TravelBloggerBuzz

An eclectic journey through the Travel Miles/Points blogosphere

Marriott SPG Category Changes, Family Travel Compromises, Atlantis Blows

By

We bring you the latest Marriott SPG category changes, read about family travel compromises, show you how Bahamas Atlantis blows, talk about some Titanic blogs, Accor and Taj hotels and more for you!

TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!

You can support TBB by applying for CREDIT CARDS, shopping with our AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK & clicking our REFERRAL LINKS. Thank you!

 

Lets catch up with some miles/points and travel stuff today…

Here are all the 2017 Marriott Rewards Category/Tier Updates

Here are all the 2017 SPG Category Updates

With the Marriott Rewards Premier credit card you get a free night up to a Category 5 and here are some good properties you can spend it on along with 100 of them that are now ineligible, thanks Obama Marriott.

This one hit home. Real Life Family Travel: Compromises as I can empathize traveling with our two kids since they were babies. It does get better…especially when they leave the home woohoo! Ok seriously, it’s been a blast! #happymemories

northwest arilines
TBB kids

Review of Atlantis Bahamas. Wife wanted to come here and I just hated the whole idea of this place…without even reading this review!

AirAsiaX begins flights to Hawaii. Certainly nice to see. I have flown Air Asia a few times and I had a decent experience. The flight attendants are really good looking too #bonus

Inside the ‘world’s first’ five star cat hotel. If you have an entitled cat. Meow!

Accor continues to do…stuff. Just keep throwing stuff up there and see what sticks. It will sell flights on its website. Good luck with that, you know this is the first place I will go to buy my airline tickets, WTF! Oh boy, can’t wait to see how they demolish my beloved Fairmont President’s Club #crying

Breaking: At last, we get one hotel chain reducing the number of brands! Taj Hotels will go to one from three brands. Phuck yeah, finally! Take that Marriott with your ridiculous thirty brands telling us with a straight face how you will keep every single one because they are all needed…lol.

Never serve a cold taco, never! Woman shoots boyfriend over cold taco.

BLOG BUZZ

This section is for advanced level hobbyists and veteran blog readers.

If you are into Disney or just want to see how a veteran miles addict does it, perhaps you should read Haley B’s interview. This reselling thingie, I am not going near it, I already have one two jobs. Guess which one made me $1.56 this past week? 🙂

This Matt Robert guy is posting some good stuff lately: Stacking AmEx Insider Fares With the Biz Plat 50% Rebate.

You can get increased Amex card offers if you can force your browser to do some acrobatics which almost never worked for me. Then again, I have had these cards and now Amex does not give you the signing bonus again. I see the SPG offer at 30k in there, good luck getting it if you never had it. You’ll never see anything like this posted at The Points Guy, hey getting people to the Grammy’s takes a lot of credit cards sales, who cares about giving readers the best offers hey?

What is the fastest way to get deleted from a “Candidates for Blogs I Like List”? To make a post titled: “My interview at MMS”. Really, Miles Per Day, really? Adios!

I don’t do the FTU conferences and certainly don’t do Chicago Seminars. I prefer smaller gatherings without paying for a ticket listening to yet another blogger who is really selling his/her blog. Funny how people go so they can learn how to travel for free lol. Anyways, after one or two you are just paying to socialize. Like college sorority or something. Zzzzzzz.

Sometimes , like once a week, I look at my blog stats. I enjoy looking how blog visitors landed in my site and from where. Because I laugh at stuff like this!

MMS shaking my head #1

MMS shaking my head #2

Everybody kisses up to the Titans, am I the only one around here who has refused to do an interview at MMS and could care less about TPG’s parties?

There are many blogs and characters in this apace I do not bother mentioning. As it is just not worth my time and would give them more exposure than they deserve. Seriously!

And I leave you with this…

https://twistedsifter.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/sippin-on-some-shizzirk-25.gif

Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore

TBB
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com

Follow TBB on Twitter @FlyerTalkerinA2

You can subscribe to TBB below, winners only!

Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.

