin something except now.
5. Practice the Irish proverb: Moi an olge agus tiocfaidh sí “Praise the child and she will flourish.”
6. Be kind and go out of your way to help people — especially the weak, the fearful, and children. Everyone is carrying a special sorrow, and they need our compassion.
7. Don’t join the military or any organization that trains you to kill. War is evil. All wars are started by old men who force or fool young men to hate and to kill each other. The old men survive, and, just as they started the war with pen and paper, they end it the same way. So many good and innocent people die. If wars are so good and noble, why aren’t those leaders who start wars right up there fighting?
8. Read books, as many as you can. They are a wonderful source of delight, wisdom, and inspiration. They need no batteries or connections, and they can go anywhere.
9. Be truthful.
10. Travel: always but especially when you are young. Don’t wait until you have “enough” money or until everything is “just right.” That never happens. Get your passport today.
11. Pick your job or profession because you love to do it. Sure, there will be some things hard about it, but a job must be a joy. Beware of taking a job for money alone — it will cripple your soul.
12. Don’t yell. It never works, and it hurts both yourself and others. Every time I have yelled, I have failed.
13. Always keep promises to children. Don’t say “we’ll see” when you mean “no.” Children expect the truth; give it to them with love and kindness.
14. Never tell anyone you love them when you don’t.
15. Live in harmony with Nature: go into the outdoors, woods, mountains, sea, desert. It’s important for your soul.
16. Visit Ireland. It’s where the soul of our family was born — especially the West: Roscommon, Clare, and Kerry.
17. Hug people you love. Tell them how much they mean to you now; don’t wait until it’s too late.
18. Be grateful. There is an Irish saying: “This is a day in our lives, and it will not come again.” Live every day with this in mind.
TBB would like to add #19. Do NOT become a Tool! 🙂
Now excuse me while I pimp my ride lol.
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George
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
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First
“The countdown is on”. Is it the Final Countdown?
Man, too much competition for TBB First. You’re mainstream George 🙂
Watch out for the troll!
Working to make the HMT design even better! But I know very little about HTML and CSS, so it only improves as my knowledge/skills improve.
@ KennyB: Persistence pays off, see!
@ Spencer F: I hope I have many more! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jK-NcRmVcw
@ Shaun: Not sure how this First thingie started. It is silly and equally entertaining too! Me, mainstream? As long as I don’t become a Tool 🙂
@ Scottrick: Every time I go to your site I always comment to myself about how clean and just nice it looks. If all the other Boarding Area blogs looked like that…well, it wouldn’t be Boarding Area then lol. And Steve is right, your content is getting better, great job!
That HackMyTrip article only compares the standard rates, straight off the company website, at the three high end car rental sites. What kind of travel hacker just uses the corporate site with no discount codes? No Hotwire/Costco for a sanity check?
I’m curious if the big bloggers ever pay anything out of pocket for Uber/SilverCar.
Sure enough I see spot checks of May M-F coming in ~$250 instead of the ~$500.
But I give credit to Scott as he readily admits he places a lot of value on service.
But “Cheapest Rental Car” title belongs to Silvercar? Hardly.
I always check out Hotwire to get an idea too 🙂
I had read bad experiences about Silvercar so in my mind they were a nogo (not sure where, I think it was at that PIxie blog I think). So to read Scott’s experience changed my mind completely about the company. I think it has to do with trust 😉
Would I ever rent from them? Probably not as I don’t give the service factor on rental cars too much value. Get me a car that runs, save me money and don’t slow me down.
That reminds me I do have $30 in Uber credits. I should add that link next to my Amazon link then so I can too drive for free like them lol.
I just found it an educational piece about an interesting new competitor in the rental car landscape.
That’s all. Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment as always.
Did Rene really edit you out? How insecure is that guy! Sad 🙁 It must drive him and FTG nuts that you get nominated for the same award as they do. Don’t the award people know you are tabloid blogger buzz? Just a gutless coward’s blog who only tears people down and doesn’t contribute anything to the space.
Do you think the sellers of crappy appliances that break often want their
marksbuyers to read Consumer Reports and find out that there are better values to doing your own research? Heck no.Quite honestly Scott, I hope George wins. Maybe then he’ll get off the other feather in his hat, most comments. BTW I think the award giving site is smaller than Georges.
You wouldn’t know it from Delta Points. With the red arrows and deleting TBB you would think it’s the biggest deal since sliced bread.
