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Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as the best waterfall hikes, how to invest better, the Afghanistan horror show goes on, my Hocking Hills roadtrip, amazing new building in Shanghai, map with waterfalls in each US state, we go deeper on all things Covid-19 again, we learn key facts about Afghanistan, more new travel rewards credit card offers earning up to 200,000 Hilton Honors points and a lot more. You all enjoy your weekend, stay hydrated!
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TRAVEL
If you are suffering from the intense heatwaves currently happening, well, everywhere, I am going to make you feel better when you dream about the 9 Best Waterfall Hikes in the World. Which one is your favorite?
Wow, stunning indeed! Stunning New Astronomy Museum in Shanghai is the World’s Largest.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Good advice on becoming a better investor: Cooling Off.
1. Remove Emotion
2. Forget Forecasting
3. Take It Slow
4. Take The Long View
5. Consider History
6. Have Faith
I can not argue with any of these. Removing emotion is by far the hardest. Stop wasting time listening to self-proclaimed experts telling you what is going to happen in the markets, come on! Trying to cut corners to financial independence usually hurts far more people than the few ones who get lucky who get all the press marketing their online businesses telling you how they did it. Yeah, consider history of course but always keep an open mind, everything changes, so much faster lately! Have faith in capitalism and the human desire to succeed. I could go on for ever but I need to move on!
COVID-19
You know, don’t you get the feeling that this Delta variant is so bad that the vaccines against it don’t work nearly as well as in all other variants before it? I know more and more fully vaccinated people who test positive. I am starting to wonder when me and other family members are going to be next. But then I read articles like this that make me hopeful: Even with Delta Variant, the Amazing Vaccines Are Saving Lives.
But still…the suspicions and fear lingers…
As I said, the more of these breakthrough infections happen, and the booster shot now expected to come in six instead of eight months…As Michigan announced that in the last 30 days 23.4% of the cases and 28.1% of the hospitalizations were of fully vaccinated people! And articles like this one sure do not help: There’s growing concern vaccinated people may be more vulnerable to COVID-19 than previously thought.
“Are vaccinated people more vulnerable to severe illness” than was previously thought? “Just how common are breakthrough infections?” the news outlet asked. “It’s anyone’s guess.”
“It is generally the case that we have to make public health decisions based on imperfect data,” Frieden said. “But there is just a lot we don’t know,” Bloomberg cited.
Meanwhile, videos like this makes my head shake violently: Dying in the Name of Vaccine Freedom.
An ICU patient wearing an oxygen mask on why he didn’t get vaccinated:
“I’m more of a libertarian and I don’t like being told what I have to do. I’m still not completely 100% sold on the inoculation.” [Yeah, this dude died nine days later after this interview, what a waste…]
And there goes another one, seeing this so much lately smh: Texas GOP official who supported mask burning dead of COVID.
AFGHANISTAN
Biden’s nightmare pull out got worse with two suicide bombings at Kabul airport…
But let’s not forget that the Afghan military collapse had its roots when the Trump administration led by Pompeo totally cut them off and negotiated directly with the Taliban. I mean, the writing was on the wall… Pompeo Is Lying About Afghanistan.
Like many other Republicans who now profess anguish over the Taliban’s victory, Pompeo supported the U.S. withdrawal. But he didn’t just endorse the pullout; he directed it. He cut a deal with the Taliban to remove all American troops and to release Taliban fighters from Afghan prisons. He vouched for the Taliban’s assurances, even as the insurgents staged hundreds of deadly attacks. And he defended the ongoing troop withdrawals, undercutting the Afghan government in its own talks with the Taliban, as the militants besieged provincial capitals.
Read the whole thing before you too blame Biden. Yes, the withdrawal could have been better managed of course…Anyway, August 31 is close and it could not come fast enough for this administration to lick their wounds…
We should have left ten years ago and no President had the guts to actually do it. You now know why…Anyway, more about this poor landlocked country fighting for ever it appears: Map Explainer: Key Facts About Afghanistan.
ODDZ & ENDZ
These were fun to learn about! 15 Origins of Urban Legends. Wait, Paul McCartney is not dead? 🙂
Maybe this belonged in the Travel section but I made an executive decision to stick it here: The 1890’s ~ Amazing Rare Footage of Cities Around the World. Amazing video, wow!
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 100k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 100k CHASE United Quest, 75k CHASE Ink Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 60k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 80k CITI Premier, 20k CHASE Freedom Flex & CHASE Freedom Unlimited, 150k CHASE IHG Rewards Club Premier and many more, including many American Express cards! Please check out my Affiliate links. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me!
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! Feel free to skip this section and parts of the next one if this is not for you.
