Thank you to all my readers! If you like what you see here, please let others know, you know I appreciate it!
TRAVEL
Timelapse in Barcelona. Wowaaa. By Gadling:
22 Epic Photos of Iceland’s beaches. By Matador Network.
Durdle Door, Dorset County. By Hole in the Donut.
50 Observations about Oddball Japan (part 2). By the Selfish Years.
The world’s 11 shortest land borders. By Gunnar Garfors. Botswana-Zambia is only 0.15 kilometers, wow!
Southwest will offer free streaming TV on passengers’ enabled wi-fi devices. I like it. Delta will respond immediately to this by…pissing off another Skyteam partner:-)
MILES/POINTS
Well it appears we all started celebrating prematurely. Looks like Office Depot is going to code all $500 gift cards to be paid by Cash Only. Per Travel with Grant. That is so unfair we should all boycott or sue Office Depot, how do they dare do this to us AGAIN? I really hope you know I am kidding!
The Points Guy has a fantastic post on a Consolidated List of Airline Partners Which are Bookable Online. This one was saved to my Evernote. TBB is fair:-)
StarMegaDo5 now comes with lower prices! Good move as the original prices were quite a joke! Now they are at least more reasonable. Will it make me think about going for it? Nope, I just can’t spare the time and getting Marriott Platinum status until 2015 just does not excite me much:-) Good move to give refunds to the folks who already bought tickets for the price difference! I would like to know who blew $2,800 for a first class seat! It could be a fun contest to guess who has so much dough:-) If it’s a blogger I beg you stop clicking on his links and start clicking on mine:-)
BLOG BUZZ
Are them Daily Getaway Deals done yet?
Extra Pack of Peanuts had a 51 minute podcast with the CEO of Rocketmiles. 51 minutes!!! Who has time for dat?
Seeing so many top 10 or top 5 credit card posts just does not get me hot anymore…I know some of you are disappointed. Actually One View at a Time‘s top ten cards was actually good as it did not do harm!
ON MY MIND
After all this time I finally installed Google Analytics and spent a short time trying to understand what all these metrics mean. It is still quite massive amount of data but one number totally shocked me. It appears I had over 300 unique visitors on July 2. You know, when I started, it was to communicate with friends and family…ok, stop laughing! I find it deeply humbling that so many people care about what I write here! Thank you for reading and hope I am making a positive difference in your life. This includes laughing of course!
I am in the process of lowering the initial car rental price I got for our vacation in Banff Springs and Lake Louise. I had booked an SUV directly from Hertz. Canceled it for a another one at Hertz through Car Rental Savers to knock it down $80. I have been using that site for years, I did not just discover it because Million Mile Secrets wrote about it. I am not done yet…
I may take some time off to grill some ribs. For all US based readers, enjoy Fourth of July!
ODDZ & ENDZ
Mind-blowing photo manipulations by Dmitry Maximov. By Twisted Sifter.
The faces of drug addiction, how sad:(
#1 Today ??? Thanks.
I got distracted momentarily. Well done, well done! You are Number 1!
Numero Dos!!!
The Twisted Sifter dude looked like an Imperial Speed Trooper from Return of the Jedi….
Yeah…he does!
Delta Points “Rookie Extra Day” Q&A about the Delta Amex is all about getting MORE THAN ONE of those stinkin’ credit cards. Or 3..! Ka-ching!!
we all knew that was coming…after taking a few days off:-)
Sorry but even an X-Delta Medallion (ie TBB) has to agree that the current (NOT MY LINK) 55kRDM/20KMQM DL Plat after 5 C.V.S. visits is just stupid amazing for a DL flyer and I am posting it as much as my readers can stand (not making a cent on the public biz link ya know). 20k MQM is worth, IMO, at least $600 if not much more. To get it for $150 (fee for the biz card) and then 55k RDM on top of the MQM is just wow. I wish more bloggers would post about this offer before it ends on the 7th!
My guess / hope is that the Office Depot “cash only” rule will be just at specific OD stores. Surely, no stores in Michigan want to deal with cash, right?
Yes, I am hopeful too…My gut first reaction after reading that blog post…was that they finally will go the…Walgreens method, meaning hard coded in the computer register system chainwide. Let me know your tests, I promise I will be…gentle:-)
If this GC becomes available across the country, I expect a mega push for INK card by your favorite bloggers. Greater than the 60k bonus. Now u can get 250k annual bonus! 100 ways to us UR points, while not having a real business.Let the ultra pimping begin.
If this is wide open as it was before OD shut it down…expect some incredible levels of ultra pimping because it would work WONDERS to push the Ink cards…wouldn’t it? It’s like a gift sent from heaven. I am sensing that the office supply store 5x from Chase may be affected and adjusted at some point down the line…
Hands down you provide me with the most fascinating (non-points related) links to read every day.
I don’t know how you do it – but pls keep it up!!
Thank you very much, I really appreciate the feedback and the kinds words!
I cant think of anything dumber than offering a $500 GC and making it cash only? What would compel someone to buy a GC w Cash for $500 and have the pleasure of paying $5.95 to do it. I get the brand name GCs if you want to give a gift. At least they dont charge a fee do buy them. Typically OD gift card racks looks like a mausoleum with a fine layer of dust covering the whole rack. I guess they dont want the display disturbed?
I agree that it doesn’t make sense, but one dumber thing would be offering the $25 Visa/Amex gift cards that cost $4.95 to buy even with a credit card. How are any of those sold? That fee is a 20% premium! You’d have to think that even money launderers have less expensive options.
I so wish I knew the exact math behind these “offerings”!
“podcast .. 51 minutes!!! Who has time for dat?”
Me! I do!
I use a Sansa Clip (MP3 player) and load podcasts onto it. While I cook, or wash dishes, or garden, or work out, or spend a couple hours at the (metal-)grinder in my work, or or or…. do anything that’s more physical than mental, I slog my way through hours and hours of podcasts… There is SO MUCH STUFF out there! And, if one turns out to be boring — I can just delete it and move on. (It has always seemed like a waste of time, to me, to listen to music when my brain does not need to be engaged… (non-lyric) music while I’m editing? Sure. Any music while I’m doing non-brain work? Why waste that time?
LOVE your blog! It’s my fav of all the miles/points/cards/churning/cashback/portal/airline blogs out there!
Oh, ha! I hadn’t read on: I was answering your comment about the podcast (gotta strike while the item is still in my old brain, before it leaks out)… and then returned to reading and found your ‘how many folks read your blog’ entry… So the above was NOT in response to that — but this is: you provide a fantastic ‘sweep-up’ of the blogs; you provide links to great and interesting pix and sites (not all of which I click, of course), and I like your humor and short entries. (So there!)
Eleanor, I really appreciate the feedback and the kinds words! Thank you so much!
I try to provide a quality read here. Feedback like yours does wonders for my self esteem:-)
You would not see 51 minute podcasts in my blog;-)
Anyone know where I can pick up some Brioski?
No, but make sure you use a mileage/point earning card!