To understand what it is being talked about dear reader passing though check out the ridiculous graph here in PF Digest’s post about the DP “Situation”:
http://saverocity.com/pfdigest/deltapoints-situation/
Lets move on.
How do you all sleep with all this hypocrisy? Seriously?
After all DP is on: http://travelbloggerbuzz.com/blog-reviews/blogs-i-ignore/
And yet DeltaPoints.com is so talked about in posts on TBB and in the comments that there is no way it is being ignored!
Truly? Are the Angry’s really ignoring the blog? I may hit 3 million pageviews for 2014. Txs for ignoring me so very much! 🙂
Last time I checked none of us here altered an image to add 11 arrows and delete another blog from the screen with the image? And you are calling us hypocrites, WTF dude!
We all sleep soundly, thank you for your concern.
Thank you for reading and taking the time to comment in my blog.
TBB is about light hearted entertainment. Obviously you can’t take a joke and your site is part of the entertainment. Thank you for all the material you provide TBB and no thank you for your ridiculous lawsuit threats.
Shouldn’t you be spending your time trying to find someone else to interview other than yourself? Maybe sell some more cards (too bad not any of them are Chase!)?
At least you don’t troll, so thank you for that.
Wow. love that letter to the grandkids.
Yes it made such an impression on me I had to share it. I am not sure about Ireland though 🙂
Your road trip comment made me remember the blogger who disappeared in Mexico. I had to look him up, couldn’t remember his name or blog or anything. Unfortunately still missing. Very sad.
I can not imagine what he and his family are going through. To not know is just so awful, their lives on hold. What a super tragic situation. Thanks for following up. Let’s keep them in our thoughts and pray for the best outcome.
OMG! I have to get a Suntrust debit card! Must…stop…reading…Deltapunts…
Yeah, make sure you get all kinds of cards from the shelves while at it. Too bad none are from Chase Bank 😉
Ok….I better stop
Eleventh. Not too shabby!
I burned some AA and US miles today. I am not as good at burning as I’d like to be. Just too many details to track.
Scott’s post at HMT was most timely; he pointed out that the Citi Platinum AA card gives 10% back when cardholders book an award trip, so I used my miles rather than H’s to book our trip back east for a wedding. Sure enough, I had a screen shot of the promised bennies so I obviously read it at some time, but I certainly didn’t remember it as I considered whether to book from my account or his. Got a nice surprise when my AA account displayed the most recent 100,000 bonus when I signed in this AM!
Also booked tix to the Charlotte DO, which will be my first FF event besides a few local meet-ups. Looking forward to it.
Now to work on some award night hotels for the Philly trip. That is much easier. But not til tomorrow. Good night!
I suck in burning too!
Yeah that 10% rebate can be a nice surprise. Got 6,750 for my one way flights back from HKG in October flying Cathay Pacific F (and US Air F). I had totally forgotten about it. So, plan to cancel AFTER you book awards on AA, good advice!
Looking forward to meet you in that city down South where the mayor just got busted for corruption 🙂
I think MMS might finally be running out of interview subjects. He says at the bottom to email if someone wants to be considered for the series :). C’mon, George! You should do it and get it over with!
I just can’t do it. I don’t want to be featured next to Wal Mart gift card giveaways, never ending trip reports featuring Emily and credit card posts always ending in exclamation marks.
I like my reputation as is, no need to mess with it just for traffic. Besides, how can I do such a thing if I participate in a blog that is in my Ignore list!
One day I may interview myself though and try to answer his (same) questions for entertainment purposes. I first need to clear my desk, escape to Maui and come back rejuvenated!
I followed your link to the dealspin website, read the United booking mistakes, and then stumbled on his take that most CC signup bonuses are actually spend bonuses. I thought that was great content and it helped me adjust my overt thinking, rather than just following where my intuition was leading me, I.e. MS. Thanks. Wouldn’t have found it without your blog.
Thanks for that, Kim. Keep reading!
Kim, thank you so much for taking the time to comment! You are the essence of what TBB is all about (other than entertainment of course): educating readers by bringing to their attention content around the blogosphere that they may have missed AND adds value to their lives! Steve is right…again 😉
a reminder to those wondering why resident troll blabbed about “seth” and went on about tbb and a pied piper a while ago. watch as troll is made fun of, responds with the bombast and threats of every thin-skinned bully ever. http://blog.wandr.me/2012/07/following-the-revocation-of-the-united-4-mile-awards-the-crazies-come-out/ troll was a clown and a dim bully long back before tbb started.
