I am still here doing my thing! Maybe I am a natural in this blogging thing afterall? Well, let’s talk again early next year with tax season in full force okay?
It was a very busy day, lots of good stuff so let’s get started!
QUESTION OF THE DAY: Do you really have a therapist?
Wouldn’t you like to know? Can you repeat the question please? Ahh, ONE question, that’s it!
BEST OF
The big news of the day was the new American Airlines pricing “scheme” they unleashed, excuse me, unveiled to all of us. Gary Leff wrote the best blog post on this and you can read it here. I don’t know much about this stuff to comment accordingly. Just a few things that came to me when I was reading this: Wow, this is pretty innovative in the industry. Maybe this bundling thing becomes the norm. Then I thought about it some more…And I am wondering what a giant mess the merger with US Air will be! Anyways, maybe others will copy AA, stay tuned!
The other big news of the day was Starwood’s first quarter promo. It appears like every blogger had to post about this of course. Since all we do all day long is read other blogs it felt like we were being punched over and over again. Actually, it provided a little change to the monotony of being bombarded with affiliate credit card app links so we welcomed it:-) We are ready for Round 2 of being punched to death about this when the official Starwood promo announcement comes and it is time to…drumroll, register for it, woohoo!
And what a doll the actress featured in the promo is, she can ping us anytime!!
All day long Ben teased us on Twitter with his pics and colorful commentary about his flight on Emirates First Class. You can catch a short glimpse at his report here. We all can not wait for the full report, wow! If this dude is impressed after flying so many times in First Class it must really be a life altering experience! I must admit his reports were getting stale But THIS is truly exciting! I am going to dream about it tonight for sure. Tweeps are telling me that buying an Emirates F ticket in Colombo, Sri Lanka may be the best way to try this instead of burning gazillions of miles! I think I have seen some blogs about this recently…
And Ben’s commentary is hilarious too. Good comeback after back to back days in the slammer Mr. Lifestyle expert suggesting to burn AMEX MR pts for headphones & jackets. Ok, waiting for the full report to forgive you of that horrible and inexcusable sin! 🙂
Frequent Flier Rewards: Change is in the Air From the USA Today. I think the switch to revenue based reward programs is a matter of time. I agree with Randy Petersen on this one, sorry Gary Leff! You can get all emotional about it as you want but I am sensing the nice ride flying up front for peanuts is almost over. Oh so I hope I am wrong!!!
Great pics of an amazing site, the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. I would love to visit this place one day. Not the easiest place to get to. Maybe we can have a DO meeting there, huh!
More pics from a Google search, wow!
I thought that this promotional video was funny. I think it was funnier because of the…airline, El Al! I just did not expect them to have this type of attitude, very nice! Please, for crying out loud, this is NOT how to get upgrades!
Airline liquor bottles to be Replaced with Robot Bartender. Oh noooooooo! Then again, I am sure there will be threads in FlyerTalk and Milepoint about how to circumvent the robot and trick it to dispense unlimited drinks!
Ok, Million Mile Secrets wrote “How to Fill Out a Chase Business Card Application“. It is so good that even a Cave man can do it! Do not forget, I repeat, do NOT forget to click on the box to agree to the terms & conditions and THEN hit the Submit button. Got it?
NOT SO BEST OF
I have been accused of favoring certain bloggers over others. Hey, I am not perfect even though the motto in my life is to live like that Lexus slogan “The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection” which I think remains one of the best tag lines ever invented. When I saw this headline I almost choked:
I am so used to be assaulted by affiliate credit card app links all day long and the ingenuity to come up with ever so many clever reasons to slip in yet another such link! But taking it to this level is pretty darn low! No, I am not done yet, there is more! Ok, you expect the usual Chase and AMEX credit cards to show up here like everywhere else. But at the end we are served with, please sit down, the Christian Community Credit Union Platinum Rewards Visa. EXCUSE ME, WTF!! Well, at least it has a small signing bonus and then the ultimate insult…the Discover Card. Wow, take it easy dude, I think you really stretched to hit 12! And you are welcome for the hits. All veteran bloggers say to me there is no such thing as bad PR, lol.
Maybe this does not belong here as I am kind of enjoying the trip reports from the French Polynesia/Tahiti islands and seeing places where we had good memories from from our trip back in 2004. But I need to make fun of some comments about the reports. Here we have installment Number 29 of the Daraius & Emily 2nd honeymoon.
First comment on MMS post above: “Longest.Trip. Report. Ever.” – Lol!
My reader’s comment: “Our 2nd honeymoon part 4,206: The Pepsi at the bar was a little flat” – Lol continuously!
ODDZ & ENDZ
I must, I must, I must see this movie when it comes out “Chasing Ice”
The title of this article “After spending $150k on Law School, Recent Grads may Become Bloggers” had us laughing all the way to the bank, poorhouse!!
I just reached the saddest point of my life, according to this article! Thats’ just great…I can only move up from here. To infinity and beyond!
