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| Iceland. Found here |
Sure slows down in the weekends!
TRAVEL
Thirteen days in Cuba. An absolutely beautiful post by Ruffin on the Road.
The Ridiculous Summer Vacations of the One Percent. From Peter Greenberg. Wow, ridiculous indeed. Best line was this: “All of a sudden splurging for the convertible from the rent-a-car place doesn’t seem too extravagant, does it?”
The hilarious things people say on Virgin Airlines. You know Virgin is starting this seat to seat talk service. Well, here is what this may lead to. Hilarious indeed!
MILES/POINTS
Travel Summary put some effort to recreate some award charts for the Bluebird/ChaseInk points “method”. I am fine with the affiliate link thrown in there as the post is very useful to readers and there is at least some disclosure. I wish I can say that for the majority of bloggers:-)
The way I see it is, with just Vanilla Reloads via Bluebird, I can get a one way trip to New York from Detroit for $39.50, and minimal time (I have CVS all around me) I can get a one way trip to New York from Detroit (via ChaseUltimate Rewards for 4,500 British Airways Avios points and have 500 pts left over!). At this point in my life, I just do not have the time and patience to be dealing with gift cards, PINs, people and machines at WalMart and driving to/from there; I already have millions of miles/points I can not burn fast enough!!
ON MY MIND
Points Miles and Martinis wrote “It’s Back! 7x Points Staples And Chase Paper Tower Deal”. We all love a good deal, it comes naturally to us in this hobby. Of course…it is a perfect excuse to throw SIX affiliate links to this post, yep folks…THREE Chase Ink Bold and THREE Ink Plus. One was not enough!
Delta Points has a giveaway: “SWAG Saturday! EVERYTHING IS BIGGER in Texas Right?”. Umm, okay. Of course before we get to the giveaway we get this:
“I will naturally be paying with my Chase Freedom card as the 5x points they are paying as a bonus now is much better than the standard 2x points my Chase Sapphire card I normally use at restaurants is. For many “chain” restaurants I can still use my INK BOLD and INK PLUS to visit the gift card section and get 5x points that way also!”
Time to grab the Slim Jim to flog myself again!
You remember the Free Travel Guys who were interviewed at MMS? They have been on a giant affiliate link spree since then. Over the weekend they posted “Lufthansa 50,000 bonus miles credit card”. Wow!!!
ODDZ & ENDZ
How I Cured My Anxiety. By CharlieHoehn. If you suffer from anxiety this article is for you. “Giving myself permission to PLAY was the cure for my anxiety.” I think this is really good life advice too! When you play it does not feel like work, something I have always tried to do. And when it comes to blogging it is certainly all play so far!
Have a great week!
Very much waiting for DeltaPoints to get swaged-out…
DP does have the best swag. I even thought about entering but then I was afraid my entry may be censored away:-)
Who needs integrity when you have SWAG?!?
Woah! That Iceland photo is completely unreal…
To see such a thing would be truly awesome.
P.S- Do you think people would ever really use that Virgin chat program?
When I saw that pic I knew I had to post it here…can’t believe it is real!!!
Virgin does these PR stunts all the time. I doubt we will hear again about this feature.
Loved the Cuba piece. Reminded me of stories my son and husband told of a trip they took there in the 1990s. Thanks for the link. Meanwhile, the Rock n’Roll Half Marathon was a huge success in Portland today. Live bands every two miles. No, I did not run but glad we hosted it here.
I always wanted to go to Cuba but was afraid one of my readers will report me to the State Dept and then fined $10k. 🙂
Alright, the self-parody has reached new heights. MMS does a new arrows-laden post to explain the complicated process of… buying Amazon gift cards and loading them into your Amazon account! OMFG.
All as an excuse to… Ka-ching! Sell Ink cards.
George, you still say you LIKE the way MMS does credit cards?!
I like the MMS disclosure policy, sure. Heads & shoulders above so many other bloggers. As far as today’s content goes…yes I rolled my eyes too. Then I remember his primary target audience: newbies. They probably eat it all up:-)
The Cuba link is great! Wonderful pictures and thoughtful writing. It really irks me that he got interviewed at the airport. Creepy!
Also appreciated the piece on curing anxiety. I love to be reminded that I need to play more often.
Mission of the blog is to: educate, inspire and entertain. As long as it does at least one of these well I am making the world a better place and like looking at myself in the mirror every morning.
I love Cuban music and want to go there so bad…It would make for a hell of a trip report! But one of my haters will sure report me:-)
Does MMS really get all the newbies? Without Brian’s PR machine MMS is reliant on Google to bring him people, and his content is a lot thinner in volume that Gary etc. not sure his site looks newbie friendly either.
The Newbie market is HUGE! I am sure they both do just fine. Maybe I should start a separate blog and called it TBB4noobs.com or something;-)
The way you hugging his parts these days, might as well join his team. WIN!!
Join his team…what do you mean? I am joining no one because then I have to compromise:-)
I’m grumpy this morning.
