We bring you a trip report showing Cuba sucks, check out supercar private clubs, laugh at the worst financial commercials, learn about the twin prime math hero, learn all about straddling aboard private jets, visit an abandoned prison in Tallinn and other inspiring places, continue the fallout from Southwest sticking it to the hackers responsibly, ask your help in helping a reader, learn about Korean surcharges along with an awesome comment by reader Brenton. Bottom line, you read stuff here you don’t find anywhere else and I am proud to keep this baby unique. Friends don’t let friends read The Points Guy…enemies on the other hand lol.
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
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I will try harder to stick with the more general stuff up front here so I don’t scare any new readers and leave the travel hacking related stuff for the Blog Buzz section near the end…
After posting that piece recently about how Cuba sucks, here is one of our own who went there on short notice and just hated it. I like it. I mean, the review! Cuba Is Actually A Terrible Place To Go. Some of the comments are…deranged…a little. These posts are probably awesome for Alexa blog rankings woohoo!
“You have to straddle me”. Sumner Redstone’s weird in-flight demands. Oh man, this was hilarious. That guy sounds like a giant douche bag, wow! What do you say reader former flight attendant Ramsey huh?
Supercar Private Clubs. Wow, the prices are, well, pricey! I am certain The Points Guy belongs to a few. You can get trip reports if you click on my links so I can afford one of these, we all can win, just do it click it them all lol. Which one is your favorite to unleash your beast?
The Twin Prime Hero. What a story, especially if you are into math. Like, a math geek type. This guy had just completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics, he could not get a job and had to work at Subway to make ends meet. All along never stopping to prove a theorem that was torturing mathematicians for over a century. And then life changed….Wow. Enjoy reading stuff like this instead of how a passenger misbehaved aboard a plane or how the plane hit severe turbulence or the amazing Chase _____ (fill in for higher sales commission) credit card.
Your personal finance fix today will involve laughing at 2016’s worst financial commercials. If you don’t laugh, I don’t want to judge of course, but…I mean, come on, seriously? Must click! The winning video and the commentary had me on the floor laughing hysterically! Now, if you believe anything in these commercials you probably idolize these blogs and you are here by accident, you are hopeless, please leave!
The World’s 25 Most Inspiring Places To Visit. Some excellent photos here, we have seen these places mentioned before…(Photo HT)
I posted a picture of a prison in Tallinn some time ago and a reader let me know of his blog post visiting it #winning [Well, I had a nice picture to appear here but it is not working, boo!].
BLOG BUZZ
In 2017 It’s Southwest 1 Travel Hackers 0. PointsCentric nails it. Again. First blog candidate to be added to the Blogs I Like list. I should have done it some time ago but you know I move SLOW!
Fuel Surcharges on Korean’s SkyTeam Partners. Good stuff to know. I am afraid I move some points here and then Bang! #devaluation
Reader Peteco’s questions, any input?
Is there any flight deal search tool where you can set an automatic notice if there’s a price drop in a period of time? I have used google flights , but you can only set alarms for specific flights. If I wanna, say, a cheap flight from A to B in May, not sure how to approach it. I just check every few days through Ita or Google flights, but there has to be a better way.
Is there any rule for Amex applications, similar to Citi’s 2/65? Read somewhere once every 90 days, but there’s conflicting info about that.
Reader Brenton had a great comment which I am in full agreement. If I was not in full agreement, it would not be a great comment hehe:
I had my companion pass for almost 2 years after the last 140k bonus from the Ritz card. (Still haven’t found a use for the hotel nights) But have never had either of the southwest cards.
1. I saw a lot of comments about losing respect for southwest because of no notice. I disagree, and I respect them more for calling it out as a loophole.
2. Lots of commenters claiming that bloggers didn’t ruin this deal. Who are these people? Anyone paying attention knew from the first post about transferring 90k spg to Marriott that the deal was doomed.
3. And people are pissed off because they planned on doing it sometime this week and are now left with useless Marriott points. I’ll gladly take them and use them for Alaska or United miles. They could’ve done the deal a week ago and had the companion pass for a full year, but they had to be greedy. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered.
RIP companion pass. If only we could hold a trial for your murder.
And I leave you with this…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
TBB
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Per GringoLoco, this was a place holder for ScottCastle. LOL!
Second but why no comment GringoLoco?
Yeah, I’ve been wondering since the Marriott/SPG merger when the whole Marriott vacation package deal will go south. Got myself two of them already, one for United (since I cannot get Sapphire Reserve anytime soon, or United card for that matter), and one during the recent Aeroplan bonus for hotel point transfers. Had the Companion. Pass a few years ago when my son was at a college town with a good Southwest connection. Feel badly for those who were about to get the pass via this method, but if you had been watching the space at all for years this had to be a place of vulnerability. Don’t see the packages lasting forever either. Get one soon if you care.
in re: your comment above, it is just a placeholder for ScottCastle. I figure when Buzz gets the big $$$ buyout and cuts in ScottCastle, some crumbs will fall to me!
