Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

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No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts. To reiterate:

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Diversify!” – Me

MUST READ GEMS

Best thing I read last week:

The New Cool Thing: Being Human

By the way, this blog is still here by just one human.

PERSONAL FINANCE

Some things I am definitely in agreement with: Stick With What You Know.

The things we do know:

• Even those with considerable expertise cannot hope to forecast the unfolding consequences of geopolitical events.
• Predicting the first, second, and third-order financial market impact is even harder.
• Short-term volatility in markets is unlikely to have a predictable impact on long-run outcomes.
• High real returns for holding equities over the long term are compensation for bearing short‑term volatility.
• At some point in the future, equity markets will decline sharply because of some unforeseeable negative occurrence.
• Humans often hugely overweight high-profile and salient risks.
• Humans make poor decisions when emotions are heightened.
• Diversification is the best protection against an uncertainty.

Another one on Health Savings Accounts: HSA Tips. It lists all the basics and of course the triple tax advantages. And something to watch out for:

Per Publication 969, if your spouse is the designated beneficiary of your HSA, it will be treated as your spouse’s HSA after your death. If your spouse isn’t the designated beneficiary (e.g. your child is the beneficiary), the account stops being an HSA and the fair market value of the HSA becomes taxable to the beneficiary in the year in which you pass away. This is why tax free HSA dollars should ideally be spent before passing down an inheritance due to tax inefficiency.

Another gem from Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal: Your Investing Strategy Is Great, So Long as You Don’t Actually Trade Anything. Must read imho, be careful out there. Always remember:

The financial world is full of people and firms claiming that they have the secret, the magic key, the holy grail, that will enable you to beat the market. In theory, they’re often right: It isn’t that hard to outperform on paper. In practice, though, you can’t avoid the frictions of trading costs and taxes and inflation. Before you make any significant move in the market, always estimate what your net-net-net returns would be after paying those tolls. Chances are, the theory won’t stand up after it collides with real-world costs.

And hold back from making predictions about markets and geopolitics. Ponder this:

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

There is a special place in hell for fraudster pastors. Well, not sure if it actually exists but it should. For this guy: The Georgia Pastor Accused of Defrauding the VA of Nearly $24 Million. The founder of House of Prayer held himself out as a prophet. Former members of the church say he used fundamentalist teachings to manipulate them. Your stomach may turn if you read this, you have been warned!

I have been an Android Samsung cell phone user since, well, for ever. And I try to pick up some tips here and there. I really like this YouTube channel: The Simple Dad. The first two tips in this instructional video are amazing, how to fill/sign PDF forms and scan documents. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop carrying my laptop with me.

More stomach turning smh: SEC Dismisses Fraud Case Against Crypto Billionaire Justin Sun.

AI

Just a few today to share with you…

Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence

Video documentary on YouTube: The Thinking Game. The inside story of the AI breakthrough that won a Nobel Prize. Must watch imho about DeepMind.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

We have all bitched about the horrible state of US passenger trains. Well, I learned a lot from this article. Which explains why: Why Are American Passenger Trains Slow?

America has the world’s most productive freight rail network, and the cost is slow passenger trains. The equilibrium we have is neither an accident nor a failure but a choice, one made incrementally over fifty years, which has delivered real value. Whether to unmake it is a decision that we should make with clear understanding of what would be gained, and what would be lost.

I have no doubt most Iranians celebrated that this guy is no longer around: The Death of Khamenei and the End of an Era. His life’s work was to preserve a revolution that is heading for the ash heap. 

Khamenei confronted the paradox that every revolutionary caretaker must face: The revolution he preserved was designed for a world that no longer exists. George Kennan once wrote of the Soviet Union, “No mystical, Messianic movement can face frustration indefinitely without eventually adjusting itself in one way or another to the logic of that state of affairs.” Khamenei staved off that adjustment for nearly four decades through force of will, brutality, and the conviction that bending would mean breaking.

Remember the days before Russia invaded Ukraine? How the CIA was screaming it is coming. And no one really took them seriously, me included. Well, this was an amazing read: A war foretold:how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans and why nobody believed them.

Amazing photography: People’s Choice: Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2026.

And this wow:

 

TRAVEL

Interesting: 9 of the Most Mysterious Places on Earth.

• The Bermuda Triangle
• Crooked Forest
• Nazca Lines
• Blood Falls
• Devil’s Kettle
• Eternal Flame Falls (and other Eternal Flames)
• The Plain of Jars
• Magnetic Hill
• The Yonaguni Monument

Another great one: The 100 Greatest Cinemas in The World.

Another in depth great video from the YouTube channel Asian Boss: How Does Singapore Keep Crime So Low?

The World’s Three Airline Alliances in One Chart:

 

 

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This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Rove Miles keeps growing, hope they don’t pull a Mesa. One day I will open an account with them: Rove Miles Adds Japan Airlines As Transfer Partner, Launches With 50% Transfer Bonus.

One by one they are eliminated: Iberia ends Chicago sweet spot: Awards now price 20K economy / 50.5K business.

This can be helpful: Hilton Rolls Out Helpful New Feature for Using Points (& Free Night Certificates).

Good to know: Don’t Let your Hilton Free Night Certificate Expire: Call to get a 2 Week Extension.

Register HERE for the latest Wyndham Rewards promotion. Every two qualifying stays earns 7,500 points, up to 30,000 points total.

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

We now have tiny airline lounges to relieve overcrowding in the bigger ones: American Express Opens New Sidecar by Centurion Lounge At Harry Reid International (LAS).  And you know when the Wall Street Journal writes about them: The Tiny New Airport Lounges That Want You In and Out, Fast.

This is pure shit: Robinhood Announces Platinum Credit Card – $695 Annual Fee. Avoid! Can’t believe a card can get worse than the Bilt cards. But Robinhood will not be denied lol.

The 5 Free Nights Marriott Bonvoy Boundless and 2 Free Nights Marriott Bonvoy Bold card offers end on March 12, 2026.

 

 

NEW OFFERS:

75k CITI AAdvantage Business World Elite MasterCard 

AMEX HILTON HONORS BUSINESS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $8,000 in purchases on the Hilton Honors Business Card in the first six months of Card Membership. Offer ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON ASPIRE: Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases on the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON SURPASS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 130,000 Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $3,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON HONORS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 70,000 Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

 

CURRENT OFFERS:

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

175k AMEX Platinum & 200k AMEX Business Platinum

175k IHG One Rewards Premier (ENDING SOON)

75k CITI Strata Elite card

 

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

Wife’s Chase United Explorer card was closed 11 months out, good riddance. Continuing to slowly close marginal credit cards and opening up space for the next app binge…at some point.

Speaking of United, something shocking happened. So, my wife flew to Malaysia for another family gathering. Could not find any business class award for the specific dates she was flying and she gave up and bought a Turkish Airlines economy round trip ticket. She flew just four days ago after bombs started flying in the Middle East. With just one stop in Istanbul this routing to Malaysia makes so much sense. I told her to change to her United Airlines number at check in. And, this is the shocking part, her United miles for BOTH legs were in her United account as soon as the plane took off from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur. Wow, talk about United getting its tech to work, very impressed.

Daughter is on her way there in a few days, going over the Pacific. But I have her on an Alaska Airlines award flying back to Seattle on Qatar Airways through Doha. In a few weeks from now. We are keeping it but, you know, we are obviously concerned. I thought awards may open up over the Pacific but nothing available that makes sense. To be continued…

Briefly looking at United awards to Bangkok in August and the same saga of absolute shit reigns. No, I am not going to fly Ethiopian Airlines with 3 stops through Addis Ababa for 100k United miles. My other options are north of 600k United miles LOL.

Not sure why I am talking so much about United in this section today. But we all applauded its new rule that you can be denied boarding if you don’t use your damn headphones while flying. As we all want to beat up that passenger watching movies on speaker. Talk about another special place in hell reserved for these assholes.

The hobby has changed. And the latest World of Hyatt devaluation marks the end of an era. Simply because the airlines and hotel companies are run better and the demand is there. The only hope is an economic seismic shock. Oh wait, enter bombs flying. We’ll see how long the war lasts. #developing.

Tax season and home renovation projects are going well.

I have not had a chance to see any movies lately. Because I look at what is showing in the theaters and I don’t see anything that attractive, sad.

Continuing to post my pics/videos from the November/December 2025 family trip to Thailand and Malaysia. We are now at the last day in Thailand and next posts will get us to Malaysia. Excuse the slow posting, I am just a one man band trying to do it all. My last week’s YouTube posts:

Bangkok skyline at night from the Skybar rooftop at Mahanakhon Building

Park Hyatt Bangkok Standard Suite Walk through

Park Hyatt Bangkok Breakfast

And over at Instagram:

Park Hyatt Bangkok Suite and Pics

Park Hyatt Bangkok Breakfast

Bangkok street food & shopping & sushi

 

Follow on Instagram and YouTube if you want to see more from the recent Thailand/Malaysia trip, I am slowly posting them there.

Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

This blog ends when my 2nd credit card vendor kicks me to the curb due to “low sales volume”. Or the latest three month accounting below turns to all red, whichever happens first. Until then, enjoy my blog if you read this far. If you are thinking about starting a blog, don’t!

Blog Revenue Full Disclosure:

January:

Credit card sales: 2  Buy me a Coffee sales: 20

February:

Credit card sales: 1  Buy me a Coffee: 22

March to date:

Credit card sales: 1  Buy me a Coffee: 0

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 124,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,286,937 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Being Human, HSA Tips, AI Pros and Cons, Greatest Cinemas, Airline Alliances appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe and share it.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Nothing has more strength than dire necessity” – Euripides

MUST READ GEMS

Best thing I read last week, by far. No excerpts, take some time to read it in its entirety.

26 Useful Concepts for 2026

PERSONAL FINANCE

More warnings about private equity: Endowment Lessons. The University of Chicago endowment is regretting the turn to alternative investments in recent years. Because…

Over the 10-year period through the end of 2024, the university’s endowment gained 6.7% per year. In contrast, Vanguard’s Balanced Index Fund (ticker: VBIAX) returned 8.2% per year over the same period. As a result, all things being equal, the university’s endowment would be nearly 15% larger today if it had put all its money in this one simple index fund rather than in the complicated mix of funds it chose. A further problem for Chicago’s endowment was the nature of its holdings. It had allocated more than 60% of its investments to private equity, real estate and other illiquid assets.

I have been following the expat scene in Thailand and I certainly have seen this happening: Americans Are Leaving the U.S. in Record Numbers. More citizens are replanting overseas, drawn by a quality of life made easily affordable by the U.S.’s enviable salaries. Yeah, inflation would cause this. And, well, I would rather not get into politics here which is definitely a factor.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

Excellent article about where we are these days: Bitcoin’s $1 Trillion Identity Crisis Hits From Every Direction.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has plunged more than 40% from its peak, and the usual playbook isn’t working — dip buyers have vanished, and the forces that would normally fuel a rebound are now working against it. Gold is winning the macro-hedge argument. Stablecoins are winning payments. Prediction markets are winning speculation. The strange part: none of this is happening because the system failed Bitcoin. Washington has never been more accommodating. Institutional adoption has never been deeper. Wall Street has never been more bought in. Bitcoin got everything it wanted — and it wasn’t enough.

Interesting: Data Centers By Country.

AI

Just like last week the world learned about a Matt Shumer guy who wrote something that went mega viral, we had an investing “research” outfit I had never heard of write a piece of imaginary fiction that also went crazy viral and caused havoc among some stocks mentioned in the piece: THE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS. Basically, it is a cascading collapse of the markets and economies around the world. If you are scared, well, maybe increase your cash emergency fund, you have one right? And never forget to diversify!

You see AI everywhere. And so many scenarios, many scary as hell as the one above. I think, everyone is full of crap and nobody knows what will actually happen. I mean, we always sucked at predicting the future as a species…

Speaking of that, here is another one: AI and the Futures of Work. A decade of hype cycles, failed predictions, and the stories we keep telling ourselves about AI and work. The writer, involved with AI for many years, makes some good points, such as:

I don’t know anyone who’s currently working with AI who’s doing less work. On the contrary. I’ve been deep in the communities around Claude Code and similar tools over the last few weeks. What I consistently observe is that people who are using these AI tools are working even more than before. There are articles from developers (and HBR) who talk about burnout, about how intense it is to work with these tools, about not having energy anymore. The same thing I see from many people in this field: “I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m eating badly. I really need to get away from the computer.”

What we’re living through is not a crisis of who does the work, but a transition in what the work is.

So: take away the hype. Take away the future narratives. Explore AI as a normal technology. Be playful. Try things out. Build prototypes. But don’t compare it to “this has to change everything.” Just find out for yourself how it can be helpful, and keep learning about it. That will actually help you, and society, to be much more reflective and prepared for whatever comes next.

I think this is a huge issue, how do you get and train young people entering the workforce without actually learning on the job. Which is, you know, the best way to learn. AI could mark the end of young people learning on the job – with terrible results.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

What is it like working as a private chef on fancy yachts? Bad Lunch. Fascinating first hand account. Very hard job it appears but then again…tell me jobs where a small crew can indulge in $100,000 tips?

We all know how 7-Eleven stores are amazing in Japan and Southeast Asia. And they completely suck here in the US. This video explains it really well: Why the US Can’t Copy Japanese 7-Eleven.

We all know PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I bet you have not heard of P.E.T.E.R: People for the Ethical Treatment of Electronics & Robots. If you don’t think this is hilarious maybe you should go read another blog?

 

TRAVEL

It’s really really hot out there: 12 of the Hottest Places on Earth.

I have seen the one in Bangkok and will try to check it out next time I am there: 6 Tallest Abandoned Skyscrapers Around the World.

• Goldin Finance 117, China
• Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea
• Oceanwide Plaza, Los Angeles, USA
• 1 Seaport, New York, USA
• Sathorn Unique Tower, Thailand
• Burj el Murr, Lebanon

Take a trip around the world with amazing photography at the Sony World Photography Awards.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

The huge news this week was the not too surprising end of the glorious gravy train of World of Hyatt “loyalty”, sad! Everything else just pales in comparison…

First, the gory details. : Mayday: Hyatt to launch a brutal new World of Hyatt chart in May 2026. Read the comments, there is a lot of depression and anger.

