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| Meteora, Greece. About an hour from the place I was born. Please visit, they need the money. Cyprus too! |
ON MY MIND
The contrast in the variation of style in trip reports by bloggers is incredible! Ben at One Mile at a Time never posts pics of himself while Daraius at Million Mile Secrets can’t get enough of Emily. And what is this fascination with bloggers taking pics of themselves in spacious First Class bathrooms?
Today was just a brutal day on the credit card affiliate link territory. It seemed like every other blogger was out for a pay day. Even throwing out links based on March Madness themes and all that, yikes! At least some bloggers offer something useful, it is the ones who just mail it in and expect suckers to fall for them (and I am sure they do).
I laughed so hard when I saw in my Google Reader (to be Feedly at some point) a blogger welcoming readers from the Friday interview at Million Mile Secrets! Nothing shocking of course. But MMS had not even posted the interview:-) Awesome credit card of the month!
I received confirmation that I will be driving away with a new Mercedes on Sunday after a two hour training session! Love driving a car like this for free for six months and contribute to science!
On Foursquare I am the mayor of three CVStores near me. I love their loyalty program, what can I say? 🙂
MILES/POINTS
Reason # 43, 699 to hate Delta. Loyalty Lobby reports that Delta now will take the Skymiles from the dead! If this is confirmed true, it is a horrible, just horrible change in policy. This is so bad even Delta Points talks bad about his beloved airline lol.
My Club Carlson points posted today along with Gold Status from the Business Club Carslon credit card! 50k points after first purchase plus the regular spend points. But no 35k for meeting the minimum spend, hmmm. And I booked my award for three nights at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Stavanger, Norway and the Club Carlson website automatically gave me the free award night. So only 100,000 CC points for two nights, sweet! I cancelled my backup regular reservation. Everything is now booked for my trip there next month, yes!
TRAVEL
Barbara DeLollis of Hotel Check-In at USA Today reports on “Country Inns get a makeover with Millenials in Mind“. I LOVE these changes. I stayed in a Country Inn just a few times and felt…old. Way too conservative and old fashioned for me. I like the modern look and feel so much more. Yet another positive development by Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, they are on a roll lately!
The most beautiful street in the world is in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Wow! Germans built it…
The Northern Lights are a beauty words can’t describe. From the CHIVE. WOW!!!
If you are into astrology and star gazing you need to travel to this hotel in Chile. From the CHIVE.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Indeed! Wow! Even the ultimate Delta apologist Delta Points said bad things about his beloved airline…the world must be changing………..
changing, just for one day…
Waiting for the new credit card with the benefit of “your miles don’t die” with you now…
I make it a point never to read the MMS’ interviews if he can’t come up with a real reason he’s “excited for our Friday chat”
“Mark writes The Travel Playbook to show folks how to play the miles and points game”
Oh um, ok. That’s nice
I bet most of the folks that visit MMS already know “how to play the miles and points game”. Still begs the question does he know how to play it WELL?
Check out the blog at thetravelplaybook.com. As a broke 23 year old jetting off to Asia tomorrow for free, I play the game decently, I guess 😉
Kid, you have a lot to learn, don’t think because you have a blog you are now an expert:-)
Just responding to the man (or woman?)’s question… doing things like this on a budget isn’t for a novice!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Had to edit that.
My 35k haven’t posted either…but I can see them pending.
If you can see the 35k as “pending” in the REWARDS CENTER (in the column on the left) , then you should be good.
But if you don’t see them there and they DON’T post by the 2nd statement, then I’d be worried.
Thanks for the info!
Now that you have the Mercedes you’re planning to drive to Calgary and then going cruising through the Rockies, right? Science demands it, George.
Porto Alegre does have a lot of nice parks and a lot of nice shaded streets. I’ve not been on that street, but I’ve visited the Communists just two blocks away. I had to look up the address because I suspected the street was a similar one in downtown. Nice city and good people, but not a terribly large amount of things to do there unless you’re into Brazilian regional culture or history.
I think MMS’s interviews would be better if he asked the interviewees to come up with their top five tricks, so we can see who’s creative/clever and who’s just repeating what the top bloggers and FT are already posting. The latter can then be ignored.
