We bring you some insider tips on how to blow $1 Million on travel, visit Sharyn Canyon and Finland’s Uto Island, pet some hippos in Colombia, look at the severe shortage of pilots, get a routine set up on how to activate credit cards, revisit the grave Iraq War mistake and all its consequences, your personal finance fix is about pundits and the crap they say and what they really mean, and marvel how miracles still happen in Greece and more!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
Travel With Grant details his credit card activation setup & routine. The most important thing is to establish your own routine and stick to it because, in this hobby, it is very easy to get things spiraling out of control! Just a few things about what I do: I get all credit card statements to close around the same day of the month so I can then log in a day or two after that and pay them all. And I do NOT enroll in paperless statements (unless there is a miles/points bonus!) for two reasons: 1) Act as an additional check on making sure no bill gets missed and, 2) In case something happens to me, I want my wife to at least be aware of yet another credit card I was handling 🙂 Again, develop your OWN system, you need one!
There is a severe shortage of pilots. Starting salaries are only $20,000. I predict their salaries are going up #easy. Mind boggling that there are 3.78 billion passengers expected to fly this year, wow!
Some travel insiders were asked what they would do if they had $1 million to blow on travel. I was not asked, so sad.
Here is something you won’t find in other blogs. Legacy of drug lord Escobar’s pet hippos. Holy cow, they were left alone and now there are about 150 of them roaming around. I could be blogging mercilessly about the final hours of the Delta Amex credit cards, bullshit airline incidents, endless neurotic anti TSA rants and luxury trip reports that appear to be the same after a while #boring.
You remember the guy who smashed Saddam Hussein’s statue? Well, he has since immigrated to Beirut to keep his family safe. And wishes Saddam was back, even after he executed over a dozen members of his family. Wow!
He, like many interviewed in my colleague Loveday Morris’s reporting, blames the current situation squarely on the Iraqi government. After the American invasion, he says, things got worse every year. “There was corruption, infighting, killing, looting. Saddam killed people, but it was nothing like this current government,” he said. “Saddam is gone, but in his place there are 1,000 Saddams.”
And that government was instituted by the invading coalition. For them, Jabouri had these words: “Bush and Blair are liars. They destroyed Iraq and took us back to zero, and took us back to the Middle Ages or earlier. If I was a criminal, I would kill them with my bare hands.”
Your personal finance fix of the day: Here’s What Financial Pundits Mean When They Say… Hilarious! My favs:
When a pundit says, “There is a lot of uncertainty.”
They really mean, We have no idea what’s going on.
When a pundit says, “It has long been our position…”
They really mean, That’s my story and I am sticking to it, even if it’s wrong.
When a pundit says, “We expect the second half of the year…”
They really mean, We were wrong in the first half of the year.
Sharyn Canyon, Kazakhstan’s Grand Canyon.
The southern most island in Finland is Utö. Population is 30.
You all know Greece is undergoing a very deep economic contraction with no end in sight. So many businesses have been closed. But there are miracles here and there. Like this crazy guy who got obsessed by an old warehouse building and spent years trying to renovate it. And he did! Wish him all the best, please check out Hydrama Grand Hotel in Drama in Northern Greece! It has its own wine store, wow!
Blog changes are coming…because. Blog has been suffering with lower page views and severe lack of $ clicks. I think traveling to Asia and scheduling mostly trip reports did not help the cause as it appears the audience for them is limited. So please recommend me to your mother (or mother in law) if you prefer if you are not going to give this blog a $ click. Thank you. The most deflating part of keeping an independent blog is seeing NO clicks. Second most deflating part is when it happens for a second day. And then, you get the drift, the third…At some point, something has to give. I may turn this baby into a TIF whenever blog post and it will be a “Voices in my head” mega rants. Or something. #whatever #thanksforlistening
And I leave you with this…
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Trolling for gooooooooold…
Buzz-
If I watch a movie on Amazon Prime streaming, does it help if I get there using your link?
First, I hope.
I don’t think so…unless you pay for it right then.
I have never watched any streaming from Amazon…I don’t even have Amazon Prime! Maybe I should look into it.
