If the market performs like this every day I may retire by mid May and devote myself to full time blogging. Yeah, right! And then I woke up, lol.
To my readers, I am doing my best to keept it up. I may slip in the next couple of weeks, please forgive me! Maybe I do not have to be so thorough when real work is so demanding…#developing
On with the show!
THE PREPAID CARD MARKET IS GOING BANANAS…EVEN JUSTIN BIEBER IS ON IT!!!!
And just when you think you did not need any other sign to realize the complete insanity with all these prepaid cards…here comes Justin Bieber! The article titled “Bieber joins ex-addicts fighting Chase in Prepaid Market” is a MUST READ. I think we are in inning number 1 or 2 at this game! The article says Chase has been in it with its Liquid prepaid card since June and it carries a monthly $4.95 fee. It also states that there may be some rules coming from the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau which makes sense, it is like the Wild Far West right now! The article goes on to talk about pulling a Kardashian, a card for addicts with a $14.95 monthly fee (only 40 signed up), a card for kids controlled by parents, etc. Fantastic article to gain an understanding of what is happening in this space! Beliebe it, the miles are out there!
BEST OF
Gary Leff had a fantastic post about hotel suite upgrades. He even did not take the opportunity to attack us with yet more Ink credit card links like some other bloggers keep doing every day, thanks man!:-) I still don’t know how you can crank this stuff out day in and day out among all the other things you do!
Loyalty Lobby has an excellent review of the Pros and Cons of Starwood Preferred Guest. Loyalty Lobby is racing to the top of the blogs specializing in hotels in my opinion!
MMS has a very useful post on how to convert US dollars to foreign currency. Ok, don’t do it at the airpot. Save foreign money if you plan to return & currency is stable (no Argentinian pesos or Egyptian pounds PLEASE!). Use ATM or debit cards. Comments are even more informative!
Frequent Miler has a comprehensive post about double dipping on gift cards for those of you who are into this sort of stuff. Many merchants listed I had never heard of! Lids.com…do they just sell lids?? And what the heck is Ahnu??? Sounds like a bear or something!
Both Gary Leff and Ben wrote today about the changes in the Hyatt Stay Certificates. I first saw the news in this Loyalty Lobby piece. Just saying where I saw it first!
In case you missed it, Avis bought Zipcar for almost half a billion dollars! I predict they will screw it up!
The Points Guy has a nice post on the Top 10 Places to visit in 2013. When I get my own affiliate links I can blog my top 10 Places to visit too and write for my own blog a few times per week while my staff keeps you all entertained. Lololololol.
Qantas is fine with crocodiles and lions but terrier dogs are not. U serious Qantas? Bite me (pun intended)
The ultimate guide to airline customer relationship management and loyalty. Great piece by an Infosys consultant. Got technical. HT tip to Street Smart Traveler. Hey Gary Leff, can you please summarize, I am running out of time, thanks:-)
US Airways no longer allows First Class Redemptions on Lufthansa. The unofficial policy became official. HT tip to everyone who wrote about this, lol. See Ben’s blog about the “manual sell” method.
Kathy at Will Run for Miles has a post about United’s promo to join a gym and earn 2k miles. Ok, don’t do it for the miles but JUST DO IT! I am going to the same gym for almost 15 years now. It is always funny how in the first two weeks of January you see so many new faces…and by the 3rd week you never see them again!
NOT SO BEST OF
Delta Points has a Rookie post on how to build a Delta Mileage Run. “Use ITA Matrix for deals. [I am sure Rookies can do exactly that!] Never ever check a bag! Pack an extra pair of pants, many undergarments and a few shirts“. I am shaking my head…actually, I am shaking it so much I think it may fly off my neck! If DP is one of the greatest mileage runners of all time I am the sexiest man alive, lol.
The Points Guy goes on a full blown assault with affiliate links ( I count somewhere in the mid 20s or so) to explain…spending threshold bonuses. How convenient? At least he now has added the superior US Air and AA offers (not fully endorsed..but it is understandable I guess). Hey, it is an improvement! Still no disclosure…Wait, of course it is there at the bottom of each page in super tiny font, grab your magnifying glass..it says “…This site may be compensated through a credit card Affiliate Program.“
Milevalue is on a long run here…Three guys and they just published the news about Delta ending the relationships with e-miles and e-rewards? I announced this here some time ago and gave my readers heads up about it. You are a little late guys. Is this part of the additional coverage of “earning miles”?
The Points Ninja ( I do like the name!) has a post titled “Never Pay Full Price“. Or he could have titled it “Build my passive income, build, build, build” as he felt so inspired by that other passive income post the other day! Hey Ninja, we all hate paying full price too! You get points for HTing Frequent Miler’s work unlike so many others!
ODDZ & ENDZ
Where to be Born Index: The Lottery of Life. Switzerland #1.