Like every yawn-inducing interview at MMS, the comments today are full of the same mediocre bloggers congratulating each other and commenting on how awesome the new interviewee is. I give them credit for this: they know how to network and try to climb the ladder to that sweet, sweet affiliate cash. I guess that’s a way up, but I like to imagine that FM, MV, MMS, and other recent-entrant bloggers became big because they found a niche and had a special talent for it. As examples, MMS could condense the tricks into presentable form for even the most obtuse, FM drove the explosion of manufactured spending, and MV highlighted sweet spots in award charts. (Disclaimer: all tricks were on FT first. Get off my lawn, etc.) Compared to those, the last recent MMS interviewees (and tons of copycat blogs) are just narcissistic and talentless. Blah.
Again, get off my lawn, young whippersnappers.
harvson3
The consent I have to sign does not allow me to drive the Mercedes outside the US:(
Again, your comments are, as always, right on! You should get your own blog:-)
“Mark writes the Travel Playbook and presumably has a pulse, so I was excited for our Friday chat!”
Be nice now
As the blogger from that MMS interview, feel free to talk to me directly if you have any gripes or concerns. I think I’m putting out quality tools (check out my luxury hotel google map) and present a blog for people a little younger who maybe don’t know the rules yet to start playing the game. And yes, I do have a pulse.
Hi, Mark.
Given the plethora of information readily available at multiple sites, how are “people a little younger” served by your blog? What do you provide on your blog that isn’t already out there?
harvson3
People like me a few years ago who have literally no idea how credit works and how to get it. Other blogs have showed you how credit works, but many don’t know how to go about getting it from the start. That’s where I can step in with personal experience in that arena.
Also, slow going on this so far, but I’m doing a lot of leg work to get some useful tools going that I would’ve liked to have seen out there before, like my hotels map. I want to be able to have a visual interface of every points-earning property on earth. More to come, but I’ve made some inroads on that already.
Mark:
Some word of advice, take it constructively. There are tons of blogs out there that cover what you want to cover. You need to develop a unique voice in this space & offer something useful. The key question: Would you be better served by doing well in school and trying to advance in your career instead of spending tiem on this blogging thing? It is very time consuming and the recent shake out in the credit card affiliate links arena makes it even more difficult to grab the juicy Chase affiliate links. You featuring the affiliate links for the Virgin America (and showcasing it as Credit Card of the Month) will only invite well deserved criticism by me and my readers.
Would you be doing this if there were no idiots out there applying through your affiliate credit card links available? We doubt it.
I don’t get your map, so crowded!
Nice looking website, I wish mine looked that way. But we value content here, always have always will.
I definitely take things constructively, but I can also see others lashing out at bloggers like me that may have an affiliate link or two featured on their site. I haven’t posted affiliate links in an actual post in weeks, and feature some on the site for those that may actually want to apply for a card after reading some of the tips I’ve posted.
As per the school thing, I’ve already double majored in undergrad, have a great job, and will be returning for my MBA this summer. This is a hobby to spread the word to those that’ll listen about what I’ve done to travel the world. If I make a buck or two along the way, great! If not, no big deal. Not everyone that has a credit card link is evil 😉
I like how you consolidate a lot of content into daily posts, it’s really a nice service.
I would try downloading the .kml file for the google map from my link, it may read better in Google Earth.
What TBB said. We’re cranks and grouches (well, I am), but we’re not out to flame.
If you’re looking to teach people how to build credit and use it wisely, more power to you. I would suggest, however, that there are already lots of resources out there that will help people start building credit.
I think there’s an interesting dilemma to be solved. Specifically, young people are graduating with far more college and higher-education debt than ever before. It frankly scares me. Whether they should (or can) take on mileage-earning cards is an uncertain proposition. I would argue that credit card rewards shouldn’t be used to travel in business class or stay in fancy hotels, but instead to fly coach and then get cash back and start paying down balances for the remainder. It’s smarter to stay in hostels rather than luxury hotels (and meet other young people) while getting cash back. (Staying at a fancy hotel as a 20-something rather than meeting and partying with cute European girls at a backpacker spot sounds, frankly, depressing. Ah, youth.) Opening a number of these cards also requires some high level of income that many recent college graduates don’t have. In sum, given student debt, how should (should?) young people take advantage of loyalty program and credit card rewards while freeing themselves? I don’t know the answer, but I doubt one could learn it from Gary Leff writing about bank transfers and brokerage accounts.
