I bring you the Covid-19 latest, the shocking Points Guy expose about its CEO, all the travel cancellation policies, the bear stock market, visit a falcon hospital, a Soviet radar, do virtual museum tours while we are all hunkering down, learn about water in California, learn about Formula 1, I try to control myself on posting anti Trump stuff but I just can’t and I am not sorry and you don’t have to read my blog if you don’t like it, this is not a phucking hoax! Ok, that felt good. I wonder if anyone reads this first paragraph 🙂 And we end with a song recommendation: COCAINE! Is it a published employee benefit in that company that earns $50 million in credit card sales commissions allegedly?
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I am adding a COVID-19 headline. Because it is the right thing to do at this time as I have been finding some must read material to educate us all on the subject that is upending our lives. I think this blog post is one of my very best in seven and a half years of blogging for peanuts. And I am proud of it. I think it can help anyone who reads it so please take a moment to send to someone you care about, thank you.
COVID-19
Must read! The Man Who Saw the Pandemic Coming. If you are going to read one article today, please make it this one.
The pandemic is changing…everything. What Does “Social Distancing” Mean?
Massive Resource put together by The Verge: A Guide to the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Do not read this if you are already feeling scared and do not want to stress more! Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now. Just going to drop this here and express some of my thoughts following it:
The coronavirus is coming to you.
It’s coming at an exponential speed: gradually, and then suddenly.
It’s a matter of days. Maybe a week or two.
When it does, your healthcare system will be overwhelmed.
Your fellow citizens will be treated in the hallways.
Exhausted healthcare workers will break down. Some will die.
They will have to decide which patient gets the oxygen and which one dies.
The only way to prevent this is social distancing today. Not tomorrow. Today.
That means keeping as many people home as possible, starting now.
Lets please show some respect to the medical personnel in the front lines fighting to save lives and sometimes losing their own! Two Women Fell Sick From the Coronavirus. One Survived.
I also believe this is going to happen too, lets do our part everyone! Don’t forget: disasters and crises bring out the best in people.
This event is going to define us. And it will likely lead to seismic changes. Primarily in the public health arena. We tend to have a quick memory and forget about these viral diseases that come and eventually go. I think it is going to be different this time as it continues to spread and the dead are starting to pile up. Acting quickly and decisively is paramount and hopefully it will lead to changes in our system that this danger will never be downplayed again.
I am not going to turn this political again as regular readers know my feelings about the orange buffoon who is proving to be totally inadequate to lead (no surprise). But this time it is different and he owns this. I had jokingly made a reference some time ago that we needed to take a worldwide two week staycation to beat this thing and we get back to normal. Well, I was kidding as I said but looking back it would have been the right to do! Now, the cat (or bat if you prefer) is out of the bag and is spreading near you. Best thing to do is stay home and avoid all social contact. It will not be easy but if we do our part to not take any chances the virus will die out. In the meantime, with everything pretty much shut down, the economic implications are going to be severe. As usual, the most vulnerable people in our society will be impacted the most: the elderly, the poor, the parents with kids off school having to stay home and not working, the sick, the mentally ill, etc. We must all rise and try to help as much as we possibly can and help one another. There have been some inspiring scenes out of Italy. Here are Italians in Sicily and the Italian Air Force. And Spaniards giving huge ovation to hospital workers. I mean, if this does not make you emotional about what they are going through..what can I say, WTF is not enough!
At the same time, there is a scientist right now somewhere in a lab working way too many hours who will discover something and will become a hero. The 64 million dollar question (or is it $64,000?) is WHEN!
Ok, one more from, please STAY HOME! Stop The Spread – Social Distancing Explained.
I know the latest editions of my blog have not been focusing too much on the entertainment part of my blog’s mission. So, here is a video that will have you rolling guaranteed. If not, please leave.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: Two new offers on United credit cards, a personal for 60k and a Business one for up to 100k miles. The IHG Rewards Club card offering 140k points too, highest ever. Other credit cards offers that stand out for now are the 100k Southwest Performance Business card and of course the 80k Ink Business Preferred. In addition, there are personal and business offers for the 70k Amex Delta Skymiles Gold, 100k Platinum and 100k Reserve credit cards. For a standard workhorse card I recommend the 60k Chase Sapphire Preferred card. For a standard premium card I recommend the 50k Chase Sapphire Reserve card. For a standard 2% cash back card I recommend the Citi Double Cash card. Available with my links. Lets move on!
