Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as all the meme stocks insanity, the fantastic US economy, AI revolution, digital nomad visas, how to fly to Hawaii with miles, Epoch Times gets busted, the East German security Stasi files, Roaring Pity lol, highest homicide rates, coolest caves and much more and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of miles and points. Enjoy the weekend!
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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to a curated at least weekly post of the best web content along with my commentary. Here to Educate primarily, sometimes Entertain and if I get to Inspire you, well, that is a bonus.
This blog usually publishes on Fridays. Sometimes I may post earlier on a Thursday like today. This is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.
PERSONAL FINANCE
I can’t believe all the meme stock craziness is back. You need to tune it out and focus on more important things in your life. And you should take steps to make your investing boring. Keep the excitement for other parts of your life. I agree with this author: During Another Meme Stock Rally, Here’s Why I’m Investing Like It’s the Stone Age. Because you need to keep your head and preserve your sanity!
Our brains are ill-equipped for such an exciting investing landscape.
Since we are talking about meme stocks, Roaring Kitty came back on Youtube to tank Gamestop stock lol. Anyway, we now get articles like this: Roaring Pity. I wonder what we will tell our grandchildren one day when they ask us “So grandpa, did you also get into it with them meme stocks?”.
There are just red flags galore here. The return. The company selling shares. The early earnings release. The bad numbers. The praising of the management team. The touting the stock. The selling of more stock. The log-off. The timing of it all.
If the system was once rigged, now it’s just gamed. And not for the lolz anymore, but for the grift.
I have been pounding this fact for a while but the message is not getting through for whatever reasons: The US Economy is Absolutely Fantastic. I am going to single out a few things:
Unemployment didn’t fall below 4 percent at any point during the 1970s, ’80s, or ’90s.
…from the end of 2019 to the end of 2023, the lowest-paid decile of workers saw their wages rise four times faster than middle-class workers and more than 10 times faster than the richest decile.
And a few more facts I found that belong here:
Net worth of American households was up by $5.1 trillion, or 3.3%, in the first quarter.
Average annual income from interest and dividends was $3.7 trillion in the first quarter, up from $770 billion compared to four years ago.
SCAMS/CRYPTO
Molly White keeps us up to date with all the crypto developments: Issue 59 – Hotdamn, this is going to get interesting quickly. And the never ending scams, such as this one by someone involved with Epoch Times:
Widong “Bill” Guan, the Chief Financial Officer of the far-right and Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times media company, was indicted on money laundering and bank fraud charges after allegedly operating a more than $67 million fraud. Guan allegedly used cryptocurrency to purchase prepaid debit cards that were loaded with fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, and laundered the funds through bank accounts they’d fraudulently opened using stolen personal information.
Remember when I posted about this Epoch Times outfit in the ODDZ & ENDZ section in this POST dated October 20, 2023? And I quote me:
We have talked here in the past about the weirdos behind Falun Gong and Epoch Times, please stay the hell away from them: How the conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times went mainstream and made millions. Again, so many grifters feasting on morons out there…
AI
I have been gathering some awesome links about AI and was thinking to do a special post soon. Like the one I did about crypto some time ago. But with only one credit card sale as the sole source of revenue of this blog this month I decided I am just going to throw them in a new section here and move on…
Finally, Apple responded and the market sure liked what they came up with: Apple WWDC 2024: the 13 biggest announcements.
I really enjoyed listening to this podcast about AI with Cade Metz, the technology New York Times reporter. No BS, highly recommended. The AI Revolution.
This is pretty cool: What AI Can Do Today. Constantly updated.
Well, we hope so: AI Could Actually Help Rebuild The Middle Class. AI doesn’t have to be a job destroyer. It offers us the opportunity to extend expertise to a larger set of workers.
World War 2.5 is going to the dogs? Robot Dogs Armed With AI-Aimed Rifles Undergo US Marines Special Ops Evaluation.
Must click imho: AI Index: State of AI in 13 Charts.
ODDZ & ENDZ
Fascinating article about the East German secret police. I vividly remember meeting with East German students in East Berlin during a European college travel study trip back in 1987, we debated capitalism vs communism and I wonder if those students were the first ones crossing into West Berlin after the Wall fell in 1989. Anyway, here it is: Piercing Together the Secrets of the Stasi.
I call this section ODDZ & ENDZ for a reason. Because I get to post some really odd stuff here. Like this uniquely odd video titled Extreme Beachcombing.
EXTREME BEACHCOMBING is an intimate portrait of retired plumber John Anderson and his 46-year obsession with collecting manmade objects that wash up on the obscure beaches of the Pacific Northwest. Narrated entirely by John himself, this poetic and philosophical documentary short includes images, items, and stories from his one-of-a-kind Beachcombing Museum in Forks, Washington, culminating in a raw, firsthand look at what he calls “extreme beachcombing.”