Another good post: Brutal: Hyatt Will Overhaul its Award Chart, Raising Rates Up to 67%. In a nutshell:

Let’s start with the bad news: In two months or so, Hyatt is scrapping its current off-peak, standard, and peak pricing in favor of a a five-tier pricing system across its eight existing hotel categories, with a far wider range of award rates from the slowest to the busiest times. It’s not full-blown dynamic pricing in the vein of Marriott and IHG … but maybe dynamic-lite.  [I expected the annual devaluation to be bad but adding 5 different pricing levels to insist “we kept the award chart” is mega bullshit imho.]

Worse yet, award rates are going up (almost) across the board – sometimes drastically: 

• Many standard award stays at the fanciest Park Hyatts or other top-tier Category 8 will jump from 40,000 points a night to 55,000 points – nearly a 38% increase.
• The priciest stays during the busiest times at those same properties goes from 45,000 points to as much as 75,000 points a night – a 67% jump!
• Even if you’re not splurging that much, there are some big increases across Hyatt’s portfolio whether you’re booking a standard award stay and especially during the busier periods.
• To top it all off, Hyatt isn’t guaranteeing that properties will have any nights available at the low end of each category – nor capping how many nights they can charge the highest rates.

And the pain is not over as Hyatt intends to go through its annual re ranking of categories. And then we have pretty much eliminated any semblance of reward success by inflicting this severe pain making the all-inclusives and Miramals a complete sad joke, no thank you! Hyatt Devalues All-Inclusive Resorts and Miraval.

See my rant in the MY ACTION & BLOG BUZZING section below.

Maybe Chase felt it had to stop the bleeding, so it did this smh and you start wonder who is running the ship over there. Or maybe they just don’t care, what are you going to do, go to Bilt? Lol: Chase Ultimate Rewards New Transfer Partner: Wyndham Rewards (DON’T).

In case you missed this: Qantas Frequent Flyer Program Changes Announced For 2026.

First, they came for your TSAPrecheck. And then they came for our Global Entry. And we said enough! Lol, anyway, we got TSAPrecheck back but not yet Global Entry. When it rains it pours…

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Amex continues to beat up Chase: Resy Adding Thousands of Restaurants and Wineries This Summer with Tock Merger.

Updated resource: Complete Guide to Credit Card Application Rules by Bank.

With just one confirmed credit card sale here since the beginning of the year, the listing of credit card offers available is a waste of time and bandwidth and hurts your eyes. So, I am just going to list the few new offers and the few most desirable current offers going forward. I am also working to get a new credit card widget in place but the technical requirements are a bit too much for my brain. Anyway, every credit card sale here helps this site to stay alive and keep going. At this pace it is only a matter of time when my second credit card vendor kicks me to the curb for “low sales volume” and that is when the end arrives.

 

NEW OFFERS:

AMEX HILTON HONORS BUSINESS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $8,000 in purchases on the Hilton Honors Business Card in the first six months of Card Membership. Offer ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON ASPIRE: Limited Time Offer: Earn 175,000 Hilton Honors Bonus Points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases on the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card within your first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON SURPASS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 130,000 Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $3,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

AMEX HILTON HONORS: Limited Time Offer: Earn 70,000 Bonus Points plus a Free Night Reward after you spend $2,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 6 months of Card Membership. Offer Ends 4/15/2026. Terms apply.

 

CURRENT OFFERS:

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

175k AMEX Platinum & 200k AMEX Business Platinum.

75k CITI Strata Elite card

 

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I don’t drink alcohol. After reading the details of the World of Hyatt massacre changes my first thought was “oh man, maybe I should start drinking to deal with increasingly depressive thoughts entering my brain”. Or something like that. I am not going to go through the changes one by one, there are numerous posts online now. I am just going to relay a few thoughts from my veteran perspective.

After the end of the Chase Ultimate Rewards endless points coming our way from credit cards, then the end of the Hyatt award chart feels like the end of an era. A really long multi decade era that changed some of our lives, I know it changed mine and my family’s. I mean, for the past three years alone we stayed many nights at amazing Hyatt properties in Thailand and Malaysia all on points. Weeks of stays in amazing Hyatt resort suites and eating way too much at glorious breakfast buffets and lounges felt like, well, too good to be true. I mean, I have been at this for 30+ years! I was instantly converting points needed for each stay to how many Chase cards it would take lol. I repeat, three years straight in Thailand/Malaysia in Hyatt properties ALL on points. Some hotels we stayed in were: Phuket Hyatt Regency, Bangkok Hyatt Regency, Hua Hin Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt Erawan, Park Hyatt Bangkok, The Standard Bangkok, Koh Samui Hyatt Regency. And the two Hyatt Place properties in Bangkok for the night credits to requalify as Globalist of course. Even the one non Hyatt property we stayed in (the Conrad Koh Samui) for two nights were also free, one on a Free Night Cert and the other one on Hilton Honors points.

Going forward, this ingrained right of us to travel for free is just not going to happen. We need to adapt and change. Cash back cards would become more beneficial because the “bang” is no longer going to be there with so many more points required to stay in Hyatt hotels using points. And likely, due to the lack of the Chase Ink Cards to Hyatt train free points bonanza, we are going to need to start paying for the Category 1 hotels as well. Maybe we should have done that along the way but, you know, when you have so many Chase/Hyatt points floating around why pay? Best things in life are free they say lol. Also be very open and willing to travel at the most inconvenient times to take advantage of the lowest peak rates. If we can find them that is. We are not in Kansas anymore ladies and gents. Anyway, why the hell was Kansas picked for this saying anyway? Maybe incorporate AirBnb stays going forward, all charged on the Venture X cards and then erased with Capital One miles. Maybe that will lead to less eating at breakfast buffets and lounges and no longer dealing with weight control issues.

So, I need to think hard what to do the rest of this year. I am kind of stranded due to the big home remodeling project. And then World Cup TV fest comes. And later in the year there will likely be some business changes (not this blog lol) that may require me to also be present. So maybe August and September we go on a giant Hyatt point burning spree to clean out the vault so to speak. I have been asking my wife to let me know a wedding date of her niece in Singapore and this morning we have a date at last, in mid September. So maybe consider going to Thailand and Vietnam before the wedding or something like that. Or maybe Bali too. I need your help. I am very familiar with Hyatt properties in Thailand, heck I have stayed in almost all of them. Any properties I must visit for the last hurrah so to speak in Bali and Vietnam? I have plenty of Confirmed Suite Upgrade certs by the way.

Judging from this site’s credit card sales I have no doubt this will lead to a massive reorg (and likely disappearing) of many businessmen who only came in this space after they learned how much banks pay them to sell credit cards. Selling fake expertise to unsuspecting newbies kept in the dark. We should celebrate this, I have never seen such a collection of greedy assholes faking expertise unleashing inferior offers out there without any sense of shame. But, ironically, this site may become a casualty as well. As I can’t bail my site out getting more cards for me and my family anymore, Chase won’t let me lol.

I had a lot more thoughts but I ran out of time, I need to focus more on what is paying the bills and the kitchen remodeling contractors you guys.

Maybe the reorg has started? Mark is going back to Miles to Memories after leaving a credit card sales site which obviously offered more pay to get him to leave Miles to Memories in the first place. It looks like it was time to cut costs. I’m Baaaaccccckkkk & We Have A Ton Of Exciting New Stuff To Share With You. Also, notice how blogs are expanding their revenue sources adding memberships and podcasts and all kinds of things. Except me here blogging away to a small base of readers who also can’t get as many credit cards as in the old days, sad.

Slowly catching up steadily with our November/December 2025 trip to Thailand and Malaysia. After leaving Koh Saumi, we are at The Standard hotel in Bangkok and next comes Park Hyatt Bangkok.

My last week’s YouTube posts:

Watching Bangkok Airways landing at beautiful Koh Samui, Thailand airport (Short)

Bangkok at night from tallest building in Thailand Mahanakhon Skybar (Short)

The Standard Bangkok Suite

 

And over at Instagram:

The Standard hotel in Bangkok: Mahanakhon Building Skywalk and swimming pools

The Standard hotel in Bangkok: Breakfast and dining areas

The Standard hotel in Bangkok, Thailand: Suite photos

Koh Samui airport flying Bangkok Airways back to Bangkok

 

Follow on Instagram and YouTube if you want to see more from the recent Thailand/Malaysia trip, I am slowly posting them.

Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

Blog Revenue Full Disclosure:

December:

Credit card sales: 8  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales: 20

February to date:

Credit card sales:1  Buy me a Coffee: 17

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 124,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,259,693 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Data Centers Everywhere, Bitcoin Identity Crisis, AI and Futures of Work, World of Hyatt Points Massacre appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Embrace the Suck”

MUST READ GEMS

This went mega viral. And everyone knows this Matt Shumer guy now. It is a long take on AI. And you should read it with an open mind and always be skeptical of course.

Something Big Is Happening

And he was then interviewed by Intelligencer and here it is: The Guy Who Wrote the Viral AI Post Wasn’t Trying to Scare You. As I said, always be skeptical. Everyone is trying to sell something out there. Speaking of always selling, remember that guy who invented that network that let loose AI agents interacting with each other we talked about last week? Moltbook or whatever its name became from the original Clawbook. Well, he did well lol: OpenClaw founder joins OpenAI to create next-gen personal agents.

Anyway, this is must read material over the weekend for you.

By the way, Matt above used AI to write his viral post. And this is where we are and buckle up I guess…

PERSONAL FINANCE

We love freebies around here: 5 Financial Freebies Every Investor Should Claim.

Every day there are market pundits out there trying to scare the crap out of you or appeal to your greed selling you the latest hot stock or whatever. One of those scary things is of course market concentration. I must admit I have also worried about this as well. The Big Scary Myth Stalking the Stock Market. But always reverted back to my long term asset allocation plan with very low cost broad based market index funds. And never forget that “For as long as index funds have existed, they’ve been under attack from competitors flinging one flimsy pretext after another.”

Over the past 90 years, if you’d cut back on stocks whenever the market was becoming more concentrated and added to stocks whenever concentration was declining, you would have earned an annualized average of 0.9 percentage point less than if you’d simply bought and held. That’s not to say the stock market isn’t risky or can’t crash. But concentration itself isn’t a source of risk that you need to get rid of.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

Amazing: Submarine Cable Map 2025. This new edition depicts 597 cable systems and 1,712 landings that are currently active or under construction.

AI

This blog post will be heavier on AI related content…

From The Atlantic: AI Agents Are Taking America by Storm. The post-chatbot era has begun. This is a pretty good article summarizing where we stand these days with AI. I have a front page view on how software engineering has been completely transformed with AI as my son is a software engineer and his job looks so different now. Sometimes I wonder how college professors even teach software engineering these days.

It’s now common for engineers to essentially hand over instructions to a bot such as Claude Code or Codex, and let them do the rest. Because bots aren’t constrained in the way humans are, a programmer might have several sessions running simultaneously, all working on different aspects of a project. “In general, it is now clear that for most projects, writing the code yourself is no longer sensible,” the computer programmer Salvatore Sanfilippo wrote in a recent viral essay. In just a few hours, Sanfilippo noted, he had completed several tasks that previously would have taken weeks. Microsoft’s CEO has said that as much as 30 percent of code is now written by AI, and the company’s chief technical officer expects that figure to hit 95 percent industry-wide by the end of the decade. Anthropic already reports that up to 90 percent of the company’s code is AI generated.

And this appeared as a Guest Essay in the New York Times: The A.I. Disruption We’ve Been Waiting for Has Arrived.

On “vibe coding”:

To vibe code is to make software with prompts sent to a specialized chatbot — not coding, but telling — and letting the bot work out the bugs. Like many other programmers, I use a product called Claude Code from Anthropic, although Codex from OpenAI does about as well, and Google Gemini is not far behind. Claude Code earned $1 billion for Anthropic in its first six months. It was always a helpful coding assistant, but in November it suddenly got much better, and ever since I’ve been knocking off side projects that had sat in folders for a decade or longer. It’s fun to see old ideas come to life, so I keep a steady flow. Maybe it adds up to a half-hour a day of my time, and an hour of Claude’s.

Also, this quote:

“All of the people I love hate this stuff, and all the people I hate love it. And yet, likely because of the same personality flaws that drew me to technology in the first place, I am annoyingly excited.”.

And yet…soooooo much money is being spent: America’s $1T AI Gamble. US AI-Related Investment Keeps Breaking Records, With Total Software, Computer, & Data Center Spending Now Exceeding $1T Per Year.

In other words, America is making a globally and historically unprecedented bet on the success of Artificial Intelligence. As a share of the economy, that AI boom is already one of the largest investments in American history—dwarfing the peak of the broadband, electricity, or interstate highway buildouts and vastly exceeding the Manhattan or Apollo projects. And yet, US tech companies are doubling down, raising the stakes on their $1T gamble that AI models will continue their exponential capabilities growth and eventually become valuable enough to repay such a colossal investment.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

This definitely fits in here. The Curious Tale of Bhutan’s playable record postage stamps. I had no idea that this was even possible. Made of plastic and embossed with a melody, these tiny record stamps are among the strangest, most enchanting bits of vinyl out there. Chris May investigates how the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan came to produce the world’s “first talking stamps”.

Hey, there is a reason I have titled this section ODDZ & ENDZ. Because where else would I place links to stories about postage stamps with music and a London vigilante cyclist like this guy: “Jeremy Vine loves him, motorists hate him. Is this man London’s most controversial cyclist?” And his arch nemesis is a lawyer known as Mr. Loophole lol.

Amazing photography in this link: Striking Photos by Peter Li Capture the Soaring Majesty of Sacred Spaces.

 

TRAVEL

I have posted here travel links with the best beaches, waterfalls, islands, museums, etc. How about the 21 Most Beautiful Gardens in the World.

I always wanted to do this but as I get older I don’t think it’s going to happen because it’s way too much driving: Route 66 Road Trip: Must-See Stops From Illinois to California.

When I sell my blog I am going to knock off every single destination on this list: Your Guide to 21 of the World’s Most Luxurious Vacations. Oh wait, if you thought that this was not a joke maybe you should just stick with reading The Points Guy smh. I must admit that the Wilderness Bisate Lodge in Rwanda looks amazing, pic below. Also, to stay there “…rates start around $2,400 to $3,600 per person, per night, depending on when you go.” At the present blog sales pace I am scheduled to visit there for one night spending blog profit dollars in 2039, thank you!