Newbies: BEST TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARD! The 100k Chase Sapphire Preferred card is now available with my links. If you are totally new and looking for a keeper card I think THIS is the card. Apply for it, get approved, do the required minimum $4k spend, get the 100k points signup bonus, transfer the points to United or Southwest or Hyatt or just cash out for $1,250 spend for groceries using the “Pay Yourself Back” feature assuming you do eat, right? For the annual fee of only $95, COME ON, do the math! Ok, here is the math: $1,250 – $95 = $1,155. So, if a bank offers you all this money what is your problem? Just ALWAYS make sure you NEVER EVER carry a balance ok? If you currently have the card, you can refer your spouse or significant other or third cousin or travel starved friend and you the referrer can earn 20k Chase points for the referral and the referred still get the full 100k bonus.
So, both my kids got the Chase Sapphire Preferred card because it is the best solid keeper travel rewards card out there imho. If you just got it or plan to get it before Chase pulls the offer, this post will help you: How I’ll use the new Chase Sapphire Perks.
Another card with a Top Five (imho) travel rewards card offer right now is the 80k Citi Premier. This is now THE card to get if you are really after American Airlines miles! What I’d Do With 80k AA Miles: Using The Citi American Airlines Transfer. For some reason, this bank is being very stingy in approvals lately, fyi.
The travel rewards card offers keep getting higher and higher, along with everything else it appears. Both Hilton Honors Surpass and Business cards are now officially up to 180,000 Hilton Honors points. But, and this is another trend with minimum spend amount requirements also getting higher, you get the first $130k with just a $2k spend in the first three months and get the additional 50k with $10k spend in the first six months. The no annual fee Hilton Honors card is up to 130k signup bonus (80k with $1k spend in the first three months, next 50k with $5k spend in the first six months.) You could do a little better if you can manage to bring up the offers as explained in this post. Of course do not expect these blogs to tell their readers how they can do better with offers that do not pay them a sales commission! As always, YOU have a choice on where to apply for travel rewards credit cards. Choosing to do so with my links supports this blog and it is really the only source of income. I have posted three times this week, crazy I am still at it here! Thank you for reading my blog and for your support.
To reiterate, if you carry credit card balances, you should NOT be applying for any more credit cards until you pay them off!
REGISTER for the new Hilton Honors promotion to Earn Double Points on stays completed September 7-December 31. Have a Hilton Honors American Express Card? You can earn Triple Points when you use it to pay for your stays – in addition to what you already earn with your Card. Register for the Power Up Promotion and get closer to more free nights.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
If you are out there renting cars this may be for you: Shopping for status: Car rental edition.
We old timers know what a cluster you know what the Radisson Rewards program split was. I ended up with an account with the Radisson of the Americas program and for me to stay in a Radisson elsewhere around the world I have to open a brand new account with the regular Radisson Rewards program (World ex-US lol) and then do a bunch of medieval crap to…use my points and status, unbelievable! I can’t get rid of these darn hotel points for years now! But this new property may make me go back to Santorini 🙂
Road tripped to Hocking Hills parks area in Ohio. I highly recommend it. Three nights is perfect but two nights will likely do too. Friend got us all an Airbnb cabin which worked out great. Only nine miles hiking because the heat was brutal. I will be posting some pictures from this trip in coming posts…
Daughter has officially moved out to an apartment in town and the empty nesting era has officially begun. We miss her already. It is sad but life moves on, you do your best and then you let your kids go conquer the world and grow up!
My wife works at Ford and just found out that her return to the office has been postponed until 2022.
Let me leave you with this…
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TBB
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“in the last 30 days 23.4% of the cases and 28.1% of the hospitalizations were of fully vaccinated people”
One thing to keep in mind with statistics like this is that the vaccinated have a disproportionate share of the elderly and at-risk, while the non-vaccinated have a disproportionate share of the young and the healthy.
Regarding the waterfalls: how is it that Georgia only has two? I’m tentatively planning a trip to Helen, GA this fall and according to the interwebs there are several waterfalls close by.
If you go to GAWaterfalls dot com, it shows dozens of waterfalls in Georgia. And based on the pictures, they certainly look natural.
Fyi: We regret the error: It’s come to our attention that the map of natural waterfalls in each state that we linked to earlier this week contains incorrect data. / TMN
Sorry abt that. I have no interns to do quality check. Maybe I start posting “69 reasons I love ____ credit card” like the other “travel experts” out there
That waterfalls map has been deleted.
TBB Executive Board
No way I got gold after maybe a year or more.
Darn, Silver. Shame on me for clicking through links and reading them first.
Back in the day I thought I had the gold medal in the bag only to lose it after I pressed click. It was 6.31 am, sad! 🙂
Kids today just don’t understand how difficult it was to get gold on TBB circa 2014.