Stunning, must click. I wonder what ever happened to the Tiananmen Tank Man. The 25 Photos That Defined the Modern Age.
What jumps out at me in this below is two countries I would have never guessed they belonged on such list, Liechtenstein and Bermuda! The World’s Highest Homicide Rates.
TRAVEL
SAVE $100 FOR 2024 THE EXTRAORDINARY TRAVEL FESTIVAL
This property claims it is the world’s first salt hotel: Palacio de Sal. It is in Bolivia and does look amazing, anyone stayed here yet?
Cool site: One Minute Park. Exactly what is says, you get to see a peaceful view of a park around the world for 60 seconds. Serenity now!
This is a pretty good chart if you are interested on the subject: Countries offering Digital Nomad Visas. Big changes in this coming very soon from Thailand’s government.
I always liked caves. I should maybe stop blogging about them and start visiting them! World’s Coolest Caves. Maybe I should start with the one in Kentucky near me. And the one in Slovenia looks amazing. Which one is your favorite?
BUZZING
A section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life and anything else that just does not fit in another section above
Amazing if this holds true. As it surely looks like it will. Are we close to curing lung cancer? Can this solve our demographic problems, at least to an extent? Hopefully we will find out in the near future: Trial results for new lung cancer drug are ‘off the charts’, say doctors.
I was in Greece where they had elections for the European Parliament. 60% of eligible voters did not bother to vote, highest number ever I believe.
An update on my situation in Greece: I was visiting to see my mother and give her moral support to stick with the physical therapy sessions to get over her hip replacement surgery. And then boom! Taken to the hospital in an ambulance due to a very heavy pneumonia infection in both lungs. Fourth day in a heavy regiment of antibiotics but no improvement in the lungs yet. But everything else looks good, no more fever, blood pressure and oxygen levels are fine. So I am staying longer in Greece until my mom gets out of the hospital. It may be a while before I return. This is what happens when parents turn 85 and they need us. And I came right on one of the biggest heatwaves in history. Too many strong coffees, trying to control my eating and I have no idea where a gym is and too hot to walk and no time. I can’t wait for everything to return to normal. I am praying and I am not even religious! Feeding my mother at this stage is, well, weird and life changing? Bonding with other people attending to loved ones in the hospital and grateful for our health. Anyway, developing, stay tuned.
What a tree! “Walking” Tree That Looks Like An Ent Just Won New Zealand Tree Of The Year.
This blog started with a focus on miles and points and travel. It has evolved since then. Everything below deals with the hobby of collecting frequent flyer miles and points and maximizing your travel experiences. If you are not interested, you can stop here, thank you.
MILES & POINTS NEWS/PROMOS/MY ACTION
It was another week with nothing earth shattering.
GENERAL NEWS/PROMOS/NEWBIES/ETC.
This probably belongs in the Travel section. But since it is from a blog in the miles/points space I decided to stick it here: Why You Should Visit the Faroe Islands (& How to Get There!). For some reason, I am just not feeling the love for this destination.
Yes indeed: The Golden Age of Retail Loyalty Programs is Here. Why every store wants to give you something for (almost) nothing. Yeah, maybe this is getting a bit out of control lately. I used to say Yes to every single one because, let’s face it, we all love to get things for free. But lately I have been refusing to join some I know I would not come back to frequently. To save me the mental bandwidth you guys. Some in this hobby have been finding pure gold deals in some of these programs over the years.(Thanks to reader NickPFD for sending this in).
Good reference: A Complete Guide to World of Hyatt: Free Nights, Credit Cards & More.
As a Capital One Venture X cardholder, this is great news: New York’s JFK Airport Will Get a Capital One Lounge. Also, is Capital One expanding this lounge network in a turtle’s pace or what?
CREDIT CARD CORNER
Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your credit card clicks below, thank you!
I will indicate with NEW every new section as the rest is the same from the previous blog post and will finally roll off those parts as these offers expire, thank you.
NEW: Best Uses of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.
We had a flurry of new credit card offers thrown at us in the last week. Let’s recap:
Here we go again: Improved Offers on American Express Delta Credit Cards, Up to 110,000 Miles. There have been many changes in these Delta cards lately. Higher annual fees and new benefits/credits now come with them. I recommend preferring credit cards with much more flexible bank points than pure airline/hotel earning cards. Unless you are so absolutely committed to a specific airline or hotel. Delta Skymiles are notoriously sucky in squeezing any value out of them. Can you still do it? Yes. But it only applies in unique situations and good luck to you. For the record, I have no beef against Delta Airlines. I think they still provide the best product flying you among US airlines. My issue with them is that they have just completely hammered the Delta Skymiles program that now makes earning miles with it a complete afterthought.