As to the comment below, the MC packages have always been a too good of a deal.
What amuses me is the titans going nutso over the lack of warning — the very SAME bloggers who lament that loyalty programs are not “properly” rewarding loyalty!
I’ve always thought loyalty was a two-way street and the transfer to SPG to transfer to MC to transfer to WN to score FREEEEEEEEEEE travel shows zero loyalty to WN. Glad to see they put up a stop sign…
I agree with your comments. Readers can easily see why you comment here and not at MMS or Frugal Travel Guy sites 🙂
Third #localcelebrity
You are really first…but don’t tell Scott ok?
I already hired a singing telegram. They’ll show up at 4:29am tomorrow…
That Cuba story was interesting. My wife grew up under the Sandinistas in the 80s… I broached the idea of a Cuba trip with her but she has no interest whatsoever in visiting on the grounds that a trip would be more or like what was described in Travel Codex.
My “ex-aunt” (?) in Nicawawa was thrown into an F$LN re-education camp in 1985 for complaining about no toilet paper after waiting in a day-long line to get her “rations”. (see CCS today)
The day Somoza fell the first ~30 aircraft into MGA were from Cuba bringing guns, ammo, light armored vehicles and intelligence officers. Ask any Nica who lived through the ’80s what they though of the MINT and that evil f’ing dwarf Tomas Borge.
Jimmy Carter and the lame stream media in the US and Europe were sooooooo enamored with a revolution, they ignored the fact that the F$LN were educated in Moscow and trained in Havana.
I won’t visit Cuba until it is free again — and hope to piss on Fidel’s grave.
Sigh.
The current Greek Prime Minister was the only European head of state who went to Havana to attend Fidel’s funeral. Not only that but he gave a long eulogy. Basically, Fidel was this guy’s idol. And still is. He left Greece in the middle of an economic downturn that has gotten worse since he lied his way into office. A few weeks after he came back, he gave away 600 million to retirees without telling creditors. And then he blames them for all awful things that have happened to the country, he calls them the “oppressors” and all Greeks want is “to live with dignity” like Fidel. Phucking lunacy!
I remember watching the mayhem in the Managua streets on Greek TV as a kid…
UA MP Chase 50k is back! Any links in your cc.com portal? Should I rather wait for a 70k offer?
Just checked my links, as of 8.20 pm EST January 3, I only see 30k.
No idea if we will see 70k again! Judging how many millions this bank has lost due to CSR…I doubt it.
That prison in Estonia looks interesting and I had never heard of that one. There’s another one called Patarei, which is in the Tallinn city limits and I visited last summer. One of the most eerie places I’ve ever been to. Everything was left as it was when the prison closed in 2004. Was mighty interesting to say the least but our tour guide said the city was closing it to visitors this year because it’s too dangerous (was definitely decrepit and in need of repairs to keep it safe for visitors). Hopefully they figure out a way to keep it open because it was probably my favorite part of my visit to Tallinn. Worth googling if you have the time.
Cuba is somewhere on my long list below Dubai and I won’t be visiting. By the time they clean up their infrastructure the novelty will have worn off and/or prices will be through the roof is my guess. I’m sure it would be interesting but I don’t have the patience:)
Thanks for the comment about that other prison in Estonia, sounds interesting.
I feel the same about Cuba lately…
George, Loved the Sumner Redstone and the F/A story. He sounds like another Larry King.
To be honest here, I have done the same
UNBUCKLE the seat beat, OPEN the ZIPPER and even pulled down the pants for more than a few male passengers inflight.
Except in my cases it was usually for paraplegics that I carried on my back to the lavatory. Place them on the toilet, give them a minute and then carry them back to their seat.
This was before the Americans with Disabilities Act, when TWA was too cheap/broke to invest in in-aisle collapsible wheelchairs for the plane. With ADA they were force to by law to have them, my back was very thankful. Carrying 160 pounds of dead weight on your back is bad for your health.
Did you read how many millions two FAs got from this dude?
From all the paraplegics you helped, thank you!
Omg @ this thread… http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/american-express-membership-rewards/1812401-amex-platinum-marketing-sexist-stupid-something-else.html
So, entertaining!
Well, we all know that they’re definitely racist, calling it the “black card”… So sexist is an obvious next step.
I bookmarked the thread, will get to it when I can, thanks!
