Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as IRS tax season chaos, the five types of wealth, a weird death cult, more Hyatt changes, how to survive a market fall, the US states not taxing retirement income, the banker who got pig butchered, Fyre Festival comes back, mentally disturbed Americans who love Russia, the best travel movies, the most beautiful cinemas, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of miles and points at the lower half of the post. Enjoy the weekend and file your tax returns early.
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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 is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.
BLOG HOUSEKEEPING
This blog continues someway somehow posting on Fridays, not sure for how long.
PERSONAL FINANCE
Ask every CPA out there and they will tell you we need to get IRS to get its act together and finally modernize its software and iron everything out. The agency has been underfunded for way too long. And enforcement personnel sure end up collecting way more taxes than they cost. Don’t get me started on deterring tax cheaters. Anyway, you know we are correct in this because you get several past IRS Commissioners sign this letter: Trump Just Fired 6,700 I.R.S. Workers in the Middle of Tax Season. That’s a Huge Mistake. And yeah, what horrible timing to do this now. So far, tax season is proceeding fine. Just a little slow. Maybe the ones who used to file by late February are waiting for the IRS to be abolished smh. Let’s hope nothing breaks and all the best to all of us who may get caught in a correspondence hell loop with the agency. You don’t believe me we need more auditors? The IRS could recover $12 for every $1 spent on scrutinizing the ultra-wealthy’s taxes.
Market falls are inherent in investing. And stop trying to time them please. Anyway, some really good thoughts in this article: 13 Thoughts to Survive and Grow Through a Market Fall.
Market is a Pendulum, Not a Straight Line
Investors Chase Certainty in an Uncertain Game
Falling Markets Don’t Just Destroy Wealth But Reveal Who You Are
Panic is More Infectious Than Any Virus
Wealth is Grown in Silence, But Lost in Noise
Best Investors Are Masters of Their Minds
Temporary Losses Become Permanent When We Lose Faith
Our Timeframes Shape Our Reality
Most People Want the Rewards Without the Pain
What You Survive Defines Your Future
Cash is a Superpower
Real Wealth is Built in Downturns, Not in Upturns
Valuation Matters, But Psychology Dominates in the Short Term
We are now up to Thirteen States That Won’t Tax Your Retirement Income in 2025 in the US.
I really enjoyed this Plain English podcast with Derek Thompson interviewing Sahil Bloom: The 5 Types of Wealth.
What a visual (found here).
SCAMS/CRYPTO/AI/TECH
I am still blown away by that banker who got scammed out of millions and took the bank of a small town down with him along with so many who trusted him. He was waiting to be sentenced and the judge came down hard on him, like over 24 years. The Cryptocurrency Scam That Turned a Small Town Against Itself. How did a successful, financially sophisticated banker gamble his community’s money away? How such an educated smart guy get taken like this is unreal, be careful out there!
Hanes promised that he could recover the money — a total of $47.1 million. All he needed was the board’s approval to borrow another $18 million. With the help of some business contacts, he said, he would use those funds to recoup the many millions he had already lost. His banking career was probably finished, he acknowledged. But the deal came with a sweetener that would allow him to start over. “The people I’m working with have built in money for me,” Hanes explained.
Remember when El Salvador adopted bitcoin as legal tender? Well, never mind: El Salvador Walks Back Its Bitcoin Law.
Wait, is this guy out of jail and going to do this again? Fyre Festival 2 tickets go on sale today after spectacular flameout in 2017. Tickets are also for sale directly through Fyre Festival Mexico’s website, ranging in price from $1,400 to $1.1 million.
“I’m sure many people think I’m crazy for doing this again,” McFarland said in a statement announcing the ticket sales and festival packages. “But I feel I’d be crazy not to do it again. After years of reflection and now thoughtful, the new team and I have amazing plans for Fyre 2. The adventure seekers who trust the vision and take the leap will help make history.”
