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| St. Regis, Bali (see link below) |
Lack of sleep was getting to me at around 10 pm. Then I said I need to finish the blog post and headed down to my home office. This will be a really short post as I am tired and have my reasons for not being so thorough calling out bloggers for, well, not so best of type posts!
This has always been a hobby for me. I love the thrill of the game! I tried to kick the habit but gave up. I got more Vanilla today at my local drug store, trying to squeeze 6x with my HiltonAmex just a little more before it goes away! I intend to dial this baby down after February 9th. Tax season is almost here now and my new gig at a prominent publication (no, not Inside Flyer lol) takes some time and I must step up my game so I don’t look like a fool among a bunch of experts surrounding me! I will still blog here, I just have no clue what the final end product will look like. It will not be what you were accustomed to, I simply do not have the time to pull it off, I must focus on what brings food to my family’s table.
A reader commented: “…you’ve done more for the FF community in 3 months than FTG has done in the past 2 years” And that really means so much to me, especially the first part! Let’s give FTG some deserved credit here please. The several years before the last two and the several before he started the blog! He truly has contributed so much to the FF community, a lot more than I can ever dream of!
I just have a few more of these Buzz posts to declare my 3 month goal accomplished! And I am not going away…Bloggers: I will still be watching you:-)
BEST OF MILES/POINTS
So, that is what Crossover Rewards was! One View from the Wing tells us more on this new tie up of Delta and Starwood. I was surprised by this. Yes, quite innovative. Difference maker? Not at all. If I was Starwood Platinum…maybe. Let’s all please wait for the full details, you know, the devil is usually buried in them. And we are dealing with Delta here, let’s not forget that! Could AMEX be behind all this? Hmm, some food for thought.
Any guesses for the AA-US merged airline name? American Airways is my guess!
BEST OF TRAVEL
One of the most stunning videos I have seen! Aurora Borealis, Iceland. Seen at Gadling first.
Point me to the Plane has amazing pics of a trip report to the St. Regis in Bali.
As this was going to press, I saw this trip report at BehindTheCockpit from Fairmont Banff Springs! Oh shoot, I still need to book my award flights for this trip in the summer!
NOT SO BEST OF
Pics from inside a Colombian prison from Matador.
Ok…it is only 12. 45, two hours earlier, hooray!
Gotta love FTG’s churning challenge
“ITINERARY OVERVIEW: Leave the continental U.S. on October 27, arriving in Amsterdam on the 28”
So he’s already found award space for them that day? Even though they won’t have their miles for another few months? Does he even know what airport they’re flying out of?
And how did he arrive at a “value” of $5317? (the FTG definition of value, not the real world definition)
The lowest flex rate for the Pulitzer those 5 nights came out to $2486 ($2100 for prepaid) – 2 roundtrip tickets to AMS in October cost $1500 each?
I would ask him how he got to that number on his blog, but he doesn’t answer these questions
I think you should take over my blog, you are perfect;-)
How about a redesign like “TravelBloggerBuzz-Weekly Recap” and post once a week. That way you could 1. Have a personal life, 2. Have a professional life, and 3. Keep your fans happy and remain the ombudsman of the blog-o-sphere. A win-win-win.
Yes once a week I am going for, makes most sense for now. I will explain my thoughts in my blog shortly. Thanks!
What PatMike said. I think you’re a welcome voice in the FF community, and most wouldn’t want you to stop blogging. Congrats, and best of luck on the new gig!
Thank you very much, you are very kind. I think I will forever be part of this community, a bunch of crazies like me:-)
LOL, FTG is getting ripped on another entire post dedicated to whining. Hope you get to see this before the comments are censored
Does he go a single week now without a post created solely for whining about other people whining?
Yes I saw the comments. I was very surprised they were not deleted. Another sign of why TBB has made an impact;-)
This afternoon TPG cribbing from Lucky and Gary on what a merger would look like for US/AA!
Another day, another post he makes 2 weeks after everybody else
I am not saying anything:-)
What gets me with TPG is that he is the most successful (in commercial terms) of all bloggers and he does have STAFF. They should be all over this stuff breaking the news for us all. Instead, consistently behind! What do they do all day, working on the cc links and SEO optimizations?
He makes the most money (he’s the biggest cc pimp of all) but doesn’t actually have the most traffic. He also spends the most by far. So when the music stops on all this cc income his empire may fall.
Post of the day so far probably Gary’s suggestions on how to make sure you actually have a ticket when you book an award. TPG should have cribbed this post before he tried to check in with Swiss and got denied!
Maybe Gary should write up a post on check-in rules by airline, that way TPG won’t get screwed by RyanAir again for his own incompetence
Just make sure Gary writes it at least 2 weeks before TPG’s trip, or TPG won’t see it in time!
You are killing, you sure don’t want to take over my blog? 🙂 Actually, I better check on that UA award I have for wife and daughter in a week!!