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Two big things stand out over the past week, the Hyatt premium credit card rumor and the United Mileage plus changes so here we go again:

UPDATE: [This was ALL fake, apparently part of a school projected enhanced by AI, sorry about that! The only time I decided to post about a rumor smh.] I don’t do rumors here. But I guess this is such a big one that I have to mention it: [Unsubstantiated Rumor] New Chase Park Hyatt Card ($795 Annual Fee), Category 9 & 10 Properties And More. I am not sure what to make of it. It all started by this Reddit post HERE. I firmly believe that all these are started intentionally by the marketing people at these companies to get a “feel” of the reactions by members. So maybe if we all react with “these changes suck and we are all going to Marriott Bonvoy now” we may end up faring better? 🙂

United, after copying Delta for years, they are now taking the lead to morphing its frequent flyer program to a pure frequent credit card holder and big time spender program: United MileagePlus announces huge changes to earning and redeeming miles. No big surprises in giving award discounts and more award seat availability to credit card holders. But the changes in earning rates to punish non credit card holders and reward even more credit card holders are taking the lead in this space and now I wonder if Delta and other airlines start copying United. And here is a mainstream article’s take on the changes: United Airlines overhauls MileagePlus program – here’s what to know.

Good reference post: Do Your Airline Miles Expire? Policies for Every Major Airline. Another burden on mental bandwidth in carrying on with this hobby.

The bubble in new hotel loyalty brands continues unabated: IHG Launches New Brand: Noted Collection by IHG.

This was helpful as I am trying to find me a 2 night stay with this Edit Hotels thingie before I close my Chase Sapphire Reserve for business card: 5 Common Mistakes To Avoid When Booking The Edit by Chase Travel.

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

So many blogs that survive/exist/thrive in this space by selling credit cards, they just keep coming up with tailored content to, please sit down, sell the merchandise. So, here we go of course pushing them Capital One cards: Guide to Capital One Airport Lounges: Locations, Amenities, Access, and Guest Policies (2026).

Just as some of us are thinking to cash back cards to simplify life, considering the increasingly heavy hits the travel rewards cards have been enduring, I had thought maybe I go back to Bank of America and just hit hard that cash back 2.65% rate. Well, NEVER mind lol: Negative Bank of America Preferred Rewards upcoming changes: Lower bonus rewards, higher eligibility requirements. What was $100,000 parked at Merrill Lynch will now have to be $1,000,000. There is clearly one response here: WTF and HELLNO!

First, I was able to get my $200 in very early January. Second, we will see if this sticks: American Express Platinum $200 Airline Incidental Reimbursement – No Longer Works On United Travel Bank.

By itself, this is a nothing burger because you should never consider such a move: Chase Will No Longer Allow Points Redemptions Into External Accounts. Taking the overall moves by Chase into context though, it shows we are not in Kansas anymore and this is a new world order in the world of miles & points, sad.

 

New interesting offer for the personal Hyatt Visa offering 5 Free Night Certificates (Category 1-4) after a total $15,000 in the first six months (three of the five FNCs after $5k spend in first three months).  This offer now ends February 26, 2026.

Southwest is probably the one airline that changes its credit card offers more often than any other airline. And it is not even close. New offers offering Companion Pass and some points as well right off the bat:

– Plus: 20,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027
– Premier: 30,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027
– Priority: 40,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027

Please let me know if some of these offers are no longer valid.

• United Explorer: Earn 70,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles after spending $3,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account, plus $0 annual fee for the first year.

• United Quest: Earn 80,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 3,000 PQP after spending $4,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Club Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

 

175,000 IHG Rewards Premier: $99 Annual Fee, minimum spend $5k in three months.

120,000 IHG Rewards Traveler: No Annual Fee, 90,000 for $2k spend in three months and another 30,000 points for a total of $10k spend in six months.NEW

 

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit

Increased American Express Delta Offers, Up To 125,000 Miles (Personal & Business Gold, Platinum, Reserve)

 

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

 

AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

 

100k CITI Strata Elite card

 

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

You know this hobby has grown that you now see articles by mainstream media confessing to obsessing about travel rewards credit cards and points in general. And you know we are reaching a breaking point out there as well with Bilt going all in on complexity: I Chase Credit-Card Points. Bilt Changed My Mind.

I love my points, and always thought they were a harmless pursuit. But I am starting to think otherwise because the size of the points industry could be making the economy less efficient. It is leading people to make poor financial decisions, introducing uncertainty into the economy, and misdirecting resources that could be better used elsewhere.

Just in terms of my own limited resources, I think of the time I devote to the game, even if I do extract some utility and enjoyment from it. Every time I buy something, I think about what card to use. I spend a lot of effort planning how to use my points. And each year the rules change, forcing me to reassess my strategy. If I spent all that time on my pickleball game instead, I might be healthier and have more friends…Like gambling, the points game can be unhealthy if it takes over too much of your life — or the economy. No matter how desperate I get, however, I will never take up pickleball. [And just when I was thinking about taking up pickleball LOL]

 

My daughter can’t get a decent price coming back from Kuala Lumpur in mid March so I booked an economy flight with 42,500 Alaska Airline miles flying on Qatar Airways back to Seattle with a way too long layover in Doha. I just could not let her buy a ticket from Philippines Airlines for around $500 with a way too short layover in Manila after Google Flights alerted her to that. I am going to keep it as a place holder and see if something better opens up. The whole award availability thingie is getting horrendous you guys. And then Bank of America nerfed its cash back program so it feels like we are getting hit from all sides. I saw a comment on a YouTube video “The whole game is getting nerfed” and I shook my head in agreement sadly.

I tried to use my Chase The Edit hotel credit and I was met with shock and horror. I could book a Hyatt Regency for $384 per night at the Hyatt website and then Chase wanted $2,038 all in for 2 nights (before the credits)…WTF and LOL! Can’t wait to dump my Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business when it comes up for renewal in July. Does Chase do prorated refunds by the way? I guess when I am bored I can call and try to get me a retention bonus.

I got a warning from my current credit card vendor that I can’t keep my links due to low sales. I mean, one confirmed credit card sale since January 1 is just not going to cut it. So at some point I am going to put together my annual “I burned X.X Million Miles and Points in 2025” post and if the ax comes around that…maybe that will be the final post. One thing I know for sure that without any credit card sales this blog is toast. I have been blogging non stop here since November 2012 which is an eternity for blogs.

I just realized I could not pay for a United flight with Travel Bank funds and combine that with a credit card purchase. Which makes no sense…

If that premium Hyatt card we have been expecting for years finally becomes reality in 2026 and it is just like it is “revealed” in the rumor above…yes, I am going for it. Hopefully my credit card links are alive by then so I can get paid for it lol.

Tax season is going well. And the home renovation is also going well. And slow.

My last week’s YouTube posts:

Conrad Koh Samui Villa

Swimming in my infinity pool at the Conrad Koh Samui villa

Buggy ride from villa to breakfast restaurant at the Conrad Koh Samui (Short)

And over at Instagram:

Conrad Koh Saumi at night is magical

Conrad Koh Samui glorious free breakfast

Conrad Koh Saumi pics from around the property

Happy Chinese New Year to all by the way.

Follow on Instagram and YouTube if you want to see more from the recent Thailand/Malaysia trip, I am slowly posting them.

Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

Blog Revenue Full Disclosure:

December:

Credit card sales: 8  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales: 20

February to date:

Credit card sales: 1  Buy me a Coffee: 16

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 109,015 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,268,630 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Something Big Is Happening With AI, Financial Freebies, Most Luxurious Vacations, United Airlines Changes appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts. Crazy busy with tax season, so the post today will be way less on my commentary.

If you subscribe to my blog posts via email and you never read them or even opening them up for whatever reason, PLEASE unsubscribe, thank you.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The boomers are all about money. Gen X is like, ‘is it all about money’? Millennials are like, ‘where is the money’? And Gen Z is like, ‘what is money’?” – Amy Poehler

MUST READ GEMS

Probably one of the saddest and most depressing reads in a long time. How three mothers have been dealing raising their mentally ill sons. I can not imagine, please be kind.

Three mothers, one struggle: saving their children with schizophrenia

PERSONAL FINANCE

The Beautiful Chart That Busts 3 Stock Market Myths.

Some interesting excerpts:

…the current expansion doesn’t look unusually long or strong. As of December 2025, it was in its 25th month, which is less than half the norm. Moreover, the market’s 21.4% per year return over that 25-month span was in line with what we’ve seen historically.

US stocks had notched a 4.5% annual inflation-adjusted return over the 10 years ended Oct. 31, 2007. Yet less than a year later, investors were looking at a lost decade amid the damage that the global financial crisis had wrought.

Consider that over the past century the market has been in a bear market 142 months. It’s spent another 349 months working its way back to the previous high. So if you think about it, roughly 40% of market history has been spent falling from, or climbing back to, previous highs (around 31% if you exclude the Depression).

The High Price You Pay to Get on Board Hot Companies Before They Go Public.  Stay away, fees will eat you alive, returns are not as high as advertised and holding this crap will make your life miserable, including higher fees from your accountants and lawyer(s).

For individual investors, the promise of this market is great. So far, the perils are even greater.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

I agree with this. Then again, I have been anti crypto for the duration lol: Bitcoin is still about $70,000 too high.

This week has shown us that the supply of “greater fools” that bitcoin relies on is drying up. The fairy tales that have been keeping crypto afloat are turning out to be just that. People are beginning to wake up to the fact that there is no floor in the value of something based on nothing more than thin air. Ask yourself: is this thing still going to be going in 100 years’ time? And remember that “what really matters isn’t how you fall, it’s how you land”.

Not going to find me posting positive things about the Chinese government. But I think they are right doing this, while we go the opposite direction here: China expands crypto crackdown to stablecoins, asset tokenization. And all of humanity should shed no tears for what happened to these scammers: China executed a series of Myanmar crime bosses. The condemned headed family syndicates that trapped Chinese abroad in massive scam centres.

Very cool site: Loot Drop -The Startup Graveyard.

AI

Deep dive: When AI & Human Worlds Collide. Can we imagine a future where synthetic AI worlds shape ours?

For us not well versed in this AI stuff, this is a good explanation of all these relevant terms:

To understand world models, it helps to distinguish between two related concepts: AI models and AI agents. AI models are machine learning algorithms that learn statistical patterns from training data, enabling them to make predictions or generate outputs. Generative AI models are AI models capable of generating new content, which is then integrated into systems that users can interact with, from chatbots like ChatGPT to video generators like Veo. AI agents, by contrast, are systems that use such models to act autonomously in different environments. Coding agents, for example, can perform programming tasks while using digital tools. The abundance of digital data makes training such agents feasible for digital tasks, but enabling them to act in the physical world remains a harder challenge.

Last week we talked about how Moltbook raged across the tech world. Well, Moltbook was peak AI theater apparently. The viral social network for bots reveals more about our own current mania for AI as it does about the future of agents.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

Finally, someone steps up to call out the obvious: I’m the Prime Minister of Spain. This Is Why the West Needs Migrants. And to bring it home to the US, this:

I am not sure which I despise more, crypto or all gambling. Which is now everywhere and on our phones, it is sickening: The Scourge of Online Sports Betting. And it is ruining many people, especially the young.

Amazing this loser lasted this long wow: The Fall of the House of Assad. A detached ruler, obsessed with sex and video games, refused every lifeline he was offered. 

Amazing shots: What the Universe looks like: from nearby to far away. Outer space begins just over 100 kilometers up, but what we can see extends for billions of light-years. Here’s what all of it looks like.

 

TRAVEL

When you try to get to Nauru and you fail and you try again and at last: Fourth Time Is The Charm, My Journey To Nauru. I think it is a fair bet we will likely never have a Hyatt built here lol.

Obligatory Thailand link: Retiring in Thailand: What $1,600, $4,000, and $10K REALLY Get You. If you were thinking to retire in the kingdom…

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Here we go again.

Register for the latest Marriott Bonvoy promotion HERE.

This was an educational post about the difference in the two bank hotel programs: The Edit vs Amex: My experience at Pendry Chicago (and a point mystery). By the way, I had never heard of the Pendry hotel. Anyway, to me, having to do 2 nights for the Edit (probably one of the worst brand names ever?) makes it a no go. Instead, the AMEX Fine Hotels & Resorts one night requirement make it so much more bang, looking at you Chase, get it together come on!

I am posting pictures and videos on Instagram and YouTube about our recent stay at the Conrad Koh Samui, Thailand. And this review is pretty accurate in my humble opinion, peaceful and private indeed.

Looking forward to eating here next time we pass through NYC LaGuardia airport: Capital One Is Opening a New Chef-curated Lounge at LaGuardia Airport—and It’s Designed by José Andrés. I was not that impressed by my visits at the other Capital One Landing lounge at DCA airport, hope this one is better. It is not easy keeping up the food quality when these lounges are overrun by huge crowds.

The saga with the NYC Waldorf Astoria continues. Remember when here years ago we were all shaking our heads with that lunatic fraudster in charge of the Anbang Group who even tried to buy Starwood. Instead blew billions buying this property and then the Chinese government took over the company. Years later after many billions it will most likely lose billions, what morons. Or maybe we should wait to see the sales price before I look like a fool, it has happened before: Chinese Government Puts Waldorf Astoria New York On The Market.

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

For ANY questions on cards, contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Southwest is probably the one airline that changes its credit card offers more often than any other airline. And it is not even close. New offers offering Companion Pass and some points as well right off the bat:

– Plus: 20,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027
– Premier: 30,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027
– Priority: 40,000 points plus a Companion Pass through February 2027

Please let me know if some of these offers are no longer valid.

• United Explorer: Earn 70,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles after spending $3,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account, plus $0 annual fee for the first year.

• United Quest: Earn 80,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 3,000 PQP after spending $4,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Club Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

 

175,000 IHG Rewards Premier: $99 Annual Fee, minimum spend $5k in three months.

120,000 IHG Rewards Traveler: No Annual Fee, 90,000 for $2k spend in three months and another 30,000 points for a total of $10k spend in six months.NEW

 

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit: $95 Annual Fee, $4k spend in three months. That’s at least $1,000. I got the card last year and now it is time to cancel it 11 months out. And yes I am keeping the Venture X. I never understood why people can’t do this extraction from the banks, it is not really that hard!

 

And we also have new Increased American Express Delta Offers, Up To 125,000 Miles (Personal & Business Gold, Platinum, Reserve).

 

New interesting offer for the personal Hyatt Visa offering 5 Free Night Certificates (Category 1-4) after a total $15,000 in the first six months (three of the five FNCs after $5k spend in first three months).  I prefer World of Hyatt points offers but this could be relevant for some of you. Why? Because you can get the following night credits: 5 for having the card, 6 for spending $15k (card earns 2 night credits every $5k) and another FNC after hitting $15k. With me so far? You now have 11. If you do burn all your now 6 FNCs you are at 17! Just three away from hitting the first 20k Milestone Reward and 13 away from the next more valuable 30 Night Milestone Reward and Explorist status (where another FNC awaits you, among other goodies).