With Amazon Prime, streaming is free. Or at least I stream and what I watch is free.
Wait until the fall before you get discouraged about the blog. I’ve noticed a big drop in page views on my own blog since the summer started. I noticed the same thing last summer but I thought it was because everyone thought the blog sucked and decided to stop reading it. But then it picked up again in the fall.
I think many people who read your blog are doing their summer travels right now, and will catch up on their reading when they are back in their work, school, home routines.
Agree … Lying by the pool takes away from my online time that I do at work during breaks /lunch, etc. Sorry I’m not clicking TBB as much these past few weeks.
OTOH, was in the Korean grocery store yesterday, saw the Durian, and immediately thought of your Asia blog post!
I think you are right! Thanks for giving me hope 🙂
Durian smells like a corpse, omg! For some reason, both wife and son like it. But my daughter agrees with me and can’t stand it…she is my favorite 🙂
Maybe we should order some durian for George via Amazon for every blog post that sucks? Win-win-win! :p
Nothing sucks more than the German national soccer team…Should have lost to Italy but got lucky.
Post tomorrow will suck for sure #monthlypump
Hello everyone, I am buried!
I agree with Plane2Port…I was on vacation for the last few weeks and basically tuned out of the miles/points world. Had more important things to do like watch my kids play in the ocean, sip tropical drinks, climb some temples, and do other tourist activities. Honestly, it doesn’t look like a whole lot happened while I was gone. #DogDaysOfSummer #Need$5IntlFirstMistakeFareToWakeUp
On that $5 fare, can I sue if I miss it? For age discrimination or something? 🙂
Those $1 million travel ideas are terrible, “travel experts” my a$$…
Agreed, if I had $1MM to blow on travel I’d be gone for many years…
I wouldn’t, but I would do something unique and spectacular.
“We would go to Paris, Singapore and Buenos Aires”. Seriously???
3 most boring cities in the world is your $1 million idea??? Give me a break.
AFAIK, the blogging scene is dead. Not sure why you keep doing it George,
you must make some money out of those clicks despite your constant rants…
BTW Nick, what’s up with saverocity? All I can see left are some disneyland trip reports.
S@cks Kenny stopped posting, he was by far the most interesting. He switched
to reselling I guess, not something I’m even remotely interested in. Joe is done,
sorry, no, he visits disneyland now with his kids, super interesting… NOT.
Plus a few amazon links in-between. Great 🙁
Didn’t know Drew was such an a$$, saw some of his recent tweets, not sure
what is wrong with him. He’s angry LOL. Clearly something is going on there.
Never explained to his followers what happened. Nothing left to say?
Broke a three day no $ click losing streak to make $6.08 yesterday. WOW! This is only the beginning…the return of TBB to take over the Titans…yeah, right. Not sure why I am doing it still….certainly not for the money lol.
The hobby has really slowed down big time. Still way too many bloggers out there, we need many to give up. Definitely thinking about it more lately…as I am getting bored after more than 3.5 years (wow!!!!). Even FTG troll Rick stopped posting here 🙂
Drew should have let his readers know what is up with the blog and the reasons behind the severely diminished posting. He thought otherwise. Oh well, it’s his blog I guess.
OMAAT and VFTW both out pace all the blog posts coming out of Saverocity every day.
I think, as other commenters have already pointed out, a big reason is that the full vacation summer season is ON! Things have slowed down. Everywhere.
Thank God the day job is doing fantastic, another record quarter…again!
No one has touched a credit card with my links for almost a month…Don’t let your friend start a blog. Unless he/she is not your friend lol.
Go France, so enjoyed beating them Germans up today in Euro 2016
Ah, yes, here is the “changes are coming” and “why don’t you give me clicks” rant that we see over and over and over.
Thank you MoJo for taking the time to comment in my blog.
I see now I forgot to place the quotes around the word “insiders”. My bad!
Buzz-
The time of year is definitely part of the slowdown, as is the slowdown in the hobby itself. The gung-ho crowd slid effortlessly from the Birds to MOs, and the postal and bank inspectors are still ramping up. Many newbies are finding it too tough and time consuming. And some like me say it has to be cheap and easy, and right now it is tough to have both of those.