 

Filed Under: TBB

Comments

  3. Andy says

    Traveling with kids that young is just stupid. Leave them with their grandma.
    Not only it’s stupid, but it’s annoying as hell to other people being forced
    to face freakin’ family drama at the “quiet” breakfast time etc.
    I’m on vacation too and I don’t want to be exposed to the screaming, fighting, you got it.

    • GrandMa says

      How do you suggest travelling to grandma or relatives?

      The market has listened and introduced adult only resorts.

      • TravelBloggerBuzz says

        Dude,

        That was never an option for us! I was jealous of other parents parking their kids with grandparents.

        Sorry amigo, we are not leaving them behind. Travel is a right. In my book anyway.

      • Andy says

        Were exactly can I find adult only resorts? That would be my choice
        every time we go somewhere, unfortunately it’s not the case, they don’t exist.
        So we are stuck with screaming and fighting etc.
        Sure, adult behavior can be rough, but most often I can react and I get what I want –
        a reaction. And I was pretty clear “traveling with kids THAT young”.
        On the Buzz pic kids are older, but he pointed to a post with infants. It is a difference.

    • Ryan says

      Kids aren’t necessarily any more annoying than many adults in their behavior encountered while traveling which have included (even after trying politely to get them to stop): loud talkers, arguments with spouses, music too loud, kicking your seat, grabbing my seat back every time they get up, body odor, won’t get off their cell phone, drunk and disorderly, line cutters, etc… but none of those people will be staying home on my account, so I don’t expect kids too, either.

      If you want to be totally free from disturbances by other people, then only travel when you can fly a private airplane, etc.

  4. Ryan says

    My cats are already “over-entitled” so I won’t be giving them 5-star treatment I’m afraid! #elitekitties

    If you ever do an MMS interview, then we’ll know the apocalypse is about to occur.

    This morning I see the new Cathay Pacific credit card for US residents is all the rage on BA. 25K miles after $2,500 spend and $95 AF. Offhand I don’t know what I’d use it for but am not at all up on their program.

  5. Brenton says

    1. Tossing miles per day because he wants to increase traffic to his presumably well-written blog (you must have liked something about it) seems a little hypocritical. Wanting exposure doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.

    2. Everyone vacations differently. I loved seeing my infant son see the ocean for the first time. If a baby crying on a 2 hour flight is annoying as hell to you and ruins your vacation, you’re doing it wrong. Maybe find something in your life you care about more than yourself…

    • Andy says

      Sure, next time I will take my pet python and my pet goat with me on the plane,
      lets see what you say. At least they will be quiet.
      Guess what, it’s not me who only cares about himself, it’s the stupid parents with small kids
      who think the whole world turns around those crazy creatures.

    • TravelBloggerBuzz says

      I liked that blog, I thought it was different. Until the dude went on MMS for the traffic. Telling newbies shit they should never be exposed to because it is so dangerous. Anyways, this is my blog and I can post what I want and tell it like it is…according to me 🙂 I am sure MMS got some conversions out of it, thanks MPD!

      My kids never cried and were really well behaved. Except that one flight from LAX to Papeete…my daughter never stopped crying. That still stands out, I am sure they all hated us on that flight. So what? Not going to stay on the ground so Andy can enjoy his flight better, I mean, is that entitled or what? I encourage more families to do it because it makes the world a better place!

      • Brenton says

        Maybe MPD has a day job and just blogs for pleasure, I don’t really know or care. I’ve never been there. If the blog grows and content changes, that’s definitely selling out, but trying to get a bump from MMS and then hopefully changing how the people think that start reading quality content, that’s a real conversion. I personally started off reading them (like most of us probably did) before realizing where I should otherwise be spending my time.

        My 8 month old son flew to Maine with us because his 3 cousins live there and don’t make it back to Nebraska much. He was teething on the way back and cried non-stop from PWM-BWI-STL-OMA. I didn’t see a single glare or scolding look on any of the flights. It’s really great to be around understanding people.

        • TBBTheDude says

          I do not see it that way Brenton. All these bloggers out there, deep down, admire and pander to the mega credit card pumpers and I find it, well, horribly douchey…could never figure out how to spell that word, you know, making it sound French lol.