As FM noted in his recent post that I liked so much, the opportunity costs to the points game are sometimes quite substantial, and often hidden.
As for the luxury hotel map, eh, for me a bed is a bed, hotel loyalty programs are scams, and I’m a loyal devotee of the Wandering Aramean School of 15% Back. Beyond your free CC sign-up nights, hotel loyalty for leisure travelers is foolish. I look forward to your new tools.
Best of luck. Know that I don’t disdain blogging an sich; I just want to see more original content.
harvson3
PS – Double majoring is not more impressive than single majoring. Just a little bit of advice for the future.
Sincerely,
Asst. Prof. harvson3 (IRL)
Hey, I’m all for original content. The audience I’ve built doesn’t read the other blogs and sites that I crawl, though, so there’s an audience for “megaphoning” information I learn of. I’m looking to get more primary content on the site as I go.
I was fortunate enough not to have any student debt, and I don’t carry a balance on my cards… part of my teachings to my fellow youth. I hear you about the hostel point, but as someone who has a girlfriend that happens to enjoy the 5 star hotels we stay in, I have a pretty good counter to that note 😉
Some of these recent ponies are also very quick to retort, meaning they already know they are just a flash in the pan themselves and not really looking to build a customer base. Today Mark got into a silly fightback with a poster. I seem to remember last week’s or maybe 2 weeks ago a girl was “interviewed” (LMAO @ this terminology), whose claim to shame was ripping off Equifax and Transunion Bumpage techniques from CreditBoards in a condensed format for the obtuse. At the end she said something along the lines of “Meanies in Flyertalk, can’t we just get along?” haha
The zombies are mutating.
Some people reading your comment, no doubt, think you are angry:-) I miss them posting here, it was fun going at it.
I know what you mean 😉 Appreciate what you are doing via the blog. Let’s keep it going.
I understand people are trying to get the word out on their blogs, i really do….. that being said, I don’t think I’ve seen a single blog post in the last month by any blogger that didn’t have a comment by The Miles Professor in it.
Can MMS just get her Friday interview done with already? How many more hints does she need to drop that she wants the pub?
lol, I haven’t seen her post anything here, yet.
As much as I love looking at photos of hot male bloggers in 1st class bathrooms, the miles professor at least may get some visitors because of looks. Come to think about it, my fantasy is to click on Kate Upton’s affiliate links.
Yes I am very surprised she has not posted here yet as she does appear to be commenting on so many blogs! I am pretty sure she will be interviewed at MMS too. Maybe I should interview her:-)
George, you’ve gotten quiet about FTG. Stopped reading the blog? I’m tempted to. It’s gone to shit. Rick rarely writes now. Who are all of these guest and staff writers? They’re not the ones who the core FTG readers go to see. I want to know who IB is going to replace Rick with when he finally stops writing those once a week posts. They need another big name or the blog will just keep getting worse and worse!
I only read FTG to comply with the TBB blog mission. As you have stated, the quality of the blog has fallen dramatically as soon as it sold out. I would be embarassed to be associated with it. Then again, if I was offered a mega check I wouldn’t care much about it.
reminds me of “Tom Parsons” and his site (can’t even remember it now…ahh yes BestFares.com) haven’t read that dreck in ages. Ricks, pile o dung is headed that way too. Overinflated “expert” who cashed out…the “merican’ dream”
Getting off [bashing new bloggers] topic – I got 50k after first purchase, but 35k only showed up after the statement closed.
Also, now that I remembered, you mentioned earlier that you are loading up on ice cream with your wife’s AmEx Gold for 10k spend – I got that card and was promptly warned that this particular card seems to trigger the FRs quite easily with the common tricks such as ice cream and AP. So I played it safe and only purchased about $300 of ice cream a couple of times (split transaction) and met the rest of the spend via other means.
No interest in the topic here, but the mock-up of that Country Inns dining area looks amazing. They nailed it! Now let’s see how the food tastes. I firmly believe that the best way to differentiate yourself in the mid-priced motel market is to serve a breakfast people want to eat, instead of a breakfast you eat because it’s free. Holiday Inn Express probably does this best, but their room rates are higher than their competitors, and their breakfast choices are a bit monontonous.
Your blog readers have a vested interest in Country Inns improving because until they devalue, we’re all going to be Club Carlson loyalists!
Do you doubt that CC will devalue…I sure don’t. It maybe 2015 but they will!