Tahsir should visit Dhaka sometime 😉
He should rebrand himself as Trip Reporter to places he ends up hating, he is entertaining
Nice looking lady in the picture with the car #wow
Fascinating Cuba report. And not the only negative or at least, underwhelming, Cuba TR I’ve seen. I’ve always romanticized Cuba – my mom & her parents visited back…well I’m too lazy to look up the dates but it was just before we (USA & Cuba) got all pissy with one another…they always talked up how much they loved it – of course that was decades ago! There is a set of maracas my mom picked up as souvenirs back then, still on a bookshelf in my parents’ house.
Anyway sounds like the “time warp” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Not saying I wouldn’t visit at some point, but I think it’s much lower on my list.
Yeah, me too, much lower. Emphasis on “much”.
CSR, it was never meant to be.
So sad
946,158,697 fucks had been given (shared/commented/published in a blog or news article) in 2016. The biggest day for fucks given was November 9!
https://medium.com/@PaulStollery/all-of-the-fucks-given-online-in-2016-58c60edd6e44#.rjo1f5jgn
Fvck Yea, it was a great Fvcking day
I believe there were many F’s that day from Hillary towards her Campaign Advisers and Pollsters. Probably more F’s at her cheating, charity siphoning husband too.
and Huma and Carlos Danger…..what a pair of dummies
Phucking A, that is a lot Fvcks!
Apologies to all, have not had time to reply to comments today!
Super busy with annual/quarter end work and then made the huge mistake to say yes to daughter’s request for sleepover at our home. Well, having four 14 year old girls wake you up because they decided to make pancakes at 3.30 am…. #pain
I hit the quota for December, thanks Brenton for that Alaska card, it was credited for December!
And started with a Citi AA card for January…it is only January 3rd wow! Ingy is so jealous right now and TPG is shaking from fear lol.
In the Amazon front, had a return so that 92 cents became 32 cents so far in January woohoo.
Anyways, I have some amazing stuff for you tomorrow. More sex robots, bunkers and stuff like that!
Oh, brace for the mega CSR pumping orgy…TPG is already out of control #YUGE
Glad you got to 10. I love the idea of you working for minimum wage. Seems about right based on the amount original content provided 😉
No jealousy here. Kicking back in the 70 degree weather and laughing at whats left of the hobby for old timers. Got out just in time
Ingy and TBB make such a cute couple…
I thought Christmas was over? Why’s Ingy, Ghost of Christmas Past, hanging around still?
Because I want him to keep earning that minimum wage. Come on “The Basement Boys”, get him 10 more in January
I had suggested to him to allow our faces to be attacked with pies for charity at the Chicago Seminars but he never got back to me. So much for charity 🙂
To all: Ingy is the former founder of Frugal Travel Guy who sold way too soon and had predicted my blog will last just 3 months. And here I am 4 years and 2 months later…
Thank you Ingy for helping my Alexa rankings you only checked. Can you give me an update? You know how I much care for them!
Thank you for your kind words. Reader feedback is so important to me. More than doubled the blog revenue from year ago while having a BLAST. Would I still be doing it even if it brought only Amazon (after JetBlue) dinero? Probably. For over four years and counting…Don’t know but the little money that it brings in allows me to burn on some experiences (Iran, Auto Show Private Event this weekend, and many wonderful dinners with Mrs. TBB) so thank YOU for your dedication and your enjoyment reading my blog every day!
“Got out just in time”: Mega LOLs!!!!!!!!! Compared to the multiples TPG and MMS got, what you got was a rounding error. If only you had managed to keep going for another year or two…Oh well. Money is important to you. You quit way too soon and ALL know that. And now you are trying to stay relevant by…commenting on a blog you hate. Sad.
Happy New Year to you. I wish you the best. Really. Stick around. Much more fun stuff here than the sea of crap this space has become.
Cheers
George, you still sound so angry?????? Just to correct your comment, I got the same multiple as TPG and MMS just a smaller readership. You understand that concept smaller readership don’t you. If I wanted to stay relevant in the space, I’d comment on blogs that had readers, not the 300 or so of faithful that follow here.
Lets do the math. 300 readers, 10 applications received per month. Why your crowd is supporting you with an application once every 2 1/2 years per readere !!!!!!!! Go ahead, assume you have more readers. Then that indicates they support you less often then that. Or maybe my assumption that your readers have less than acceptable credit just might be spot on
I realized the day the younger crowd got their links, that I did not want to and could not compete with Twitter, Snapchat, FB and all that crap. I took mine glady and ran. It was a young man’s game and glad I was smart enough to see it. I could of, of course taken your approach of waiting until the player were set in place and then started a complaining blog like you.
I liked my plan better. Got out while ahead instead of copy, paste and whine for minimum wage.
Love the GIF of the Day. Amazed your still whining about others success going on five years now.
