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| Oval Skeleton of the House of the Bulgarian Communist Party (see MVP Post) |
Thanks for the feedback on what form TBB should take going forward. I think I will go to once a week post starting next week highlighting really amazing MVP like stuff and my own editorial on developments in the miles/points world. I will have another daily Buzz post tomorrow to accomplish my goal to be blogging for three months straight! It has been a hell of a ride, I have enjoyed it so much! I hope I have contributed to the community and to the improvement in blogger practices.
But life took an unexpected turn at 12.01 on February 4th. I have a place in a nationally prominent business publication’s website in a new project they are doing (yes it involves a new type of blog!) among some people you most likely have heard of. It takes some time and I need to focus on it so I do not screw it up, such opportunities do not come often. I just can not go on here ripping on bloggers’ cc pimping practices, an angry one may do something really crazy and I just can’t risk that! Some colleagues are trying all their careers to get quoted in this publication and I have my own reference page with all my material/quotes in it! Talk about humbling. You will not believe the teasing I am getting lately. Don’t worry, I won’t let this get into my head. I will still be one of you cheap miles/point crazies:-)
TBB will always be watching…You have been warned you blogger preparing yet another Chase Ink credit card link RIGHT NOW!
MVP POST OF THE DAY
30+ of the most beautiful abandoned places and modern ruins I’ve ever seen. Blog of Francesco Mugnai. MUST CLICK! JUST CLICK IT!
BEST OF MILES/POINTS
View from the Wing wrote an amazing post on “How to Make Sure You Really Have a Ticket When You Redeem Your Miles“. So timely for me too as wife and daughter are going on a UA award next week, I better check! Gary followed up with another superb post on the latest Starwood & Delta crossover partnership. Dang, it is bigger than we all thought. Lets see how well they execute this. Watch this space! All this innovation, all this required IT brain trust…if they could only apply that to the Skymiles award side…
The Wandering Aramean has the gory details on the US Airways sudden devaluation of its award chart. That should cut down on blogger cheering from the rooftop the amazing things you can do with a US award…no it won’t!
Frugal Travel Guy (ok, hear me out) had an interesting post “State of the Game: Manufactured Spending?” Why is it here? Because FTG allowed several comments that did not agree with him—->did not censor! That is progress! I loved one comment by DavidHAL so much I will post it here:
I think the issue at hand is the aggravation of us from bloggers promoting things for their own sole profit. In otherwords, talking about VR’s at OD to promote Ink Bolds/Ink Pluses so that said blogger will net over $200 per Chase application. Or growing membership of said blog at whatever cost to sell said blog for a hefty profit, while at the same time exposing tricks that die soon after. We aren’t mad that bloggers learn about different tricks (usually though from FT), we’re just mad when it starts to make it’s way into the large scale media (WSJ, USA Today, etc). In fact, isn’t that how the Mint died? Obviously there weren’t near as many bloggers in those days, nor was Chase paying huge commissions to bloggers for Chase apps, so the big thing that has changed since the Mint days was a) a ton more bloggers, and b) huge affliate commisions for different credit cards that are posted, and reposted by every blogger.
Yep, a & b. Even FTG agreed with that and I am shocked that we agree:-)
I better stop here…
BEST OF TRAVEL
A walk through Florence. From Landlopers. Wow!
From USA Today Nancy Trejos. “Travel can improve couples’ sex life“
I am not sure this belongs in the Best Of category. I have never seen Ostrich Riding before. I am not sure if I am supposed to be offended or amused by it. From ThePlanetD.
NOT SO BEST OF
To get a great run down on these you can read the comments from yesterday:-)
ODDZ & ENDZ
100 Startling Facts About the Economy. From Business Insider. Very startling!
9 Unconventional Habits of Extraordinary Success. From Marc and Angel.
Some of those pictures of abandoned places are freaky!
I’m glad you’re going to a once a week schedule. Don’t let this blog get in the way of your normal work life, especially since it sounds like you’re in for some great recognition. When can I expect you to see your name in said publication?
I look at that lead pic and it totally freaks me out!
Yeah, once a week. 3 months of this daily buzz posts takes too much time and focus. You’ll see me quite a bit if that new venture makes it…so visit, visit often and pass it around!
LOL, I see the curve for FTG is really generous these days
Only he can get in the “best of” space for not censoring comments 🙂
Dozens of bloggers are shouting from the rooftops: “Hey, I should be in the best of every day then”
As usual… TPG’s weekly piece is filled with every Visa Signature card
If that is the curve, at least we know we will never see Delta Points in the best of ever again.
I will proudly feature DP in “Best of” if he goes one day without censoring:-) Actually, I won’t have the opportunity. One more Buzz post tomorrow and then once a week.