So many suckers out there…
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ODDZ & ENDZ
Sometimes the buffoonery out there shocks me: The American Who Went Undercover in Ukraine—for Moscow. Daniel Martindale’s decision to become a spy comes amid a growing ultraconservative embrace of Russian values. You read about what this guy believed and what he did and I am speechless, I hope the Russians keep him.
For a long time I have been interested in cults, among many other things as you may have noticed in this blog over the years. Not to join of course but how people can be deceived and brainwashed to join them. And this is another super weird cult I had never heard of: A ‘death cult’ on the run: The Bay Area fringe group terrorizing America. Strange new details have emerged about the Bay Area Zizian cult.
Speaking about brains, here you go: Head Games. Click to enlarge.
Cool video: The Entire History of the World Every Year in Just 60 Seconds.
The obligatory amazing photography link: 2024 Ocean Art Contest Winners.
TRAVEL
In the good old days with Northwest Airlines, we could book flights we were assured we will get bumped from. Those days are over for good. These days bumps happen…rarely. Overbooked Flight? What You Can Do if an Airline Bumps You.
I have another movie link below as well, I guess I like movies or something: The 16 Best Travel Movies for Inspiring Wanderlust. Interesting collection to say the least. Ok, I never heard some of the movies listed.
Friend is on one of these trains right now or just did it last week. I think I am getting too old for these you guys. I Spent A Month Riding The Infamous Mauritanian Iron Ore Train And Here Are 25 Photos I Took.
I LOVE this: The 50 most beautiful cinemas in the world. Have you been to any of them?
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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
Here we go again:
This is a no brainer if you have at least 1,000 Capital One miles and a JetBlue account: Get 5,000 Bonus Points with First Transfer from Capital One to JetBlue.
One of the best articles written recently in the mainstream media about us in this space: Frequent flyers have spent years staying loyal to airlines. Now airlines are giving them ‘the middle finger’.
I had predicted World of Hyatt will do away with its award charts. I was wrong. Instead, they did the annual property adjustment devaluation again. World of Hyatt just keeps pushing them up and up and up: Hyatt’s 2025 category changes: Particularly bad for mattress running & free night certificates. Three Category 1 hotels near me in the Southeast Michigan Detroit area are moving up to Category 2. At this rate will there by any Category 1 hotels even left? Of course the Hyatt Regency in Koh Samui, Thailand is going up one category, thanks White Lotus TV show. Thankfully Bangkok still kept several Category 1 properties. And Bali properties moving up, come on! Anyway, so many lost opportunities to burn Category 4 and Category 7 Free Night certs. Remember when Category 8 hotels were introduced and there were only a few of them? Anyway, World of Hyatt is not trending well which makes Globalist elite status less of a bang than it used to be.
Wait, there are more hits sadly. If you were collecting Lufthansa Miles & More miles, I send you my condolences. This is a program I got out of many years ago. And this is the end of it pretty much for us in this space who like to get value out of our miles/points: Miles & More ends flexible flight redemptions as it goes revenue based. Excerpt below, you can read the full article for the gory details if you like. To clarify, I still fly Lufthansa on award flights from other airlines/banks, I just never collect any miles in its program.
Lufthansa’s Miles & More programme effectively signalled the end of changeable and refundable redemption flights today – at least on its own aircraft – as it announced a move to a full revenue based model. It even decided to annoy elite members by removing their status benefits such as free seat selection and free checked bags on the cheapest redemptions. Impressively, Lufthansa chose to dress this up as great news for members – ‘Look forward to flexible mileage amounts and a greater choice of fares with Austrian Airlines, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City and SWISS’.
The only upside is that it cannot move partner airline redemptions onto a revenue based model. It has, however, substantially increased the cost of longer distance partner redemptions in an attempt to close the price gap with Lufthansa Group airlines. (Lufthansa even admits this – its website says ‘You may need significantly more miles for longer routes, such as flights to South East Asia.’) What’s bizarre, however, is this. Whilst Lufthansa has moved to revenue based redemptions, it is still restricting the seats you can book with miles to the usual small bucket. I mean …. what?! You are paying the same price as a cash ticket (based on a still unknown ‘cents per mile’ conversion rate) but the airline is not willing to sell you any seat at that price?