          He can do whatever he wants, it is his blog. Same applies to me and everyone else. I just did not like it and, frankly, I did not expect it. I lost respect for the blog, enough to knock it off my “Blogs I Like” candidate list.

          No big deal, not many read my blog anyway. If I pandered to these big bloggers maybe that would be different. Oh well.

  6. Oliver2002 says

    Hmm… just booked the family to fly to the land of the free for Easter in LH C. I’m in PE on a cool mistake(ish) fare. Andy should suggest how to compensate 1-2 day of lost vacation days when parents & kids are cranky due to travelling in Y.
    PS: cool pillow trick, need to show the boys that one. They try to be innovative with the barf bags though… 😉

  7. Charlie says

    How about that, a day after the cat hotel was written on my blog, it happens to appear here without even a HT. If I had a penny for everytime…
    – Who does that sound like? 🙂

    • TBBTheDude says

      Wrong!

      In this case. I understand I do this…a lot!

      I had this one in the queue. And I was expecting VFTW or some other blogger will post it before I did. I was going to post it on Friday but I did not have enough material so I decided to post my 2016 Burn Haul on that day…which pushed it back to today Monday!

      I hate when that happens! And when I see it posted somewhere else before I post it I was expecting someone to make a comment like yours 🙂

      Same thing happened with the Bourdain article. I delete many posts where I saw them posted after I put them in the queue. But I thought the Cat hotel and Bourdain articles were too good to also pass them up.

      I see almost everything first. If I did not have so many other things going on I could be posting more than you guys. But I made a decision once a day is good for me.

      So there you have it.

      Stay away from that bomb, wow!

      • Charlie says

        I know, just had to poke at you about it. I totally didn’t think you first saw that from me since there were several stories about it. Just had to tease you 😉

      • Charlie says

        Yeah, I wasn’t going to but found out a lot of people were curious so little post coming later today about that! I have been right near that spot many times – can’t believe the guy digging was only 4mm from it when they saw it! At least everything went well with the removal. I just felt bad for everyone that had to be outside for several hours.

  8. exoticfusion says

    MPD hasn’t really posted anything interesting (at least to me), along with Freequent Flyer and Frequent miler. These days it’s all kind of a “meh” feeling with most blogs. I usually just browse titles and if it is of interest I will click, otherwise I just skip it.

    • SumOfAll says

      I’ll pass on all the broke MSers going into the financial advisor role. No thanks. Im not gonna pay a fee to have you tell me to invest in Vanguard Funds. Pass Pass Pass

      • TBBTheDude says

        The “meh” feeling regarding the blog space of this hobby is indeed REAL!

        You pass SumOfAll. 60% of people out there are yourselves, will never call or pay for help. You belong in that crowd. It’s cool. Whatever works for you man.

        • ABC says

          Why should someone like SumOfAll need a financial advisor? What is he/she missing? Shouldn’t the average Jone with 6 figure asset mainly watch the paint dry?

          • MileageUpdate says

            I can agree with that. Investing is like a bar of soap. The more you touch it the smalller it gets. It does cause me some concern when you start reading about MSers that are gravitating to the Finance Advisor gig. Maybe they in the desperation phase and jumping into the advisor role. I’d exclude you Buzz because you were doing it before MSing. Its these creepy dudes who grift over that scare me.

  10. Raffles says

    I am struggling to see the link between travel credit cards and the Grammy’s ……..?

    MMS2 – priceless! If I asked the woman who works for me to pose for pics like that, I know where that glass of beer would have ended up ….

  11. Dan says

    Using Biz Plat with Insider fares is news to you?

    It’s been in probably 2 dozen airfare posts I’ve made since October.

    Slacking off George…

  12. SB says

    Give Vinh a break, nothing wrong with wanting to increase exposure. Bash him when content changes.

    Maybe you should do an interview with bowtie too 😉

Subscribe to TBB!

Subscribe to TBB!

You get all the blog posts & the occasional hot subscriber-only deal in your email inbox.

You have Successfully Subscribed!