TRAVEL
Aguela, Portugal. Floating umbrellas in local art festival.
12 Amazing Earth Scars. By The World Geography. This is one of them, Mir Mine in Russia.
Surviving a Plane Crash. By Military Frequent Flyer. Excellent post based on his experience. Take a few moments to read it, it may save lives one day!
Have you been on a flight where the oxygen masks deployed? I have and here is a pic for proof! It was on a Northwest flight from Narita to Detroit in 2006. To this day, the whole thing just felt surreal. Felt like it was slow motion and wondering “is this really happening?” while passengers around me were crying and praying. I had never seen flight attendants so seriously focused ordering everyone to put on their masks on NOW. After shaking and descending fast for what seemed like an eternity the all clear came up and we stabilized. And yes the masks do not go back in; flying the rest of the way with these things over your head was, again, surreal. Always carry a pen with you to push the tiny hole in to get the mask to come out as mine was stuck!! Yes I sent an email to NWA thanking them how the crew handled the whole matter and I told them to fix that darn hole because it was not a good feeling being the last one on the plane without the mask on:-) Yes, beloved Northwest gave me a bunch of miles and they were miles I can always use anytime I wanted! Oh, those were the days!
Having said all that, this is why you should not fear flying:
MILES/POINTS
Looks like the hunt for the $500 gift cards in Office Depot Stores is on! It does appear possible to purchase the cards with an Ink or Bold card for 5x points per dollar. YMMV. Follow the comments at Frequent Miler’s post
Loyalty Traveler has finally made a permanent current hotel promotion page. Frequent Flyer Bonuses also maintains a similar ongoing hotel promotion page too.
It is generally not a good idea to transfer hotel points to airline miles. That’s it. Move on.
If you have way too much time on your hands, you can join this site and do one survey to earn 600 United miles. The site asks for a lot of information and the surveys appear lengthy, beware!
All-new Elliott. As in Chris Elliott. Watch out people!
ON MY MIND
It was one of those crazy Mondays where everything kept coming at me non stop! I barely put this blog post together!
Daughter is at a dance camp. It sure is quiet around here!
ODDZ & ENDZ
Volunteers Form Human Wall to Guide Baby Turtles to Sea. By Twisted Sifter. Wow, you need to see this!
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is intended for long time readers and miles/points addicts who follow the blogs in this space. Readers not familiar with this crazy hobby could skip this section!
Oh oh, looks like the Southwest cards are on sale. Watch out for desperate sounding bloggers urging you to get them NOW! Perhaps you should consider mentally keeping score NOT to use that particular blogger’s links for EACH time you read a “Get the Southwest 50k cards now, hurry, it won’t last long”. Please note only the Personal Premier card is an affiliate offer, the other three are NOT. So if you see a blogger offering you ONLY the one that pays them you can tell them to take a hike! Here is who was out the fastest based on my OWN Feedly RSS feeds:
- View from the Wing
- The Points Guy
- Mommy Points
- Delta Points
- Point me to the Plane
I am sure there will be more in the coming days…I probably missed some, this is definitely not science. I see what comes up in my Feedly list and I report it.
Last week for the Daily Getaway “deals”. Hang in there. You won’t have to read this filler crap anymore. Can’t wait!
I am going to link this one here just to show you what happens when you take sponsored trips. JDomb’s Travels, it appears, she does them all the time (and disclosed at the bottom of each post). And somehow they all sound so glorious like this: 10 Reasons to Stay at Anemi Hotel Folegandros (in Greece). Perhaps they find her and they pretty much know they will receive several back links and amazing reviews instead of offering the freebie to any other blogger. Makes you think who is best served here huh? To this date no one has offered me a freebie. I just can not see myself doing this…but it sure is tempting indeed! #developing
The Points Guy has a massive post about transferring hotel points to miles. It also comes with a massive affiliate card link barrage. Which makes me wonder…Will this post ever see the light of day if it was not for the opportunity to serve these lucrative card links? And with the disclosure buried somewhere you will not see it. And a crappy Priority Club IHG Rewards card offer to boot? As a blog reader and consumer I like to reward bloggers who do not SELL me so much so often!
World Wanderlusting is on a major sell job on the Barclays Arrival card. Plus sponsored trips and sponsored guest posts. Yikes!
It is amazing how an introduction of affiliate links on a hotel card (Club Carlson) makes bloggers look into hotel redemptions harder…when the card and the same redemptions have been there all along!
With so much going on at Delta, Delta Points preps a page about…credit cards for Canadians!