Amex Marriott Bonvoy Business card: Oh, it is back! Up from three five nights again, I told you it is likely going to be back. I may go for it after I return from Greece as I see that it expires 7/10/2024. I am no fan of Marriott Bonvoy but hey, five free nights is five free nights you guys. The annual fee is $125. The minimum spend is $8k in the first six months. Earning structure is 6x on Marriott purchases, 4x on gas stations, cell phone bills, restaurants and shipping and 2x on everything else. You do get 15 elite night credits if you are one of those shooting for worthy Platinum status. You do get Gold elite status AND a Free Night Award cert at each card anniversary. To reiterate, I am only interested for the five free nights, maybe I can time it to go see Machu Picchu in 2025 as it has a great Marriott property near it.
Amex is back with American Express Hilton Increased Bonuses (175k Points/130k Points + Free Night Certificate).
Hilton Amex Surpass Card: I have this card because Hilton is my #2 hotel program (and closing in to #1 Hyatt). The annual fee is $150 but every quarter I buy a $50 Hilton gift card and I get it all credited. So, in a way it makes money for me until Amex closes this hole. It also gives me Hilton Gold Elite status which is great, especially overseas. Signing Bonus is 130,000 Hilton Honors points AND a Free Night Award cert. The minimum spend is a surprisingly low $3k in the first six months. These Hilton free night certs can be used in ANY property anytime which makes them much more valuable than all other hotel free night awards. You can earn a second Free Night Award cert after you spend $15k on the card every year. Earning is also very good with 12x on Hilton purchases, 6x on restaurants, groceries and gas stations, 4x on online retail purchases and 3x on everything else.
Hilton Amex Card: This is the basic no annual fee card. The signing bonus is 70,000 Hilton Honors points AND a Free Night Award. The minimum spend is only $2k in the first six months. You also get a pretty useless Silver elite status and the earning on the card is kind of anemic: 7x on Hilton purchases, 5x on restaurants, groceries and gas stations and 3x on everything else. If you like Hiltons and abhor paying annual fees this card could work for you.
Hilton Amex Aspire Card: Signing Bonus is 175,000 Hilton Honors points and a Free Night Award cert. This is the premium card with a hefty $550 annual fee. The minimum spend is $6k in the first six months. A Free Night Award cert comes with it at each card anniversary. It also comes with a bunch of statement credits that you have to be very diligent to make sure you use them all; if you did, statement credits could be worth up to $889 per year. You get the highest Diamond elite status with the card and other goodies. I carried this card for several years but I dropped it and settled down with the Capital One Venture X as my premium go to card. You don’t have the Hilton Aspire card for its earning structure: 14x on Hilton purchases, 7x on restaurants, airfare and car rentals and 3x on everything else.
So, Amex is back juicing the Hilton cards with Free Night Award certs and another trend I noticed is how they now extend the minimum spend period to six from three months, both very welcome. Remember, Amex has the policy to not award the Signing Bonus if you had the card before in the past seven years or so. And it also has onerous card family rules. Which they have not affected the Hilton family of cards…yet?
MY ACTION
I had arranged my return to the US from Greece and briefly was over 1 million miles/points burned year to date. I had burned 8,000 World of Hyatt points for another night in Thessaloniki Greece, 8,000 United miles to fly from there to Vienna on Austrian Airlines, a perfect night in the Vienna Park Hyatt burning a Cat 7 free night cert expiring that same night and then 88,000 United miles to fly back to the US from Vienna to Montreal on Austrian Airlines and then Air Canada to Detroit all on Business class (ok, not the best redemption I admit). It hurt canceling everything but what are you gonna do?
Wife tried to book a Delta flight to join her two friends on a hiking trip in the West coast somewhere. She got excited “Wow, only 52,000 Skymiles”. Me of course “Are you sure?”. Yes, yes she says…and a few minutes later reality hits “Oh, that was for the outbound flight only”. Lol. It was close to 90,000 miles round trip. For a $600 cash fare. Only with Skymiles smh.
I am using an Airbnb in Greece and I like it as I keep extending it. Much bigger than the hotel I stay nearby and much cheaper as well. And it has a washing machine and a big balcony too. Will Airbnb ever start a credit card, come on! 🙂
I revived the dormant TravelBloggerBuzz Instagram account and giving it another go, follow me there please.
ADVANCED
This probably does not belong in the Advanced section but since I had nothing else I am sticking it here after the boss I approved it 😉 The Best Ways to Fly Nonstop to Europe for Less.