Blogging way too long man!
Freedom to drive dark! Got a link?
Delta is reviving the doctrine of contributory negligence with the $200 / month boost in insurance premium. There are many cofactors to which that doctrine might be applied.
Not sure where I found it…As always, Delta does something that gets positive press without really doing anything constructive in the big picture…
I thought Biden promised us to own up and not blame Trump ? The writing was on the wall that Taliban was somewhat in control intelligence gave them 3 months and so Trump negotiated with them in order to smoothen withdrawal… Giving them legitimacy might have sped that up and many reports that the moral was the main cause for Afghan collapse.
In any case these brave souls are completing one of the most heroic rescues in US history, they knew the chances of attack are almost certain and yet jumped in to save more then 100k people.
Who said: The Buck Stops With Me
Anyway, I say by September 7 we will get back to Afghanistan sharing all of five minutes in media spotlight until the 2022 elections or something like that
This is one of the best things I’ve read on Afghanistan, and as a bonus for all you politically minded folks it is non-partisan. “The War in Afghanistan Is What Happens When McKinsey Types Run Everything” by Matt Stoller.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/the-war-in-afghanistan-is-what-happens
Reading this it felt like the author did not make it past the first interview or was fired by McKinsey 🙂
I have the next Best of Web post ready, not sure which day it will post next week. Leading it is THE best piece on Afghanistan imho.
Can anyone recommend a credit card for cruise travel and where to sign up for it. I am a newbie to all this. thanks
I think you may be better served by a pure cash back card that allows you to spend on travel and then offset the charges with your earned points. This is what I did back in the day to score a free cruise for the family:
https://travelbloggerbuzz.com/travel-reports/cruise-western-caribbean/
The Capital One Venture Rewards card comes to mind but the signup bonus currently is not that great, it is okay. You earn 60k Capital One points for $3k minimum spend in three months. But to get the other 40k points you need a ridiculously high $20k in total spend (but it allows you to do it in twelve months). Each dollar charged on the card earns two points so it is very simple. It now allows transfer of points to airline and hotel partners if you may find better value that way (we veterans in this hobby prefer to transfer out to partners but no cruise partners out there yet). So this card came to mind first.
Then, it is the really great Chase Sapphire Preferred card with the 100k Chase Ultimate Rewards points. These points are worth $1,250 for travel. I think they must be used towards travel booked with the Chase travel portal…which could include cruises? Can someone confirm this? In full disclosure, the Chase travel portal just sucks because it is basically an intermediary between the travel provider and you and in case something goes wrong (cancelation, etc.) trying to get to the bottom of it for rebooking/refunds can be a nightmare, you have been warned.
Barclays Bank used to have a card named Arrival+ that worked exactly like the Capital One Venture Rewards card but I think they no longer offer it.
One more idea for you. If you never had the premium personal amex Platinum card and you are mentally okay with a $695 annual fee, you may want to consider getting the offer found here:
https://resy.com/amex-offers?date=2021-08-29&seats=2
It is an offer you will not find in the big blogs because they do not get paid a sales commission for it. But it is by far the best offer out there to earn a lot of American Express Membership Rewards points. 125k signup bonus for $6k in minimum spend in the first three months. Which these inflated offers days is okay. But the BANG for it is that it allows you to earn 15x per dollar on restaurants and “small businesses” up to $25k in spend in the first six months. We have no idea about your regular spending pattern but if you own a business and/or a big spender anyway…you can earn a crapload of AmexMembership Rewards points that you can use toward cruise travel going through the Amex travel portal (which is much better than the Chase travel portal). And in the first year you could use many credits to lower that steep annual fee along with some other goodies of course (there is a long list!).
Avoid looking for a card earning cruise company points, there are none worthy out there as far as I know.
Fellow TBBers, poke holes in my reply and add your wisdom.
Thanks for the question and hope this helps!
Use George’s new Chase Sapphire card application link Frank, I wish I could, as I am well over 5/24.
Glad you made it to the Hocking Hills! Yeah its a bit hot for hiking in August, but probably a lot better crowds than in the fall. Head back in Jan/Feb for the winter version complete with frozen waterfalls and splendid evenings in an outdoor hot tub after the hikes! Enjoy the empty nest, time to retire! FIRE baby. Cheers!
Interesting idea about returning in the winter. It is close so it may well happen.
Daughter is back to do laundry. Because it is too expensive in her apt building and mom can fold it too lol.
I have several retired clients. The one that looks the youngest and is the happiest is the 70 year old who just finally slowed down from five to three days working per week. I feel the same. I am not taking on new clients, taking care of the ones I have, blogging and running and…keep going. At some points the money is just numbers that do not mean much 🙂
We are all different.