And the ever-brilliant FTG this afternoon links to LoyaltyLobby’s older (pre-announcement and incomplete) post on Crossover Rewards, rather than any of the umpteen bagillion posts from today outlining the correct details of the program. The grizzly angry-hater just phonin’ it in. 🙁
You are one of the angries for sure:-)
DP is link-stuffing again. Talking about how to get 100 skymiles and mentions a couple of cards (complete with links) but then goes on to say that you won’t get the miles as fast as you need. Then why even mention them in the first place? Cha-ching
Almost threw up again…Oh I am going to miss letting off steam here:-)
Dans Deals as usual has good though recycled credit card content as an opportunity to push his links.
http://www.dansdeals.com/archives/28395
What makes it inexcusable? Pushing that same old inferior US Airways offer first, and then referring to the better one as “USAirways Consumer Card for Chairman Preferred Elites”
What, has DD of all people suddenly gotten some attack of conscience, that one should never ask for something of a credit card company that they aren’t entitled to??
Furthermore, he talks about how he’s gotten 55k bonus points for the United Visa, and gives a link… to the crummy affiliate offer. So he makes it sound like people are going to get more points than they will. And he doesn’t bother to explain to them how to actually get those points. (Sometimes he does explain it, “Apply through my affiliate link and then message Chase asking for the better offer”)
Pathetic. He KNOWS better.
Lots of worst of today! These posts almost write themselves!
Especially since, wasn’t he the guy that applied for 4 or 5 of the “Chairman’s” cards in one day and boasted about it?
Commentor on Gary’s Top 10 CC’s post yesterday: “Dan’s Deals is reporting today that he’s been told to remove the Chase Hyatt VISA card offer Wednesday at 5pm.”
Gary’s response: “yes, but I’m sharing an offer that is better than the affiliate one. I was told the same thing but I do not promote an affiliate link for the Hyatt Visa since you can get a $100 statement credit if you follow my instructions instead”
Says all you need to know about both of them.
Dan’s might be even worse than most of the other bloggers, because I’d be willing to bet that a much higher percentage of his blog read his blog exclusively than is the case for DP, FTG, MV and other pushers of inferior cards
Comment unclear – meant to say that a higher percentage of his READERS read his blog exclusively.
If you read DP or MV, that’s almost certainly not the ONLY blog you read
But I’m willing to bet a non-trivial percentage of Dan’s readers only read his blog
What can I say…I agree! Yeah, Dan knows better, probably had some urgent bills to pay or something…it happens. I must admit I learned a lot in the DD forums!
I know I always appealed to smarter readers. Some prefer to call them angry…You guys don’t sound angry to me at all. Oh shoot…need to work on the blog post now.
In terms of sheer quantity of CC’s pimped, I think Dan wins hands down. Good lord, it’s not the least bit uncommon to see a post of his with 10+ CC’s
In his defense though, he usually does a good job of actually having it somewhat related to the context of the post (i.e. he won’t be pushing CSP cards in a post about how RyanAir screwed him over). And he certainly doesn’t mail in his content like others. But wow he does a number on the eye sockets!
The point of writing how I got 55K+$50 or free UA Club is to get people talking about SM methodology in the comments. SM matching is easy, painless, and works. Unlike the 55K UA link which has never worked on my account. Did you know you can actually get the annual fee waived via SM+$100 credit on Hyatt…
Unfortunately there’s only so much I can say outright these days in the actual posts 🙁
I’m not going to deny being beholden, it frustrates me as much as anyone else. But that’s life in a one income household with kids, you’ve got to find the right balance. I don’t get it right all the time, but what I do isn’t the same blah blah taken from the approved text. It’s based on my personal experience taking the game to the Nth degree and sharing what I can. And fostering a community on the DD Forums that takes risks and learns the true limits. These readers are far more educated than you give them credit for, and I’m sure George can attest to that if he’s learned a lot on DDF.
Do I post too many links? I never post a link out of context but if it costs me readers then such is life. I think from the comments and feedback I give on the posts it seems that people are still learning new things, even from yesterday’s link heavy post.
George, I do wish you the best of luck through hard times. I for one would not blame you if you start with cc links 😀 You’d have a lot of fun dealing with the audit teams about what you can say 😛
Comment of the month! “I’m not going to deny being beholden, it frustrates me as much as anyone else. But that’s life in a one income household with kids..”
Any blogger making a living from their blog is going to be beholden at some level.
It’s unfortunate, but that’s just life.
If the blogger contributes something of value despite being beholden they’ll likely be rewarded by their readers. Simple as that.
Dan:
Thanks for the comment, you always made a lot of sense. I may use your comments in my final TBB Daily Buzz post tomorrow.
“Let’s give FTG some deserved credit here please. The several years before the last two and the several before he started the blog! He truly has contributed so much to the FF community, a lot more than I can ever dream of!”
Before 2 years ago? Sure. TPG was also superb at one point. MileValue too.
The the CC proliferation came, and then the “welcome NYT readers” which gave them a whole new group of people to pimp the cards to
Some (like Gary) decided to make their blogs quality first and CC pimping 2nd, others (like MV or DD) decided the reverse. And some, like FTG and TPG decided to just mail in the quality part altogether since it has little effect on the bottom line
Yep. If this was a Facebook post I will click “Like”:-)
Oh no…. Oh god no…. no!!!!
Another MMS trip report
“Mother in Law’s first trip to India part 81: trying to get her to hold a Bluebird card for a photo-op”
I knew that was coming;-)
In a bikini? :shudder:
OMG …..LOL