TravelBloggerBuzz

An eclectic journey through the Travel Miles/Points blogosphere

Mandela, Waiotapu, Mozambique, Sochi, AMEX Platinum, TSAPrecheck, Avios, SCOTUS, FIFA, Amex credit card referrals

By

TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!

 

Nelson Mandela
RIP. Found here

 

TRAVEL

The Uncanny Places on earth That Look Like were made by Alien. By Bored Daddy.

Waiotapu (or Wai-O-Tapu) New Zealand Taupo Volcanic Zone
Waiotapu (or Wai-O-Tapu) in new Zealand’s Taupo Volcanic Zone with colorful hot springs

 

15 Aerial Photos from Around the World. By Wild Junket

Bazaruto Island to Vilanculos in Mozambique
Different shades of blue — taken on a flight from Bazaruto Island to Vilanculos in Mozambique.

 

2014 Olympic Host City Sochi Is A Strange Place. Photos by Rob Hornstra.

Sochi Russia Olympics
Sochi lies in the Caucasus bordered by Chechnya, Georgia, Abkhazia, and other regions that have had sectarian violence in recent years

 

Visions of Vietnam: 21 Beautiful Faces from Saigon, Hanoi and Beyond
Read more at http://www.vagabondish.com/gallery-faces-saigon-hanoi-vietnam/#xOdbqto4QozVbg7p.99

 

MILES/POINTS

Another day another devaluation it appears. AMEX Platinum card holders will not have access to the American and US Air lounges as of March 22, 2014. Which absolutely guts this card. View from the Wing has the details and a trick to allow access for just a little longer.

A big part of what TBB stands for is entertainment. Or I would like to think so anyway. Point me to the Plane wrote “Delta’s New Award Calendar Trick-Impoper Mileage Crediting” about his experience dealing with getting Delta to correctly post the miles he flew in his Skymiles account. The correspondence is hilarious (when you are reading it) and I am sure traumatic going thought it yourself! Then he follows it up with another epic exchange of a customer and Amazon customer service support! Hope Amazon’s drones do not deliver with such incompetence!

Travelblawg has the scoop on “What’s Next, Mall Kiosks? In-Person TSAPrecheck Rolls Out“. Exactly what you needed to know. I don’t know about you but this is just not what it used to be anymore…

Frequent Miler wrote a post about how to Maximize Amex Synch Offers. I like the browser trick. Doing it through any other method always confused me! I quote:

Multiple Browser Tabs

… Usually, a new offer will appear under all (or most) of your Amex cards in the “Offers For You” tab.  Once you add an offer to your account, though, it will disappear from the other cards.  The work-around here, is simple: Open your American Express account in multiple tabs on the same browser.  Within each tab, pick a different credit card and navigate to the Offers For You section.  Once all browser tabs show a different credit card, but the same offer, then go one by one to each tab and click “Save Offer”. 

FlyertTalk member Prospero has done an absolutely awesome job with maps for fantastic award values in the British Airways Avios program. Found my way here from Head for Points blog post “Interesting Avios anomalies in Avios reward pricing you can exploit – more examples!”

  • Aer Lingus ex-Dublin
  • airberlin ex-Dusseldorf
  • airberlin ex-Berlin
  • American Airlines ex-Los Angeles
  • American Airlines ex-New York
  • American Airlines ex-Chicago
  • American Airlines ex-Dallas
  • American Airlines ex-Miami
  • British Airways ex-London
  • Cathay Pacific ex-Hong K

Here is what they look like (red means they fall just outside the band and priced at the next higher level, boo!)

Avios Redemptions Map Miami

 

View from the Wing is doing a pretty good darn job covering the Supreme Court vs Delta lawsuit by the rabbi who got kicked out of the Northwest frequent flyer program. “Here are some highlights“.

