We learn how to better use the ITA Matrix software, read about funny stuff going on with other blogs, visit the murder capital of the world in Honduras, go through Mussolini’s bunkers, look at some ugly cats at the World Cat Show and laugh at the funniest dictionary of investing terms!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
You can support TBB by clicking/forwarding any of our Referral Links and starting your online shopping at our Amazon affiliate link . Or click on the Amazon Banner on the right, thank YOU!
ITA Matrix Presentation – Travel Codex Really good presentation on using this tool. I am afraid Google is going to kill it or, perhaps, it is killing it softly…
Blogs & Websites That Copy/Paste Material From LoyaltyLobby: Case IHG PointBreaks List – Loyalty Lobby Hey, looks like some Titan bloggers do stuff like this? Some comments are entertaining. I wonder if LL knows that his reader is a blogger, moi? 🙂
San Pedro Sula, Honduras: Murder Capital of the World A devastating account from such a beautiful place…
Mussolini’s Bunker not seen for 70 years. Fascinating
Word Cat Show – In Pictures Holy pussy, there are a few ugly cats here, like this one, your worst nightmare. Meow!
Funniest Investing Dictionary on the Internet by Jason Zweig. Must click & bookmark! Brilliant is an understatement! For example, here is the definition of “ASSET GATHERING“, n. The term that asset managers use, when no one is listening, to describe what they do. In plain English it means: grabbing all the money we can with both hands from as many customers as possible so we can earn more fees for less work.
Frugal Travel Guy writing about British Airways Avios——->Major LOL!
The Points Guy every Sunday serves his readers answers to questions that appear so perfect for pumping more credit cards to them. For example: ” Which Card Is Best for Hotel Elite Status Through Spending?” and “Can I Get Sapphire Preferred Right After Other Applications? I am sure it is common knowledge by the site’s readers who owns the site….Yeah, and I am Batman!
Please ask Chris Guillebeau about yet another credit card post, this time ” New: No Annual Fee on 50,000 British Airways Avios Offer”. “Amazing” travel hacking advice. Whoever writes this is doing a pretty pathetic sell job too, wow!
And I leave you to ponder about the meaning of life with stuff like this…
Full disclosure: I added a “Credit Cards” tab finally! It was time, nearing the end of the year and readers will finally stop asking for it. I am now going to shut up about it. Thanks for your support! The cards they pump? They are likely available!<——————Titanic exclamation mark? 🙂
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First?
Surprising… Just came to read and saw there were no comments. A first “first” for me!
I forgot to click the box on the cc page so as not to allow comments over there for obvious reasons. So excuse me about that comment. Not that surprising, I should have done it last year as soon as more than a few readers asked for it.
Let me see how this goes. I have put lots of time in this baby & really need to show a profit in its 3rd tax year so I can justify business credit cards for it 🙂
Judge me by my content.
I took a shower after I hit Publish on that page, historic moment 🙂
Horseshit. It’s a joke George… if this is a commercial operation, do it properly and make it one. I mean do you really need the money? IMHO you just lost all credibility. I will be doing the same with this site as I did with all the others…. au revoir
Thank you for letting me know how you feel.
I guess I should have just continued spending 3 to 6 hours a day (sometimes more!) here for 32 cents clocking a third loss in three years…You should know what time commitment this takes!
Or fold and make ingy happy.
Or do what readers have been telling me to do do for well over a year.
Or making wife upset “always screwing around with the blog”.
Beers on me next weekend? With the earnings from my “commercial operation” lol.
And do you mean pump like they pump by “doing it properly”?
I don’t need the money but I still MS, so much less now with the blog. I ‘ll be more than happy to replace my MS income lol.
I love Ric G. But he gets a nice amount every month from Boarding Area. Probably more than my Amazon link has earned in its existence.
Again, goal is nothing to change around here. I want to see if this works and worthy blogs can make it standing alone. It is up to readers to vote with their clicks who they want to support.
Since I have lost you as a reader, please help Drew, he deserves it.
I feel better now 🙂 Actually I was expecting harsher backlash that’s it?
Actually I think it would be great if you enabled comments. You don’t have direct links to the cards, but we could crowdsource the advice. You seem to have a link to the Alaska AIrlines card, something I haven’t seen on any other blog. It’s one of the best, most churnable cards left out there!