 

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

 

We now have the refreshed AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

 

Citi now offers the 100k CITI Strata Elite card after $6,000 minimum spend.

 

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

This hobby always changes. And it is part of its appeal that has held us mesmerized for such a long time. But I believe we have entered a phase that just makes it really unworkable. Mostly because our favorite bank Chase has instituted a hard stop to the never ending stream of big credit card signup bonuses. And the other huge development is the increasingly horrendous state of finding business class award availability. Even changing the way I operate by waiting at the last minute to book trips it is now an exercise in futility. And leave alone the mental bandwidth expended by checking and checking. My wife got tired of me saying “nothing yet, still checking” and just booked herself an economy ticket flying Turkish Airlines to Kuala Lumpur with only one stop in Istanbul round trip for almost $1,500. She just could not wait any more she said. I don’t blame her. Her friend just flew that route and said it is just fine. We have flown it in business class in the past. The few award seats I found were just horrendously expensive (no United I am not burning 250k to 650k! miles for one way in business class, WTF!) or with punishingly long layovers with two or more stops. And this is where we are…

Which has led to a big drop in credit cards sales and blog revenues. This is why content creators are diversifying all over the place out there. Ads, sponsorships, Patreon, memberships, merchandise, books, Discord communities, doing live streams for super $ chats. We all despise YouTubers who in the middle of the video interrupt themselves to sell us whatever shit a sponsor told them to sell. This has become common actually these days, I can’t wait to skip ahead. All kinds of shit you would not even dare suggest to any loved one. This is all in direct response to lower commissions from credit card sales. Just last week I watched how a YouTuber went on about something and then, boom, at the very end he forced himself to get excited (pun intended) selling to us a new treatment for erectile dysfunction, come on! I would rather stab myself than to go there. Then again, this has been my true hobby, including blogging. Maybe one day I will get paid here for my time a little. But at least I would like to cover my low blog costs and cover our bank annual fees. Anyway, I am still here blogging away. Like I told my clients recently, I won’t be doing this forever.

I didn’t think I could despise Bilt more. But this company never stops reaching lower, amazing:

BILT Issues – Cards Not Working, Promotions Not Working & More 

Bilt cards being frozen, 5x not being honored. Bilt’s response: Pound sand, it’s TPG’s fault

Bilt mortgage payments are running into snags…even with its own partner

If you ruin your credit by missing your mortgage or rent payment due to all the issues outlined, you have no one to blame but yourself. And Bilt blaming TPG, the two most marketing focused entities in this space is insulting. But make no mistake, Bilt still wines and dines all these bloggers and YouTubers and undoubtedly is taking notes who is toeing the line. Maybe there was a company wide email to ban that Stephen dude at the Frequent Miler staff from all marketing events. Now if only FM would stop accepting Bilt advertisements in its podcast. If Bilt ever approached me to place an ad I will tell them to go phuk themselves.

My last week’s YouTube posts:

Hyatt Regency Koh Samui walkthrough of the property

Short of Tempo Beach Club & Resort in Koh Samui

And three short videos with sunsets from our glorious private villa at the Conrad Koh Samui:

Video #1

Video #2

Video #3

And over at Instagram:

From checking in to the Conrad Koh Samui magnificent villa

Conrad Koh Samui in our own private swimming pool

Magical sunset shots from our villa at the Conrad Koh Samui

Looking back at the many concerts I attended, I regret I never got a chance to see Sonic Youth live, my bad: Kool Thing – Sonic Youth

Happy Chinese New Year to all by the way.

 

Follow on Instagram and YouTube if you want to see more from the recent Thailand/Malaysia trip, they are coming…eventually.

Check out my page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

At this rate, the TBB IPO sadly has been postponed indefinitely, sad.

December:

Credit card sales: 8  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales: 20

February to date:

Credit card sales: 1  Buy me a Coffee: 0

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 47,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,330,130 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Raising Schizophrenic Kids, Startup Graveyard, AI & Human Worlds Collide, Bilt Keeps Imploding appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts. Based on current support click trends, this blog has entered its final descent…

GIVEAWAY: A blog reader has kindly offered TWO World of Hyatt Globalist GOH Guest Honor Certificates expiring 2/28/2026. Priority will be given to blog readers who have supported my blog in the past. And if you can not use them by end of February do not contact me.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“We are not savage. We are not animals. We are not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans…Hate gets more powerful with more hate. The only thing that is more powerful than hate is love” – Bad Bunny

MUST READ GEMS

This is probably the best read explaining what the hell is going on lately in the US. And the insane environment we are living through. And how we arrived here. Be gentle in the comments please.

The Great Entertainment

This is the Great Entertainment, the period after the Great Moderation. We are no longer in a world defined by alliances and mutual agreement. Instead we are rapidly entering a time of instability and uncertainty, driven by the appearance of success (not success itself) on TV.

I could excerpt more but I will let you enjoy this read so I can move on…

PERSONAL FINANCE

Vanguard does it again: Vanguard Cuts Fees on 53 Mutual Funds and ETFs for 2026. Lower!

If you bitch about how expensive everything is right now, well, visiting this site you can prove it: WhatShouldiSpend. Select an item from the list and the year you pretend you actually bought it and the site tells you what the price was that year, what is the equivalent in today’s dollars and the actual price today. Very useful!

Most of my clients are now retired and just a handful are still working. By choice. We are blessed that this retirement phase of life is not dependent on math anymore. But on the much more challenging softer internal challenges. Like this WSJ article so eloquently lays out: The Retirement Crisis No One Warns You About: Mattering. And oh boy it hits home I must admit.

We plan for our wealthspan and healthspan, mapping out financial security and physical well-being. Yet very few of us prepare for an equally essential dimension of retirement: our mattering span, or how we will continue to feel seen, useful and capable of making a difference in this next chapter of life.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

Some really sad statistics here: Cell Phone Statistics 2026.

Each day, Americans spend 4 hours and 30 minutes on their mobile phones and check their phones 144 times per day.

…more than 8 in 10 teens report that they use their phones to connect with other people or learn new things. Alternatively, some teens use their devices to avoid social interaction.

Crypto is crashing and, well, who knows, this has happened several times in the past only to come back and maybe it happens again. Are we reaching the point where even this ridiculous Saylor dude starts selling its own bitcoin stash? To the moon y’all they said. Ok, whatever. Just be careful out there: The Crypto-Hoarding Strategy Is Unraveling.

This past weekend, bitcoin fell below $76,000, about the average price Strategy paid for its tokens, meaning the company formerly known as MicroStrategy was sitting on some paper losses. Shares of Strategy, which owns more than 700,000 bitcoins, fell 7% Monday and are down 61% since bitcoin touched its record high on Oct. 6. [Article is dated February 2. As of typing this paragraph I peaked at the bitcoin prices and saw $66,666 (not joking!) so my thoughts and prayers. Then again, by the time I click Publish it could be + or – $10,000 and I just don’t have the stomach for an asset this volatile, you go ahead and do not forget that you were warned ok?]

Update: As of this morning a few hours before I click on “Publish” on this post, this: Bitcoin Booster’s $12 Billion Loss Headlines Crypto’s Worst Day Since 2022 Crash.

The price of bitcoin, ether and other digital assets reached their peak in October and then began a retreat that has accelerated sharply in 2026. The decline has weighed heavily on the shares of Strategy and its many imitators. Strategy touched an unwelcome milestone Saturday. For the first time in more than two years, bitcoin fell below the average price the company paid to acquire the digital tokens. Strategy shares have fallen 68% in the past year. The stock dropped 3.1% in after-hours trading following the company’s earnings.

At least one reader likes this roundup: January 2026 Ponzi Scheme Roundup. This never fails to make me shake my head how gullible some people continue to be. And there are some entries that clearly stand out, like this guy:

Sylvein William Maximilian D’Habsburg XVII, 49, of California, pleaded guilty to defrauding elderly church parishioners and others in a Ponzi scheme that took in at least $5.9 million. He ran the scheme through Wild Rabbit Technologies LLC and BAI Intelligence LLC, claiming he had artificial intelligence technology that could predict the future and detect a COVID-19 infection based solely on a video recording. [I mean, his name is just a dead giveaway lol. And, I mean, come on, how can you fall for a claim like that?]\

Melton promised returns of 12% per month from investments in futures contracts using a proprietary trading algorithm. [Here is a tip: When you see “proprietary” anything, run away fast, you are welcome.]

AI

This has been a crazy week in AI. You know something is happening when your software engineer son reaches out to us old folks to warn us about scams that will proliferate very soon. Most coming from this Moltbook thing that just erupted out there. Moltbook is a human-free Reddit clone where AI agents discuss cybersecurity and philosophy. Sometimes the pace of change AI is inflicting is too much to even comprehend.

Moltbook might be the strangest corner of the internet right now. It’s a Reddit-style social network where more than 35,000150,000 1,146,946, 1.6 Million AI agents talk to each other without any human involvement. The visual interface exists purely for humans to observe; agents communicate entirely through the API. [I don’t dare to look at how many agents the site is up to now].

Is this a preview of how humanity begins its downfall? I don’t think so, this is all going fast and getting more weird: The Chatbots Appear to Be Organizing. Moltbook is the chaotic future of the internet. I really like how the author ended his article:

The promise of the AI boom is to remake the internet and civilization anew; encasing that technology in a social network styled after the platforms that have warped reality for the past two decades feels not like giving a spark of life, but stoking the embers of a world we might be better off leaving behind.

And speaking about a bloodbath in software. Remember the saying “Software will eat the world”, maybe AI will eat software instead? Threat of New AI Tools Wipes $300 Billion Off Software and Data Stocks.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

Wow, so many missing with their cars: Map the Missing. Any case near you?

Since 2022, this site has been dedicated to tracking people who have gone missing with their vehicles. One of the few ways a vehicle can remain missing for 3+ years is if it’s underwater, and the technology to find them may be held by someone in your community. Currently, we know of around 900 cases that fit this criteria, though the true number could be a lot higher.

This YouTube channel “Asian Boss” is pretty good making in depth videos about Asia. And this is a must watch about Iran: How Iran’s Middle Class Got Wiped Out.

I bet we all use WD-40. And I also bet you did not know this, I sure didn’t: The Secret Society of People Who Know the Formula for WD-40. Even the CEO had to wait more than 30 years to get into the vault that holds the recipe for the lubricant; ‘It was like getting into Fort Knox’.

The True Size of Greenland, Compared to Most World Maps.

Greenland appears roughly the same size as Africa. In reality, Africa is 14 times larger.

Greenland is the single most exaggerated territory on Earth by percentage. It is actually 73.9% smaller than is shown on a Mercator map.

 

TRAVEL

Sometimes I check these things out just to see what was picked for my own state of Michigan: The Most Romantic Place to Go in Every State. I am not sure I deem Sleeping Bear Dunes as romantic, just only the best place in Michigan overall.

Amazing scenery: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout. Meanwhile, we here are going back to coal wtf!

What a mural, wow: Maria Callas mural in Kalamata named world’s best for 2025.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Here we go again.

Decent Hyatt Bonus Journeys promotion, register HERE.

Great resource to bookmark: Popular Credit, Finance & Travel hacking Abbreviations. Yours truly made it as TBB, hooray!

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

This section will have developments and news and will keep my own commentary reserved for the MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING section below.

The more I read about Bilt the more my stomach turns: Cardholders Are Mad at Bilt’s CEO. They’re Still Renewing.

Jain tells me—loudly, and more than once—that Bilt never intended to get into credit cards, by far the company’s best-known product today. [Do you believe this was not the plan all along? I sure don’t.]

His father is serial entrepreneur Naveen Jain, who in 2002 was forced out of InfoSpace, a company he co-founded with his wife, Anu Jain, amid accusations he misled investors. [I did not know this and, cough, mislead investors ha? Years later Wells Fargo was misled bigly lol].

In 2024—the same year Jain married fitness entrepreneur and influencer Erika Hammond in a lavish event set against the Pyramids of Giza…[If you google this it will shock you]

Jain maintains. “If you’re going to use our card,” he says, “it should be the best.” – LOLOLOLOLOL

I wanted to excerpt more, about his altruistic reasons to make a difference starting Bilt and now blowing money on constructing new headquarters and more. I guess I will never be invited to be wined and dined at a Bilt event, so sad #notreally.

The latest on the subject: What Works? Using Amex Airline Credits in 2026.

Positive change for us transiting Frankfurt and Munich: American Express Platinum Card Access To Lufthansa Lounges Extended To All LH-Group Flights.

Sign #459 Amex is going for all of us with deep pockets: Amex Platinum Card Increases Spend Requirement to $12,000.

 

 NEW OFFERS:

A flurry of new offers all at once, just going to lay out the very basics. You know what to do to learn more. Please let me know if some of these offers are no longer valid.

• United Explorer: Earn 70,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles after spending $3,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account, plus $0 annual fee for the first year.

• United Quest: Earn 80,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 3,000 PQP after spending $4,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Club Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

 

175,000 IHG Rewards Premier: $99 Annual Fee, minimum spend $5k in three months.

120,000 IHG Rewards Traveler: No Annual Fee, 90,000 for $2k spend in three months and another 30,000 points for a total of $10k spend in six months.NEW

 

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit: $95 Annual Fee, $4k spend in three months. That’s at least $1,000. I got the card last year and now it is time to cancel it 11 months out. And yes I am keeping the Venture X. I never understood why people can’t do this extraction from the banks, it is not really that hard!

 

And we also have new Increased American Express Delta Offers, Up To 125,000 Miles (Personal & Business Gold, Platinum, Reserve).

 

I am also listing the other offers still going from last week below:

3X50k Free Night Certs Amex Marriott Business Card: $125 Annual Fee, $6k in first six months.

Three Avios cards (British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus) now offer 90,000 Avios Signup Bonus for $5,000 minimum spend in three months. They are all $95 annual fee cards.

 

New interesting offer for the personal Hyatt Visa offering 5 Free Night Certificates (Category 1-4) after a total $15,000 in the first six months (three of the five FNCs after $5k spend in first three months).  I prefer World of Hyatt points offers but this could be relevant for some of you. Why? Because you can get the following night credits: 5 for having the card, 6 for spending $15k (card earns 2 night credits every $5k) and another FNC after hitting $15k. With me so far? You now have 11. If you do burn all your now 6 FNCs you are at 17! Just three away from hitting the first 20k Milestone Reward and 13 away from the next more valuable 30 Night Milestone Reward and Explorist status (where another FNC awaits you, among other goodies).

