Stilt Fishing in Sri Lanka
Photo by Ulrich Lambert/2012 National Geographic Photo Contest
I have never been busier in my life! Putting this baby together is very time consuming and is becoming an obsession…I do NOT want to give it up…so I am fighting! I hope you like what you read here and it enhances your quality of life in some degree. If not, well what’s the point? I am not going to hammer you silly with filler posts like endless trip reports, my top 10 credit cards or success stories and abuse your eye sockets with drivel posts that serve no other purpose other than fill the authors’ pockets! I just like to feature educational/inspiring and sometimes entertaining posts along with my incendiary commentary which sometimes could be interesting or funny (I hope). From time to time I will share with you some of my own miles earning adventure hits or misses. I have some experience in this stuff.
No daily buzz post on Sundays, I need a break!
PREPAID CARD MILES BONANZA CHRONICLES
I am George and I am a miles/points addict for many years…
Just a few observations. The era of wondering how you are going to hit the minimum spend requirement IS OVER with so many different options available! I always despised the engineering/accounting like precision of counting the days to do a major churn, doing so many in one day kind of freaks me out! My modus operandi has been to ALWAYS be working on at least one minimum card spending requirement in my household! In late November/early December I found myself without a card trying to hit the minimum spend on and, let me tell ya, it was WEIRD. I felt like a person with no goals, aimlessly pulling any card out of my wallet and wondering “Is this what it feels like to not have to shoot for a goal?”, lol. I just finished my Ink Plus spend requirement & working on wife’s Ink Plus and new Priority Club Visa. Just these three and we are talking 190k points! If that mortgage guy would hurry up and get the refi done. I may take a few weeks off to finish the two Fairmont Visa cards 12k spend for the free anniversary night…might as well get them two nights in the bag (already booked 7 nights in Fairmont Banff Springs and Lake Louise for next summer, all free nights yippee!!). We will see how long this one will last…
BEST OF
A MUST SEE video about Myanmar I saw at Vagabondish.
The Winners of the National Geographic Photo Contest 2012. Wow!
If you can ignore the gazillion ads on the DansDeals website, you can find some very useful content there. For example, today’s FICO vs FACO is very educational, especially towards new miles “enthusiasts’ (better term than newbies!). He also takes time to answer every single comment! You can not say that towards other bloggers who censor comments and/or handypick the positive ones and may just slide a negative one in there for “balance”!
I usually do not like the interviews at MMS. But this one I really liked only because it introduced me to a new website with amazing photographs!
OH MY GOSH!!!! Get out! You won’t believe who just made it here! Delta Points! Are we hallucinating, is this for real? Well, yes it is. He now informs us that Delta confirmation numbers work in Air France and KLM websites so we can now pick intra Europe seats, hooray! He even kept himself from serving us one of his amex credit card links for the 3rd millionth time! I wish he did not censor/handpick comments but that may be going too far!
Frequent Miler has a crazy idea: To earn a million miles in one month. What is so crazy about that, come on? If I was a full time blogger and my family had just one kid…I would very easily earn a million miles per month and only call one BILLION miles per month a crazy idea. Just saying:-)
The Points Guy has a destination of the week feature: Maldives. I like these posts as I save them in Evernote for the time I may find myself visit there one day. Then it is easy to reference them and refresh my memory on how to get there and especially all the different hotel options! I wish this blog could afford to pay writers while I roam the world, like South Africa these days! 🙂
The Wandering Aramean tells us Amtrak Guest Rewards added another elite tier, Select Executive Status. And, surprisingly, it is a true enhancement! We had a great trip riding across the country back in August in sleeper cars on the Southwest Chief train from Chicago to Los Angeles and then on the Skylight train onwards to Seattle. Great use of Chase Ultimate Rewards points—->Amtrak Guest Rewards!
We may be just weeks away from the US Air and American Airlines merger…moving like the speed of light!
This is the photo of the passenger on the Icelandic Air flight heading to JFK who went ballistic and had to be restrained by…duct tape! Story is everywhere on the web. If I had to sit next to this guy I would be traumatized! Can you imagine the lawsuits here in the US? Actually I feel awful for posting the poor guy’s pic here…Dude, get some help please. A whole bottle of whiskey just before boarding is not a good idea!
NOT SO BEST OF
Shockingly nothing here. I felt very benevolent for some reason. Or I am just becoming immune to the BS posts? Or I am just too busy to add stuff here that make me lose it? Yep, that’s it probably. I fully expect more stuff to appear here. Right now, somewhere in the blogosphere, there is a blogger prepping a post ONLY to see how much dough it can generate while providing no value whatsoever. I predict it is about the British Airways Visa:-) You know who you are, I gave you a free pass…like I said, I felt benevolent, I have feelings too, lol.