The first marijuana club in Colorado opened for just one day before it closed due to a landlord dispute. This caught my eye “Lovato opened a storefront where patrons could buy coffee or other products and then head over to a private building where they could smoke free samples of marijuana.” I wonder if mega deals like this will ever be published by the Deal Mommy, Deals we like and others:-)
About currency conversion – obviously people do this or there wouldn’t be so many places to do it – but WHY? Do that many travelers not have bank accounts with ATM debit cards?
I hear you…some things people do are beyond explanation!
I cant believe someone is using that currency exchange place in the airport. I guess I’ve never noticed people at the window. I figured everyone knew it was a ripoff.
There are so many….they would not be there if they were not profitable!
George,
Gary and Ben have a very bad habit to use Loyalty Lobby blog without giving him any credit. Loyalty Lobby does not use affiliates and will not promote glitches. Very clean act. He is a mystery no doubt (it seems that he has no home and lives in hotels).
The Hard Rock bathroom is probably the ugliest bathroom I even saw 🙂
Agreed on all counts:-)
In fairness I see Gary hat tipping Loyalty Lobby quite frequently. His first post from today begins “Loyalty Lobby says that United has dropped the price of its ‘premier accelerator’.” With a link. I don’t see pretty much anyone give credit as often as Gary does. Loyalty Lobby on the other hand doesn’t seem to give ANYONE credit, even when covering things after others do.
Loyalty Lobby is a very good blog, but I don’t think the evidence is there that others steal from it?
Agreed about Gary. He’s usually pretty good about H/T’ing that when he doesn’t H/T, I’m inclined to believe that he honestly saw the deal on his own
Now TPG on the other hand…. well, lets just say he owes Frequent Miler a citation or 12
Yes, Gary HTs more often than anyone! Ever since I started it I see LT is pretty much first uncovering things. And I was not even aware of him before I started my blog, boy do I feel bad about that!!
Yes TPG on the opposite hand…
I am sensing a slight improvement in overall practices and a bit more attention given to content quality. I mean, even Delta Points is even trying harder, lol.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment!
George,
Nice to know who the sexiest man alive is!
You know that is not true if you knew me personally!
The funniest thing about TPG’s “inclusion” of the non-affiliate links was his trying to play it as a minor oversight in the comments, and that many of his readers are hesitant to use those links because of the landing pages
Of course, the reason they’re hesitant is because people like TPG make them hesitant about it by pointing out that “it’s targeted for Chairmen members” but not point out that there’s a 100% success rate on getting the targeted offer
Agreed on Loyalty Lobby – quality blogging and no CC pimping. Double win
Agreed on all counts too!
Gary was worried that you were giving him too much praise over the past few days, so he pumped out one of his recycled CC pimping posts
I’m pretty sure he’s posted this exact same post at least 6 times now
I predict there will be more, lol.
With DP’s post today, it sure was a good thing that he had that Delta Reserve Amex card handy when he had to pay the $3 in taxes on the phone! Oh, so you can have this great card to use for your purposes like this, let me just make it easy for you to get one by throwing the link there for ya’. Honestly, I was wondering if he was just making a nice report today about how to do something useful until he slapped that in there. Pretty ridiculous.
He always slap that in there, so predictable!
Question that I suspect all of us already know the answer to….
If CSP has such an amazing sign-up bonus, how come the bloggers never recommend you get the MasterCard version as well?
Especially considering the MC is even better than the Visa (better car rental coverage)
What could possibly be the reason? Hmmm….
I wonder:-)
H/T to Dan’s Deals who is the only blogger to give the CSP MC (and its benefits over the Visa) any attention at all
I have learned lots in dansdeals…there is gold in those forums!
Dans Deals posted on using his referral link for the Visa and getting it converted to Mastercard. And also getting the Mastercard when it did offer referral credit.
The advantages of Mastercard over Visa — car insurance in Israel though — hardly suggest folks should be focusing on the more obscure version. That’s a bit of a stretch.
That isn’t the only country with better coverage. That’s merely the one that he had first hand experience in researching. But it applies to many other countries as well
And I don’t recall the MC version ever having a referral link. I don’t ever remember there being a way to get it aside from MC’s actual website
Perhaps bloggers should focus on advising readers how to get the Mastercard version after they got the Visa so the readers can double up the points. But they are too busy pushing the SP Visa and the Ink ones over and over…
I do not recall the MC version having a referral link either. But I can certainly be wrong, I have been many times!
Latest TPG post (which wasn’t actually written by him even though he is a “full time blogger”) has a lot of nice rhetoric but little practical purpose in the real world
Unless of course you have a month+ off from work, 4000 dollars to spend on airfare, don’t mind a terrible CPM, willing to go through crazy hoops to get this ticketed, and for some crazy reason looking to use $$$ for this trip instead of miles
On the plus side, looks like he couldn’t find a bonusable CC for RTW trips to embed in the post
Will get to it at some point today!
Holy filler post Batman!
MV with a book report today on getting M&M points for Amazon purchases, which you could tell within a few sentences would eventually end up in “is this deal worth it? No, not in the slightest bit”
You have to scroll a long way down in the post before you actually get relevant information:
“Yes. Amazon gift cards are sold at places like grocery stores, drug stores, and office supply stores. Many popular travel credit cards award category bonuses for purchases made at places like these. The Chase Ink Bold awards 5X points at office supply stores. Buy an Amazon gift card at the store, apply the balance to your account, and shop at Amazon as you normally would. Your next online purchase will essentially earn 5X points.”