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

EXPIRING OFFERS:

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

 

We now have the refreshed AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

 

Citi now offers the 100k CITI Strata Elite card after $6,000 minimum spend. This is Citi’s premium card at a $595 annual fee. $300 annual hotel credit, $200 annual Splurge credits, $200 annual Blacklane credit, 4 annual American Airlines Admirals Club lounge passes, Priority Pass Select membership and $120 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit. Earning structure is: 12x points per dollar spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent at restaurants on Citi Nights purchases, Friday and Saturday from 6 PM – 6 AM EST, 3x points per dollar spent at Restaurants any other time, 1.5x points per dollar spent on All Other Purchases. Points can now be transferred out to American Airlines. This card is a Mastercard. There is a $145 discount off the annual fee if you are a Citigold customer or have a Private Client relationship (requires over $200k with Citi). Citi Private Clients get the first annual fee waived. Citi is not an easy bank to deal with so beware. Email me with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

Amazingly, just when I had decided to retire my United Gateway card to my sock drawer, here comes yet another spending based promotion for 3x on Gas, Groceries and Restaurants until March 31, maximum 5,000 bonus United miles. Fine then, it comes out of my sock drawer, it was there for a whole 6 days lol.  Waiting for 10k to be credited for a spending based promo that ended December 31, with another one that will net me another 10k already taken care of and now this 5k miles. This card just keeps on giving bonusing.

I keep track of my calendar year spend on my World of Hyatt visa. Because each $5k earns 2 qualifying night credits towards elite status. And I am baffled why I received 2 additional night credits when I was about $1.2k away from hitting $15k. When at that level I earn another Free Night Cert. Is this a glitch of some kind? Will Chase take them back? Very strange.

Wife needs to go back to Malaysia for a family event next month and award availability is just horrendously non-existent. And she wants to just lock in a ticket, we may just buy one this weekend. In the grand scheme of this hobby, along with the increasingly tough banking restrictions and endless devaluations, what hurts the most is how ridiculously hard it has become to actually use our miles and points. Especially with some of us who just can’t be that flexible. It has never been so difficult before. And this is why I am just taking a break earning more miles this year while I reevaluate everything. And starting to become more comfortable paying for travel now that we just can not rely on an endless stream of Chase Ultimate Rewards points as that gravy churning train has come to a stop after decades of paying for numerous family trips.

Next card to close is wife’s United Explorer card and my own Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business card. Of course so many bloggers and YouTubers can not fully express what is happening and instead try to fool their audience so they can keep selling them plastic. But that business plan may not be working as well as it did, can’t wait for so many business men to exit this space so they can go on to sell what other shit they think they can make money on.

Very slowly catching up on posting pics/videos from our recent trip to Thailand and Malaysia. I post as my time permits these days. Actually, can’t believe I am still here blogging away…

Pics from the Hyatt Regency Koh Samui Suite & Breakfast

Some pics from around Koh Samui

Video short of son’s room at Koh Samui that had a private pool

Follow on Instagram and YouTube if you want to see more, they are coming…eventually.

Tax season is on. And so are the workers destroying my kitchen, hopefully the new one to arise will be much better. We eat out every day, life is so hard 😉

I DO have a separate page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

I am giving myself a challenge to average 5 credit card sales and 15 Buy Me a Coffee sales per month. As expected, the 6 Capital One Venture X sales during December 2025 finally appeared (three were by my wife, son and daughter lol). And thanks to reader T. for finally breaking that mother of all dry streaks of non CO credit card sales here since, please sit down, December 11th, enjoy your United Business card. Apparently, he also got a Chase IHG Premier but no signs of that being credited to my account yet. For that idiot who emailed to tell me he unsubscribed because my blog got too commercial, what can I say? There are some really strange people on the internet. What this blog earns barely cover its costs and it is getting increasingly more difficult to do that due to the latest banking restrictions, looking at you Jamie Dimon at Chase. Enjoy each post and understand that each credit card and coffee does keep the blog going. Because I will not keep this baby going and pay out of my own pocket to do so.

 

December:

Credit card sales: 8  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales: 20

February to date:

Credit card sales: 1  Buy me a Coffee: 0

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 47,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,194,295 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

 

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post The Great Entertainment, Crypto Crash, Moltbook AI Mayhem, Tiny Greenland, Bilt Expose appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts. Based on current support click trends, this blog has entered its final descent…

GIVEAWAY: A blog reader has kindly offered TWO World of Hyatt Globalist GOH Guest Honor Certificates expiring 2/28/2026. Priority will be given to blog readers who have supported my blog in the past. And if you can not use them by end of February do not contact me.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.” – Euripides

MUST READ GEMS

Some interesting thoughts by Morgan Housel: A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About.

The internet is unique in the history of technology because there’s a list of things it improved (communication, access to information) but another list of things it likely made worse for almost everybody (political polarization, dopamine addiction from social media, less in-person interaction, lower attention spans, the spread of misinformation.)

There aren’t many examples throughout history of technology so universal with so many obvious downsides relative to what existed before it. But the wounds are so fresh that it’s not surprising many look at AI with the same fear.

This is more hope than prediction, but I wouldn’t be surprised if in 20 years we look back at this era of political nastiness as a generational bottom we grew out of.

PERSONAL FINANCE

One more for Health Savings Accounts: HSAs Are Expanding. Some Expect A Surge In New Accounts. Can they get even better? Yes.

You may be seeing some positive press about hedge funds, how they finally came back in 2025. Don’t fall for it, it is all BS. Because Hedge funds post rare banner year, but the S&P 500 index beat’em by nearly 400 basis points.

Really good roundup of what happened in 2025: The 4 Defining Charts for Markets in 2025: Key Takeaways for Investors.

Among dozens of developments, four stood out in 2025:

1. The US economy was resilient despite tariffs.
2. Bitcoin and gold traveled different paths.
3. International markets surged.
4. Exchange-traded funds once again owned the year.

As for 2026, there are two to keep an eye on:

1. Hyperscaler bonds tell a different story from their stocks.
2. Public company buyouts are growing more common.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

This is the definition of a giant piece of shit: Georgia Advisor Pleads Guilty To Running A $380M Ponzi Scheme.

CORE Fund investors were told something different. They were promised “100% passive income” from tax liens, with returns as high as 22% annually. The fund claimed government protection and full collateralization. In reality, prosecutors say Drive Planning stopped investing money in the CORE Fund in late 2022, while continuing to solicit new funds…Federal authorities say Burkhalter spent about $2 million on a yacht. He put $2.1 million toward a luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He spent roughly $800,000 on luxury vehicles, including a motorcoach and multiple high-end SUVs. Millions more went to private jet travel, jewelry, designer clothing and beauty treatments.

This is becoming a huge problem: How to Prevent Aging Parents and Relatives From Making Financial Mistakes. Getting family members to listen to you when you think they are headed down a dangerous financial path can be difficult. But there are preventive steps you can take.

Cybercrime against elders is skyrocketing. In 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center received nearly 150,000 complaints of cyber-enabled fraud against people 60 or older, with almost $5 billion in losses, according to the agency’s annual report. The victims lost an average of $83,000.

AI

Out of all the CEOs involved in AI, I find Anthropic’s Dario Amodei the most down to earth, you know, normal human. He wrote a very long thoughtful post about AI and I think it is worth of your time. This is the essence of my blog, I share with you material that I find worthy enough to share with you. Because this is the blog mission and there is a reason ‘To Educate” is listed first. Oh, lost my train of thought, here is the article: The Adolescence of Technology. Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI.

Interesting visual: AI Adoption Rates by Country.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

Probably one of the most important speeches by the Canadian Prime Minister in this insane era we are all living through: Mark Carney’s full speech on middle powers navigating a rapidly changing world.

This guy continues to amaze and he is still alive, now with two daughters: Highlights: Alex Honnold’s free-solo climb of Taipei 101. Must click.

Fascinating personal account from the first days of the Cultural Revolution in China: “I Swear to Chairman Mao!” On Becoming a Red Guard. Jung Chang Remembers the Early Days of the Cultural Revolution in Her Hometown of Chengdu.

Obligatory Thailand related link: Crazy story with this guy, wow: An American’s Fight to Survive the Thai Prison System and Immigration Detention.

Amazing photography here: 102 Photographs Every History Enthusiast Should See.

 

TRAVEL

Seeing high interest in moving out of the US lately. I am shocked I tell you. Anyway, if you are looking to Europe this article may be of interest: Digital nomad visas, real mobility, and the fine print everyone ignores.

If you are interested in extreme sports, go to Greece: An Extreme Sports Guide to Greece’s Wildest Landscapes.

Had no idea this existed: The First Undersea Park in the U.S. Has Incredible Diving, Snorkeling, and Glass-bottom Boat Tours.

If you are willing to send these guys $250,000 as “deposits” for their hotel on the Moon, can you please buy a lifetime sponsorship in my blog? Lol. GRU is Planning the First Hotel on The Moon’s Surface.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Here we go again.

Good resource: Gift hotel points, free night certificates, and award nights booked with points: Rules by program.

Pretty good Hyatt promotion: Hyatt Extended Stays Promotion (Hyatt House/Studios): Stay 5+ Nights & Earn 5k Points (Up To 50k). So easy to sign up for Hyatt promos in the app.

Usually Hyatt gets acquired companies turned around and into World of Hyatt pretty quickly. Not sure why it took so long to do this with the Bahia all-inclusives: Bahia Principe Hotels To Join World Of Hyatt On March 24, 2026. Frankly, I could care less about yet another all inclusive in the Caribbean, zzzzz.

It is an end of an era you guys. And I say good riddance to the open seating policy: Southwest Just Rolled Out Its Most Controversial Policy Change. And can’t wait also for those poles at the gates to go away.

Results are out: JetBlue’s 25 for 25 Results: 811M Points Awarded to 2,000+ customers. “…2,370 participants from 43 states took on the challenge to fly to 25 JetBlue destinations, with 90 percent completing all 25. JetBlue awarded 811.5 million TrueBlue points” I guess there are lots of people out there with way too much time on their hands. Then again, some are “content creators” always looking for content smh.

Can you believe the BS of this guy? Hilton CEO Claims Chain Has ‘Absorbed’ Inflation Costs On Award Stays. Maybe one of these  years I say enough and move on. Not this year, I am close to earning a Free Night Cert with my Amex Hilton Surpass card.

I am not into Marriott Bonvoy. But since it is the largest hotel loyalty program by far, some of you are into it because we just can not escape it. This may be of interest to you: 5 Great International Options For Your Marriott 35,000 Point Certificates. I have been looking at Palacio del Inka in Machu Picchu, Peru for years, one day I just gotta go for it.

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

This section will have developments and news and will keep my own commentary reserved for the MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING section below.

Pretty surprised by this move by Capital One, I guess management must feel like they got the Discover acquisition well under control: Capital One To Acquire Brex For $5.15 Billion. Valuation went down from $12.3 Billion. And I think they paid too much for it.

 

 NEW OFFERS:

A flurry of new offers all at once, just going to lay out the very basics. You know what to do to learn more. If this blog goes with zero card sales for more than a month, I got the message!

• United Explorer: Earn 70,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles after spending $3,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account, plus $0 annual fee for the first year.

• United Quest: Earn 80,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 3,000 PQP after spending $4,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

• United Club Business: Earn 100,000 United MileagePlus bonus miles and 2,000 PQP after spending $5,000 on qualifying purchases in the first three months of opening an account.

175,000 IHG Rewards Premier: $99 Annual Fee, minimum spend $5k in three months.

120,000 IHG Rewards Traveler: No Annual Fee, 90,000 for $2k spend in three months and another 30,000 points for a total of $10k spend in six months.NEW

75,000 Capital One Venture PLUS $250 Travel Credit: $95 Annual Fee, $4k spend in three months. That’s at least $1,000. I got the card last year and now it is time to cancel it 11 months out. And yes I am keeping the Venture X. I never understood why people can’t do this extraction from the banks, it is not really that hard!

And we also have new Increased American Express Delta Offers, Up To 125,000 Miles (Personal & Business Gold, Platinum, Reserve).

I am also listing the other offers still going from last week below:

3X50k Free Night Certs Amex Marriott Business Card: $125 Annual Fee, $6k in first six months.

Three Avios cards (British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus) now offer 90,000 Avios Signup Bonus for $5,000 minimum spend in three months. They are all $95 annual fee cards.

New interesting offer for the personal Hyatt Visa offering 5 Free Night Certificates (Category 1-4) after a total $15,000 in the first six months (three of the five FNCs after $5k spend in first three months).  I prefer World of Hyatt points offers but this could be relevant for some of you. Why? Because you can get the following night credits: 5 for having the card, 6 for spending $15k (card earns 2 night credits every $5k) and another FNC after hitting $15k. With me so far? You now have 11. If you do burn all your now 6 FNCs you are at 17! Just three away from hitting the first 20k Milestone Reward and 13 away from the next more valuable 30 Night Milestone Reward and Explorist status (where another FNC awaits you, among other goodies).

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

EXPIRING OFFERS:

First, I am going to list the expiring offers based on expiration dates order, so here we go:

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

After January 22, the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business Signup Bonus becomes 150,000 points for a minimum spend of $20,000.

 

We now have the refreshed AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

The Signup Bonus offers remain the dreaded “Up to 175,000 points” for the personal card. And a solid 200,000 points for the Business card.

Citi now offers the 100k CITI Strata Elite card after $6,000 minimum spend. This is Citi’s premium card at a $595 annual fee. $300 annual hotel credit, $200 annual Splurge credits, $200 annual Blacklane credit, 4 annual American Airlines Admirals Club lounge passes, Priority Pass Select membership and $120 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit. Earning structure is: 12x points per dollar spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent at restaurants on Citi Nights purchases, Friday and Saturday from 6 PM – 6 AM EST, 3x points per dollar spent at Restaurants any other time, 1.5x points per dollar spent on All Other Purchases. Points can now be transferred out to American Airlines. This card is a Mastercard. There is a $145 discount off the annual fee if you are a Citigold customer or have a Private Client relationship (requires over $200k with Citi). Citi Private Clients get the first annual fee waived. Citi is not an easy bank to deal with so beware. Email me with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I had another spending promo on my United Gateway card, they never stop. Currently I am having my main floor of my house totally wrecked to renovate it and money is flowing freely. So  I charged $13k on this card to earn a bonus 10k United miles and, this is important, with hitting $10k this calendar year I have locked in improved award availability on the United website for the rest of this year AND next year. So, this card is going to be in my sock drawer for a very long time lol.