The price of eggs is suffering from high inflation. Do you know what else is being affected by inflation? Hotel brands, they just keep on coming! Out of the blue, we now have: Hyatt’s New “Cost Effective” & “Conversion Friendly” Hyatt Select Brand. It sounds to me like this brand is for Hyatt Place properties that are just not good enough. Hyatt Select properties will be “lightly staffed”. Why stop there? Make Hyatt Select the first “guest self-cleaning” brand lol.
This lounge looks nice: Las Vegas Airport Just Got a Swanky New Lounge—With Caviar, Craft Beer, and Sunset Toasts. But I think the best new lounge in the US has to be the Chase Sapphire lounge in the Philadelphia airport, wow.
TRAVEL REWARDS CREDIT CARDS
Must read for newbies or anyone here who wants a refresh: What is the Chase 5/24 Rule and How it Works? All Your Questions Answered.
Some ideas: Best Uses of Capital One Venture Miles. Of course, content like this comes out at times when there is potential to sell more credit cards. Always. See below, thank you. Maybe you can be the second credit card sale in my blog this month? Please, no comments.
We have two NEW great Amex Hilton cards elevated welcome offers:
70k AND Free Night Hilton Honors American Express Card
This is the basic Hilton entry level No Annual Fee card. The signing bonus is 70,000 Hilton Honors points AND a Free Night Award, which matches the BEST EVER welcome offer. The minimum spend is only $2k in the first six months. You also get Silver elite status which includes benefits like a 20% points bonus on stays, free bottled water, the 5th night free on reward stays, and elite rollover nights. The earning structure on the card is: 7x on Hilton purchases, 5x on restaurants, groceries and gas stations and 3x on everything else. These Hilton Free Night certs can be used in ANY property anytime which makes them much more valuable than all other hotel free night certs by far. No foreign transaction fees. If you spend $20k on the card you get upgraded to Hilton Honors Gold elite status. If you like Hiltons and abhor paying annual fees this card could work for you.
130k AND Free Night Hilton Honors Surpass American Express Card
I have this card because Hilton is my #2 hotel program (and closing in to #1 Hyatt). The annual fee is $150 but you can get up to $200 per year ($50 per quarter) credits if you stay in Hiltons or buy a $50 Hilton gift card online (temporarily out of stock). It also gives me Hilton Gold Elite status which is great, especially overseas where you get more upgrades and free breakfast (you get a daily food & beverage credit on US stays). Signing Bonus is 130,000 Hilton Honors points AND a Free Night Award cert, which matches the BEST EVER welcome offer. The minimum spend is a surprisingly low $3k in the first six months. These Hilton free night certs can be used in ANY property anytime which makes them much more valuable than all other hotel free night certs by far. You can earn a second Free Night Award cert after you spend $15k on the card every year. Earning is also very good with 12x on Hilton purchases, 6x on restaurants, groceries and gas stations, 4x on online retail purchases and 3x on everything else. You can upgrade to Diamond elite status if you spend $40k on the card. No foreign transaction fees.
75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards PLUS $250 Travel Credit
The annual fee is $95 and the minimum spend required is $4,000 in three months. Capital One cards usually earn a simple flat 2 points on every dollar. This card earns 5x on hotels and car rentals booked on its own travel portal. No foreign transaction fees. Get $120 credit towards Global Entry or TSA Precheck. Complimentary Hertz Five Star elite status. Most importantly, you can transfer the 75,000 points out to airline and hotel partners. Or just erase travel charged on the card for $750. And then of course you get the $250 travel credit. Basically, $1,000 of travel for $95. Very tempting indeed. For diversifying purposes as well if you have enough miles and points elsewhere as it is always nice to use this card to pay for a trip and then use Capital One miles to erase the charges. Capital One can be, well, finicky in approvals. If you are denied, you can not call to ask them to reconsider, it is all done by algorithms so, good luck! Finally, YES, you can have both the Venture X and the Venture Rewards cards.