So Sad
https://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2/status/816642455785406464
Amazing how deranged you sound after all these years being jealous my blog is still alive doing better than ever and, most importantly, having a BLAST doing it.
You left SOOOOOOOO much money on the table is, well, tragic and everyone knows it. Except you. Which is typical.
Thanks for the bump in Alexa rankings amigo. YOU are part of the entertainment around here, please stop by more often!
I stop to make sure you make your 10 apps George and see the gif. If retiring with a big enough payday to support my family and kids for the next 2 generations is leaving it on the table well so be it. Let’s make a deal : you keep copying, pasting and whining and I’ll show up often enough to embarrass “the basement boys” into clicking your links and you knocking down that minimum wage 😉
“It’s all about conversions” you told me some time ago.
You left SO MANY to TPG and MMS because you quit WAY too soon.
Now, to stay relevant, you make nasty comments in a blog you hate.
So so sad.
Again, thanks for the entertainment you provide. Entertainment is in the blog mission by the way. Conversions never were, every single one is a cherry on the cake.
We know you read every day. Hope you enjoyed Hawaii. It’s always better when you read TBB, I mean, would you read FTG these days lol #soboring
Basement boys
#classicingy
I know you sold out long before ftg’s prime And you’re still bitter, but my God that site got horrible the more I read everything else on the internet. It was the first to get knocked of my list.
“Sobering” is with an “e” I gotta start getting a piece of your action for all my help. Reading your replies is like listening to Hilary’s campaign talk about WS, PA and MI. I left thousands of conversions to Brian, daraius, summer, Ben and others. You see George, I had all I needed 😉 . As for my everyday reads in the travel space it’s D o C , Reddit churn and award wallet. Email subscription to FM. And I must admit I look at TBB as well not for news, but the GIF and the whine. And lastly to make sure you keep that thing going.
I don’t know if you think I’m George, but I’m not, just happen to agree with him on most topics in travel hacking. But, they say the mind is first to go when you no longer have a purpose in life.
Ingy, if you’re going to try and correct people’s grammar/spelling, physician heal thyself!
For example, WS is not the abbreviation for Wisconsin, you are missing many commas.
But as always, I hope your conversions are allowing you to get the help you need.
Cuba doesn’t suck. The problem is people visiting Cuba last minute, not doing much planning and not getting out of Havana. My .02¢. (We visited with our then almost 4 y.o. son a year back, flew on the inaugural Air China flight from Montreal.)
Yeah, I shook my head on that last minute prep, obviously not enough. But, other than the novelty factor, this destination is just not as high on the list with so many more places to go…
Cuba is a dump run by the crookedestest of Dictators in the Carrib. I dont begrudge anyone else for heading there but go with those peepers wide open. Its certainly an eye opener.
Cuba is more than a novelty and somewhere that I’m happy to have visited but I totally hear ya. There are so many amazing places to go and it isn’t for everyone. I don’t know how much you’ve traveled but Cuba should be on your list.
OK since you forced me to backtrack one day, I just want to comment that I hear the women in Cuba are friendly and warm.
Very, I meant to say.
The FTG owners did not want Ingy around, they got tired of him phoning posts in and reading his deranged rants here at TBB.
Howie took his credit card pump “expertise” at Award Wallet, watch that site go down too, see price increase!
The link to your KLM magazine today is amazing, thanks TBB
Deep Throat
So, it looks like Ingy has stopped reading his disciple Rene then. Maybe there is HOPE…lol.
I wanted to post because of the nasty comments above. I love this blog and very much enjoy the content you provide. I feel like it is something that the “bigger” guys just don’t do. You provide interesting, if snarky, commentary, but I really like that. You are not always focused on the best valuation, but, rather, on the trips that you and your family take which may sometimes be in *gasp* economy.
Please continue to post and I will continue to read and enjoy your blog.
Ingy wrote: ” If retiring with a big enough payday to support my family and kids for the next 2 generations is leaving it on the table well so be it. ”
I believe he grossed about $1M for that business. Not sure what they came out to net, after lawyer, etc., and what his obligations were for the following months or even if he got paid for that. I used to have the link to the contract somewhere but Google can’t help me find it.
Anyways, not to sound elitist or anything, but $1M will NOT set your family up for the next 2 generations, unless you (1) have only a couple of grandkids or (2) force them to live in a condo in the deep south somewheres. A million don’t go that far anymore.
If you ever find that link, email me por favor!
Your comment about the deep south had me rolling. Well played #respect
IIRC, it was on a contracts data base. Thought I kept a link to it, for laughs sakes, but I can’t find it now. Ingy may be baited into giving up a link….hey, baiting works so easily against Trump and I see a lot of parallels between those two (“Lying George” sounds a lot like “Lyin’ Ted”, eh?)
😉