Come to think of it, United used to copy all moves by Delta. And so they did this one after Delta added that “save 15%” only if you have a Delta credit card. And then United took it to the next level. I mean, if you spend some time looking for awards on the United website you will very quickly realize that not having a United credit card is basically a waste of time. Not that the improved award search availability with an eligible United card makes a huge difference. But it does make some difference that keeps giving us the carrot hoping for that killer redemption. Yeah, right. We need to face the music here that the airlines got the upper hand and we are no longer able to take advantage of them so easily as in the past, sigh.

I got a shout and back link from Miles Earn and Burn. Which is highly appreciated. And so rare. None of the other bloggers have ever linked back to me by the way. It is what it is…

I went through an extreme media diet phase in the past week. We are talking I deleted about 40 blogs from my Feedly RSS list, deleted several bookmarks, unsubscribed to at least 50 things invading my inbox, wiped out most notifications on my phone and I will continue to do all these things to free up time to keep this blog up a little bit longer. I learned that I have 6 Capital One credit card sales in December (3 from my own family, lol) that will finally be credited to my account on February 5. So I guess I hit at least one month goal, see below. But with the recent Chase banking restrictions the outlook is not good. Anyway, speaking of Miles Earn and Burn, you bet this is one feed I kept in my Feedly list of required reading. And love his take on Bilt 2.16b lol HERE:

…maybe consider that your time will be better spent by using a Citi Double Cash card, Venture X card, American Express Blue Business Plus card, or Chase Ink Unlimited card and looking for other plays instead of taking hours learning the ins-and-outs of the most complex credit card program ever invented for the possibility of good returns before Cardless axes you. With all of those non-Bilt cards:

• You’ll earn 2x on all spend (1.5x for the Ink Unlimited)
• The annual fees are simple
• The programs all have valuable transfer partners
• You don’t have to spend hours learning how to use the card
• Richard Kerr won’t be watching your plays in real time

Bingo, that’s it!

Also, another great post by MEAB: Real Spend Shouldn’t Move the Needle. Which I agree with. So many bloggers/YouTubers online making “content” about how you can maximize your points from that burrito at Chipotle. Focus on the bigger bangs people, you know, SIGNUP BONUSES, hello?

Started posting again on Instagram as time permits:

Flying Bangkok Airways from Bangkok to Koh Samui

Hyatt Regency Koh Samui Resort

Soon I will get to the pics and videos from the Conrad in Koh Samui which we absolutely loved.

And I posted two short videos, the takeoff from Bangkok and the landing in Koh Samui. My YouTube videos have no production value, I am no videographer and don’t do editing, please don’t judge. Actually, I am just testing this Shorts format to see how many click on them. And I am shocked to find out that ten to twenty more times click on the Shorts instead of the longer videos. That is just mind boggling. I guess so many people out there with attention span issues scrolling mindlessly smh.

I need to put together the 2025 annual miles points burning summary. I barely missed burning another 2 Million miles/points for the second year in a row. Finding myself in a situation with no travel plans right now because so much is going on in real life on the ground. I should have skipped going for World of Hyatt Globalist, oh well. Also, my house is a total war zone with the remodeling guys going at it. And tax season is underway!

Award availability continues to be dismal. I saw a blog or a video recently with the title “Is this the end of points and miles?” Sure seems like it to me. Was such a great ride you guys since the early 90s. I was expecting this and then Covid put a short stop to it. And now…people are spending bigly and filling up every plane it appears. Which decreases award seats and then you enter so many people “getting in the game”, and Chase saying enough for all you free loaders and I could go and on and on.

Trying to simplify and be more selective going forward. I closed the Venture Rewards card I got last year for I believe 75,000 miles AND a $250 travel credit before the second annual fee hit. So, all that for $95 #winning. You can too by getting the card HERE, thanks!

 

I DO have a separate page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

I am giving myself a challenge to average 5 credit card sales and 15 Buy Me a Coffee sales per month.

November:

Credit card sales: 4  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

December:

Credit card sales: 2  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January to date:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales:  20

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 75k AND $250 Travel Credit CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 47,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,126,019 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

You can receive each blog post by entering your email address below and then clicking on SUBSCRIBE below, no spam ever!:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Hedge Funds Comeback BS, AI Adoption Rates, Chairman Mao and Thai Prisons, Digital Nomad Visas, New United & Delta Credit Card Offers appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI slop. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING: The blog will evolve to less and smaller posts going forward until the revenue comes back to cover the blog costs. See you next time. If you do not want to get the blog posts via email please unsubscribe.

World’s Most On-Time Airlines and Airports

10 Most Mind-Blowing Discoveries About the Brain in 2025

Spotify’s Top 50 Podcasts of 2025 

10 Transformational Health Discoveries of 2025

14 Pop Culture Moments That Sent the Internet Into Meltdown in 2025

The 10 Best Books of 2025 – The New York Times

10 Scientific Truths That Somehow Became Unpopular in 2025

The Viral Moments That Defined 2025

The Best Science Images of 2025

Photomicrography Winners of Nikon Small World 2025

Associated Press Photos That Defined 2025

The post 2025 Annual Best of Lists #5: Top Brain Discoveries, Best Spotify Podcasts, Top Internet Meltdowns & Viral Moments, Transformational Health Discoveries appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts. Based on current click trends, this blog has entered its final descent…

GIVEAWAY: A blog reader has kindly offered TWO World of Hyatt Globalist GOH Guest Honor Certificates expiring 2/28/2026. Priority will be given to blog readers who have supported my blog in the past. And if you can not use them by end of February do not contact me.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd” – Voltaire

MUST READ GEMS

A colleague passed along this quick reference guide resource that some of you may find it helpful. Even if you are not a financial planning or tax professional.

Crunching Number$

Crunching Number$ is a tool designed for financial planning and tax professionals to use as a quick reference when locating important numbers relevant to our work. The guide is available in both PDF and Excel formats, so you can choose the version that best suits your needs. 

PERSONAL FINANCE

Be careful, the alternative investments salesmen are coming for your wallet, the push is just starting. And this time they managed to buy the politicians so please be aware. It’s bullshit when you look deeper: Alternatives Face Mounting Scrutiny, Skepticism.

State Street’s private equity index, which tracks returns from private equity, private debt and venture capital funds, recorded a 7.08 per cent return last year, compared with a 25 per cent total return for the S&P 500 index, which also outperformed private funds on a three, five and 10-year basis.

Per Morningstar:

…private markets “come with higher fees, less transparency, less liquidity and more complexity,”

“[Private funds] promise greater access and returns, but also bring steep fees, heavy use of leverage and liquidity limits that investors must carefully evaluate.” 

Fees for private market funds can be up to three times higher than those for public markets… The average annual expense ratio for semi-liquid funds is 3.16 per cent, while the comparable figure for active mutual and exchange-traded funds is 0.79 per cent. In addition, commissions for selling alternative funds, often 2 to 5 per cent, can sometimes exceed 10 per cent. 

At least we have Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal who is trying to stop the hurt: Why This CEO Won’t Let Private Funds Near His Company’s 401(k). I am dealing with the aftermath of the death of a few clients these days and it is always stressful dealing with Inherited IRAs. I could not imagine having to untangle alternative investments while grieving like the CEO interviewed in this article. Keep things simple folks #youhavebeenwarned.

Frank Sullivan, chief executive of RPM International, is one of these frustrated heirs. Untangling his late father’s private funds, he says, has made him determined not to allow such assets in RPM’s 401(k).

Private-fund managers and politicians pushing for wider use of nontraded assets in 401(k)s say it’s unfair that big institutions have long invested in nontraded assets while small investors haven’t been able to. Why shouldn’t the little guy have equal access to the potentially higher returns on private assets? “That sounds like ‘mom and apple pie,’ but it’s a bulls— argument,” fumes Sullivan, the RPM CEO. “The reality is, now they’re having a hard time raising money and returns are reverting to the mean…I see this as a move [by private-fund managers] to get their fingers on trillions of dollars in 401(k) assets and put them into investments that are totally inappropriate. The vast majority of people who own 401(k)s shouldn’t be investing in illiquid, expensive, hard-to-value assets”…“You sense my anger at a money grab that will not serve this group of hardworking Americans very well. The people driving this don’t give a damn about the average investor. They’re saying, ‘This is the biggest pot of money that we don’t have our fingers in yet, so let’s go get it’ ”.

Some good visuals found in THIS article:

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

So many loud arrogant assholes out there these days. And so many in the crypto space. And then there is the Michael Saylor dude: Is This Billionaire a Financial Genius or a Fraudster? Michael Saylor’s financial alchemy thrust an ordinary software company, Strategy, into the center of the crypto frenzy. It all worked spectacularly, until now. You know where I stand by the way. His “strategy” (pun intended) is sure showing some cracks finally and, like with so many others, we just can not believe his dangerous shtick still finds suckers to fool.

What is it like inside one of these scam centers in Myanmar? Worse than you can ever imagine, wow: At This Office Park, Scamming the World Was the Business. Times journalists got a rare look inside one of the compounds where the online fraud industry makes its billions. Inspirational slogans (“Keep going”) were just the start.

AI

Adding this link here since it has some AI thingies: 10 Breakthrough Technologies.

It appears that every other week we have another AI leader, now it is Claude: Claude Is Taking the AI World by Storm, and Even Non-Nerds Are Blown Away. Developers and hobbyists are comparing the viral moment for Anthropic’s Claude Code to the launch of generative AI.

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

You have never seen a website like this: Library of Time. Hard to describe what it is. Click a calendar or clock for more info. You may input a date and time above using numerals and commas.

Fascinating account of the author Growing up in “404 Not Found”（Part I）: Life in a Secret Chinese Nuclear City That Was Never on the Map.

Time for some brilliant humor before this guy kills us all: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to Be Declared Honorary Virus. The ceremony will feature roadkill hors d’oeuvres, goblets of beef tallow, and a sewage plunge.

“For offering a gracious home to a parasitic brain worm, even for a time, and for his indefatigable efforts to reintroduce the noble measle back into the wild, we here at the Childhood Diseases Consortium (CDC) are proud to claim Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as one of our own,” a plaque reads. “For his work making the lives of those scientists still trying to do their jobs at the Other CDC a living nightmare, and for the many ways, large and small, that he advances the cause of viral disease, we offer this small tribute to our most ferocious advocate and strongest defender. Whether he is repeating the words gold-standard science until they lose all meaning, traveling the world with a personal holster of sauerkraut, or doing something we think is intended to be a pull-up, the secretary will always know that we’re honored to have him in our corner. Wherever we go, whomever we touch, we feel we’re carrying on his legacy.”

The evening was to feature a performance by a children’s choir, but too many of them are reportedly under the weather.

Interesting visual: All of the World’s Births in 2025:

 

 

TRAVEL

Some good ideas here: 25 Adventure Travel Ideas We’re Excited About, According to T+L Travel Advisors.

Interesting link: The Oldest Restaurant in Every State.

Another one: The Best Weekend Getaways in Every State. We here in Michigan were shocked to see Mackinac Island on this list #notreally.

This looks very cool: Norway’s New Panoramic Night Train Turns the Northern Lights Into a Moving Light Show.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Here we go again.

You know this hobby is way past its golden days when you see an editorial like this in the Wall Street Journal of all places smh, do ya hear that over there at the Bilt HQ mansion? Life Is Too Short for Frequent-Flyer Miles. The complexity of trying to ‘optimize’ everything has a cost.

My credit-card company recently notified me that my annual fee would be raised to $795, but I shouldn’t fret because I’d get thousands of dollars back in benefits. A quick study revealed that managing the benefits would be a part-time job. I shut my account and moved to a card with a reward system that doesn’t require a spreadsheet to track..There’s a cost to complexity. The game’s payout has to be worth the time and effort of playing. Instead of prying a bit more from a rewards program, for example, I’d rather put my time into my family and business, each of which has a much higher return on investment.

Some interesting categories and entries here: Announcing the 2026 Cranky Network Award Nominations.

Does anyone really use The Edit hotels? Well, if you do, here is a site just like that one we use for Amex FHR hotels: EditMaxxer.

For the Hyatt lovers out there: Shortcuts to Hyatt elite status and Milestone Rewards and Best Hyatt Category 4 Hotels & Resorts.

Southwest has become like another legacy airline now and their financial results and stock price have improved substantially by the way: Southwest Fare Classes Explained: What Changes in January 2026.

Good to know what is coming: Hilton Hotel Openings Report December 2025.

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

This section will have developments and news and will keep my own commentary reserved for the MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING section below.

And see separate section at the very end of this post on Bilt, now at version 3.1a and counting.

A fascinating account what happened in the two years of negotiations between Goldman and Apple for the Apple card: Behind the Unraveling of Apple’s Credit-Card Partnership With Goldman Sachs. What was most surprising was this, omg can you imagine?

Synchrony was convinced it was getting the deal and started exploring how to make the card turnover as low-cost as it could.

Chase continues its retreat by now allowing us to carry both the Sapphire cards. Good for us no doubt but still, free Hyatt stays are going to be missed: [Memo] Chase Changing Rules Around Signup Bonus Eligibility For Sapphire Reserve & Sapphire Preferred.

 

Nobody is clicking my credit card links so I am going to reduce this section substantially and only feature some new offers along with some expiring worthy ones.

 

 NEW OFFERS:

Three Avios cards (British Airways, Iberia and Aer Lingus) now offer 90,000 Avios Signup Bonus for $5,000 minimum spend in three months. They are all $95 annual fee cards.

New interesting offer for the personal Hyatt Visa offering 5 Free Night Certificates (Category 1-4) after a total $15,000 in the first six months (three of the five FNCs after $5k spend in first three months).  I prefer World of Hyatt points offers but this could be relevant for some of you. Why? Because you can get the following night credits: 5 for having the card, 6 for spending $15k (card earns 2 night credits every $5k) and another FNC after hitting $15k. With me so far? You now have 11. If you do burn all your now 6 FNCs you are at 17! Just three away from hitting the first 20k Milestone Reward and 13 away from the next more valuable 30 Night Milestone Reward and Explorist status (where another FNC awaits you, among other goodies).

Due to credit card vendor restrictions, the only affiliate links I can place in the body of my posts are for Capital One cards. For the rest, you know what to do. You can always email me at
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com with ANY questions.