Frankly, if you only go for one Capital One card it should be the Venture X, see below, no brainer. Oh, by the way, only the Venture X card gets you into Capital One lounges for free.
More elevated offers finally from Chase:
100k CHASE United Business
And just like that, the welcome offer for this card went up to 100k from 75k. The annual fee is $99 and and the minimum spend is $5k in the first three months. The card earns 2x on United, gas stations, restaurants, office supplies, local transit and commuting. And 1x on everything else. If you buy 7 United tickets with it, you will get a $100 United flight credit at card anniversary. You get two United club passes every year. If you have a personal United card as well, you get a 5,000 mile “better together” bonus. 25% discount on United in flight purchases. Expanded award availability. Ability to earn Premier Qualifying Points (PQP). Free checked bag for credit card holder and one companion on the same reservation. Priority boarding. No foreign transaction fees. Can be a good fit for travelers flying on United a lot. Available from my favorite bank HERE.
Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!
The 75K CAPITAL ONE Venture X card has a minimum spend of $4k in the first three months. If you like simplicity and looking for one (premium) card, I highly recommend this card (and yes, I have it myself!). It has an annual fee of $395 but it comes with an easy $300 statement credit for travel booked on its own travel portal, essentially turning it into a $95 annual fee card. But wait, there is more! On each card anniversary you earn 10,000 points essentially making it FREE! Every dollar of spend earns 2 points and flights booked on the travel portal earn 5 points per dollar. You get access to Capital One and Plaza Premium airport lounges and a Priority Pass Select lounge membership and, this is important, you can add FOUR authorized users FOR FREE who can also have their own Priority Pass Select airline lounge membership and, this is BIG, they can bring in unlimited guests with their FREE Priority Pass card! You can transfer your Capital One points to up to 18 Transfer Partners. No foreign transaction fees. Free Hertz President’s Circle rental car top elite status. Cell phone protection and PRIMARY rental car coverage. Awesome seats at baseball stadiums for just 5k points each. And lots more. If you prefer, this is my personal referral link.
Click on my TOP CREDIT CARD OFFERS to see a DETAILED explanation of the features of these cards.
Here are my three TOP CREDIT CARD OFFERS as of today:
The #1 Top Offer is the 75k Capital One Venture X card. It is amazing what you get for FREE with this card!
The #2 Top Offer right now is the 75k Chase Ink Business Unlimited card.
The #3 Top Offer right now is 75k CHASE Ink Business Cash card.
Learn more about these offers HERE.
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 (and you don’t have to hunt down the link in my Credit Cards page!)
Elevated Card Offer Notifications
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MY ACTION AND BLOG BUZZING
Tomorrow I am going for the 100k CHASE United Business card. Hopefully I get approved and looking forward to add another 100k miles. If my two nieces ever visit me I am going to get them tickets with these miles. Either on the usual Aegean/Lufthansa route via Frankfurt or on Turkish Airlines via Istanbul. Not much action lately with travel rewards credit cards, just bidding my time trying to “regroup” our profiles with our favorite bank Chase and waiting for new no brainer offers to come along.
Of course I transferred 1,000 Capital One miles to my JetBlue account and ended up with 5,600 points, I love this kind of math.
I canceled son’s trip to Bali I had booked for 37,500 American Airlines miles. He wants to get there a few weeks later. I swear both my kids are like most consumers, just not cut out for this hobby at all. Life is simpler that way. There have been many times when he sends me an itinerary with its pricing and what he can get it with using miles and I say “just pay cash”. So, in other words, the bang from this hobby is just not what it used to be, sad.
Miles and points are a big business. Actually, let me rephrase that. Travel rewards credit card sales is a big business. None of these corporate outfits and so many bloggers and YouTubers will be doing this if banks stopped paying sales commissions to push their plastic merchandise. If you are a small blogger like me you just can not compete and stay alive, buying coffees just does not pay the bills of running small blogs. Not like this blog really depends on too much revenue to pay its bills you know. I will still probably be around this space, it is an addiction. I am hooked at this since the early 90’s. And it pains me to see newbies dishing self serving advice pretending to be experts. Anyway, it is what it is. Having one reader get a credit card with my links this month shows my content is just not valuable enough. It hurts my ego you guys. Anyway, I guess I am not applying for this lol: We’re Hiring: Join us as an Influencer & Affiliate Marketing Manager (Fully Remote!).