Maybe you should bookmark this: Change Fee and Cancellation Fee Policies and Waivers of 46 Airlines Due To 2019 Novel Coronavirus.
We are going to be seeing more of these while all travel companies struggle to survive: Master List Of Hotel Cancellation Waivers And Nights/Points Extensions From Choice, Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, And Marriott.
I think Hyatt has done great and lets remember who we do business with ok? Hyatt COVID-19 Update.
Starting to think…what good is having all these miles and points when you can not even travel? Next time you see a cheery article (probably by 2pm today) at The Points Guy how you can travel to the Maldives for free only if you apply for five travel rewards credit cards on its site, you know, maybe you tell them to go screw themselves?
It is time to register again: Q2 2020 Activation Links For Freedom, Discover, Cash+, Dividend & ABOC.
I also expect to see more extensions of mile/point expiration policies and elite statuses. The next two that just announced six month extensions are Virgin Atlantic and Radisson Rewards.
TRAVEL
Since you are probably stuck at home: 12 Famous Museums Offer Virtual Tours You Can Take on Your Couch.
What a sight! The secret Soviet radar hidden in Chernobyl’s shadow.
Lets travel to Qatar to visit a falcon hospital: Welcome to the Falcon Hospital. Please Take a Number. Wow, amazing.
Screw all your travel plans until we defeat Covid-19. First airline to do so, expect more: SAS Temporarily Halts Operations and Lays Off 90% of Staff. Update: After writing this, many more airlines have been announcing severe cuts to their operations (British Airways at 75%, United at 50%) and complete shutdowns (Qatar Airways). And Alitalia is going to be taken over by the Italian government…this is like a TV series that just repeats every few years, it has been going on forever! Even Las Vegas resorts MGM, Wynn and Encore are closing!
PERSONAL FINANCE
Every bear market is different. What is unique about the one we are in right now is how fast it was! It just took 17 trading sessions, wow! I am not sure if you read the blog comments but if you do you will remember me frequently telling long time blog reader Ramsey to be careful when he was so cheerful about the frequent stock market highs and, well, always advised to just be careful. Because it is in the nature of the stock markets to just be so lethal and brutal you will likely just freak out. I had no idea this will all come true in just two weeks, be careful out there! Levels of Losing in the Stock Market.
Trying to be positive here, we can use more of it! The one thing we know for sure.
ODDZ & ENDZ
This guy is toast. Fact check: A list of 28 ways Trump and his team have been dishonest about the coronavirus.
When I was a kid I used to watch Formula 1 racing. Then I grew up and never saw any race with cars going round and round. But if you wanted to learn more about it, this is perfect: A Newbie’s Guide to Formula 1.
Very educational article about water in California. Eye opening in fact, enjoy it: Water is life. It’s also a battle. So what does the future hold for California?
And something to laugh: The Time When Zambia Tried To Go To Mars.
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.
The article that stunned the miles and points world: Inside the wild world of ‘The Points Guy,’ Brian Kelly: A massively profitable media empire and claims of non-stop partying, drugs and extravagant spending. HolyShitPepe! I am not going to comment any further because we have bigger things to worry about. If I had time I would devote a whole blog post about this, smh. Maybe I do this in another post. My sales price just went up though to account for the severe drop in my reputation when he tries to buy me out LOL.
As I said before, the disruption in everything travel related has been severe. You can see some numbers in this twitter thread by a travel blogger.
Respect to Shawn of Miles to Memories for this: Don’t Be A Jerk! Why I Have Decided To Cancel Months Worth of Travel.
And then there is this guy: He Has 17,000 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them.
Every Sunday night I get an email with stats about my blog traffic. I signed up for a free service years ago and this is the only thing I do about “checking my stats”. Some Boarding Area bloggers who self identify as travel thought leaders check their stats maniacally every day! Anyway, it is so discouraging to see blog traffic go down even when I think the quality of my blog content has been going up. Why do I keep going on here when so many others have quit and moved on? It is not the conversions (just four month to date)…Enjoy my blog while it lasts, thank you.
After reading the TPG article I recommend to you this song, how appropriate it is 😉
And I leave you with this…
TBB
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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
I read the first paragraph, Buzz.
On Wednesdays too.
Good post today-Love those museum links.
