Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as financial blind spots, global inflation, crypto violence, new Bilt and Apple cards, CES 2026 awards, Russia into tyranny, weirdest driving laws, world oil reserves, Allegiant buying Sun Country, 2026 art exhibitions to visit, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post.
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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.
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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:
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:





Good morning! Thanks for all the terrific links.
I’d bet you are right about how Chase is absorbing the Apple card. I’d not thought
about that in relation to the changes in the Sapphire Reserve but no doubt Chase did.
There are so many moving parts here with the end of the illusion that student
debt will be cancelled which may very well impact Apple Card holders.
We live in interesting times.
The Financial Times started selling “Free Jay Powell” shirts. The link is now subscriber-only but I found a site selling the same shirt:
https://viralstyle.com/graydesigner/free-jay-powell-shirt-official-jerome-p
Also: lots of places report Venezuela’s oil reserves as 300 billion but the real number is most likely well below that, maybe 100 billion. The state oil company invented a much higher estimate a while back in response to political pressure from Chavez / Maduro.
Wow! Good stuff for the next few days of reading but that Quote Of The Day rang very familiar to me. Had to google to get the exact wording, but knew it was something (to me) very similar in tone and thought:
“In the recent Superman movie (2025), Pa Kent tells Clark, “Your choices, Clark. Your actions. That’s what makes you who you are, and I couldn’t be more proud of you,”
Hello guys and thanks to reader Eric for the 4 coffees.
There is a WSJ article that looks deep within the 2 year ordeal how Goldman Sucks eventually picked Chase to give the Apple card portfolio to. Will link to it at next TBB post.
Free Jay Powell Tshirts are epic.
Correct on the oil reserves.
Quotes I picked so far to feature here were mostly from Greek ancient philosophers. Those were the days 🙂
Getting really into the weeds here dealing with a deceased client and her inheritance that goes to beneficiaries and while in process of the paperwork one beneficiary dies. When it rains it pours.
Edition #4 of the 2025 Annual Best of Lists goes up on Friday. Next post I have no idea.
What is sobering is realizing that there has been no credit card sold and credited here since December 11. What keeps this “venture” going are the 4 Venture X cards sold (3 to my own family lol) which will eventually post. 9 coffees sold barely cover the Mailchimp monthly fee. Like I said, DO NOT BOTHER STARTING A BLOG THESE DAYS! Unless you are crazy like me and don’t need the money and like to take shots at MAGA lol.
The coverage of the Bilt 2.0 cards by businessmen being wined and dined at the launch party is nauseating.
For some strange reason I was not invited lol.
Hiya George,
I cannot get this link to work. Can you try it?
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.
Thanks,
Carl
It works for me. It is an Archive link, fyi. The original link is here:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/russias-descent-tyranny
Thanks! That worked. Fascinating article!
Hi George, so what is your strategy for Globalist this year? Looking grim from where we are sitting to hit it, but then again we think given how average their properties are becoming not sure we care, however we all know will probably go for it again though it will be a stretch.
Everyday when I wake up and see the news I am so grateful we have a second passport and made the choice to leave the US. Australia might be boring but it’s way better than the circus in the US.
I find myself trying to find a string of 30 days I can book a Cat 1 hotel in BKK again 🙂
But I have so much going on right now that I just don’t have any mental bandwidth to focus on it. Frankly, not seeing it but this is what I said last year as well. Hopefully I do 40 to grab those GofH certs at least. And would love to shift more spend on my personal Hyatt Visa but the multipliers suck so badly…
#developing
Proposal in Congress to kill 2nd passports. I mean, every freaking day here is unimaginable hits to our mental psyche by the lunatic sycophants kissing Don’s fat ass. I miss boring right now, we all do…And we have more than three years to go omg!
Actually, 1,100 days to go:
https://logwork.com/countdown-h5o4
I watched the speech in Detroit and I can’t see how anyone can watch that and think that it’s not the ramblings of a demented fool. It has been fantastic having distance from the situation. We are working towards being in the situation to give up US citizenship. Would make our life easier not having to share every aspect of our financials with US authorities whilst they let the big boys skate by.
Our Hyatt situation might get us 30 nights this year but not sure that we feel inclined to keep on the treadmill. Problem is husband has a 7 night stay in Europe this month and already it starts the chase. Think our problem will be solved once Chase debanks us like Schwab and Wells Fargo have. If we can’t do credit card spend won’t be much hope of hitting Globalist and it might be a relief.
It is getting tough to avoid being infected by Trump news every day all around the world. Yeah, we have it much harder here in the US. Getting so depressing when you realize we have 3 more years of this lunatic shit with his bunch of sycophant stooges.
Just wait until Cardless debanks you (just kidding)
What’s the best card/earning for only cash economic flights? Used to enjoy using UR with INK or CSR for shorter domestic flights. Loved the earning rate and uplift.
So, assuming you no longer hold the personal CSR for 4x on flights booked direct or 8x on Chase travel portal?
Or 5x on personal Amex Platinum?
Of course the annual fees on those lol.
Told my wife to just use the Venture X on everything else and the CSP on dining…Simplicity is gaining in this game, especially after the mega BS thrown out by Bilt yesterday in front of paid off bloggers/vloggers who don’t dare criticize the company.
For the record, TBB was not even invited lol.