 

EXPIRING OFFERS:

First, I am going to list the expiring offers based on expiration dates order, so here we go:

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

After January 22, the Chase Sapphire Reserve for Business Signup Bonus becomes 150,000 points for a minimum spend of $20,000.

 

We now have the refreshed AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

The Signup Bonus offers remain the dreaded “Up to 175,000 points” for the personal card. And a solid 200,000 points for the Business card.

Citi now offers the 100k CITI Strata Elite card after $6,000 minimum spend. This is Citi’s premium card at a $595 annual fee. $300 annual hotel credit, $200 annual Splurge credits, $200 annual Blacklane credit, 4 annual American Airlines Admirals Club lounge passes, Priority Pass Select membership and $120 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit. Earning structure is: 12x points per dollar spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent at restaurants on Citi Nights purchases, Friday and Saturday from 6 PM – 6 AM EST, 3x points per dollar spent at Restaurants any other time, 1.5x points per dollar spent on All Other Purchases. Points can now be transferred out to American Airlines. This card is a Mastercard. There is a $145 discount off the annual fee if you are a Citigold customer or have a Private Client relationship (requires over $200k with Citi). Citi Private Clients get the first annual fee waived. Citi is not an easy bank to deal with so beware. Email me with ANY questions.

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I found the latest film of the 28 Days series disappointing 🙁 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

Amazing mayhem and turn of events at the 2026 African Cup Final between host Morocco and Senegal. Morocco imploded, wow.

Construction in my house starts tomorrow. It was a workout clearing everything from our kitchen. Which was a wonderful opportunity to purge so much stuff.  I love purging and decluttering. Less stuff, more freedom. Please tell my wife lol.

Interesting blog about Manufactured Spending and other related activities: Chasing Cetaceans.

Not much here you guys, saved it for the Bilt section below!

Oh, finding award availability is absolute shit!

I DO have a separate page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

I am giving myself a challenge to average 5 credit card sales and 15 Buy Me a Coffee sales per month.

November:

Credit card sales: 4  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

December:

Credit card sales: 2  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January to date:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales:  14

Looks like the lowly credit card sales goal is not going to be reached. I will wait for the Capital One Venture X card sales to post (they are always 1 to 2 months late to show up) and then make one of those tough decisions I have been dreading. 🙁

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

150k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business, 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 47,515 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,118,714 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

SPECIAL SECTION ON BILT 2.0

This company burst into our lives about 5 years ago. They had a great story, I mean, get points on your rent for FREE! The sales hook was we’ll get masses to sign up (they did) and overtime build that base to make it a sustainable business. You know, like Amazon. Of course, it never made any business sense but wait. Never underestimate the power of story and the ability to sell by people who are really well versed in, well, sales!

So, this company managed to fool many backers and, most importantly, fooled Wells Fargo to pick up the losses covering the cardholders FREE rent payments/points! And managed to corner all the bloggers by spending some of the huge marketing budget (free money from backers) flying them to private islands and parties and wining and dining them. And oh boy, did they respond? The blogosphere was bombarded with numerous mentions of this company. Every little “announcement” was covered like it was breaking news (it was not). When it was quiet for a few days, boom, here is another “rumor” mysteriously someone “discovered”.

Can you tell I was never invited to a private island and party sponsored by Bilt?

Let me make something clear the TBB Legal Department urged me to post: All content here is my OWN PERSONAL OPINION. First Amendment MFers!

So, it was all happy times while Bilt was burning cash left and right. Until someone at Wells Fargo noticed “hey, we are losing our ass here, this can’t go on, WTF!”

And then, the scramble began to find a new sucker. Of course you are not going to find another major bank to do this shit. So, I guess they found, please sit down, Cardless. I mean, a tiny fintech widely known for the stupidest rule to restrict customers into having just one credit card (now “generously” allows two lol). And with a well known hate for all normal people like us who like to maximize our rewards. Anyway, my point is that how is this company going to absorb so many cardholders at once? Well, the ones who will decide to go for the new Bilt card that is.

Which brings us to the long promised and so expertly marketed and anticipated Bilt 2.0. I mean, all these bloggers/vloggers feasted on the never ending rumors and, you know, page views and video views means MONEY! Except my site, sad. Anyway, so January 14, 2026 was going to be this HUGE launch of Bilt 2. 0 baby. I mean, these guys had done their homework supposedly and they know flash. Just like The Points Guy and Delta Skymiles execs woohoo. Right? And then it came:

First, the card: Three Brand New Bilt Cards 2.0: Blue, Obsidian, Palladium (Full Review)

And then the internet responded, brace yourselves:

First, at reddit they created its own megathread aptly titled: Bilt 2.0: The Biltening.

And then, you know, when you get the New York Times to come up with this:

It is the most complicated rewards system we’ve ever seen

maybe, just maybe, you f*cked up? Do not forget that Bilt was valued at over $10 Billion as recently as July 2025. Can’t wait to see what the next valuation round comes at. If the company gets there that is. But no worries, the Bilt execs have no doubt raked it in. I am sure they have lined up more “celebrities” to pay to show up on one day of the month to play a stupid game with the CEO. Because it’s all marketing baby.

And of course the best coverage comes from tiny obscure blogs like mine: That One where MEAB Gets Grumpy About the Bilt Hype Machine. Read the warnings about Cardless!

At first, bloggers/vloggers who were wined and dined of course toed the line because, you know, you can’t say no to the hand that feeds you. But there was such a universal negative response that, to save face, they just could not completely avoid mentioning the negatives. And oh boy, the negatives, grab a cup of coffee:

Bilt 2.0 transition not “seamless” for all cardholders – Imagine that, shocking! #notreally

New Bilt cards exclude tax payments, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and more – Cardless will go out of its way to stop the bleeding, it ain’t no Wells Fargo, lol.

I am not going to get into the details of the cards. My brain hurts. The changes make couponization feel like kindergarten. Not going to pull out my calculator to do math, life is too short for that. And I would rather keep my spending on other cards and move on with my life. Even if I had rent or mortgage (I don’t, I highly recommend it if you can get to that place). Bilt is clearly looking for another customer who spends a lot and want to capture all of it. Will there be some that move on to its cards? Yes. Will there be anywhere near the number of cardholders they had before? I don’t see it. And I am certain Cardless will do its best to cut down the ranks even more.

And for crying out loud, the one completely 100% useless card must be the Blue no annual fee one. Before you ask, no I am not getting any Bilt cards. I do have affiliate links for them if you decide to go for them. Then again, after this beating, is there any doubt why my blog can’t sell one freaking credit card around here? Roll sad lols woohoo!

And the rent/mortgage payment is handled via ACH. By Cardless. And good luck with that!

Like I said, the switch in bloggers’ sentiment got stronger over the next few days:

Bilt Rent & Mortgage Payments For Points May Be A Bad Deal

And then, just two days later, the CEO announced ridiculous changes. Which were insanely complicated and completely laughable. I mean, imagine already winning the title of the most complicated rewards system BEFORE the announced changes, wow!

Bilt Is Already Making Changes For The Uninformed – Don’t Take The Bait.

Actually the best post on Bilt.2.1(a)b was by Stephen over at The Frequent Miler, which probably led to a complete ban of the site from any party invites lol: Bilt 2.D’Oh. Why you should be cautious of their new cards setup. At least read the Final Thoughts section, which I agree with.

If you want a video, this kid gets it: Bilt 2.0: Is It Good? No! Let’s Have a Real Talk – Here’s The Truth. While other vloggers are doing mental gymnastics to sell the card (yes, they were invited to the launch party of course). One of them even had the audacity to make a video how he canceled the Capital One Venture X card to increase simplicity and reduce credit card annual fees and applied for the Palladium card instead LOL.

Update: Losing hobby veterans left and right: BILT: So Long, Farewell . . . it Was Nice While it Lasted.

The promises being made regarding the new Bilt cards are rather grandiose, especially the Palladium Bilt (which comes with a $495 pricetag), but the features of these cards are only lukewarm and confusing. Moreover, the promoters have been unable or unwilling to answer many basic questions about the use and limitation of use of the Bilt Cash, the currency of the new model. I have no idea whether this lack of clarity is due to disorganization or to lack of honesty, but either way, I should not be left to guess. This is not an escape room or a mirrored maze, guys.

And don’t get me started on “one of our own”. The guy learned a lot about marketing over at The Points Guy and apparently has earned so much that, you know, you lose touch with the common people and hubris takes over. Ok, that’s understandable to an extent I guess. But the contempt shown towards us, really dude? Kerr posted this on Instagram. The level of respect he has for this community is obvious… Oh, it was a joke? Why take it down then? Come on!

Update: And they came out with “over $4,500 in credits” for Bilt Cash LOL: Bilt Unveils Bilt Cash Redemption Options.

I honestly find a lot of the caps to be too small to really use, especially when it’s not really a straight credit like other cards (you have to first earn the Bilt cash) and the fact they are tiered based on status…It could just be my ADHD brain talking but I’m a little bit overwhelmed right now. 

And at Reddit: “They saw the coupon book and came up with the yellow pages” – LOL

Going to finish the post with a few funny pics, like this one found HERE.

Let’s end this with one more. For the record, I am done blogging about Bilt, need to move on. If you continue with them, remember Mesa.

Message to Bilt from TBB Management: You can take your rumors and bananas and stick them up you know where. This is what happens when you don’t invite me at your private island and parties, woohoo!

The End.

Some selected comments on YouTube videos from vloggers who were flown out to the Bilt launch party, the ones that were not deleted yet that is, enjoy:

___ have some integrity you are just as bad as politicians. They fly you out and waive a check in your face and you start drooling and say whatever you say daddy bilt.

Damn brother, you are an absolute sell out. Talk about lack of free thought and integrity.

If I have to do mental gymnastics to earn points it’s not worth it. These YouTubers always preach “points shouldn’t be complicated” but as soon as they get paid sponsorship all that goes out the window…These are paid infomercials.

None of these influencers who were flown out will say that the card sucks lmfao.

Update: BEST video: Bilt 2.0 Cards Arenn’t What They Seem | The Real Math

Starts out with “Bilt just launched what might be the most catastrophic credit card program in history”  and does not let up, this guy never got an invite from Bilt just like me woohoo.

Time to move on…

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.

 

The post Private Funds in 401k Plans, Breakthrough Technologies, RFK Honorary Virus, Bilt 2.0 Credit Card Sucks appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI slop. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

55 Facts That Blew Our Mind in 2025

NYT Best Movies of 2025

The Best Stories of 2025 by Amusing Planet

The Year in Cheer

Spotify’s Top 10 Sports Podcasts and Audiobooks of 2025

The 25 Style Moments That Defined 2025

The Most Significant Scientific Experiments of 2025

Wirecutter’s 100 Most Popular Products of 2025

The Best Foreign Affairs Essays of 2025

The 8 Most Wholesome Internet Moments  of 2025

18 of the Most Striking Images of 2025

And a bonus entry:

31 of the Best Space Photos of 2025

The post 2025 Annual Best of Lists #4: Best Facts, Best Movies, Best Podcasts & Audiobooks, Best Internet Moments, Best Space Photos appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.

Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!

Support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS or Buy Me a Coffee or click on LINKS

If you like my blog please subscribe, share it, and forward it widely. It’s free and I NEVER sell or give away email addresses.

No clickbait. No ads. No algorithms. No sponsors. No AI. No Paywalls.

Follow me on Instagram and subscribe to my YouTube channel

This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This blog stays in business with clicks ONLY from readers for credit cards and coffees. You can always get to my credit card links by clicking on “CREDIT CARDS’ at the menu on the top of the homepage or the “We make finding a new credit card simple” banner on the right sidebar. Or, preferably, you can receive new offers in your email inbox by signing up to receive alerts HERE . Or just email me.

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

I should have Edition #4 of the 2025 Annual Best of Lists up this Friday.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become”. – Heraclitus

MUST READ GEMS

Well, here is another one:

52 Things I Learned in 2025

What we now call a zipper was originally called the Hookless Hooker.

Seventy-one percent of people in Iceland are Costco members.

A giant Pacific octopus in the Vancouver (British Columbia) Aquarium is named Ceph Rogen in honor of the actor Seth Rogen, a Vancouver native.

PERSONAL FINANCE

This is really good: “nobody knows anything a.k.a. how to trade the market in 2026“. Remember, there are no gurus. Certainly in investing!

…people who make predictions for a living are about as accurate as a 50/50 coin toss.

…the weakest moments in how people are feeling  tend to precede strong equity returns while peaks in sentiment do not see as much upside.

And actually this is pretty good advice. If only people could successfully stick to doing these:

• Don’t let your emotions drive your investing decisions. The days when you are feeling particularly greedy, particularly nervous, or particularly confident correlate highly with the days you are most likely to mess up your portfolio with impetuous buying and selling. 
• Don’t act on predictions or hot tips, whether they’re coming from experts (see above charts) or your BFF’s smart-sounding uncle. If you insist, size those bets small. If you get lucky, yay. If you’re wrong, at least you won’t be broke.
• Diversify. It helps you spread risk and give your portfolio more chances to participate in growth.
• Match your investment strategy to your time horizon.

At some point this will happen, be careful and prepare now: Five Financial Blind Spots That Burden Grieving Spouses. Proactive strategies can help avoid the financial fog of loss later.

Global Inflation by Country in 2025.

Great visual found here. I don’t do market predictions, the only valid prediction is that prices will fluctuate and we will have surprises. And so we did again last year:

…there was a peak-to-trough drawdown of around 19% but the market still finished the year up nearly 18%, a double-digit gain despite a double-digit drawdown.

CRYPTO/TECH/SCAMS

I visited CES about 10 years ago and loved it, here are The Verge Awards at CES 2026. Rollable laptops, twice-folding phones, and a ‘longevity station.’ This is the CES tech we come back for.

If you are into crypto you should be aware of this, be careful out there: Small-Time Crypto Investors Are Facing Violent Attacks. Rising prices and the irreversible nature of crypto transactions have led to a surge of brutal home invasions and kidnappings. I wonder about both the people investing in crypto and the criminals doing this as they don’t appear very bright sadly. This lady got hacked in 2021 and yet, there she was again:

Now, guns at her throat and temple during this second assault, Julia wanted to shriek at her captors for trying to steal the few coins she had left in a separate crypto account on a different exchange. As one masked intruder ransacked the place looking for printouts of backup authentication codes, she determined not to give up her passwords. “Shoot me!” she shouted. “Just shoot me, just shoot me!”

And the young criminals were easily arrested and going to spend decades in prison. The judge was not convinced with this at all:

During a sentencing hearing, Remy’s attorney attempted to blame the nothing-matters culture that’s corrupting Generation Z.

