Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as mixing investing and politics, the five most evil con men in history, some discontinued quirky Olympic events, more blog changes, the greatest places of 2024, the best underwater hotel rooms, more on the Delta meltdown and much more and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of miles and points. See you Friday!
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
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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 is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.
BLOG HOUSEKEEPING AND CHANGES
Starting tomorrow, this blog will be prohibited publishing any links leading to Chase cards. The only credit card links allowed to post going forward is for Amex and Capital One credit cards. Which will surely lead to even less conversions. I guess my favorite bank has decided to focus its compliance efforts to much bigger credit card marketing machines masquerading as bloggers or, heaven forbid, journalists. Support small independent voices to save the online world from ongoing enshittification.
Thank you to the less than ten people who went out of their way consistently in the past to support my blog by applying for credit cards with my links, using the Buy Me a Coffee link and donating via Paypal. And take the time to comment and send encouraging emails. Without you this blog would not be around for almost 12 years.
Posts will be shorter. Especially on Tuesdays. I have said that before several times, we shall see.
The BUZZING section is retired going forward. Content in this section really always belonged in the ODDZ & ENDZ section anyway. And any personal related news will now be located in the MY ACTION subsection in the second half of each blog post belonging to my miles and points hobby.
Rest of the format will stay the same. For now. I think I bring you a quality blog full of a wide variety of educational, entertaining and inspiring content. Without any ads, sponsors and clickbait shit. Google and SEO have killed a lot of blogs lately, organic growth is the only way.
As always, enjoy it while it lasts.
And now back to regular programming…
PERSONAL FINANCE
Fantastic podcast with Morgan Housel dishing some advice. And yes, behavior in investing always beats intelligence.
It is usually a really bad idea to let politics dictate your investing. But, as always when it comes to investing, there is a trend until there isn’t. So, diversify!
SCAMS/CRYPTO/AI/TECH
Interesting link: 5 most evil con artists in history: Their shocking scams revealed. Not withstanding the clickbaity headline, everyone knows the first three on the list. The fifth guy was such a creep, current whereabouts unknown. But did you know about the fourth guy on the list?
Anthony Gignac was born into poverty in Colombia in 1970. A couple in Michigan adopted him in 1970. When he was 12 years old, he went to a car dealership impersonating a Saudi prince and successfully convinced the dealer to let him test drive a Mercedes. Later, he pretended to be Prince Al Saud and convinced American Express to give him a card with a $200 million credit limit. Billionaire Jeffrey Soffer, owner of Miami’s luxurious Fontainebleau Hotel, was so enamored of the fake prince that he gave him $50,000 worth of jewelry and rides in his private jet to win him over. But Gignac made a fatal mistake one evening while having dinner with Soffer at a restaurant. He ordered pork, which didn’t seem like something a Muslim prince would eat. Shortly afterward, he was arrested and convicted of fraud, identity theft, and impersonating a foreign diplomat. In 2019, he was sentenced to over 18 years in prison for defrauding his victims of $8.1 million. He’s currently incarcerated at the Federal Detention Center in Miami.
ODDZ & ENDZ
I love learning random stuff. And posts like this: 30 Interesting Facts From History That You May Not Find In Textbooks. I picked a few:
Abraham Lincoln’s son (Robert Todd Lincoln) was present at three different presidential assassinations. After McKinley, he decided not to accept any more invitations. [I think he may support gun control lol]
Mongolian invasion of Japan was stopped by a typhoon. When they tried again, they were stopped by another typhoon. To this day these were the only two typhoons recorded in that place. [Divine intervention definitely]
In the 1920s Liberia had a general election, which the True Whig party won with 243,000 votes. There were 15,000 registered voters for the election. [When shouting “Rigged” is legit]
Since the Olympics are here, this was a fun read: 7 Quirky — and Discontinued — Summer Olympic Events. Live pigeon shooting and painting, wtf!
Amazing photography: 2024 World Architecture Festival Awards.
TRAVEL
SAVE $100 FOR 2024 THE EXTRAORDINARY TRAVEL FESTIVAL
This is great: The World’s Greatest Places of 2024. Some interesting properties in this list.