And we could warn potential newbies that the first links to the CrapOne cards will pull from all three bureaus, stay away from that, and anyone who applies for the Visa Black card is a total douche…
I don’t think you lose any credibility since you’ve always stated you don’t have any problems with affiliate links, just the constant pumping of the links. However, in my opinion, you do lose your impartiality. The content of TBB is mostly reviewing other blogs and deciding what is blog worthy and what goes into the blog buzz (the bad list with your humorous wise cracks.) But now you’re going to be like a biased umpire when it comes to reviewing credit card posts.
You’re setting yourself up for failure with this statement: “I added a “Credit Cards” tab finally! … I am now going to shut up about it”. Does this mean you’re not going to mention the credit card tab again or do any promoting of your affiliate card links? I believe VFTW, MP, Milevalue, MMS, and others made similar comments when they started with affiliate links (I’m not going to promote my links, my content won’t change, I’ll only list the best offers, etc.) I think we all know how that turned out.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Karen.
>>>>>you do lose your impartiality.
I am afraid you are right. One of the reasons I resisted. See next paragraph below as I am forming my thoughts 🙂
>>>>>Does this mean you’re not going to mention the credit card tab again or do any promoting of your affiliate card links? I believe VFTW, MP, Milevalue, MMS, and others made similar comments when they started with affiliate links (I’m not going to promote my links, my content won’t change, I’ll only list the best offers, etc.) I think we all know how that turned out.
I just can not see myself pumping away like those Titans, it’s just not me! I also am very well aware what happened with them. I see this as “research” in my blog reviewing “thing” I tried to quit. But I just can’t stop. My therapist could not help me either, I stopped paying her lol. So I see this as the next evolution. I either make it work by letting the content speak for itself or I fold or I go to a once a week mega rant and stop this Feedly nonsense! I like to tinker and have new experiences, this is one of them. I have busted my butt here, blogging is incredibly hard work for little payoff.
Remember, the credit cards.com link I have does not pay much. A plus is I don’t do much, I have it there for readers to click on it. It is NOT direct links which are a lot more lucrative and THAT is where the pressure comes I believe to produce more CONVERSIONS. I am not there. I have no idea how or when or if ever I get there. I am just learning how this stuff works. It is fascinating.
But for people to say I will never use your affiliate links because whatever….it hurts! I can assure you over 95% of bloggers will go away if cc affiliate links went away or blog lot less (probably not a bad thing. Sadly the good ones will go away first!). The Amazon link is pitiful in comparison.
Bottom line, I am aware of the “traps” involved in this move. And I am also aware that I am spending way too much time on this blog for extremely ridiculous payoff (just 32 cents yesterday!) that I need to give it a shot to make this work for me and the people close to me. And I really want so bad to prove Ingy and delta points wrong.
I need help 🙂
George,
I understand your situation and think that you should do what you feel is best, but try not to be hurt by your readers who choose not to use affiliate links. It’s nothing personal, and if I do reconsider my decision, I would use your links if you have the best offer. Ironically, I base my decision not to use affiliate links off many of the comments that I have read in your blog over the years in your roles as a blog reviewer and as a financial adviser.
I am on hold with Amex right now applying for that targeted 75k Business Gold Rewards card for my blog business 🙂
I guess I am not hurt by readers who choose not to use affiliate links…frustrated is a better description I think. If you the readers do not help bloggers who work hard to produce quality content they can not keep going. Producing something daily is VERY hard…there is so much that goes into blogging that is…well, kind of insane actually! I had NO idea (but did have a hunch!).
If you will not use mine please use Drew’s links at Travel is Free. He deserves it more than every other blogger!
Help fight back the pumpers. They CHOOSE to pump. Many other bloggers choose NOT to pump.
I feel better now….especially when I heard “You are approved” from the friendly Amex guy on the phone. #itneverends
This was a HUGE step for me, we ll see how it goes. If I judge from the performance of the other monetization efforts I have done I don’t expect much and leads to a much easier decision to do away with reviewing blogs.
Thanks for helping me try to figure this out…
George, I would use your links over Drew’s in a heartbeat. It was Drew who concluded that the credit card pumping bloggers are really nice guys/gals and that they are not the real sell outs.
Deux.
3rd
Cinco de Mayo!
quatro then
Congrats on the CC.com banner. You have lots of good cards to offer. Enjoy the Chase, Citi, AMEX, and BofA links. I am left with only Barclays. Also, you may want to have a direct link to the same site that the banner goes to. My adblocker blocks the banner from displaying on my site. Good luck!
Can you explain this a little bit more? Why are you left with only Barclays? Will I be receiving email reminders “hey you have not made any sales so we are taking them one out one at a time (nice titanic pun haha)?