So for the airing of the grievances:
Yo, George, MMS put in 13 affiliate links for a post that could have been two sentences: “Use a Chase business card to buy Amazon or Kindle gift cards. Use them on Amazon (yes, even Kindle cards).” If you can’t figure out how to use an Amazon gift card, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE A BUSINESS CREDIT CARD.
I left a comment at DansDeals noting that the weekend Gap sale could be extended for ~10% more cash back by going through ebates. My comment is no longer there. His affiliate link remains up. I withdraw my suggestion that MMS interview Dan.
One of the great shortcomings of MilePoint is the inability to call a stupid spade stupid. Sure, people on FT are sometimes nasty and have their own hang-ups. But at least they level with people, and tell some to go do minimal research; MP by contrast looks like a collection of cliques and nitrous-huffers.
Do I remember the Free Travel Guys who were interviewed at MMS? Um, nope. Should I? And George, you gotta stop mentioning you have too many points. By that logic, all content on manufactured spending that requires leaving the house is not relevant for you.
harvson3
Suggestion for a new litmus test:
No click-throughs for bloggers who post
“When shopping for X, I will use my [[affiliate link]] or [[affiliate link.]] I will not be using [[affiliate link]] or [[affiliate link]]!”
Thanks for letting us know, jerkface!
Daraius got halfway there with
“When shopping for X, I will use my [[affiliate link]], which has UR points you can transfer to your [[affiliate link]], [[affiliate link]], [[affiliate link]].”
I’m pretty sure that the mention that UR points are transferable is a command from the mighty Chase itself. There are times of the month that repetitive, empty posts are published and you can see that someone at Chase cracked the whip.
harvson3
I agree – MP has a very clubby feel at times, with folks not being called out for their stupidity/incorrect assertions. There was a recent thread where a seasoned blogger commented on how Amex had done the “right” thing by giving him 100K MR points on the Amex, even though he was technically not eligible for it by having applied for a Gold Card within the last 90 days. His argument was that the Amex CSR told him he was eligible for the bonus when he checked with the CSR, but this was only after he had submitted his application. I was one of the few dissenters in that thread with most of the other posts being of the “you go, girl” variety.
@harvson3: As usual, you are right on! When I read bloggers push readers to get business credit cards (or any cards actually) without knowing absolutely nothing about their financial situation, their spending habits, current debt etc….it makes me cringe. Yeah yeah personal responsibility and all that stuff I know. But you laid it out BEST with —–>” If you can’t figure out how to use an Amazon gift card, YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE A BUSINESS CREDIT CARD.”
Stuff happens with comments, it could be an accident at DDF.
The greatest shortcoming of Milepoint is that MP is just short in…numbers. I hardly ever go or post there. Site looks so much better than FT but FT has the eyeballs and action. Fact.
You make a great points about my points. Why do I even bother sometimes? I need to get going on that Google Wallet thing you know:- #addictedwithoutcure
I have no doubt that Chase and “affiliate managers” can get their “opinions” listened to!
@Anonymouse: See my comment about MP above.
Free Travel Guys …I don’t think anyone but family, of course, are reading them. There is never a comment posted by anyone except mine, and they always delete them. No comments by readers, no readers. DEAD GIVEAWAY.
@harvson3 sounds like you maybe bipolar (your post are a DEAD GIVEAWAY), may i suggest Zoloft (works for me).
I bet you they have done easily 4 figures from affiliate credit card apps, if not more.
I need to grill me some ribs this weekend!
I have a theory that Million Miles Asshole posts as random users himself. That is why you will see after every few critical posts, some random user names typically thank him for useless information which is not even helpful to newbies. Good for him though as it steers the conversation going too negative.
This isn’t capitalism. This country respects genuine hard work. Where is the ingenuity? Sad.
Please no name calling, it is absolutely not necessary!
Are you saying what he does is not hard work? I thought this blogging thing is too easy…I was VERY mistaken!
If the country respected genuine hard work it would not have so many bloggers offering nada other than affiliate credit card links…obviously, there are enough suckers out there who click on them. And I bet you many of them get way in over their head which allows banks to make money AND continue to do this…Sad indeed!
The only thing worse than the canned “of course, I will buy X with [insert affiliate link] as it transfer free to points you earn with [insert affiliate link], [insert affiliate link] and [insert affiliate link]….
are the “Here are the results of my latest churn” posts
Like clockwork, the usual clowns make sure to inform the entire world which cards they picked up. It’s a “mail it in free” card they can use once every 90 days
Wait blogggers, you got Chase Ink Bold? Why I had no idea! How come you never mentioned that credit card in the past?
I cringe every time I see MommyPoints use her “mail it in free” card every 90 days
Check interesting Loyalty Traveler post about the BAcon credit card conference…Actually just wait an hour or so for my next blog post:-)
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/2013/05/20/how-much-do-you-value-an-empty-first-class-cabin/
Man, this post really rubbed me the wrong way. Just how entitled can someone be?
Just posted a comment there. I hope the kid was joking, he does have a weird sense of humor. Remember the sweater?
Thanks for the mention about Points, Miles & Martinis.
Thanks for the mention about Points, Miles & Martinis.