Shorter ride today with some blog posts that you may have missed during my absence in Maui!
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I am still trying to catch up. I may start doing shorter blog posts until I eventually catch up…
Travel is Free has a “Complete Guide” out available to you when you subscribe to the newsletter (which is really good by the way).
Milenomics had one of the best posts on the AA mega devaluations with “Balance Miles and Cash Back in the Face of Devaluations“.
Saverocity had a really good personal finance post about “How to know when you are being screwed over by your Investment fees, and how to fix that“. I have seen some of these annuities sold to people that will make you really angry!
This is a must read. “Lose Your Elite Status, Gain Your Self Respect –and Launch Your Own Frequent Flier Loyalty Program?” at The Gate. I became a free agent on January 1, 2013. I do not care about domestic flight upgrades anymore. I enjoy flying Southwest, they treat me better than the Final3 airlines. I am drifting more and more to this line of thinking and getting back to the pure essence of travel instead of bitching about not getting my pre departure drink and other injustices.
Travel Summary quit his job and is going to go at it full time. Wish him the best. Have no regrets in life.
I canceled my Southwest award flight to the MileMadness meeting in Charlotte ( so easy process with no confiscatory fees whatsoever!) and, please sit down, I burned Delta Skypesos. OMG! Naturally, it would be an injustice to burn just 25k so it cost me 32.5k miles for direct flights and excellent times. After this I still have 190k Skypesos and one of these days I will get my butt in gear to book that Australia trip with my daughter.
One Mile at a Time has been doing a phenomenal job lately in the blogosphere. This piece was right on! “Why I Don’t Trust American AAdvantage anymore“. He keeps this up he may finally make it to my “Blogs I Like” list!
Travelblawg has a comprehensive guide on how to travel with your pets.
Prepare for Landing. At Twisted Sifter. Wow, just wow!
And I leave you with this…As you know, TBB is…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs I Ignore
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No mention of US Airways????
THANK YOU AMOL, for not saying first! I think that’s a first!
Seventh!
So many commented on it, I like to be an original 🙂
I actually just forgot! I ‘ve been trying to catch up among all the April 15 craziness around here
Second! Sleep!
I need more sleep for sure!
Third!
That’s bronze!
Fourth and out of the medals. OMAT is rocking it right now. Just ignore the toilet pictures. He has always provided value, lots of original content and is an original in many ways. Glad you didn’t mention USAirways Twitter fiasco. As a woman, I don’t want to read about it anymore! Of more ongoing concern is the spate of teenagers writing tweets to AA that will likely ruin their lives. Sure am glad there was no social media when I was a teen!
Maybe I ‘ve been a little harsh on him. It’s just that I remember when he had no credit cards and then the Top 10 type posts started coming. I ignore the trip reports, they all seem the same to me. But his commentary on loyalty programs and airlines has just been top notch, dynamite. More on target than every other blogger. I wish he was more upfront with how he pays for all the travel…
I’d have to disagree, his credit card posts to me looks different than others like TPG, DD or VFTW which makes me want to vomit.
And as you mentioned, a LOT of his posts are top notch.
I remember the kid when he did not have a credit card. So, for him to be blogging about them still feels kind of funny. Anyways, he is no pumping machine like TPG. DD never hid he is doing it all to raise a family 🙂 And I am not sure there is much difference between him and VFTW on credit card posts other than VFTW pumping just a little more. Anyways, the kids knows flying and his trip reports (as much as I find them indifferent) do have a place in this space. Heck, when I am about to fly a C or F trip I go to his trip reports as I am certain he already flew it.
I think he has reached another gear now. The top notch posts are coming almost daily. It is great to see. I think he is surpassing VFTW on industry commentary now (VFTW appears to be a little…winded lately).
Lucky is on my short list to include in my good list if he keeps that up!
I still would like to know how he plans to pay the one year in hotels. It’s about transparency and full disclosures coupled with quality top notch content that adds value to readers. When that is done we can all excuse a little pumping here and there. Heck, they earn it!
My 2 cents
TBB who can’t pump if his life depended on it LOL
As MDR mentioned, it’s not difficult to speculate how he can travel that much. Look, US Airways has share miles promotions almost every 3 months, I’m sure he stocked up on miles every time to book Star Alliance J tickets. I’m not that naive and that’s probably far from being the whole story.
I’m no OMAT cheerleader whatsoever but also the “Ask Lucky” page is a very nice page he has where he answers almost any questions people have. No one else does that.
I don’t know why you don’t give him a bigger break while you are almost excusing DD and VFTW. DD is raising a family? ok, fine. That doesn’t excuse the fact that he promotes abusing any good deals that comes by. He got 6 Citi AA 100k cards and cancelled every single one of them. That’s why we can’t have nice things.
