TravelBloggerBuzz

An eclectic journey through the Travel Miles/Points blogosphere

January 24, 2013 – The 75k Amex offer is everywhere, weird houses, Reviewer Card & more North Korea!

By

Band playing in Madrid, 2011

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email: travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
 
Twitter: http://twitter.com/FlyerTalkerinA2
 
Find me at FlyerTalk and Milepoint as: gpapadop

BEST OF MILES/POINTS

Million Mile Secrets wrote about how to save money renting cars through the Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi Thank You Portals. I must admit this was new to me and I will certainly give it a spin next time. I usually find CarRentalSavers and Autoslash and Priceline work fine if National is too high. I will excuse the numerous affiliate links because bloggers need to eat and I always appreciate the full disclosure on the top of each post. I never understood the fascination with Emily modeling cards but, then again, I could never understand why I am so obsessed about North Korea either! Our blogs, our rules:-)

Maybe I should not be the one promoting the prepaid cards & Bluebirds even more! I apologize. But I really liked this comparison & especially the table comparing the three different AMEXPrepaid cards Traveling Well for Less put together. I like to scan this table to keep it straight as you can go mad trying to keep it all together…you know, if you have a life:-)

Gary Leff  at View from the Wing wrote “Delta Isn’t Done With Changes to Make Skymiles More Revenue-Based“. Come on, what did you all expect? The floodgates have opened and you cheap mileage runner types have been warned, your time is limited! I always appreciate Gary’s views but I do not necessarily agree with them.  My take on the whole thing is this: Airlines have been notorious money losers for many years. The only airline that has consistently made money is Southwest. Last time I checked they have an excellent revenue based program! Yes, frequent flyer programs are very profitable! But OVERALL airlines always head to bankurptcy! So, something MUST change! So, the fees are sticking, capacity is being reduced, costs are getting back into line. And now it is time to FIX the frequent flyer programs. Expect more tweaking and the only ones who will bitch and moan are…the cheapo mileage runners. Even they have an out…get the Amex cards! We will see who is right in the end. My gut feeling is Delta has the upper hand and will drive the knife deeper and…most customers will take it. They are already so used to expet to burn a lot more miles for any Delta award…just wait. My 2 cents.

Dan at Dan’s Deals breaks the news that it appears ANA does not charge fuel charges on United and USAir now! This can mean great savings! But beware that transfers to ANA from both AMEX Membership Rewards & Starwood are NOT instant (come on Amex, you are falling so behind…can you at least fix this with both programs???). With my luck, when the transfer is complete, the award could be gone or fuel surcharges would be back:-)

NOT SO BEST OF

Ben at One Milea at a Time admits to himself when he says “I realize I’m a bit late to the game on this, though better late than never I suppose.” when he also pushes the AMEX 75k offer…I knew he would do this when he finally landed. Hey Ben, you need to hire a staff person to pump these posts out before everyone else uses other bloggers’ links. And give him/her a title…how about Managing Editor, sounds pretty catchy;-)

Even later than Ben we have Deals We Like pitching the Amex 75k card. It is hilarious to read how bloggers try to differentiate themselves from the other bloggers when they are ALL really saying this…just click me! I just want to say I am going to do this because I did not know of the Roadside Assistance Anywhere benefit, really? Wow!

BEST OF TRAVEL

Kim Jong II’s corpse goes on display. Will I ever get to pay my respects to the Great Leader? lol

And Rapid Travel Chai can get links featured here with his North Korea adventures almost every time;-)

Another Chris Elliott story creates online controversy, I think he does that on purpose? His “Is it Ok to steal from an airline?” was interesting. He calls out one of his readers as a thief and what she did was stealing and that is criminal. Going a bit too far Chris? I actually would be happy with the “thieves” not suing to get what they want when they knew all along it was a mistake! I better stop there before I flip! Some of the comments are hilarious! And oh boy he really does not like FlyerTalk! Was he warmly welcomed there by a “friendly” moderator years ago?

tnooz has a great graph titled “Snapshot of the Expedia Business Traveler“.

