We learn of the cheapest miles to Asia and Hyatt Gold Passport award category changes, watch Mommy Points do mileage makeovers on Nightline, travel on the longest train ride, visit Norway, marvel at some pictures of famous portrait photographers, watch to see how airlines install Wifi on airplanes and lots more. Turning positive…
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My Hong Kong trip is over. It was fun putting it together with miles & points along with doing many things for the first time! I am on a major catch up mode now so excuse the short posts in the next few days.
In typical TBB tinkering mode, our Board of Directors has decided to do a weekly post of the Top Bottom 10 blog posts of the miles/points blogosphere. We are going positive the other days which, in turn, we hope to lead to shorter posts (and therefore less time spent here to account for more workload in the day job that feeds my family!). Until this changes as usual.
I have a question and need some feedback. Almost all the trip reports I have posted are from years past and easily transferred over from private family blog. Posting trip reports from scratch is VERY time consuming and just have not had the time to do them all. And I don’t like to do multi part trip reports. BUT it may be more manageable to do them in pieces and then when I am done I can copy all of them into a single massive post to list under the Trip Reports tab. For example, for my Hong Kong trip, I can do reviews of the hotels, flights, sights, food, etc. And not number them as in Part 6 of 47. Thoughts? I still have not put together any trip reports from Banff/Lake Louise (other than the miles/points score & general overview), Maui, Brazil World Cup and a few others I think.
Cheapest Miles to Asia – Travel Is Free Another great resource. Please leave the rants to me, I am the not so nice guy here 🙂
Hyatt Gold Passport Award Category Changes 2015 – Loyalty Lobby This wasn’t so bad…Oh, no more My Elite Rate starting in 2015. Never paid it anyway as, you know, I don’t pay for airfare and lodging usually…
One Mom’s Secret to Turning Christmas Shopping Into Free Holiday Travel – Mommy Points Holy cow Mommy Points! She makes it into Nightline again to do a miles/points makeover, wow! What the hell are all these staffers at The Points Guy Inc doing all day I wonder! Interesting how instead of “Free” seventeen times it turned into “next to nothing” and “virtually free”. Nice wheels, business must be good 😉 The marketing spin here is in overdrive! 19 vacations spanning 100,000 miles. A commenter asks:”Who has the flexibility in their life to take 19 vacations a year?” and a TBB reader (I am assuming lol) responds: “A blogger who sells credit cards for a living and makes $200-$300 per approval pretending to be catering to “family traveling”. Good for her, social work would never have this kind of money!
World’s longest train journey reaches its final destination in Madrid – Xinhuanet Wow, from Yiwu China to Madrid, a ride 13,052 kilometers long!
This Awesome Time Lapse Video Shows How Airlines Install Wifi On Planes For those who are into this type of videos…
Incredible Norway – The Adventure Blog Inrcredible timelapse video!
Here’s Why I’m Not Selling My Stocks Even Though I Think Returns Will Be Lousy By Henry Blodget. Yeah, that Henry of the infamous “put lipstick on a pig” fame. He has come a long way and this article is superb.
How retirement benefits will change in 2015 – US News & World Report Good summary of coming changes. Make sure you adjust your 401k contribution rate to account for the increase in the contributions allowed!
Top 10 Most Famous Portrait Photographers In The World – Bored Panda Incredible portraits, wow!
And I leave you with the one and only Chris Farley….This is how I felt after my flight in Cathay Pacific First from Hong Kong to JFK!
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Uno
Love HK, The Wing and Cathy First.
Best thing in HK is the food, plus the view from the bus to the peak, the ferry, outlying islands.
Cathay First was terrific indeed!
Took tram to the peak and then bus down. I wish I had time to do the hikes. Ferries were nice too. Did not have time to go to Stanley or outside the Island & Kowloon.
I enjoyed my trip. But I am just not a huge city guy by nature (pun intended). I think I got a pretty good feel about it, it is so small..3 to 4 days here is more than plenty imho.
Did you notice the sweet Mercedes-Benz Mommy Points was driving in the Nightline segment? Didn’t know blogging was THAT lucrative.