I thought I was caught up with my Google Reader, did not see this come through. Or there is a lag? Or I scanned it quick and decided not worthy…not sure! If I include it I may just include your summary:-)
It’s the top post on MileValue right now
It’s a lot of writing for what is ultimately (and was apparent 6 paragraphs before he actually drew that conclusion) a horrific deal
And what might be of more interest to you is he actually pushed the affiliate link… for the Lufthansa MasterCard (i kid you not)
“Right now, you can earn Hawaiian Miles for your Amazon purchases. Turns out there is a backdoor way to get M&M miles, but it’s a terrible deal, especially for US residents. The best thing to do for Amazon purchases is buy Amazon GC’s at office supply stores or drugstores”
That’s a 3 sentence summary that covered everything relevant in his thesis paper of a post
And just to reiterate:
you won’t get posts on CSP MC
You won’t get posts on the Club Carlson Card
But you’ll get someone to push the Lufthansa MasterCard
The Blogosphere: where travel hacking journalistic integrity goes to die
Got it, I so agree with you. And I will use some of your comments if you don’t mind, they are perfect!
There have been lots of posts on the Club Carlson card. It’s brand new a month ago. And when it came out there was tons of hate over it because people don’t like US Bank. Rapid Travel Chai, Mommy Points, Gary, and Deals We Like have all posted on it.
They all give an obligatory post when it first came out, and haven’t touched on it since.
I hope you’re not so naive as to think the reason they “hate over it” isn’t because they don’t get affiliate $$$ over it. Lucky had a post a few weeks ago where he explicitly said Priority Club was worthless to him…. and still embedded the PC Visa link (TBB was all over that one)
We’ve been through this time and time again…. trust me, when they start collecting affiliate $$$ for the Club Carlson CC’s, you’ll be seeing never ending mentions of them
And what’s the excuse for them not talking about the CSP MC? Every blogger agrees that the CSP is one of the best sign up bonuses, if not the best. And almost nobody has the CSP MC – so you would think they would be highly recommending that card to their readers, right? After all, Gary reminds us 4 times a week how amazing a 40K UR signup bonus is.
TBB…. want to cover this one? 🙂
Guys, I have been all over the CSP MC vs Visa issue here!
It is absolutely true that when the affiliate $$$ start rolling in, it changes people. And so many, so many people are totally clueless about that. I mean they watch TV and they think Delta Points is a great mileage runner when he had no idea what MR was until…he started blogging!
True on the Club Carlslon Card, I need to promote that a bit because the sign up bonus and the card benefits are amazing! But you must admit US Bank is just a…weird bank to deal with. I have many inquiries and am scared I may get denied which is…unthinkable!
“wierd banks” don’t stop the bloggers from posting about the US Airways Barclays card (at least not the inferior one that gives them affiliate $$$), even though Barclays is known to often “accept” you for a different, less lucrative version of the card
Obviously the bloggers should give the appropriate caveats about US Bank…. but there really is no justification to pump out links for the Marriott lineup and the PC Visa, while ignoring the far better Club Carlson Card.
Especially since one of the many themes that the bloggers often recycle as an excuse to embed links is “which cards for newbies to get” – in which case a presumed lack of inquiries by the target audience should make the US Bank worries a non-issue, right?
I agree with you…again!
offtopic but need to know (and the irony is sweet): what’s the site you mentioned before to use to organize links you want to get to later? I had to scan a dozen of your ancient posts and could not find it….
🙂
Evernote? I put important stuff i may need reference later in there. I then search and they always come up. Search is very powerful. Takes a while to “get it”. I could do better by organizing in different trees…but have no time to learn i. I just dump everything in there. Today I dumped MMS post about expiration policies as I know I will have to look it up in the near future:-)
Hope that’s the one!
yes, thanks!
ok, getting started with evernote. is there a way that someone can share a “best FF miles earning and spending posts” notebook? I asked teh question on flyertalk too.
Would be useful for all of us who have to keep track of the various pieces of wheat amidst all of that chaff…..
I am sure there is…When you find out please let me know too. Like with all software, I am probably using less than 10% of its capabilities!
Hey,
Glad you liked my article (http://www.tnooz.com/2013/01/02/how-to/the-ultimate-guide-to-airline-customer-relationship-management-and-loyalty/) 🙂
Let me summarize it for you !
FFPs have turned into a revenue generating mechanism for Airlines, who manage to sell reward miles to their partners in exchange for cash. Thus, their focus has slowly started shifting from loyalty to profit. Having established that, the article proceeds to explain an alternative loyalty improvement mechanism, which is known as Customer lifetime value.
In case you would like to discuss this further, do feel free to connect with me on Linkedin (you can find me easily) or drop me a mail !
Regards
Manu
Loved it! And thanks for the summary, greatly appreciated!