I’m not sure why I only have Barclays. Probably a combination of low/no sales and the fact that I talk about MS using those cards. You should be able to get direct links to certain cards through CC.com, we can talk on Skype or FaceTime if you want to see how.
Let’s talk this weekend. Looking forward to checking out Kimpton for the first time. Sorry for snagging the Presidential Suite #realexpert 🙂
Haha, let’s talk on the balcony over looking the pool in your presidential suite 🙂
Hey, if you need any paper from Staples I got a bunch yesterday, thanks for the reminder 😉
I’m glad TBB now has a credit cards link because it gives me a way to point my card apps so as to support an independent, critical eye on much of the FF world.
In my mind, TBB has never been against getting miles through credit cards. It’s been about good information, provided without bias or excess marketing caused by conversion commissions or any other slanting.
It’s also great in my view since it means this place is more likely to be around a while.
Any critics who want to slam George for this should first pledge to do as he has:
Agree to put only one discreet card link in their blog, and keep all other “advice” on which cards are hot, etc., out of their blog. Let’s see who signs the pledge for that.
>>>>>>>TBB has never been against getting miles through credit cards. It’s been about good information, provided without bias or excess marketing caused by conversion commissions or any other slanting.
Bingo!
About that pledge, I got me a binder full of bloggers ready to sign it 🙂
This is how I intend to “market” it and, judging from my pathetic marketing experience to date, don’t expect them to last that long and it will make the excuse to fold so much easier. I just didn’t want to go down without a fight lol.
It’s kind of like my own experiment. Can non pumper people with good blogging practices WIN in this environment or is it true you need to be a pathetic prolific pumper to be a Titan?
Let’s see…
And thanks Sam.
OK, can’t believe that, but this morning I woke up and checked if AA put
the new London flights into the system yet. Guess what, they did! And they screwed it up
again – tons of First available next Spring. Seriously? I was able to book our
trip next year, my possibly the most surprising/awarding booking yet. Thanks Citi LOL.
Would you like an AA card with that? lol
So today is the day Tabloid Buzzard becomes a CC pimp! LOL Will he print what he is paid per card? (Oh wait he can’t)!
.
Is there a long list of NON-affiliate offers ie direct links on his cards tab? NO! Just a link to his CC.com link. Humm… When Buzzard talks about some offer, will he just put a a direct bank link or will he just direct to his cards tab and pump his link? (you know the answer)!
.
The hypocrisy of this blog never ends. I am sure the angry readers will pile on and say it is OK when Buzzard does this just not when others do! #Stunned #Sad #Expected!
Thank you for taking the time to comment here.
Giggles
Awww, Rene, we don’t dislike you because you push credit cards…
We dislike you because you’re you!!
I hear you’re very nice in person.
Post #236 So nice in person indeed!
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/external-miles-points-resources/1532703-bloggers-posting-wrong-misleading-advice-16.html
I think the difference is that you’re constantly changing your focus (from pushung Amex links, to pushing Barclay links, oh — back to Amex links) and inventing problems where the Amex, Barclay’s, etc. is the solutions. Not to mention the 96 part trip report from SBN to ORD, CLE or PHX. Also, let’s not forget the removal of TBB from your circles and arrows post instructing readers to vote for you. Obviously, time will tell what happens with TBB but I have no reason to expect TBB’s blog to devolve to the level of your blog’s content.
From a Secret Admirer…….Buona Giornata Sig. DeltaPoints, I do not know you or have ever been to your your blog. I do not waste my time collecting Delta Skymiles as they are useless to me. I only know you from your childish, immature and hostile comments made on this site…….That being said I think you are a FAB-U-LOUS (as they say in Hollywood) comedic actor. I love all your work especially your role as the character known as Cam on Modern Family. Ciao Bello.
What’s up Bob, looking so handsome 🙂
I went to your credit cards page but couldn’t see any links. You should probably add a text link as the banner is blocked by adblock. Similarly for your amazon link. I was wondering why it wasn’t on the front page. Same issue.
Hmm, I had no idea. Took me a while to figure this out. I tried to add the CC text link but it would not appear as a link. In the meantime, Feedly is over 200…I will get to it…sometime. Thanks for letting me know!
Done!
Mondays are totally nuts! Do NOT schedule dentist appointments at 8 am, yikes!
René-
You overlooked my post:
“Any critics who want to slam George for this should first pledge to do as he has:
Agree to put only one discreet card link in their blog, and keep all other “advice” on which cards are hot, etc., out of their blog. Let’s see who signs the pledge for that.”
