We learn how Delta Airlines rocks (not Skymiles of course), register for mega crappy Marriott Megabonus, learn how the Amex Platinum card is not as awesome as some bloggers tell pump us, a disturbing trend in American MileSAAver Awards, give our independent seal of approval for the Loungebuddy app, travel to Havana before it is over run by hordes of American tourists, shake our heads in the latest list of missing luggage offenders and we can lose our heads in the most homicidal countries if we are not careful.
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Reviewing 2014 Operational Performance: Delta is the Undisputed Heavyweight Champion – The Cranky Flier Making loyalty program an afterthought in exchange for running an airline the right way. This sucks…for us miles addicts!
Register for Marriott’s Megabonus promotion HERE. Click on Sign In at top right. These promos are getting pretty pathetic lately!
The Amex Platinum! Now Improved! But Not Really! – Travel Codex Pretty good read by Devil’s Advocate. Bloggers who pump their readers to apply for the affiliate Amex Platiunum offers for just 25k or 40k Membership Reward points is beyond pathetic! And the ones who won’t tell you how to get targeted for 100k SUCK!
Has American stopped releasing MileSAAver Business Class awards to Europe? – Milecards Some good info here. Such as: “AAdvantage miles are now without question the worst miles among U.S. carriers for getting to Europe in Business or First Class at a reasonable price” and “But really if Europe in Business Class is your goal, it’s time to dump your loyalty to American.” Blog post ends showing where AA miles still have good value. Yes this site sells credit cards. But sure tries to provide original content and does not pump you to..oblivion!
PSA – Do Not Be a Tool! Do NOT Reward Pumping With Your Clicks!
I really like using the app Loungebuddy. No I was not bribed or given “credits” to give away to readers to say that. Not saying other bloggers did that. I am just saying that NOTHING was exchanged for me to say what I just said.
What Triggers The Ritz-Carlton $300 Annual Travel Credit? – Doctor of Credit Must read if you recently got the Ritz Carlton 140k credit card!
I see chatter that the online shopping portal cash back bonuses on Amex gift cards will cease as of December 19, 2014.
30 Stunning Photos Of Everyday Life In Havana
The 20 Most Homicidal Countries In The World Honduras, Venezuela and Jamaica are the top three.
Here are the US airlines most likely to lose your luggage – Quartz Nice job Envoy Air—>American Eagle!
The Best Retirement Calculators – Can I Retire Yet? Pretty good review of the calculators available.
Why America’s middle class is lost – The Washington Post Sobering article.
TBB team training to stay fit and vigilant against haters. You can tell who will be let go soon…
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Uno!
Dos?
Third… checking in with additional comment to follow :0
I find that the DOTs baggage handling report is a little misleading, because the mainline carriers are still responsible for most aspects of the regional’s operations. If you buy a ticket on UAX from ORD to DTW, your bag gets checked in with a UA employee and processed through UA’s sorter… and loaded by a UA ramp agent on a SkyWest/ExpressJet/TransStates/whichever UAX plane. Even in stations where the majors have outsourced their ground handling and regional operations, it isn’t like ExpressJet is doing the mishandling (except for those cases where the major has outsourced to the regional itself…) but even in those cases the ground handler is still likely handling a slew of other regional operators.
What would be much more useful is if the report said something like:
– United Airlines combined (United Airlines (mainline) and United Express: xxx passengers, xxx complaints
– United Airlines (mainline): xxx passengers, xxx complaints
– United Express: xxx passengers, xxx complaints
It would be nice to then parse out the flights of each regional operated under the major’s brand (United Express operated by SkyWest, etc.)
This type of granularity would help paint a clearer picture of who really has baggage issues although from this it appears that the answer is really American, given that they appear to be the worst major and as far as I know Envoy still operates primarily on behalf of American.
Excellent comment Hua. And I agree!
Regarding the declining middle class article: I wonder how much things are skewed by immigration? If you add millions of uneducated low-skill workers to the mix, that pushes down averages and results in a more lopsided distribution.
Excellent observation. I don’t know the answer to that, hope someone addresses it!
It probably has a small impact, but I don’t think one can blame the loss of living wages for unskilled professions on immigration. I think our economy has just shifted away from a manufacturing based economy where the undereducated could get a job with a living wage. We now live in a more knowledge based economy.
Manufacturing sure has made a comeback in the US lately too!
The Walton heirs collective net worth is roughly equal to the bottom 40-42% of all Americans combined. That’s about 130 million people’s combined net worth.
Well if you put it that way…sure is stunning. If they can only fix the Kate machines lol.
It seems to me the The Miles Professor has not been the same since TBB went toe to toe with her a couple of months ago, (around the timeshe retracted article you called her out on, SIMON I believe)( time she dropped out of PHXdo). Have you seen her site lately, hardly any work or useful content at all. Even MMS puts in more effort. Last thing written that I thought was good was her Ritz-Carlton 140k article. Does this have anything to do with the North Koreans, are they responsible? ………………………………………Here is my Bill Cosby TWA F/A story. 30 years ago The Cos among others use to be a regular on our JFK-LAS non stop. I never talked to him but I remember one trip, working my butt off in coach and having to run up to the cockpit for some reason and I saw my co worker f/a Sally Abel (cute blond, I’d do her) sitting in the Cos’ lap, her skirt riding high. He had a giant penis sized unlit cigar in his mouth and the 2 of them were laughing up a storm. I remember being pissed off as the rest of us were busting our ass while she was the extra and was screwing around instead of helping us…Sally was engaged at the time and when we got to Vegas she never met up with the rest of us as planned for a show that Caesars Palace comped for the crew. The next morning it was pretty obvious by her nervous laugh that she hooked up with him, drug free.
Came up to pump a card last week I think. Maybe real life got involved. I am amazed I am still doing this! Bill Cosby sounds like a slut!
Buzz you read the MMS interview. I thought you would enjoy it….
I started collecting miles in February of 2014.
coming up.
I am going to start collecting miles after I attend a seminar next month so I am starting this blog to tell friends and family all about it.
smh
Started collecting miles in 2014 is not the head scratcher. The real WTF moment – the guy started blogging a month later in f-ing March 2014!!! Buzz, not sure how you can keep defending affiliate links when it clearly leads to garbage like this.
I have stated my positions before about them links 🙂
About 2 months of me adding the cc tab and is about to surpass ALL TBB revenue combined year to date! It is simple economics and a fact of doing business online. Yes it leads to too many “experts” trying this out without really offering anything and probably harming people in the process (and themselves too by not focusing their time and energy elsewhere). I am trying to find that fine line to walk. I have given up being like them Titans.
We will be better off if the banks did not pay what they pay…no doubt! But as long as they are, expect more “I started earning miles yesterday and started blogging to tell friends and family all about it, click my links”.
What drives me nuts (some say angry) is the hideous non stop pumping…I need to find a therapist to help me with this lol.
I do have to hand it to Delta. I hadn’t flown them since CO left SkyTeam. But, twice this year I’ve been on a United or US Air flight with a DL flight also leaving about to same time to the same destination. Both times DL flights got out on time and I got stuck for another 4 hours. I quickly learned my lesson.
Yeah no doubt about it. They are running the airline so well that people are glad to fly them and could care less about the Skymiles. But, of course, since we really love them miles…we hate THAT. The flying experience with DL is fine.