I had a pretty good weekend in New York City. I finally met in person Kathy of Will Run for Miles and we had a wonderful chat eating salads at the Whole Foods in Union Square. It is amazing how much you get to know a person online and when you actually meet it is like, well, you actually know them! If she ends up winning a contest in the next few days like Angelina the other day…well, then I am posting my luch schedule for bids and I go to the highest bidder…for charity of course, lol.
Flying back to Detroit today and getting ready for New Years Eve and the barrage of quarter/year end work coming at me. I will try to keep up the quality of the blog of course but…it may be awfully hard in the next couple of weeks! Please be kind and gentle!
BEST OF
A must bookmark list from a myfico forum of all the “Backdoor Numbers” of banks and other providers!
All the Frequent Traveler University presentation slides are all here in this Milepoint page!
Pointschaser has a post about how to get “Free Miles at Macys“. Interesting. You work it out with your conscience! If it works, it probably won’t last long now. I was in a Macys store last year! It was an okay experience, my few shopping mall expeditions are usually very painful and traumatic experiences!
Loyalty Lobby has a thorough post explaining all about the Marriott Elite Guarantees. If you are a Marriott Elite it is a must read. Review this if you decide to go for a Platinum Challenge.
Live from a Lounge shows how you can get SkyTeam Elite Plus through Aerolineas. And Gary Leff shows how ST Elite Plus is not that big of a deal! Of course the first one on this Aerolineas angle was Hack my Trip.
An excellent (or is it creepy?) ad about Virgin Atlantic flight attendants who are superhuman!
It looks like we are a little bit closer to the US Airways and AA merger as the AA pilots approving the transition agreement.
This is a video from a car from the Moscow airplane crash over the weekend! So unbelievably lucky to survive!
Points Summary wrote about his “Top 5 Travel Essentials“. He proudly declares to be Durex user. Jamison, you ignorant slut, lol.
Ok, we like quirky stories a lot here! Jamison above had the guts to write about how he never leaves home without his Durex (am sure along with his Amex) “card”. And Michael W. had the presence of mind to stop and take pics of a very odd piece of “luggage” being checked onto a Southwest flight (hey, no fees!): Two 50 lbs dumbbells! And they weighed 52 lbs each, WTF!!!
MEGA CHRIS ELLIOTT RANT!
Special mention of this mega Chris Elliott rant titled “That’s Ridiculous! A Fond Farewell to the Jerks that Make Travel Intolerable“. HT to Amol at PointstoPointsB for bringing this to my atention! Actually, I agree with some of his accusations! I am pasting below the true gems (my bold font for emphasis):
But how does that explain the childish behavior of the entitled elites — you know, the ones who lurk on sites like Flyertalk or one of the mileage blogs littered with scammy affiliate links? Opposite problem there: Like the children of dictators, these super-platinum elites are given everything that the travel companies took away from us, the longsuffering passengers in the back of the aircraft.
While we have no room to move in the back, they complain when their lie-flat sleeper seat doesn’t recline all the way. They’re told, “You’re more special than everyone else, you should expect the world.” The result is a cabin full of spoiled babies who fire off complaint letters to their airline when the Chardonnay isn’t chilled to the right temperature.
They believe they are God’s gift to travel, but they are not. They are jerks.
For what is worth, this is the final article CE writes for Frommer’s!
NOT SO BEST OF
Delta Points churns inferior US Air card offer for his wife. What else can we write about how much we do not agree with this type of advice. For the 100th time, the non affiliate US Air credit card offer with no annual fee for the first year AND 10k at anniversary (actually more than a month before the annual fee hits!!) remains a superior offer!
The Points Guy answers a reader’s question when to cancel a credit card. Of course we get the obligatory Ink card links along with the Sapphire Preferred Visa link. And no disclosure that there is a financial relationship if readers apply and get approved for these cards. Ok, I get it now, have seen this so many times. But then TPG states “the Mastercard version of the card, which no longer seems to be around for the moment.” Really? Did we even try at all to track down the SP Mastercard as it pays no commissions? It is THERE at the Mastercard site, you just need to drill down to the Reward & Cash Back/Travel Rewards cards and is right there on top! Personal note: Had the SP Visa, canceled, waited 5.5 months, applied ON Mastercard website, got SP MC, got BOTH signing bonuses #winning.
ODDZ & ENDZ
If you ever wanted to learn about Scientology, this is the article that started it all. VERY long!
Excellent summary! I think I have a trip to Macy’s planned……
Thanks! And Happy New Year to you!
Happy New Year!!! I was worried because you “no longer seem to be around for the moment” , but then I realized you take a day off every so often…..LOL
I have only just now started to take Saturdays off and not posting on Sunday. I need a break believe me!
Nice summary as usual. Amazing how the bloggers rehash the same info – like Gary taking the Aerolinas Argentinas info from Hack My Trip (at least he “hat tipped” the source).
Happy New Year!
There are so many blogs now that original content is getting more rare!
TBB Happy New Year! I hope your blog continues to be affiliate free, and holding blogs such as Delta Points, MMA and TPG accountable for the pimping. As well as holding MMA accountable for his latest trip report installment of Bora Bora “The deck on my overwater bungalow was creeky”