That post was legendary. And his ass-making-of-self on FlyerTalk was far more extensive than just the post Seth cited. you need to read the entire exchange
Doesn’t United know who he is? He’s entitled to 4 mile fares to Hong Kong darn it!
Seth is another quality blog who doesn’t stoop to the lowest rungs of patheticism in the name of targeting people who often don’t know what they’re doing
So it should come as little surprise that Rick feels a need to personally attack him
Saving the world again Steve? It seems to be your daily theme huh buddy?
Do bloggers hold guns to newbies heads?
Do they force their hand down onto the submit button?
Do they target people with poor credit scores?
Aren’t people supposed to be accountable for their own actions?
Seth is easy to deal with. I have no hope for him. I just ignore him.
Now, George is a different story. I see George as a possible true positive force in this space. I like his message just not his approach. I’m gonna stick with I’m for awhile longer.
By your logic Bernie madoff should have never been convicted, right?
You really come off as a snake oil salesman with posts like that.
So you don’t believe in personal accountability? What a disaster this country has come to. Here comes the Nanny State
I believe in personal accountability.
I also believe that people being actively mislead (with the caveat being “well it’s their fault to have trusted me”) is extremely slimy and really shows one’s true character.
“Seth is easy to deal with. I have no hope for him. I just ignore him”
As evidenced by the link upthread where you decidedly did not ignore him
Stretching the truth again my friend. Have never been to his site after that disaster, and never think of him anymore. He became a non person in my life.
“He became a non person”
How does one cease to be a person without dying? What did he come instead?
“Ingy” wrote:
==============
Saving the world again Steve? It seems to be your daily theme huh buddy?
Do bloggers hold guns to newbies heads?
Do they force their hand down onto the submit button?
Do they target people with poor credit scores?
Aren’t people supposed to be accountable for their own actions?
==============
Making the world worse again, Ingy? It seems to be YOUR theme!
Do bloggers thinking misleading and thus cheating newbies is ethical and honorable?
Do they think “teaching” newbies to put their hands down a submit button for a less-than-optimal offer is a good and worthwhile reflection of THEM!?
Do they (oops, I started typing “Do you…”) not stress and stress again that people with poor (or even mediocre credit scores should stay away?
Aren’t bloggers supposed to be accountable for their own bad advice?!
Are you truly one of the “anything goes as long as it makes me money” instead of one of the: “does this action I am taking (blog entry I am writing) reflect honorably on me and my position and actions in the world”? You (seem to) think: “screw ‘em if they’re newbies and they follow my advice. They should have done more research, instead of BELIEVING ME!”
What does that say about you and your karma points / record in heaven / participation in a community? (Pick your existential accountability method.)
+100,000
I’ve opted to no longer reply to Ingy but you nailed it. Sadly, we’ve tried to make these points to him before, to no avail.
[TWA44 shakes her head sheepishly.] I guess +1 would have been adequate, but I must still be in the afterglow of those 100,000 AA points that posted yesterday 😉 .
I wonder what brought on your personal vendetta against me and other bloggers. Somebody delete a comment? Your score was too low?
Still lovin the good life here. Retired, a few bucks in the bank, family and friends that love me and emails daily thanking me for introducing them to the game. But said but true: There are mosquitos in every country.
“Still lovin the good life here. Retired, a few bucks in the bank, family and friends that love me and emails daily thanking me for introducing them to the game. But said but true: There are mosquitos in every country”
Can someone please pretend to believe Ingy when he keeps on repeating this? It clearly means a lot to him, but I’m not personally good at pretending the opposite of something painfully obvious
And the painfully obvious to most is your fascination with bloggers and desire to beat them down.. Is it jealousy? Did you start a blog and nobody read it? Or are you one of the millions of younger Americans that overpaid for an education and are disenchanted with the American Dream you haven’t realized? If that be the case, I feel bad for you Steve. Otherwise, you are just a whiner in my book.