Noob Traveler wrote “I finally rebooked my canceled trip”. First, we don’t care! Second, thanks for the product placement assaulting us with all them cards. I see so much of this crap every day I feel I should apply for a hazardous occupation stipend or something, yikes!!!
#1
Geez I am getting closer though 😛
Random comments from an American hero………………dio, τρία……………..Who is more at fault, the Asiana pilot in training or the training pilot. I remember learning in safety training that sometimes (especially with intl airlines) the co-pilots are intimidated into not speaking up, even when they know the Captain is in error. The 2 747’s colliding in Tenerife is a classic example of that. And why did these dummies turn off the glide-slope recording………………………………what are they feeding George Zimmerman in jail? He’s busting out of his suits. But if I was him I’d be a nervous eater too… might be a target in prison, if you know what I mean………………….I have made many, many trips to Cairo in my airline days and I always came home saying it was one of the safest cities I traveled to and they LOVED Americans, absolutely loved them (this was before Bush of course)……………Speaking of my airline days I’ve got tons really good stories, lots of celebrity jerks stories even Cher and Gene Simmons trying to join the mile high club (thwarted by yours truly, boy was he pissed) or the site of our Transgender Captain (who looked like Herman Munster in drag) saying good bye at the cockpit door to deplaning passengers (the look of shock on their faces was priceless). Not that there is anything wrong with that as Jerry Seinfeld says..(but to be honest you are putting your life in the hands of a pilot who cut off his own penis), TWA tried not to let him fly after his surgery (psychological reasons, but he/she had a good lawyer) true story………………Traveling With Grant, I”m sorry, everything about this just plain pisses me off………………..Scott or Jeff, one of you does a Portland site. Do me a favor tell the PDX Tourist (I don’t want to use the word Idiots) that waiting on line over an hour for a Voodoo Doughnut is asinine. Same for Salt and Straw ice cream…………..Dat’s All Folks…..(insert Looney Tune music here)
Always nice to read your most excellently crazy commentary:-)
Yeah, I wonder if George Zimmerman eats McDonalds every day!
I think we will see that this was pilot error. Maybe some faulty indicator too? I hear you about the cultural issue of speaking up.
We are still paying the price of the brilliant things George Bush did!
We would like to hear more about your airline days! Gene Simmons and Cher joining Mile High club together? lol
Any doughnut is a major calories bomb!
Full front attack and naming names?
AWESOME. Want MOAR.
Lost a soccer game last night 5-4 after being up 4-1. Had to take it out somewhere:-)
Did the ref stab you after you argued a call and then get decapitated?
Not quite there. But there is one ref who does not really like me and I want to kick his arse!
any idea why all the big bloggers are mum on the OD renewal of $500 GCs? I would have thought this would have been a golden opportunity to pimp the Ink cards. Pressure from the almighty Chase gods?
How can they make money out of it? They pushed INK like crazy just a few weeks ago. Chase ran out of cards. There will be another INK push soon enough. This month is Southwest push from Chase. I have a feeling that SW is every other month by now. My bet is on Sapphire next month. We should see an exceptional AMEX Gold offer soon.
Well, things are not that clear yet on the OD front. Definitely hit or miss with most stores sticking to cash only. Time will tell here…
What ABC said:-)
Dan’s Deals was first out the gate with the Southwest card.
While I thoroughly expected VFTW to mention to the ‘other’ 50k Southwest cards, I was impressed that TPG did, too! ^
Thanks. I should change my post but I am not sure how and If I start doing this it would turn to a full time job…so I will leave it as is:-)
I was surprised to see VFTW to be so quick about this!
This is how this space rolls these days…
I thought it had been just a public offer until I saw delta pints pushing it. How come we never heard about what a great card it was before for delta mileage runs? Also, can’t believe chase let’s him pull that stuff of having users apply through his link and then click on the business card so he gets paid for that too. Was tempted to put a comment in with the straight business link.
Hey, FTG didn’t have it up! That has to count or something, right?
Can’t wait till Jo Ann fabrics pumps out a nice affiliate offer – that way we can get some nice three part series on how to make your own suitcase. THAT would be useful!
TPG, MMS, Online Travel Review, and VFTW all posted about it before it was an affiliate link. Interesting discussion in the comments at VFTW where readers calling Gary out for only writing about it once an affiliate link came out. He actually did reference it a month ago — says he genuinely forgot, was in the middle of heavy business travel, and thought it was a new offer when the links came out yesterday.
Your comment would not last that long me thinks;-)
I am seeing tiny improvements in FTG (the blog)
Jo Ann Fabrics, lol. Love it!