He brings the worst out of his readers and they freaking learn it from him. What did he expect when he posted the IHG IC BRG deal? His readers wouldn’t jam the phone lines putting hold times to several hours so that they can each book 25 nights?
And look at VFTW, all he’s been doing lately is profess his love for Chase cards “Top XX reasons why I love the Chase Sapphire/Ink” or how much he trusts AA…
So if those blogs are the blogs you like, then Lucky’s blog definitely deserves his place above those.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>So if those blogs are the blogs you like, then Lucky’s blog definitely deserves his place above those.
You are right. Will be fixed when I get around to it. Thanks.
Well, we can always speculate… I speculate that his main sources of income are fees for points-booking business, ads on the blog, and CC conversions. This probably represents at least two businesses and thus he has access to at least two of all business CCs and so can generate lots of sign-up bonuses. His expenses for doing anything related to travel are deductible as a business expense for the blog, including buying miles, YQ, MS, etc. For further speculation (isn’t this fun…), I presume that one of the reasons he has decided to live in hotels full time is because there is a significant tax benefit associated with having your housing expenses fully (or even partly) tax-deductible. Having only thought about this for 5 minutes, I’m sure I’m missing some angles…
All good points. Look, when you are young and single, there aren’t that many expenses. If he had no student loans, he could have saved a lot by now. I lived in hotels for almost a year myself. He is more high maintenance than I am. I didn’t have four suitcases, just one backpack. I didn’t live in luxury hotels, but in youth hostels and pensions. I traveled around the world and I am sure people wondered how I could afford it and frankly it was none of their business. I understand that since it is connected to his business people want transparency. But, mentioning how he does it could sound showy and obnoxious, so I let that go. With the points he accrues from stays he creates a lot of points too!
I assume Ben has a US passport, despite his German routes, which is a shame! Any other nationality on earth (literally) and he wouldn’t have to pay a penny in income tax if he was permanently travelling the world!
Roots not routes, obviously!
Wow, is that true? The US is the only country that makes you pay taxes to it if you aren’t living there? Maybe my husband should just stick with his green card instead of applying for citizenship. Might make it easier to retire somewhere in Europe (a long time from now).
US is the only major country that taxes its citizens (and permanent residents/green card holders) in worldwide income. It’s just that if you qualify as an expatriate you do not pay US taxes (for the most part) on the income you earn abroad. It’s phucked up. Many years ago I used to work on expatriate taxes. After a year I was so bored I wanted to cut myself 🙂
Interesting speculations 🙂
From a tax angle I wonder what happens as far as state residency is concerned in such cases. Something I never thankfully had to research myself!
If he pays full fare for the flights and hotels I sure would like to know about it. I just do not like seeing bloggers pretending to be experts in the miles/points arena showing off their travel trophies while paying full fare. Lucky does not do that, I think he just does not mention it at all. Which is fine. He does mention it when he spends miles/points on a trip.
I always disclose how many miles/points I spend on trips because I sure as hell havent spent actual money in a long time lol.
I may pay for the Hyatt hotel nights in Charlotte..business expenses to wipe out my year to date Amazon profit #taxplanning
Can one really write off the hotel and food while living in hotels? Thought one has to spend the majority of their time working, which they may not be doing?
So if MMS, TPG or Gary reviews a restaurant (like Gary wrote about during his recent report), can he deduct the Neal even if the trip was a holiday getaway for his wife and him?
Tax laws leave much up to interpretation. If you are a travel blogger (or pretend to be one while just pushing financial products to your readers) and spend money on something that somehow ends up in a blog post (i.e., trip reports) I think it’s a pretty good justification for a tax deduction. The next question becomes if you are on a family trip can you deduct the whole trip or just your own portion? If you deduct the whole trip you are going to be shut down in case of an audit. I could deduct my portion of my Maui trip but it takes too much to keep track of it and it’s not like I paid too much for it anyway to make a real difference in my tax return 🙂
Same applies to meals. If a blogger enjoys a meal at a restaurant he/she blogs about there is good justification for deducting his/her own cost (but not the rest of the family’s). I believe this is part of the reason you see so many trip reports that most do not care about. Such as the Hampton Inn in Duluth or something. 🙂
Wait… you liked a Finance post? I thought you only liked my travel stuff. A milestone event!
I did. That was a superb post. Just try to make them shorter…a little 🙂
If you ever have a car and an extra day/night in Basel or Zurich, drive an hour up into Baden-Württemberg and stay and eat here https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1.0-9/10258369_679682032068811_4037353136013734554_n.jpg Easily the best food and hotel of our Europe trip.
Looks nice. Hope I can spend some of my gazillion hotel points? 🙂
I have never been to Switzerland actually!