“And the painfully obvious to most is your fascination with bloggers and desire to beat them down”
I have a fascination with beating down the bad bloggers, and a fascination with complimenting the good ones
It’s not my fault if your blog consistently falls into the former, much like it isn’t through my doing that HackMyTrip falls into the latter
I’ll always be criticizing the bad and praising the good. If you took all the hours spent telling me I shouldn’t criticize the bad, and instead used it to actually improve the blog, you might be among those I regularly praise here like Gary, PFDigest, Dan, HMT, Drew etc.
Hours of work wouldn’t be enough. It’d take years to salvage FTG’s reputation. The current management is doing nothing good to the FTG brand. It’s all just about suckering in a few more noobies before the banks take away the aff links.
just setting the record straight. you can’t go on and on and on about seth and tbb and pied pipers and expect everyone to keep up with obscure references. we need context and background here. thank you for the return ad hominem volley, though.
Four and five years ago Ingy was a pretty good blogger, and it’s great that he made a lot of money from it. Three years ago the quality stopped. He was very smart to sell. Now the blog he founded is very very bad. Not complicated really.
Oh the 4 UA mile mistake. I believe I made some comments on FT about that expressing my thoughts (which were pretty much identical to Seth’s). Good times 🙂
For the record, I am no big fan of capital punishment. I think it has its place in VERY extreme cases. Bernie was one of them, I will gladly flip the switch on that guy. Personal responsibility my behind!
There is not much to say to trolls, please ignore. Posting so much on a tabloid type blog is, well, bizarre.
Gary Leff, WINE SNOB, writes this about the USAIR planned upgrade of food/beverage service…….”They also declare “Premium Wines on domestic flights” (3 1/2 hours and longer). Since I won’t even drink US Airways’ international business class wines, I’m skeptical”. What is this OMAT…………………I am sorry but this elitism makes me want to puke. It reminds me when I had a very drunk actor, Ben Gazzara stagering and yelling to everyone in F/C of a 747 JFK-LAX how much TWA sucks because they only had domestic wine on board. His wife and daughter were equally grounded, when they demanded I remove their mixed nut bowl and return with ones with more cashews. I took it away alright and went to go help out in coach.
Hey, he didn’t get the nickname “Mr. Fancy Pants” without deserving it.
Yeah, some of the things GL does, in my own opinion, justify what that guy over at United said about “us entitled” elites 😉 No wonder the airlines are fighting back against this “entitled” group in the past few years.
I have been known to buy $4 wine bottles. They tasted fine to me. Only one was truly awful, so I bought a $5 next time, hehe.
I have 4 Southwest drink coupons to use on my flights soon. I just can’t imagine GL sitting in a Southwest plane using such coupons. Not god for the luxury brand of his product you know 😉
The only truly bad wines I’ve had are a bottle of cheap Costa Rican wine (lesson: avoid the cheap stuff if you’re in Costa Rica) and a marked down small box of wine at Food Lion (My curiosity got the better of me. Clearance boxed wine at Food Lion? How can I *not* give that a try?)
Aside from that, they all taste pretty good to me.
Boxed wine on clearance – What could go wrong?! But seriously, some of the snobbery that rears its ugly head in this game is disgusting. What percentage of the globe’s population will never be fortunate enough to be able to afford to take a real vacation, let alone fly to one? Maybe I should get off this soapbox before I offend someone whose writing I really like, but still… Thankful every day for the opportunities this game gives me, as I post this from an IHG big win mattress run evening!
If it is wine, I am thankful being alive drinking it!
Yeah, sometimes I shake my head at the snobbery involved in this hobby. With the recent devals and the coming revenue based burning that will eventually come in this space more sensible down to earth practices will come back. We will all welcome again the feeling of flying for free in coach instead of burning 1.5 million miles for that F class seat 🙂
Having said that, I can’t wait for my F trip to HKG in October. I am going to cherish the memories indeed. I promise no selfies in the lavatories or pics of wet towels on board!
BTW, loved the letter from Grandpa and sent it to some dear Irish friends whose mom died young and suddenly. She would have loved it! And it was the kind of advice she would have given had she had the chance.
Also found the Dwyer piece interesting – some new strategies and some good reminders. I’d never seen Dealspin before and found that piece helpful too. Muchas gracias for those links.
And though I don’t drink two buck chuck, I am certainly closer to Nick than to Gary. As for Gazzara, in several blind taste tests by real experts, Oregon Pinot beat French Pinot. In one case the French actually insisted the test be repeated and you know what? OR won again!