THE END
If you like what you read here, please pass on the link to my blog to family, friends and pets too!
You can follow me on Twitter @FlyerTalkerinA2
You can find me as gpapadop in FlyerTalk and Milepoint. Yeah, I know, not too much great thinking went behind this handle naming thing!
I would love to read your comments below, feel free to give me a shout, a whataboy or an insult. Please make insults colorful and original. Of course I love to answer your questions, anything goes, don’t be shy! And thank you for clicking my credit card links, I sure appreciate it….LOL!
Couple of points: That photo is from Singapore airlines. And it’s Colombo, Sri Lanka, not Columbus. 🙂
Yes, thank you, fixed now!
“the Discover Card. Wow, take it easy dude”
If could please tell a card that gives 10 or 15% cash back regularly (sometimes even more, if you redeem for gift card that gives you a $100 gift card – that can be sold for ~$80 at cardpool – for 30 or 40 discover dollars) like the Discover we’d all be very happy to hear about it.
While I didn’t specify it in my “Pepsi was a little flat” comment, I’m sure it goes without saying the the trip report post contained 412 pictures of the Pepsi in question, all but 3 of them involving Emily holding it
Bluebird
I admit I was a bit harsh on the Discover Card!
I believe the massive MMS trip report may be over at last!
TBB, I finally understand why we are getting the play-by-play on MMS’s honeymoon! My guess is that this honeymoon can be a tax write-off.
No one can argue that he has not done a thorough job of documenting the trip and having it help drive traffic to his blog! (
Let’s all give a silent thanks that there are no pay toilets on the island or, for tax purposes, we may get a review of those too. 🙂
Part 410,912: Hailing a taxi to get to the airport
Tax deductibility of travel expenses was a major factor in me deciding to enter the world of bloggers. Up to now I am a total fail on the revenues part of the equation:-)
I believe, if I remember correctly, they were pay toilets at the ferry stations. Yes, prices were high!
>>>>>>>Part 410,912: Hailing a taxi to get to the airport – Lol, you are killing me!
Milevalue had an excellent post on how to get to Hawaii for 20K miles
If similar instances in the past are any indication (i.e. Lucky finding out about the 25k round trip to Dublin with Avios, FM and Vanilla Reloads), I expect within 2 weeks the entire blog-o-sphere will post about it as if it was common knowledge that they’ve known all along and pass it off as something they came up with themselves
In TPG’s case, don’t even expect the 2 week window. He’s not one to give a 2 week buffer before ceasing to H/T someone else’s work
Part 591,142,903: “At the LAX Duty Free. Hehe… duty”
I read the Milevalue piece. Good but still a bit limited applicability to get those miles…I decided against indluding it.
I know what you are saying. This is the way it is now. Way too many blogs, too little original content, and just passing along aff credit links all the time…Kind of sad.
As I said, TPG’s turn is coming I am sure…They are all my targets, lol.
>>>>> 591,142,903: “At the LAX Duty Free. Hehe… duty” – Stop it, can’t take it anymoreL:-)
Couple things on the credit card post – I don’t make anything off of the links. Not at the moment anyway.
-It was meant to be a general list, to include more than just the rewards. There were others I left on the list. As I said, I believe in giving back, and have a friend who uses the CCCU card. Some folks plug Kiva, I thought I would be generous and plug another caring company. AND, I NEVER claimed it was good for aspirational awards, and even mentioned I almost left if off of the list.
-And not everyone is crazy about miles. Some folks (good or bad) care about cash back. If that’s your aim, you might as well go with Discover.
-Thanks for the free marketing!
In addition, I thought it would be fun to do a 12-point post for 12-12-12
@Field of Burch: Thanks for not threatening my physical safety, lol. And you ‘re welcome for the free PR:-) Are you saying that ALL of your cc links are NOT affiliate links? The Hyatt and United card links sure look like affiliate links with them number/letters in them??? If those ARE generic links…how can we, the common people, figure it out or differentiate?? That is why the disclosure should be somewhere in the body of the post and not buried in the website somewhere where nobody will read it. Thinking out loud…
@George,
(Sorry to appear impersonal, it asked for my site, but I couldn’t edit the name)
None of my links are intended to be affiliate links, as my blog traffic has been too low to be given any affiliate links. That said, I did find some of the links by Googling them, so maybe that is why they appear to be affiliate links. Anyway, if they are affiliate links, I do not earn anything from them. In the future, I will be more careful with my links.
Yes, I considered adding the disclaimer, but it appears so rapidly on blogs that I would leave it out. Guess it would help. I’m always open to constructive criticism.
And I guess it was great PR–My traffic was a little higher yesterday, and a quarter of it came from your site! Anyway, thanks for the clarification.
Bryce
Bryce:
Thanks for the clarifications too. Pleeeease no Disney card now, lol.
I’ll try not to push the Disney card, though I am ignorant on the details.
And I should have made it apparent that on the last 2 I was shooting for something a little different.