Are you going to be the first to sign-up? Or are you just going to walk away?
Ummm, let me guess this one 🙂
This is the guy who stopped all Amex card links suddenly when he lost the links. And was sending his readers to his crappy cc page after getting them to click on “Amex cards’. Then, suddenly, when got the Amex cards back, all post pimping them appeared, voila!
And he comes to comment here talking about hypocrisy. I mean, is this entertainment or what?
My wife’s aunt moved from San Pedro Sula to Miami a few years ago–she just couldn’t take the crime any more. Her house was regularly broken into by armed robbers–with people stil in the house, mind you, as the thieves didn’t bother waiting until the house was empty as they generally do here. The police were (and I assume still are) uninterested in dealing with such things.
Wow, did not realize it hit so close to you. So sad it looks like a beautiful place!
Congrats, I guess, on the credit card tab. Hopefully you can break even on this puppy. Forgive me if I don’t use your link. Friends don’t let friends use affiliate links.
Thanks, I guess.
I forgive you.
I am in strong disagreement with this statement “Friends don’t let friends use affiliate links.” With that attitude bloggers like Drew, Frequent Miler and others in the Love and Like lists GO AWAY and leave the field to “experts” who specialize in credit card online marketing. If something else paid better I would understand. The amazon link brought in 31 cents yesterday (1 order shipped, no new orders placed) and the media.net ads a big fat zero again. After 2 years of doing this for a minimum of 3 hours per day (sometimes spending over 6 hours, INSANE!) what you said is a bit of hurtful but I am sure I will get over it. I have no problem at all if you omitted the last sentence, it demoralizes bloggers who try to do the right thing.
I now need to call Amex and see if I can a card for 75k MR points and attack the Feedly backlog a little bit, Mondays are always out of control in blogland!
This is where you and I will have to agree to disagree. You, me, and many others complain about the pumpization of this hobby. We all know the root of that problem is affiliate income. You can say hey just use the links of blogs you like and all will be better, but that won’t work. My favorite blogs might be TBB, TIF, and Travel Codex but other’s favorite blogs might be FTG, MMS, TPG, DP, VFTW, OMAAT. So the problem continues. If that means less blogs, so be it. I don’t necessarily believe that is a bad thing.
Yep, we agree to disagree here.
But we agree here: “the root of that problem is affiliate income”
So, in a way, my way is kind of phucked up. BUT, if we don’t support the blogs that should be supported they go…home leaving the crappy ones reign supreme.
It’s a convoluted problem. 2 years into this I wish I had never started as what kept me from starting a blog for years was the issue of….time suck 🙂
We also agree that if the whole system of AFFILIATE income went away the world would be a better place. In the meantime, the fat get fatter and the skinny ones…starve. So lets get the fat ones on a diet I say, vote with your clicks 🙂
Anyways, I think my wife will finally go for that Arrival card 😉
The pumping may stem from the links, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t reward those that don’t pump. It’s precisely because they overcome the incentives that they should be rewarded.
From the beginning Buzz set out a pretty good criteria: always best links, full disclosure.
The things you don’t like about many of the other blogs would still be there even if credit card links went away. The small blogs don’t make much money from credit cards, the big blogs that do would still be bringing in six figures from display ads alone just from their big audiences and page views. They wouldn’t be pushing credit cards without the links but they’d still be commercial.
Thank you No Way Jose!
All my apps are now going to go through TBB. Finally support some decent blogs compared the the credit card pimping machine that is mms. Or milevalue. Jesus has he issued any real content in the last couple of months?
Boggles my mind anyone even reads his blog.
Thank you!
I have seen the progress of mms and milevalue. It is highly disturbing!
I know where I’ll be signing up for the Hawaiian Airlines Mastercard….
LOL….I am on the floor, rolling…bwahahahahahaha
San Pedro Sula is not bad…. actually gonna make another trip to Honduras next year.
Dude, be careful.
What credibility?
(ha ha ha!)
I knew I should have never trusted those pics in the cloud 🙂
Follow up response to Karen (ran out space above!).
Still, speaking about content, his blog is the best. He deserves it. And yes you make a good point 😉
I’ve been to San Pedro Sula. When you say “such a beautiful place.” What are you talking about?
That made me laugh, thanks!
I meant to say, I have seen some pics OUTSIDE it that looked kind of nice. Let’s just say I won’t be burning any miles there anytime soon lol.