ODDZ & ENDZ
50 Funniest AutoCorrects of 2012 Major LOL stuff here! From Bored Panda
How much are YOUR taxes going up. Use the Tax Policy Calculator
No “Not So Best Of”? I almost wish I could have done something bad just to get on the list.
Sorry to disappoint you! I promise I will do better next time:-)
I am watching you…Heck, I watch everybody lol
Re: the time consuming nature of this post
Maybe you should try to bring on another volunteer from FT? What is the name of that guy who kept agitating Gary in his comments section?
I don’t work well with others, lol.
Classic logic from DeltaPoints today (needs to get his head examined):
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“Then there is value. Think about this. Say you, like I did this year, book a trip on points that would have cost you $4000 otherwise. If you did not have points, you would have had to earn $4000 to take the trip. So if you think about it, the value of the points is not just the $4000 cost of the trip, but the $4000 you can spend on something else! In my head that makes the points worth $8000!”
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I remember reading that paragraph, I had to read it twice, I still don’t get it.
wow
um, wow
Words fail me
Obviously anonymous TBB readers are not as bright as Delta Points readers so let me break it down.
1) You work and make money. It takes you xxx time to make $4000. If you book a vacation and spend that $4000 you have lost $4000 (i.e. -$4000 in your pocket – following me so far?)
2) If you have points, and can spend them on a vacation that cost $4000. Cost of the vacation is not $4000 then it is ZERO.
3) So, and here is where it gets a bit hard, the value of the points is not just that you did not have to pay for the vacation, but you still have the $4000 of your own money to do other things with.
To sum up, the value of the points could be looked at as $8000 since you have a $4000 trip and have $4000 in your pocket. For more on this topic, and maybe learn even more today, look at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost
Are BoardingArea bloggers required to help each other in times of need?
Because if so, I suggest you reach out to Gary of FM as your knowledge of points valuation and opportunity cost is, shall we say…. lacking. Very, very lacking. As in, I wouldn’t want you teaching economics to my 1st grade son lacking
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/2012/08/16/how-much-is-a-hilton-hhonors-point-worth-lucky-isnt-as-rich-as-he-thinks-he-is-edition/
Also, LOL at bragging about your Delta Points readers agreeing with you
Censoring comments that disagree with you, and then bragging about how the published comments agree with you
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chutzpah
No problem with No.1
Show me a vacation that cost $0 and I will prove I AM the sexiest man alive, lol. You pay fees/taxes, parking, tolls, food, blah blah. And I am not even getting to the real cost of obtaining the miles(time, VR fees, etc.). Ok, I give it to you ok.
3. I guess.
I think the jump from $4k to $8k is a bit much though…Thanks for trying to clarify, I appreciate it. I just still don’t get the $8k figure…I just don’t think like that, maybe I am not so bright…actually sometimes I do really dumb things, lol.
His whole thing is a bunch of junk.
He first tries to say that something that would’ve cost 4K has a value of 4K (which it doesn’t, unless you would be willing to pay 4K out of pocket for that same trip)
Then for some twisted backwards reason, he doubles the value of the points because he bought it with points instead of cash
I’m pretty sure by his “logic”, if i were to spend 100K skypesos on a 5,000 business class ticket that I wouldn’t have spent more than 1,500 out of pocket for, I got 10 cpm value out of my skypesos
>>>>>>> I got 10 cpm value out of my skypesos
If this ever happens I am Batman, lol
Well, that’s what DP would value it at
I used 100K miles for a $5K ticket, or 5 cpm
But it’s worth double, because I didn’t use cash on it
So my value is actually 10 cpm. And just for good measure, insert some reference to opportunity cost which DP clearly doesn’t understand
woohoo! what a redemption on my part!
“Our 2nd Honeymoon in Paradise Part Googolplex: A day in Papeete”
No seriously, that actually was the title of his latest post
Should be over anytime now…On the plane out of Papeete, hooray!
why are you such an unpleasant cunt? does being pleasant hurt you?
I expect posts like this when my “Not So Best Of” category has lots of entries, not on a day where there is no entry! What is the world coming to?
I am always pleasant. I am even more pleasant when I am drinking red wine (right now) and smoking dope (need to get me a medicinal marijuana patient card to cure my arthritis).
Cheers mate:-)