 

ON MY MIND

Announcement: I got way too much on my plate until I leave for Greece on Dec 14th. Sorry dear readers this is not my business, it’s just a hobby that turned into a blogging addiction. I am working on dealing with my addiction 🙂 Keeping up with the Feedly list going forward would range from very difficult to impossible. I just signed up to finally get a new website (for the real job) after 10 years and would be working with a developer plus got way too much client work to wrap up. Then I get hit by quarter/year end avalanche. Then tax season (it never ends lol).  TBB is NOT going away; just don’t expect the same thoroughness in covering this space. If you come across any MUST READ posts please email me or post in the comments, thank you!

I am going to meet with an FT friend in Chicago for lunch. I think my best day would be Tuesday December 10th. Anyone else available let me know. I am staying at the Radisson Blu.

I can also refer anyone to get the following AMEX cards: Starwood Personal, Premier Rewards Gold and Platinum. Don’t even think about the Platinum card now! The other two offers are the standard offers everyone gets from affiliate links. Since I don’t have any aff links, if you were planning to get those cards please let me refer you (I get 5,000 points, you get the same offer like everyone else). Or you could hold out for a better offer as Amex likes to hold a one or two days sales once in a while. Thank you. Email me! if interested.

The FIFA World Cup soccer draw is happening today and my own brother will be present! He has been assisting the Greek team delegation (he lives in Sao Paulo and speaks fluent Greek, English, Portuguese. Excellent French and Spanish too) and is getting paid very well by FIFA.  Yes, I am jealous.

 

ODDZ & ENDZ

How Three Special Friends Stole Our Hearts and Won the Internet. At Twisted Sifter. How adorable!

Harlow and Sage and Indiana dogs

 

United Nations Mission Photos. Excellent photos!

Cyprus Turkey United Nations Blue Line
Since fighting erupted in 1974, the abandoned area dividing Greek Cyprus from its Turkish counterpart has fallen within a buffer zone controlled by the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP).

 

BLOG BUZZ

Well, as previously stated, to keep this blogging hobby under control a few weeks ago I decided I will not waste my time criticizing blogs I review. I graduated all my blogs into three lists which I am very proud of! Please send friends here, especially newbies! We were all newbies at one point, NEVER forget that!

Blogs I Love

Blogs I Like

Blogs I Ignore

I should have added one more: Blogs I Avoid. I would add the Milevalue blog in that list. No, not for posting the Lifemiles deal that pissed lots of people off. TBB is not in the business of spelling out deals. In my own humble opinion, there is always a fine line between publicizing certain deals in blogs. Some you do in various methods of “explicitness” and some you should not. This one was one of the “should not” ones. But hey, anyone can publish whatever they want in their own blog.

What got me visibly angry (I felt my stomach turn and I think I felt ill but that could have been the amount of salmon I consumed for dinner) was the follow up post about how good is to kill deals for the most hypocritical excuse I ever read: to increase overall welfare. Really? Remember, this from the blog that still pumps the inferior US Air credit card offer after posting that this blog would never post inferior offers. I apologize to the other blogs in the Ignore list for adding this one in the same list. There, I feel better. I reserve the right to go off in my own tiny blog once in a while in extreme cases. Thank you for your support 🙂  Don’t fall for the trap to comment on that blog to increase its traffic!

 

And I leave you with this…

wifi cellphone generation
Do we even exist as a species without wifi? #whatis #meaningoflife

 

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Comments

  3. Anonymous says

    This was the final straw. I’m done reading Mile Value. I will not give him any more clicks.

  4. TWA44 says

    Love the pyramid. Wifi indeed.

    But really, what a day. Much of my twitter feed alternated between admiration for Mandela’s lifetime achievements and condemnation for MileValue’s activities today. Seems weird to mention them in the same sentence.

    And now they are predicting temps in the teens which would not have been too notable when I lived in A2 but is practically a weather emergency here in the Rose City!

    Stay warm, y’all, and have a good weekend.