Thanks.
You think Trump will tweet about the stock market action today as he did on Friday?
Another phenomenal collection of thoughts/articles. (And yes, I read the first paragraph too)
Covid-19 is terrifying, but at least I get to work from home for the next 6 weeks, so I should be able to read and comment on here more often.
Thank you.
I can not believe so many read the first paragraph!
The lead link is terrific. Already shared it.
My experience with Delta has been fine. I’m sitting on a bucket of e-tickets so lots of travel in the next year. It look them a while to program the system so the $200 change fee would not take a phone call to unwind.
Thanks for your efforts!
It’s a hoax
We have 15 cases and we are going down to zero
It’s all under control
The Fed this, the Fed that
Biggest down day ever: Silence
Almost making it all back next day: It’s me, look at me, thanks to me
Anyone who wants a test can have one
I am thinking to pardon Michael Flynn
I have a natural ability…
Sleep Joe and crazy Bernie, yeah, let’s talk about them next
smh
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/14/21177509/coronavirus-trump-covid-19-pandemic-response
Thanks, be positive.
Oh shit, not in the testing kind of way!
Just here to say kudos to the Tennessee AG for putting a stop to the hand sanitizer guy.
Yeah
he wanted to donate it next, how convenient!
If everyone hides from this virus for 60-100 days I dont see how local food or shops will be able to be in business when it passes eventually. Most small businesses I know dont have the capital to be revenue free for 2-3 mos at a time. What to do, what to do.
I am sure Trump will fix it so lets make fun of sleepy Joe and crazy Bernie, hey?
Need fiscal stimulus now, no meaningless monetary shit. Powell should have told him that but I guess being intimidated non stop by the moron President was too much for him.
Containment of the hoax is #1 priority first. Then comes the rest.
Good thinking there.
I always read the first paragraph, George. Good pile of info here today and great links. I live here in WA state and they are clamping down on everything. Lots of folks going to urgent care places, ER’s, etc. The grocery stores are clobbered.
Staying home a lot more than normal and I have a deck (balcony) I might sing off of as in Italy. THAT ought to scare the virus away!
Stay safe and practice good hygiene folks. This one’s gonna end up taking a lot of lives, I think.
Looking back you were right Carl.
I think the mismanagement of the people leading the government has been downright criminal here…but lets not upset Ramsey and MU more.
Oh, where is “Look at your 401k” Ramsey huh?
I dont know who you are lumping me with that is upset? Hope everyone gets out of this pandemic safely and in good health. Im not retiring tomorrow so my 401k balance is currently irrelevant. Wishing for a good economy and stock market not sure if that qualifies as being upset
Trump just rated himself 10 out of 10 in how he is handling the pandemic. Which he apparently was aware of all along! I mean…
But lets talk about Sleepy Joe.
I am REALLY worried about Ramsey…say something R, u okay?
Great post!!!! I have cancelled:
AA Flight to Saudi Arabia: Reinstated miles no fee
Delta Flight: SA to BEY Miles reinstated and no fee
2 Iberia Avios Flights CMN-MAD & MAD-JFK Miles will be reinstated and $40 each fee. It took me so long getting them on the phone that I didn’t want to argue the fee”
I have 2 Air Algerie Flights to cancel and 1 Royal Air Maroc which at the moment are NOT offering refunds but vouchers to be used in 6 months. I am still fighting this as I have time to cancel.
As for TPG seems he’s got his ovaries in a crunch..
My next flights are in November.
Not going to the conference in May, it will be canceled for sure any day now.
And looks like I won’t be going to a conference in June either.
PS: Trump “ I take no responsibility”
He’s NO Harry Truman
Lets not go there…
I think if he resigns for health reasons the Dow goes up 15% 🙂
“ You can see some numbers in this twitter thread by a travel blogger.”
He was just diagnosed with COVID-19 in Austin.
https://twitter.com/nomadicmatt/status/1239582897478262789?s=21
OMG!
I think lets all be prepared of seeing news of people testing positive.
So are we expected to be constantly tested? daily? weekly? If you feel sick-stay home away from others. If you have breathing issues call 911 or contact your local hospital. You dont need a freaking test for that
No, you need to be tested once, the sooner the better. So, if you test positive you really get isolated.
My doc client things fatality rate is way lower than the numbers out there. This is another way we need tests ASAP to get a real handle on the true fatality rate of this disease.