Well, since we are in this mode, how about all the Best ways to fly to Hawaii using miles from the mainland.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 75k CHASE Ink Business Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Business Unlimited, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 75K CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 75k CHASE United Business, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 150k AMEX Business Platinum, 80k CHASE Southwest Performance Business, $1,000 Cash Back CHASE Ink Business Premier, 75k Citi Strata Premier, 75k CITIBusiness AA Platinum Select, 15k AMEX Blue Business Plus and many more!
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! SKIP if you are not into it!
As of today, I have burned 929,996 miles/points year to date (1,148,286 in 2023) and have 4,239,677 miles/points in the bank. Some do drugs, I do miles lol!
Thanks to US banks, very lucrative travel rewards credit card offers come and go all the time. This section will act as a reference point on the best CURRENT offers. I will designate new material preceded by NEW.
Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!
Let me leave you with this:
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
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Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com and tell me what you like and don’t like about my blog and, more importantly, what you would like to see changed and/or what you would add or delete. All feedback is very appreciated.
George
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Apparently Tank Man has never been conclusively identified: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man#Identity_and_disappearance
All the best to you and your mom.
The best use of your great collection of points and miles to be able to care for your mother without financial strain.
Good luck to you both.
<—This. I've used my AA miles on more than one occasion to fly in family members on short notice to help out when my parents are having medical issues.
Sorry to hear of Mom’s troubles and hope all gets fixed and healed fast! I am feeling good now but that hospital thing was not fun.
Great post today with LOTS of good stuff. Thanks so much. Big news is Saturday the oldest Grandchild is coming over so Grampa can help her apply for her first credit card and guess whose links we will be going through? Wish her luck! I’ll let you know how it goes. She’s on a couple associate cards that I manage and use and has been paying on a car so I think an approval will come. Hope so!
Stay cool if you can and you have my best wishes things go as good as they possibly can there.
“New”(?) link still shows 404 error for me:
https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1135854/solo-practitioner
They moved it to:
https://www.morningstar.com/financial-advisors/solo-practitioner
Fixed the link, thanks for letting me know!
Hey Buzz,
I’ve been outta the loop for a few weeks. Sorry to hear the news about your mama, and wishing you all the best.
Barely glances at the post, funny though, due to the fact I just got approved for the Marriott biz card with the 5 free nights…which I was planning on using in the Sacred Valley or Cusco.
Yes, of course I used your link.
Ouch, good luck in the heatwave, as we’re only at about 108 in Tucson.
Enjoy Euro 2024, a veritable shellacking today.
Cheers
Update: Mom is out of the hospital finally, hooray! Responding well to the antibiotics now and hopefully all goes back to normal over the weekend. Will look to get back to the US next week, developing.
Glad to hear about your mom! Some Greek trivia I just stumbled upon: one of the last known descendents of the final rulers of the Byzantine Empire was born in Plymouth, England in 1619 and died in Barbados in 1670, known there as “the Greek prince from Cornwall”. From Wiki:
“Local tradition has it that the provisional government in Athens sent a letter to the authorities on Barbados in the aftermath of the Greek War of Independence (1821–1829), inquiring if a living branch of the Palaiologos dynasty still lived on the island. The letter supposedly requested that if that was the case, the head of the family should be provided with the means of returning to Greece, with the trip paid for by the Greek government. With Ferdinand’s last known living descendants dead or missing in the 17th century, it was ascertained that there were no living Palaiologoi on Barbados.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Paleologus
On my way back home sweet home. Typing this from the Aegean lounge in Thessaloniki Airport SKG after another great stay at the Thessaloniki Hyatt Regency.About to fly Business class on Turkish Airlines to Istanbul and then Detroit. Mom is doing much better, looks like she kicked the pneumonia infection to the curb and ready to fight for PT to get going again on her new hip. Obviously, at age 85 it is easier said than done. She is being taken care of very well and I started praying again, amazing how I start praying when things get rough! Anyway, check the TBB Instagram for travel updates as they happen!
George, did you see the article where Vanguard will be charging $100 to close an account? Unless you’re a millionaire, with 5M in the account. I know many investment firms have a charge to close an account and send the money to another firm, but this is a first for Vanguard.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/vanguard-the-low-cost-investing-pioneer-will-now-charge-100-to-close-an-account-unless-youre-a-multimillionaire-09ef461c
Vanguard is steadily losing its Bogle ethos. And it hurts to see it. They hired an outsider for new CEO and he comes from Blackrock, the one firm (among many) that Bogle always wanted for Vanguard not to become.
The pace of fee reductions has slowed to a trickle and more fees are being extracted by people trusting them with their money. Hope it turns out well. Not leaving but now looking around to see alternatives.
My 2cents.
Back in Ann Arbor!