  5. Brad says

    I went to a Milevalue dinner a few months back in LA and met that Scott Grimmer dude. I thought I could bounce some ideas off him my upcoming trip. He says “hey” when I introduce myself in. For the next 2 hours, the dude ignores everyone at the event who doesn’t have tits and persistently creeped on these two poor girls until one had to leave from embarrassment. The Milevalue guy is a douche… definitely avoid.

  7. Steve says

    It’s one thing for guys like TPG and OMAT to pump inferior CSP offers, but does OMAT really need to lie in his disclosure at the end about him providing the best offer?

    And I see FTG is starting a pointless series about how to “stock up miles with different programs”. It’ll be the top 30 list part duex

    First installment…. apparently the best way to get Chase UR points is to sign up for the Chase UR cards. Good to know. I eagerly await them telling us how the best way to accumulate SPG points is. It could be anything!

    • Ingy says

      Love the comment and your support of the blog. Thanks for reading everyday. Did the idea ever cross your mind that the series is not written for individuals as brilliant as you want us all to believe you are? The posts are written for newbies, which is the market I believe FTG is trying to reach , granted with mistakes and all.

      You are truly a dying breed. Kind of “Last of the Mo’Angries”

      The new forum on FT has died way down with angry comments. Hell, even George realizes there are 8 minutes of commercials in a half hour network show and he can’t do a thing about it.

      It is what it is and you can whine all you want, but you are wasting your breath. Unless maybe it is therapy for you as well? Between your paper route and lawn mowing schedule.

  8. Scott says

    Milevalue’s “Killing Deals is Good” post it was definitely on the douchey side. However, I find it curious how much shit he is getting compared to Mr. Pickles who published the same deal in September. I’m curious to see if lifemiles actually shuts it down. While it is certainly more known now, I wonder how many people will actually take advantage of it. While cool, it still puts you in NRT without a return flight home. So there is still some inconvenience involved in getting home by either using additional miles from NRT or buying a ticket to Guam and flying home from there. I think deals are killed not from widespread knowledge but from exploitation of that knowledge. I’m not entirely convinced this is something that has enough mass appeal to be exploited.

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      Yeah, I agree. But with the much wider readership of MV you will no doubt see more take advantage of it. Will it cross that line that Lifemiles will take notice? We don’t know, time will tell.

      Mr. Pickles readership is just not that large to make a dent. He should not have posted it either. But who are we to judge what bloggers post in their own blogs. What ticked me off about MV was the hypocritical attempt to pass as a Robin Hood of the people.

      Read today: Mile Nerd and Travel is Free. No wonder these two are in my “Blogs I Like” list

      I need to stay away from blogs today….Big client meeting tomorrow!

  9. AgendaGuy says

    MV can kill a lot of deals if he really wanted to. This is obviously more about boosting readership than welfare. We have seen other d’bags use this angle to get where they are now (most blogs who started in the last 2-3 years). As long as there are dumb people using affiliate links to signup for cards due to ignorance, these outfits will continue to provide crack in the name of welfare.

  10. Steve says

    Reading MV’s “doing it for the betterment of society” post just makes you appreciate Dan and his relative honesty about why he shoves credit cards down his readers throats

    Thank you Dan for not trying to pretend you put 75 links in a post for humanitarian reasons

  12. AgendaGuy says

    Anyone in the know, care to explain why Chase decided to sever/cut some of the bloggers. It was not like these bloggers were employees directly and so they didn’t cost a penny? I understand the not-exactly-revenue-generating angle but they didn’t cost a dime and should have been happy to see free pimping on their behalf.

    Who benefits from this?
    What is the money trail?

    • Raffles says

      It appears that the compliance issues – seems the bank has to spend a lot of time looking at each blog to ensure they are not making false statements about the card – mean that if you don’t do enough business then you are out. That is how I understood it from what I’ve read elsewhere.

      Compare that to normal affiliate links for hotels etc where, in general, as long as your site isn’t dodgy you are very unlikely to get dropped if you get even 1 occasional booking.

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