I am not posting the other things he told so I do not freak you out. At least listen to that Newt guy, you know, the one who cheated on his wife who was hospitalized for cancer and served her divorce papers while she was there. Hey, Romney just pulled a Yang wanting to give every American $1,000…damn Socialists out there lol.
Even Bernie would never get 10%+ down days man!
One more, I don’t think Trump took the test, you heard it here first!
Haven’t commented here in a while because these credit card salesmen are so boring although I still read your TBB posts.
Even FrequentMiler is boring. Milestomemories is boring and spent 20 min justifying selling credit cards in their podcast. Dude (Shawn Coomer), I don’t disagree that free content should be rewarded with an affiliate link. But you are insulting people’s intelligence here. You have to phucking make your numbers every single phucking month or you lose your links. So the incentive here is blast shitty posts with stupid links everywhere and bullshit content: “9 Reasons why you should sign up for the Chase Southwest card”, “10 ways to burn 100,000 United miles”, “Why is the Frontier card an amazing deal”
I hate TPG with a passion but crap man. He sold his blog for 20 million 2 years after creating it? I thought that there was an extra digit added by mistake. Rick definitely sold too soon… No wonder why he is back blogging on FTG and PointsChaser…
Posts like that John SELL! Did you catch TPG made $50 million dollars last year? It would take centuries for a bunch of small blogs to make that combined LOL.
The money is in the newbies John, TPG got that and rode the wave. Did you know that Rick first told him he can make money selling credit cards? Of course Rick sold too soon, he will never admit it. He probably invested on his own and is now hurting to make some money freelancing…wait, is he back at FTG?
I still have not confirmed if cocaine is an unpublished employee benefit at TPG 🙂
I do my thing here. Be more kind to bloggers, YOU are not their primary target, that ship sailed when Rick cashed his first check from selling credit cards and told TPG…
Still true hacking action underground…
But with this virus thing…well, maybe we should all cash out our bank points?
Rick sold too soon? The number say TPG sold too soon – he sold for $20mn if you believe it (I’ve seen less quoted lik $12mn) – back in 2012. Last year did $50mn in op profit. So that’s closer to a $500 million value and he didn’t participate in the bulk of that upside – bankrate shareholders did and RV.
But if a price is what satisfies your needs and risk tolerance there is no selling too soon.
Someone PLEASE check on Ramsey NOW!
1. Always read the first paragraph – if you take the time to write it, I read it.
2. The hand sanitizer dude (moron, a$$hole, scum sucker – you choose) if charged and convicted faces a punishment of … $1000 fine.
3. Local death virus news: with a whopping 41 confirmed cases, Costa Rica has closed all schools and limited all public business spaces (bars, restaurants, hotels, etc) to 50% of capacity. It is high season here. Spring break. Anyone wanna invest in a hotel or 30, cheap?
I may not agree with all the time, Buzz, but admire your tenacity in doing what you do. Much love and respect.
#TBBon
Went to 3 different stores. No eggs, chicken, meat, toilet paper. Apparently they have a hard time finding truck drivers. What’s next? Tyson food shutting down slaughterhouses?
I am shocked you guys read my first paragraph!
I was going to invest but then the bear market happened…Ok, kidding. Comes and goes, you know, up and down. The downs are part of the price of the admission.
I like respectful dialogue, we learn more this way. I have several Republican clients, they are good people. We all want the same things for the most part, we just have a different way of getting there I guess.
Tipped a DoorDash deliver guy really nice, guy had his toddler daughter in his car. We all need to help these people get through this. Now if we can get the testing going and we all become hermits for a couple of weeks at the very least to get a handle on the cases and give the medical personnel some relief that would be great.
Don’t need anything, I got plenty of Windex 🙂
Nice COVID-19 round-up, thanks for assembling it.
Was catching up on the point world, and man… some blogs have pretty recent travel posts that looked bad at the time and now look shockingly reckless in hindsight (one blogger booking a trip on Thursday to Hawaii to travel now, one blogger apparently just took a mileage run to KL, one nomad blogger talking about which country to hop to next, plus several touting cruising up until very recently). I know they all probably think they are acting reasonably, but … really underscores why such drastic and firm government action has been necessary. I know you’ve been arguing this for several weeks.