Wait, there is more. There have been many sites that were kind of spun off from major media sites (such as CNN Underscored, Forbes Advisor, WSJ Buy Side) and were employing some staff writers but mostly relying on freelancers. The business plan was of course affiliate marketing. Until this happened: Google Tweak Creates Crisis for Product-Review Sites. New rules for recommendation sites such as Forbes Vetted and CNN Underscored threaten their business models, hurt freelancers. Some brutal excerpts below:
Traffic for Forbes Advisor, a personal-finance recommendation site, fell 83% in January from the same month the year before, according to data firm Similarweb. CNN Underscored and Buy Side from WSJ, which is operated by Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones, were both down by more than 25% in that period.
Time magazine’s Time Stamped and the Associated Press’s AP Buyline, powered by Taboola Turnkey Commerce, ended their efforts in recent months. Taboola closed the commerce operation.
Went on another media diet spree, I highly recommend it. Deleted some apps on my phone, knocked out another 10 blogs/websites I used to follow on Feedly, unsubscribed/blocked several useless emails I receive, along with YouTube channels. I have realized I don’t have any talent or time to improve on taking/editing videos so I am going back in a very occasional video posting on my YouTube channel. I still have not uploaded the video from the Hyatt Place Detroit/Utica stay a few weeks ago. Or the pics from it on Instagram. I will do this only if the stay was a luxury one involving a hotel suite and/or an amazing breakfast.
I continue to be more eclectic with what I read. I am no longer scrolling on Facebook. I hardly ever post on Linkedin, what the phuck is going on there, wow! So many just crafting “content” on that platform showing off. Which is pretty much what happens across all social media these days, right? So much fakery, so much mindless scrolling, it is sad and sign of the times how voters all over the world vote these days. If they have time to vote that is, just too busy laughing at stupid TikTok videos or checking out others on Instagram.
I like my site here, I am independent and I don’t give a phuck how Google will treat me or take orders from any entity I do not respect. Fits my personality I guess.
The home kitchen project is back on. It is shocking how busy builders/contractors are these days! I guess the kitchen will happen in summer/fall of 2026. Also, it shows that people still have money and are spending. With all the news headlines lately about layoffs and tariffs we will see how long this will last.
I am walking more, along with some light jogging. The last two days I have mostly walked 6.5 miles each day. But my right arm is still hurting, been almost a month now so I am seeing my doctor next Tuesday.
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS:
75k CHASE Ink Business Cash, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 75k CHASE Ink Business Unlimited, 100k CHASE United Business, 150k AMEX Business Platinum, 200k CAPITAL ONE Spark Cash Plus, 150k CAPITAL ONE Venture X Business, $1,000 Cash Back CHASE Ink Business Premier, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards AND $250 Travel Credit, 90k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 60k Chase Sapphire Preferred, 80k CHASE Southwest Performance Business, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!
Learn How To Apply HERE to support the blog. Or email me if you have any questions about any cards, I’m happy to help, thank you!
As of today, I have burned 137,500 miles/points year to date (2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,388,446 miles/points in the bank.
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.
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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.
First! Had to come to the east coast to do it, too! Yay! Next week..Italy! Yay!
Good post again, George and I thank you. Take care of the arm and easy on the running, hey?
Hey Buzz,
Do you think there will be affiliate links for Trump’s new $5 million residency card? I guess churning will be off the table.
Thanks for the post, George. Your content is always a great read.
Yes, take care of the arm!
Thanks for hanging in there! And for the great links.
Good morning Buzz,
Thanks for the great post as usual.
Thinking about that United card as well, even though it goes against my better judgement.
Carl, have a great time in Italy, I for one would like to hear more about your trip.
Great to hear about the walking, keep it up but take it easy on yourself Buzz.
Have a great weekend