I sure did. Wow. Maybe she found the same deal like I did and is driving one for free 🙂
http://travelbloggerbuzz.com/my-best-deal-ever-nixle-com/
Or maybe she listened to Tahsir talk about how to score them luxury cars in the rental car market….yeeeeah right.
I had no idea all this was possible by “stacking”…
Ahhhh this space is something….
I am jet lagged…I need to force myself to go to sleep!
Tres leches!
I was ordering cappuccinos in the lounges and F cabins tres at a time 🙂
I did this route out of HKG last year, Cathay in F to JFK, so I know how you feel. 🙂 Hope you utilized the WIng to its full potential.
Loved my flight!
Tried to get a cabana but were always full…so I took a shower in…the shower…how cruel is that lol.
The food was amazing wow! The rest of it just looked very nice, no big deal.
I had trouble with wifi and staff person gave me a different URL to use which worked splendidly. Of course the Amex Centurion staff can’t do that for me…boo!
They had some nerve having devoided you of a cabana. You should’ve pushed for compensation. 🙂
So…I go all positive and the comments just stop…Hmmm…sure makes it easier to point direction forward…
#borncontrarian
Buzz-
I miss the posts Mr. Mommy Points used to write. Introspective, thought provoking. Seems like a quality guy.
Ever notice how he always seems to have a smile, like he knows this is all a crazy, temporary gig? I’m thinking of the Bob Dylan song:
“Someone’s got it in for me, they’re planting stories in the press.
Whoever it is, I wish they’d cut it out quick; but when they will I can only guess.
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy.
She inherited a million bucks and when she died, it came to me.
I can’t help it if I’m lucky.”
Not so sure I share the sentiment about the quality of the posts by Mr. MP.
Over the years I still marvel how consumers agree to be quoted, photographed, featured in news stories and how they feel afterwards other than a temporary high, “I was in XXX magazine/TV show/etc.”. Still gets me how many agree to do stories like “I earn $100k and have $200k in credit card debt” and other monstrosities 🙂
Amazing how people’s spending priorities are prioritized…
I’d say skip the hotel/airline reviews and be original, only write about the hookers and drugs you did while you were there.
Great idea…I think my Alexa web rankings will go way up. Still waiting for Ingy to report my latest numbers as I am way too lazy to surf there to check them out myself as usual.
The only unfilled niche in this over saturated space is having a miles/points blogger specialize in “How to get to Hedonism/other swinging resorts for FREE” and then do reviews of the “facilities” LOL…I would subscribe. Along with reviews of the ganja in Jamaica woohoo!
The thing I don’t like about these TV pieces MommyPoints does is that they’re basically bs. You CAN’T travel the world for free getting points for doing your routine shopping. It would take the average consumer a decade to earn enough points that way — and, indeed, many of those purchases are more lucrative as “cashback” instead of mileage accumulation (I defer to FrequentMiler for the specific tricks).
Rather, the REAL way you earn lots of free travel is either selling lots of credit cards on your blog or engaging is some pretty heavy and sophisticated manufactured spending: lots of credit card sign up bonuses, and lots of spending to meet minimum spends and in bonus categories on the “right cards.” This ain’t a game for amateurs. You’ve got to be fairly sophisticated, and having some reasonable financial resources and experience managing credit helps, too. There’s absolutely no way a typically “mommy” can do these things at anywhere near the level Summer suggests it’s possible. I know: I’ve tried to teach a few mommies the tricks and it tends to be difficult for them to completely grasp.
I completely agree with what you wrote.
TV is all marketing, all soundbites.
Now excuse me I need to get to the mall and I will start practicing this thing called “stacking” so I can travel for free.
LOL
The thing I don’t like about Mommy Points taking this on Nighline is that she is trading hits and conversions on her blog in exchange for accelerating the day when this will all blow up and end. I have clerks I buy gift cards from now asking me where to buy money orders. Reminds me of the famous story about J.P. Morgan selling all his stocks when his shoeshine boy started asking him for stock tips.