You are not a champagne and campaign type of person, if credit card salesmen really wanted to serve a niche, they would really push accepts of simple travel and how to use various cards to lower your travel budget and see more then the 10-12 cities that the BA and Flyertalkers seem to frequent.
We are out there! Besides Paris on Bastille Day, where I reviewed the Hyatt Etoile for the crazy view, my most popularly read destination posts last year were about Belfast, Tenerife, and a week in a Castle in rural Austria, rented for $84/night.
>>>>>>>>>>Also found the Dwyer piece interesting – some new strategies and some good reminders. I’d never seen Dealspin before and found that piece helpful too. Muchas gracias for those links.
Very welcome, this is music to my ears. An educated consumer makes the world a better place. Sure is better than being treated like a tool lol.
I am certainly not a wine connoisseur. I buy them on sale!
It helps the brand “u can fly for free in F and stay in suites in luxury hotels like ME” if you get these cards 😉
Thank you for all the comments. Today it has been an amazingly busy day for me and I have not had the chance to reply to comments. I will try to get to them by late Friday or sometime on Saturday.
I have also wasted a lot of time trying to get my money out of MVD card. What an atrocious outfit this Incomm is, WOW!
Is anyone else here tired of The Ingy and Steve Show. Steve please stop feeding him and he’ll go away.
I certainly am. I’d rather spend my time asking and answering questions that really deal with the issues at hand instead of replying to his juvenile comments. I will always defend myself , You can count on that.
+1
My +1 was for Mcfadden!!
Three thumbs up for Mcfadden!
TWA44: +2 for McFadden
As I have suggested many a time here there are several ways to handle the Steve-Ingy back and forth. The most obvious and probably the best for the blog is to institute a censorship policy, fairly policed on both sides of the argument. I certainly would support it as it truly is a waste of time for all. When Steve says something constructive to help come to a solution with the big bad old blogger problem, I certainly support his criticism. But the post after post whining about the same thing day after day with personal insults and blatantly false information and misquotes should not be allowed.
I suggested several months or maybe it was weeks ago that Steve was indeed the troll here and my suggestion was dismissed. As evidence I’ll have you note that George quit slamming and George and I are now getting along just fine.
Of course George could also take the position to just censor me, which would indeed be very telling, or he could censor just Steve which we all know isn’t going to happen. OR lastly the war will continue.
I will do my best not to initiate confrontation but assure you that I will always defend myself and other bloggers for worthless criticism. When you are ready to stop whining and want to constructively talk about blogging and the issues we face, I will gladly discuss it with all of you within the confines of my NDA.
Of note though is the Saverocity debacle of several days ago where I was insulted, treated rudely and ban from a conference because I disagreed with another bloggers position. The idea of acting as a fiduciary while still maintaining affiliate links is in my opinion ludicrous yet Matt would not even answer my question.
My real fear here is that the crowd is just so negative and anti blogger that in reality all anyone wants to do is whine, and whine somemore. What a waste of time. I have suggested several other options that have fallen on deaf ears and that further leads me to believe it is just about a place to whine. I sure hope not
Rick please get another hobby and stay away from these online boards! The pudding guy moved on to travel the world with his family and run marathons. You have TOO much time on your hands. You are not defending yourself here, you are….well, it is pointless to say as it will not get through! Do it at least for the people left behind at FTG who can’t believe the damage you do to the FTG brand with every comment.
I have no doubt in my mind that me and Steve would LOVE to say positive things about FTG if we think it deserves it. Same goes for every other blog in this space.
I need to get back to tax work.
+1 STOP HURTING THE BRAND YOU ESTABLISHED
If you plan on keeping a paid-app scehme, I think knowing why the users are canceling is also important. you could popup a message to the user upon cancelation with a question i am canceling because: and then 3-4 ready made answer buttons like i hate it , cleared my inbox now i dont need it anymore , doest work and whatever you feel will give you more insight into your ex-users behavior.
I can’t speak for Matt, but I suspect that you have lost a lot of credibility with your outlandish behavior on this blog. As such maybe Matt thought responding to you would downward spiral like it typically does. I don’t think you were banned because you disagreed with a blogger. I disagree with the fiduciary concept as well but I doubt I would be banned from attending. From what I read in the comments you are not welcome because he thinks you will make a scene. Can’t blame him for thinking so. Especially with how disrespectful you have been towards George and others who will likely be in attendance.
+1
Your constant trolling and insulting attitude is why people don’t want to hang out with you.