Also, science! Penn and Michigan Create World’s Smallest Programmable, Autonomous Robots.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Michigan have created the world’s smallest fully programmable, autonomous robots: microscopic swimming machines that can independently sense and respond to their surroundings, operate for months and cost just a penny each.

AI

Fun read: Why does AI suck at making clocks? Sometimes I wonder how this amazing AI can suck so bad doing very simple tasks. Check out this hilarious site: AI World Clocks.

Can you please share in the comments any AI thingies you absolutely use every day making a true difference in your life? Let me share mine:

You like my blog? Send a link to someone please!

 

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

I had no idea who came up with the idea for the tiny indicator on every car dashboard helping us avoid parking at the wrong side when pumping gas. I am sure we have all been there and just marveled about this in the past. And, it was this guy at Ford Motor Company where my wife works: The Genius Whose Simple Invention Saved Us From Shame at the Gas Station. On a rainy day in Detroit, a Ford engineer got confused, then soaked—and inspired. It took decades before he got any credit.

I am sure the Russians can’t wait to get rid of this guy too: Russia’s Descent Into Tyranny. How Four Years of War Have Remade Society.

Sometimes you can’t help but let expressions like WTF come out of your mouth: The 22 Weirdest Driving Laws in the Country.

Arkansas: You can’t honk your horn at a sandwich shop

Illinois: No collecting roadkill if you’re behind on child support

Maine: No parking in front of Dunkin 

Massachusetts: You must cage your bear

I don’t know, but maybe it is not the drugs smh: All of the World’s Oil Reserves by Country.

 

TRAVEL

We were all expecting further consolidation in the airline industry but did not see this one coming: Allegiant Air Will Acquire Sun Country in $1.5B Deal. It looks like I will never fly Sun Country. Then again, I have never flown Allegiant either. We know something will happen with Spirit Airlines any day now. And I was expecting some move by JetBlue at some point this year. If you wanted to get some no bs analysis, here is the post by The Cranky Flier: Allegiant to Buy Sun Country and I’m Not Sure Why.

These first two links go together:

52 Places to Go, So Little Time: Where We Went in 2025 Nice to see Detroit on the list…next to Thailand!

52 Places to Go in 2026. The picture for Guyana at #39 will make you make travel plans wow.

And another interesting link: The Best Welcome Signs from Every US State.

The obligatory Thailand related link by this guy who does great hiking videos. And I think this is his best one yet: I Found a Side of Thailand Tourists Never See.

For you art lovers, this is a must click: The 19 biggest and best exhibitions worth travelling for in 2026.

 

 

Follow me on Instagram please. Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

 

 

This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.

 

 

MILES & POINTS

Here we go again.

It’s all about the lifestyle baby: Travel Loyalty Programs Woo Fickle Customers With Members-Only Experiences. Travel loyalty programs are competing for customers with members-only experiences like backstage tours, exclusive dinners and access to V.I.P. areas. 

Hilton is back with its elite status match program.

And United can match you again all the way to 1k status. For details on its status match program click HERE.

Since the only real value left in the Hilton program is the Free Night Certificates, here you go:

Domestic Options for Hilton Free Night Certificates

International Options for Hilton Free Night Certificates

Register HERE for the new Hilton Honors promotion to earn unlimited 2,000 bonus points for every stay between January 15 and April 30.

World of Hyatt keeps tiny devaluation hits coming: Hyatt Globalists report receiving far fewer points for expired certificates.

Historically, Globalists could receive 10,000 points for an expired Hyatt 1-4 Free Night Certificate or 20,000 points for an expired Hyatt Category 1-7 Free Night Certificate (again, only for certificates issued from the Hyatt side, not those from credit cards, and only after they expired). Sadly, we’ve received reports that Globalists are now only being given 5,000 points for an expiring Category 1-7 free night certificate and just 2,500 points for an expiring Category 1-4 free night certificate. Reports indicate that this is a change effective today (1/5/26).

We are on a Hyatt spree, here is another one: Here are 10 new World of Hyatt hotels you’ll want to visit in 2026.

Finally, a new lounge coming in… a few years: Capital One Announces New Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) Lounge.

The new top Hilton Honors status recently announced came with access to Hilton Premium Clubs. And no one knew which properties had them. Now we have a list of them here: Hilton Premium Clubs. I see the Rome Hilton Cavalieri (now a Waldorf Astoria) in the list where we stayed many years ago and still talk about that lounge.

See if you get any hits on the ongoing United MilePlay promo. Looks to me the airline is trying to get the less engaged members to come back and fly the friendly skies, oh wait, whatever United’s latest tagline is these days. While at the subject of targeted promos, try to see what you get for your spend on Chase bo-brand cards through March 31.

 

TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS

This section will have developments and news and will keep my own commentary reserved for the MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING section below.

So many developments since my last curated post!

Did you ever wonder what was the US credit purchase volume by bank? Got you covered, here is a table and the top 5 banks listed separately below:

Chase	$1,344
American Express	$1,168
(Capital One + Discover)	$822
Citi	$616
Capital One	$610
Bank of America	$502

First, I am so sick of posts about Bilt rumors coming out almost daily hourly. STOP CLICKING at this shit, it is pointless. And posting this before the final details of the new Bilt cards come out, brace yourselves! Oh, I may have the new Bilt credit card affiliate links but not at the launch tomorrow.

And the long Goldman Sachs ordeal is over: JPMorgan Chase Reaches Deal to Take Over Apple Credit Card.

First, they came for T-Mobile. Then they came for DTE Energy (my local power company). I mean, the fees came. No free miles any more. We need to pay fees to use a credit card, boo! I think this is becoming a really bad trend you guys…

Beginning March 2, 2026, if you pay your energy bill using a credit or debit card, you will see a processing fee applied.

 

SO MANY changes with new offers and expiration dates etc, probably the most extensive updates I have done in the section below, welcome to January 2026!

 

 NEW OFFERS:

There is a 80k Bank of America Atmos Rewards Ascent Visa Signature card referral link per this post. Not sure if it will be alive by the time you click on on it and do your own due diligence with these referral links. My own affiliate link shows an offer for 60k Alaska Airlines miles. The offer on my site is a standard 60k offer, fyi.

Both of these Chase Marriott Bonvoy cards have new offers and my blog will not get credit for both of them so don’t even ask. Not that this makes any difference lately, still looking to sell the first credit card here this month!

Get 5 Free Nights with Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Card After Spending $3K, Plus $100 Airlines Credit 

Chase Marriott Bonvoy Bold: New Bonus with 2 Free Nights

 

EXPIRING OFFERS:

First, I am going to list the expiring offers based on expiration dates order, so here we go:

200k/400k CAPITAL ONE Venture X Business: Almost identical as the personal Venture X. But higher signup bonuses and higher minimum spend requirements. 200k points for $30k spend in first three months and a whopping 400k points for an equally whopping $150k spend in the first six months. Click on the link, it takes you straight to the application, the only bank I am allowed to link directly to my affiliate links, thanks for your support ENDS 1/19/2026.

And now,the 200k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business offer ENDS 1/22/2026!

125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve/200k CHASE Sapphire Reserve for Business

Chase raised the personal CSR Signup Bonus to 125,000 from 100,000 points. The minimum spend is $5k in the first three months. The minimum spend for the Business version is $30,000 in the first six months. As with all cards, you know what to do to help the blog, thank you.

 

We now have the refreshed AMERICAN EXPRESS Platinum & Business Platinum Cards ($895 Fee, 175k/200k Bonus, Many New Credits).

The Signup Bonus offers remain the dreaded “Up to 175,000 points” for the personal card. And a solid 200,000 points for the Business card.

 

CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus: Earn a $2,000 cash bonus when you spend $30,000 in the first 3 months. Earn an additional $2,000 bonus for every $500,000 spent in the first year. To learn more about the card read this.

CITI AAdvantage Globe Card Launches With 90,000 Points Bonus ($350 Fee). The minimum spend to earn the 90,000 AA miles is $5,000 within the first 4 months of account opening. The card earns 6x on AAdvantage Hotel bookings, 3x on AA purchases, 2x on restaurants, 2x on rides and rails and 1x on everything else. First checked bag free and preferred boarding. AA companion certificate (after the first year) for $99 plus fees and taxes. $240 credit on Turo at $30 per quarter, $100 credit on inflight purchases, $100 credit on Splurge (up to two merchants from 1st Dibs, eligible AAdvantage Hotels, Future Personal Training, or Live Nation). 4 Admirals Club lounge passes every year. $120 Global Entry/TSAPreCheck every four years. No foreign transaction fees.

Citi now offers the 100k CITI Strata Elite card after $6,000 minimum spend. This is Citi’s premium card at a $595 annual fee. $300 annual hotel credit, $200 annual Splurge credits, $200 annual Blacklane credit, 4 annual American Airlines Admirals Club lounge passes, Priority Pass Select membership and $120 Global Entry/TSA Precheck credit. Earning structure is: 12x points per dollar spent on Hotels, Car Rentals, and Attractions booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent on Air Travel booked on cititravel.com, 6x points per dollar spent at restaurants on Citi Nights purchases, Friday and Saturday from 6 PM – 6 AM EST, 3x points per dollar spent at Restaurants any other time, 1.5x points per dollar spent on All Other Purchases. Points can now be transferred out to American Airlines. This card is a Mastercard. There is a $145 discount off the annual fee if you are a Citigold customer or have a Private Client relationship (requires over $200k with Citi). Citi Private Clients get the first annual fee waived. Citi is not an easy bank to deal with so beware. Email me with ANY questions.

And some other worthy offers below:

30k CHASE United Gateway

One of my favorite no annual fee keeper cards. Just $1k minimum spend in the first three months. Earns 2x on United purchases, gas stations, local transit and commuting, 1x on everything else. You get expanded award availability and 2 free checked bags after $10k spend in a calendar year. 25% off in in-flight purchases. No foreign transaction fees. Many spend based promos with this card from personal experience.

CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Business Card $1,000 Signup Bonus With $10,000 Spend

The card has its annual $95 fee WAIVED for the first year. No annoying credits to deal with, it just earns 2 points everywhere. And you can earn 5x on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal too. And when you have a Capital One Venture X or the Venture card above, the $1,000 can be turned into 100,000 miles.

 

CITI Strata No Annual Fee 30,000 Thank You points

 

 

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

 

 

BONUS OFFERS NOTIFICATIONS

Would you like to be automatically notified every time a card comes out with (or is about to remove) an elevated welcome offer? If yes, I highly encourage you to sign up if you haven’t yet. And when you apply for a credit card from a link in these emails you help support the blog.

Elevated Card Offer Notifications

All you have to do to receive these free notifications is:

1. Click on the link above

2. Create an account

3. Subscribe

 

 

MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING

I am through the busy quarter/year end work in my real job (hint, blogging is not it!) and now I am dealing with a barrage of aging related client situations. Deaths, moves to assisted living and all the things that come with it. And soon beneficiary death of a deceased client while inheritance paperwork is under way. And new tax season is coming fast. I should not be here.

Word of advice to aspiring bloggers: Just Don’t! This blog earned 22% less revenue in 2025 vs 2024. The vast majority of the revenue comes from you clicking on credit cards here. With all the bank restrictions being thrown at us (looking at you Chase), including limitations by my credit card vendor due to low sales, I think it is a miracle my credit card links have not been taken away again! When this happens this blog ends.

Did a clean up job finalizing 2025 burn totals. So I ended the year at 1,893,248 miles/points burned. Not too shabby I may so myself. Especially after burning 2,027,816 miles/points in 2024.

Let’s see what Bilt does tomorrow. It is becoming apparent that without suckers like Wells Fargo to underwrite the losses from “free” rent points this is no longer sustainable. But the company has proved brilliant in staying alive and fleecing sucker investors so who knows.

Chase buying the Apple card portfolio from Goldman Sucks clearly explains all the moves lately by Chase to limit losses (from signup bonuses, lifetime restrictions, etc etc). Because they are going to get inflicted by so many younger customers who buy the latest iphone on credit and then can’t pay the bill for it. Getting the whole card portfolio at $1 billion discount is huge, so I guess the long negotiations succeeded in that sense. Anyway, we will have a long two year process here and it will be very interesting to see what the final picture looks like.

I closed my Chase United Business card via secured message, good riddance.

All 3 family members got the 100k Capital One Venture X card recently. Two 100k bonuses are in the bag already, waiting on the third one. And waiting to finally get credited for all three credit card sales as Capital One credit card sales take a long time to show up. Hey, it’s a family “business”, my family is my best customer lol. One day this card’s annual fee will go up. Actually, it is hard to believe it has not happened already. And the signup bonus is back again to a very respectable 75k.

I tried again to apply for the Schwab Amex Platinum and again I got the dreaded popup, arrrgh.

Maybe I ditch Amex and go back to Citi?

Sticking to my very disciplined healthy eating habits into 2026. I wonder where this will stop first, at an airport lounge or flying in business class over an ocean or at a Hyatt breakfast/lounge? Maybe I need to break the habit of traveling this way and go back to my people 🙂

Major home renovation project starting next week. Going to set up a temporary kitchen in the basement. My whole morning routine I enjoy will be interrupted. Hopefully the end product will be worth it. And strategizing how to get the biggest bang for my high spend ahead…

Watched Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer at Netflix. I really liked it, what a psycho that guy is, wow.

My respect for this guy has now reached stratospheric levels: Jerome Powell on the US Investigation Targeting Him. Thank you Sir!

I DO have a separate page listing my affiliate links HERE including Rakuten and Top Cash Back and more.

 

I am giving myself a challenge to average 5 credit card sales and 15 Buy Me a Coffee sales per month.

November:

Credit card sales: 4  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

December:

Credit card sales: 2  Buy me a Coffee sales: 19

January to date:

Credit card sales: 0  Buy me a Coffee sales:  5

 

 

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:

200k CHASE Sapphire Reserve Business (ENDS 1/22/2026), 125k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 100k CITI Strata Elite, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 175k AMEX Platinum, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash, 200k/400k CAPITAL ONE Venture X Business (ENDS 1/19/2026), 200k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 75k CHASE Sapphire Preferred, 30k CHASE United Gateway, 100k AMEX Gold, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!

 

As of today, I have burned 36,491 miles/points year to date (after burning 1,893,248 miles/points in 2025  and 2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,118,714 miles/points in the bank.

 

TBB’s Miles & Points RESOURCES Page

 

Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!

 

Let me leave you with this:

Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.

Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!

Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.

George

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