I can’t be the only one to click on that hand sanitizer article and wonder if we’d recognize the person in it.
Even before the BI article, the name “The Points Guy” always struck me as a real long term marketing problem for Red Ventures: it is inherently tied to one person, is gender-skewed, and makes it difficult to pivot to other audiences like moms. And in this SEO world, the longer you stick with a name the harder it is to change it. But with this BI article… if the eponymous TPG is, as alleged, problematic … not sure what you do.
Anyway, stay safe y’all.
I thought about doing a post calling the most egregious examples but I ain’t got the time these days!
I totally hear you about recognizing the dude behind the hand sanitizer guy.
I think BK took the RV guys for a ride when he sold and has been doing it ever since…can’t just turn off the SEO juice after all these years…I guess they could find a gal to be ThePointsGal lol.
Still, some of the numbers are insane, so many newbies out there. Lets see how long the virus disruption goes…and lets see what happens with them when apps go down and they show all the burning in the income statement from the binging on staff/benefits/cocaine etc. 🙂
I usually skip the first paragraph but the comments had me curious – made me smile.
Great articles in the past few weeks, really appreciate the sober, facts- oriented corona articles.
Still trying to figure out the correct balance in how much to hermit myself. I live in urban environment on a street that has restaurant after restaurant suffering, coffee shop after coffee shop with 2 people in them. So many won’t survive this. Am I helping when I buy a coffee (with a tip as big as the coffee) and sit in a coffee shop 6 (nay 10) feet from another customer? Or when I dine in a nearly empty restaurant? Or am i contributing to the problem (I do have to interact with the cashier, the barista, the waiter etc). I know the key to flattening the curve is lowering both the number of our contacts and the intensity of our contacts but not convinced the first should be 0.
In any case keep the great articles coming.
Buy to go. Or be like TBB, use DoorDash with the amazing CSR!!!!
The airline industry, employing 500k, wants $50B while having spent 95% of their cash flow in stock buy backs. Restaurants/hotels employ 25M…. the local shop won’t get much.
Heard on Twitter:
“Why is it that individuals are expected to save 3 months expenses + an emergency fund to survive loss of income but giant businesses can’t seem to survive this without billions from the government?“
What happened to the tea party?
I would suggest buy a gift card online from the local businesses you want to support and stay inside. Just bought from one from my local running store, I think I am going to do one local store per day from now on.
Make it 0. If we all make it zero it would have a strong impact on the medical personnel and of course to the care they will be able to deliver. In other words, save lives. I don’t want to paste here what my MD client is saying, I scared you guys enough.
Thank you…thinking to do another corona post tomorrow, I have enough again, wow.
Remember why you first started this blog >>> “Why do I keep going on here when so many others have quit and moved on? It is not the conversions (just four month to date)…Enjoy my blog while it lasts, thank you.”
I do, this is why I am still here 🙂
This is like my own giving back to the world, trying to make it a better place.
If I was at TPG I would count my Benjamins and would have enough cocaine but…I digress lol.
Enjoy it while it lasts…and soon RIP Wednesday posts.
I think you would be the guy having to buy cocaine for the Big Dog and you’ld be scared to drop the soap bar in the shower.
It is starting
“ MARRIOTT STARTING TO FURLOUGH TENS OF THOUSANDS OF EMPLOYEES — MARRIOTT”
March/April unemployment number will be awful. Thanks Trump for not delivering on the Tests.
Buzz-
I was all set to apply for that UA Explorer card. Cleaned up my credit lines and everything.
Then I asked myself: If UA can’t even refund the flights it is cancelling, what are those MP miles going to be worth after the bankruptcy filing? So I’m going to use that last Chase slot I have to get URs. UA may not make it but Chase will, whatever ‘making it’ winds up meaning.
So hold off judging Wednesdays and conversions. Things can change-hell, Trump just figured out that cases are not going to zero soon, so anything can happen.
I have a question: If Trump knew this was a pandemic weeks ago as he now says, why did he ignore it?
He rated himself 10 out of 10 how he has handled the matter. I can’t believe anyone believe this lying pos. Maybe Ramsey is embarrassed to admit it? We know MU would rather pivot again to sleepy Joe and crazy Bernie
I need to blame someone for my troubles. Wait til my dementia is in full view during the summer months of the campaign. I’ll make Hillarys inability to stand up looks like Bernies mild heart attack