Maybe you can use this as a learning method. Stop being so angry. Stop being a troll. You really keep embarassing yourself
+3 Mcfadden
Hmmm, should I or should I not continue to call out the FTG blog
[peeks over there to see a “success story” where there is a link to 1 25 K Southwest affiliate card, even though the reader made clear she applied for 2 Southwest 50K cards]
I’ll always call out terrible blogs and terrible posts. And then only way that’ll change is if the quality changes….. not if said blogger is sociopathic enough for a long enough time that it gets tiring to some
Steve, the best analogy I can come up with is two neighbors arguing in a third neighbor’s house during a dinner party, and that third neighbor is too nice to kick them out.
While almost all of us support your side, is it right to keep arguing here and disrupting the party, just because Buzz is too nice to censor you or prohibit you?
+13 DiffPaul
Steve I gotta admire your persistence but you and I both know it is all a matter of audience and you have your here. The majority of the eclectic whining crowd here will support your ranting and personal attacks. I’ll give you that one.
But I saw my favorite comment over on FTG.com where you were called a “pontificating troll” and commented your venom in six different posts on one thread.? No wonder you are angry. Mainstream site readers don’t seem to like you as much as eclectics don’t like me:) I’ll stay with the mainstream grateful group and you continue to hang here with the Angry Whiners.
Big Bad old bloggers probably ruined VR for you too huh?
“But I saw my favorite comment over on FTG.com”
How were you able to choose among the 6 comments?
Steve its ruining the TBB comment section, besides its like beating a dead horse (blog) with a stick. Please stop this nonsense between the 2 of you, it’s the only way to get the dude to split. There are lots of other spoiled fish to fry out there. Your pal, McFadden.
I 100% agree with you as stated several weeks ago. The true troll so PT Steve the Pontificating Troll. When he quits with the venom, I’ll have nothing but positive to say. I love George’s humor, photography and the sometimes positive and nought provoking commentary here.
but as long as PTS they’ve keeps trolling I’ll give it back to him. Oh BTW, he said in February he was done reading FTG so I guess he wasn’t serious with his daily slamming commentary 🙂
Stop dictating what others say or cannot say, you do not have that right. There is no censoring here.
By all means steve, you go on! Most of the times I come to the comments section just to see your posts.
If TBB has stopped calling our ingy and his shill out, someone else has to. That pathetic scammer.
!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP THE PRESSES – It may be the last day for VRs at CVS! !!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Just in case you missed it 😉 ) And am I the only one who noticed Spencer’s comment above, at #2:
“The countdown is on”. Is it the Final Countdown?
Is Spencer psychic? or a CVS plant? or ????
Maybe this will be a viable alternative but I imagine there will be daily/monthly limits:
http://qz.com/191496/googles-brilliant-plan-to-get-millions-to-adopt-its-e-money-system-gmail/
For all you VRers crying into your beers and hoarding VRs, life will go on. Some of us have been playing the game without regular access to CVS. And we still get free trips and hotel nights. Really. But if I were in your states, I’d sure be loading up too 😉 !
I gave out a hint here at TBB that this was coming recently and mentioned I was stocking up…Hope readers were paying attention. I don’t usually do the arrows thing very well spelling it all out 🙂
This is as big as the day that the memo at the US Mint came out…VERY sad day, end of an era!
Steve please stop.
Ingy, go away and find another hobby. It will be good for you and your mental state and also good for your family and certainly GREAT for the ones working full time at FTG (the blog).
I have a feeling the Southwest 50k bonus is not coming back ever again, therefore I may suggest an addition to the “success story” at FTG: Edit to add “Hurrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”
Now excuse me while I go to say good bye to my favorite CVS cashiers, it will be very emotional.
There’s still a 50k offer out there. I read about it on Gary’s blog. Only the ka-ching links for the 50k offer went away. Anyone who pushes the 25k offer is pond scum.
Why should Steve stop? How is that any different from deleting or censoring?
Let him speak his mind. He speaks the truth and rightfully calls our ingy and MMS and the rest of the pathetic group of pimps.
If you arent going to delete/censor, then let people speak their mind.
https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/southwest/offer
It took me a few minutes to track it down. And I am just one guy, not a whole corporation with staff!
I am not angry but I should be 😉
“catering” to newbies vs. “targeting” newbies….
Oh, it’s very much targeting.