I agree that the daily getaways are much ado about nothing. Why write about it if it is not a good deal?
Some people might think it’s a good deal and it’s worth explaining to them that it isn’t? I’m curious why VFTW hasn’t breathed a peep this year about Daily Getaways?
Maybe because he has realized how exceedingly difficult getting one of the few real deals and wants to save his readers from getting finger cramps?
It is funny to see MMS self destruct slowly but surely. He has two types of comments mostly these days:
@RobertHanson @TBB/George @ManufacturedFemaleNames @SuckerBots – Thanks!
@OnlyOneGuyWithAnAgendaCreatingFakeNames – Here is a condescending f*** you without actually saying f*** you.
An entire “blog post” which can and has been posted on FT in one single sentence, rent from USAA if you are underage.
Apparently more copy and paste is coming down the road including “Using Hertz Coupons & Discounts”. Yup guess where he learnt that too…..we can expect some of those to stop working soon.
And Buzz will keep competing with Hanson for Cheerleader of the year as all of this unwinds. “Oh but I like his newbie friendly circles and arrows”.
@Ariana: Get back to work!!!
I would like to interview Hanson. First question:
“So, what’s the agenda behind Agenda Guy?” 😉
love the response, Buzz!!!
Agenda ? LMAO you are running an agenda shop here for crying out. And my “agenda” is not too hard to see. You are acting like you deciphered some convoluted/cryptic message. Whenever you will play unfair, I will call you out on it. As simple as that 🙂
@Ramsey: Sorry forgot about you too! You are needed in the comment section over there badly 🙂 Go ahead, suck him up.
I can tell you I may be running lots of things here but a “shop” ain’t one lol.
It’s good to have others call out bloggers…Oh wait, that’s my schtick…I see it now done on me. I am not angry, I think it’s kind of kewl:-)
Deep down…we ALL suck one way or another!
Some of the Daily Getaways are still better deals if you live overseas (but have US credit cards) and can’t manufacture spend such as VRs, BBs, ODs and all that.
Good point. But only if you have specific uses for the points coming up. I always wondered how people living abroad can use US cards? Don’t the fraud systems go nuts? You must have a US address you can use I assume. And then you call and tell them I will be living for a year in Australia or something to that effect?
If I plan to use the cards outside the USA I Skype them and tell them so I don’t get shut down. My Mom lives in California.
No. There is a way of filling in your address on the purchase form that makes the Amex system believe you are US resident. Only works on Amex cards issued by Amex, though.
… and I managed to buy Daily Getaways for the last 3 years to prove it! However, having got burned by the Hilton devaluation last year, I’m not doing it again!
George, is Professional Wrestling real? Someone told me the WWF was fake…
I see you clearly have an anti WWF agenda!
“rent from USAA if you are underage”
Am I the ONLY military officer around here who is pissed about this “let anyone use USAA to get better pricing” crap?! Back when *I* was on active duty (granted: long, long ago), USAA was ONLY for Navy and Marine Corps officers. Then it became all service officers, then all enlisted. Now, it seems, it’s any damned kid who wants to ride the coattails of the folks who risked their lives (or, at least, gave some number of years of their lives) for their country. Yes, it sucks to be a person under 25 who wants or needs to rent a car… but, actuarially, that’s the class most likely to crash. You pay (more) for (the bad risk of) your age-mates. But why is USAA letting anyone who wants to benefit from what should be bennies given BACK to people who’ve already given?! {grumble} {grumble}
I am lucky enough to have USAA based on my Father’s service (Capt-US Army) and it is great. I did rent cars through their program when I was a minor but I thought it was just for military and their dependants…is it available for anyone now?
USAA is the best insurance around and I will never get rid of it..their bank is tops, too.
I don’t know much about this. It appears that former “restricted to a unique group” memberships are opening up lately.
If not, I would certainly not publish anything like this. I just don’t know.
Having been around this space for a while, this issue is Nothing compared to other ethical dilemmas and stuff people do!
fwiw
Gary’s “Top 5 Rewards Cards from U.S. Bank” post had 7 links in it….. to Chase and Amex
Good to see him pushing the Southwest Card today
Remember the good ‘ol days when Gary would ignore the Southwest and Carlson cards because “I prefer aspirational travel”
I remember the days when Ben did not know what a credit card was:-) Now he is becoming an expert on Club Carlson and Southwest lol.
Curious to see that US Bank is hopping on the affiliate link bandwagon. Thank god they actually look at the applicants credit history before handing out cards. Sadly this means that the Lifemiles party will definitely end at a further accelerated pace 🙁