And TPG shouldn’t be allowed to write up a destination of the week if he hasn’t actually BEEN THERE
I thought he had been there. I like these posts as I save them in my Evernote because I may need the references in the future. But throwing all Visa cc links into it was a bit too much!
LOL, you can’t make this stuff up. In FTG’s post today…
“US Air charges 100,000 miles to fly to Europe in Business Class on one of their Star Alliance partners. One of the best deals around though is that US Air offers off-peak awards in the winter that charge only 60,000 miles to fly to Europe but the catch is that it has to be on US Air metal”
I have a feeling that Travel Summary’s MMS interview is going to make the best of tomorrow
He was practically reading TBB’s mind with those answers
And on TS’ “welcome MMS readers” post, the top link at the bottom is to an article called “Credit Card Affiliate Links!”…. but there’s no actual CC affiliate links in the post
A chill just went down TPG/FTG’s spine at that thought
Since I know Travel Summary reads this blog…. nice job in the MMS interview
Although I wish you would come off as less of an “angry” 🙂
That is true – that was actually the thing that hit me the most was that he did come off sounding like a guy with a chip on some of the parts. I do like him and the blog, but that was the feel of some of the interview, to me anyway.
I read all the comments above after my previous comment! I think TS’s interview was great. At least someone else is saying some things that must be said before more people get hurt! As in “Welcome NYT readers” and after five or six posts they are told to go for FIVE credit cards at once. So ludicrous!
Loved the line about the chill:-)
MV yet again pushing the inferior US Airways card. Since he will likely censor my comment (It is “awaiting moderation”), here is the comment that I put on his blog…
I think this is the last remaining website that still pushes the inferior US Airways card
Obviously some of your promises from your “MileValue.com will now include affiliate links” post remained less true than others:
“I will always advocate the best available offer, regardless of whether it is an affiliate link.”
LOL, it’s still “awaiting moderation”…. even though another comment made after mine was already pushed through
I am tired of calling that crap out. I could go on and on but I need to tend to my real life guys. Once a week from now on, mostly positive MVP type posts! As long as the banks are willing to pay this crap is just a part of blogging now:-(
FTG must not like being on your Best Of list – he censored a bunch of the comments on the post about Vienna.
Yup…. my comment was censored
I love how he censored my comment about the 60K US Airways miles in business class, rather than actually make the correction in the post
I think Gregorygrady is trying so hard for that $50 GC:-)
Bwahahaha TPG could only keep up the plagiarism charade for so long
Gets caught red-handed in the comments section, then tries to pin this on “the contributor who helped on it”… even though the post was authored by him
For your final (full-time) post tomorrow TBB, you should really go to town on the guy we’ve all known is a serial plagiarizer, and can’t hide it any longer
To his defense I guess, at least he didn’t censor that comment. If someone pointed such a thing out on FTG, DP or MV…. that comment never would’ve seen the light of day
But yeah, pretty blatant no-doubt-about-it plagiarism
He pulled the post – what happened on it? What was the plagiarism? I have never seen him pull a post before!
And I take that back…. not only did he censor the comment, he censored the entire post
Safe to assume that more than just that 1 sentence the commenter pointed out was plagiarized?
If he removed every post that was plagiarized, he’d have mabye 3 posts a week. Anyone want to bet this wasn’t the first Trip Report he plagiarized?
@Anon from 4:40 PM
A commenter linked to a CNN travel article which had a sentence that was the exact same as in his post. It was a sentence where there’s no that could have “coincidentally” happened. The commenter did provide a link to the original CNN article but i didn’t click on it to see how much more was plagiarized.
TPG pretty much flatly admitted it was plagiarized (his words were something like “the comments do appear to be similar” – they were actually the same word for word), then tried to pin it on someone who “helped him with the article” and said he would “investigate”. Within 10 minutes, the entire post was down
@Anon from 5:04
Thanks – do you happen to know what the sentence was concerning? I still have the post (thanks RSS) and would love to look that up. Thanks!
Wait but now how am I supposed to know which cards belong to Visa Signature?
@anon 5:08, if you have the post still, look in the comments. Don’t remember the exact sentence, but it was definitely something that couldn’t have happened by “coincidence”
Wow, the whole post is gone! He should watch this stuff before he gets into real trouble! Dang it, I wanted to save it into my Evernote for future reference, really! Now how am I supposed to check if my regular Hilton Visa I have had for over 10 years qualify as a Signature card??
Oh boy….I am going to miss this back and forth with you guys.
You must admit I am one of the few bloggers who did not sell out:-)
If I did, I would have no credibility at all right!
Oh well, going to once a week. Some one else can buy me out, hello Internet Brands:-)