Anyone remember when saying “First” was amusing? Not I, and the web’s been around for 20+ years. Grow the hell up. Make a real joke if you want to be funny.
I am tired of your “edgy” commentary.
Erik: You missed the TBB memo that when Internet Brands buys out TBB part of the dough will be distributed to loyal readers who placed first in the comments #brilliant #megatraffic #noswagcraptogiveaway
My favorite blogger Drew wrote this about things he would never do to get points. Bravo.
7) Complain for reward.
Don’t even get me started. For me, this is the epitome of justifying being a douche. People find faults with their hotel and write nasty letters just for miles… or justice? or some crap like that.
I hate this so much that I resent businesses for so easily accommodating the biggest complainers. What a positive reward for such negative character.
And the worst part is, that behind every complaint is a person at fault. Do you want to get someone fired? “No, no, it’s management’s fault!” Do you honestly think management will think it’s their fault? Have you never had a boss? Two words: kick dog.
– See more at: http://travelisfree.com/2014/04/12/8-things-i-do-not-do-for-miles/#more-7374
correction> second favorite blogger after you Buzz.
Yeah, true that. Thanks.
I have made a few complaints with Northwest and Delta over the years. I NEVER criticize people. A reason I did not say anything about the US Airways twitter booboo was, well, because I did not want to pile on to that poor soul who made this obvious mistake. We all make mistakes in life. We are talking people’s jobs and livelihoods. I think one was for a broken seat, I just wanted them to fix the darn thing for the next passenger. The other one was on my NRT-DTW flight when the oxygen masks deployed…except mine, WTF! So I wanted them to fix it to save some fines for the company and I DID praise how the flight attendants handled the whole thing. Ok, I admit, I was scared, everyone was. Felt like a movie. For hotels yes I have done a few complaints over the years always mindful of not hurting the lowly paid staff. And I tip them well!
Completely respect Drew for taking this stance. I see too many entitled bloggers (Gary, Ben, TPG, and others) use there blog as a vehicle to complain about the service not meeting first class standards and then the complaint explodes in the twittersphere. The Airline or hotel finds out about it, punishes there employee and gives the entitled blogger points.
The other day Gary twitted about how an FA did not refill his glass of water after 1.5 hour into a flight. I responded telling him he should get up and go get his water. He tweeted back to me a “pro tip” that he should not disturb his aisle seatmate when FAs keep talking. I told him to wait until he goes to the bathroom then 😉 The point is: There are great injustices in the world and not getting your water filled ain’t one of them! I hope AA did not track down the FA involved and reprimanded him/her. Yes, there is a great personal cost with these entitled complaints. These airline employees are not that highly paid, give them a break!
It was a “sell out” crowd at the Marlins game tonight 🙂
http://instagram.com/p/m3qtNUt786/
Couldn’t resist. Share as you like, no attribution needed.
We had a great time catching up, and actually talked about George for a second. We both wondered how such a bright guy could let that opportunity pass him by when he had the idea of blogging long before we even did? What an opportunity he and all of you missed. Oh accept those that actually did start blogs when the getting was good. Loving the hobby, earning miles and points just like you guys AND getting paid on top of it. America is a great country and thanks for all your support all these years 😉
Why would I share a pic of two blogs I don’t care much about. I like Brian, he is very pleasant and he does not troll other blogs 🙂 I think he has done the most to commercialize our hobby (which is not necessarily a welcome development for the true hobbyists) and his content is probably the best out of all the blogs in the Ignore list (which is not saying much really).
Jeff, listen to your parents: Stick with school and get started on a career and build….credibility. You can’t have much when banks pay you.
You confuse me so much George?
If people read your blog that’s because they find it credible enough to spend their time on it. Brian has by far the largest audience of all reaching over 500k per month and you have several hundred?
and this trolling thing? Isn’t that what you do, read other peoples blogs and then leave comments? and you like your comments so much you started your own blog to leave them on? Aren’t you trolling too George? I’m so confused?
and don’t you pimp the amazon affiliate links everyday? Isn’t that called commercialization?
I just can’t figure you out George! but I sure do find it entertaining. 🙂
I have to give props to Brian. He found his niche and is passing himself for an expert to those newbies. He sticks with it and doesn’t try to post stuff that he has no idea about. He gets Jason Steele to do that for him.
Unlike other bloggers with arrows and circles he doesn’t post controversial stuff.
Agree with you Chris. I don’t have to like Brian’s blog but I do admire what he has been able to accomplish. Will he be doing this if the dough from the banks was not there? Hell no and that’s pretty much the same answer for all the blogs in the Ignore list.
I guess THE answer to determine if a blog is quality is this: Would you be blogging if the credit card money was not there?
“…and doesn’t try to post stuff that he has no idea about.”
If only FTG would do the same instead of publishing articles with both errors and gaping holes.