The Reviewer Card to get special treatment? Costs $100 per Gary Leff of View From the Wing again. Hilarious! I left this comment: “A giraffe pic would look really good on the card!”  I think I am going to print my own and license the feared TBB name with the tag line “I Write Reviews”. Only $25 per card, u in? 🙂

ODDZ & ENDZ

From Bored Panda: “10 of the most Unusual Homes in the World” I like my house, no thanks!

Filed Under: TBB

Comments

    • TravelBlogger Buzz says

      I know, hard to comprehend. DL may throw a tiny bone here and there but the bloodbath is on…If I was a business road warrior flying primarily DL on company dime…I would be happy for the upgrades when all the cheapos (me!) are gone!

  3. Traveling Well For Less says

    Oh my God, I’ve finally made the big time and have been listed on Travelbloggerbuzz. 🙂 Thanks for the mention. 🙂 It was great meeting you at FTULAX, hope to see you at FTUDCA (Angelina introduced us).

    • TravelBlogger Buzz says

      Hey Debbie, you are welcome…I did not this site was yours actually…so many bloggers, so many sites…so hard to keep it all straight:-)

      Hope you stay in the Best Of side;-)

    • TravelBlogger Buzz says

      It was cute…after the wedding…They have been married for a year at least I think! He can do whatever he wants of course, they are both very nice folks. But the credit cards/VRs modeling is the thing that gets me…is it really necessary? Ok, once or twice but…you know, moderation is a virtue in everything in life imho:-)

    • Anonymous says

      Like TBB pointed out…. it’s one thing to have a picture or 2 of her on the beach or sitting in a first class suite

      But it definitely gets a little creepy when you constantly see 30 pictures of her every post. Especially in situations that don’t really warrant it (we know what a VR card looks like, we don’t need her to hold it up for us)

  6. Anonymous says

    Don’t stop the North Korea stuff. I actually enjoy it. Other than Stephan’s blog I haven’t read much about it.

    • Anonymous says

      They would probably hate it there. I can’t imagine the big banks have a lot pull there like they do in the US

    • Anonymous says

      We all know that TPG rips off content from other bloggers all the time. He’s often a day or two behind on various offers, and writes as though he discovered them out of thin air, rarely crediting other bloggers. It actually stands out when he gives credit.

      But today’s example is just shitty.

      Early this morning the much-smaller “Do It For the Points” wrote about the little talked about Delta new member bonus for partner activity, and that it’s still active.

      http://www.doitforthepoints.com/2013/01/delta-new-member-bonus-delta-grandslam.html

      So early this afternoon TPG writes about that same promo that’s been around awhile.

      http://thepointsguy.com/2013/01/delta-skymiles-signup-bonus-offer-up-to-40000-miles

      And what prompted the post today? Did he say “thanks to Do It For The Points for reminding us…”? No. His reason? “We’ve been getting lots of new readers lately” so he decided to share his wisdom.

      Shame, shame!!

    • Anonymous says

      And apparently Delta Points also posted it yesterday (although he likely ripped it as well)

      TPG claims it was a coincidence

      It would be an awfully big coincidence for such a random topic, and TPG isn’t exactly Mr. Credible in this regard – he also coincidentally “figured out” VR’s about a week after Frequent Miler posted it

    • TravelBlogger Buzz says

      I need to go by their word, I just can not come up and said someone did this or that. It is really impossible to prove! I do see the points made here but since I can not prove anything…I am staying away from this:-)

    • TravelBlogger Buzz says

      Oh yes, I forgot about this…it is already almost here! Time will tell what happens! It could definitely impact our hobby negatively. Thank God AMEX is exempt:-) (good lobbyists!). I absolutely despise this practice and I hope more states forbid it! In the meantime, I refuse to do business in places that will do this…heck I refuse to use actual cash PERIOD. I actually can’t remember the last time I used cash! For every small purchase I pull out my (Chase Exclusives) Freedom card!

    • Anonymous says

      And as long as a merchant takes Amex and can’t add on fees then they can’t add on fees to Visa/MC either since they still must take all on equal footing. Gary has covered this in quite a bit of detail.

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