Ummm, no thanks, I couldn’t sleep. 9 Best Underwater Hotel Rooms Around the World — and 1 Fantastic Undersea Restaurant. Has anyone been to any of these?
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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
I only pick worthy links to share with you. As there is so much crap out there! The MY ACTION section now includes personal updates that used to be in the BUZZING section.
GENERAL NEWS/PROMOS/NEWBIES/ETC.
Well, this is a good recap of the Delta clusterphuck: How Delta (Repeatedly) Bungled its Worst Meltdown Ever.
For an ever better writeup of Delta’s shameful handling of the meltdown, I think the Cranky Flier nails it: Delta Seems to Have Learned Nothing from Southwest’s Meltdown.
I should note that this criticism isnʻt a reflection on Deltaʻs front line. There is no way they could have taken care of everyone well when the airline melted down like that. Itʻs just not humanly possible. For those stuck in the airport or on endless phone holds, this felt like the airlineʻs management was living in an alternate universe where it was patting itself on the back. [Absolutely right on, management’s arrogance is so severe they do live in an alternate universe indeed.]
Good stuff here if you are into Hilton Honors points: How to maximize your Hilton cards (with upgrades and downgrades). I used to do this upgrade/downgrade train thingie but then I moved on and started a blog lol.
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 offers expire, thank you.
NEW: In yet another classic dishonest move, a cheery email update by Bilt’s CEO did not bother to reveal this: Ouch!!! Bilt to Cap Rent Day Double Earning to Just 1,000 Bonus Points. I swear I have never seen a card so hyped by bloggers in this space. A card without a signup bonus and full of gimmicky benefits. But a large marketing budget to wine and dine bloggers. Except this one. Keep supporting bloggers who are not bought and can still speak their mind #hint.
MY ACTION
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So, a lot going on in the home front. Son is trying to get back home to see his sister before she moves to Seattle and go to his annual gathering with his friends at Torch Lake in Northern Michigan. Remember years ago when he actually wrote a trip report about that? Guest Post: Summer 2015 Road Trip Around Michigan – Torch Lake & Sleeping Bear Dunes. All these kids have grown a little since then. So, he is Alaska Airlines MVP Gold and has already qualified for MVP for next year. He has about 22k credited miles year to date but needs 40k to requalify for MVP Gold and that is a tall order it appears. Last trip to the mainland from Honolulu he managed to get upgraded to First Class with his girlfriend and now appears to be more interested in this elite thingie. His company will fly him to Seattle and then it looks like he is on his own to fly to Detroit and then his company will fly him back to Honolulu. We’ll see where he ends up. Maybe another company targeted promo pops up that accelerates elite requalification? Update: He burned 20,000 Alaska Airlines miles to fly to Detroit from Seattle. The burning continues non stop this year, up to 1,226,000 to date, wow!
Also, both kids may join us in Thailand this November and we’ll try to have Thanksgiving there. They are on their own for airfare, they are out of the nest and miles just can’t pop up from daddy again and again. You want them? You need to spend some time acquiring them, they are not “free” despite what bloggers say to trick you. And I want them to start searching themselves, the only way to learn this stuff. They are actually getting better on the burning front.
I haven’t done any burning myself lately. I still need to find flights back from Kuala Lumpur to the US. Not much showing up, we may get to Singapore and fly from there.
I did another round of online mental diet. I deleted several blogs in my Feedly RSS aggregator. Including View From The Wing. My blood pressure is now fine that I no longer have to see such ridiculous cringy hideous clickbait posts smh. I highly suggest taking a close look to what you read and delete all the unnecessary crap polluting your life.
I managed to do the minimum spending for my wife’s Ink Business Preferred card as well so I am expecting another 260k Chase Ultimate Rewards points to be added to my stash. After the 5th of the month when my statements close, I can’t wait. I still love seeing the big chunks deposited after so many years of doing this.
I am going for another credit card soon. In the old days that sounded so lame. As it was “I am going for a half a dozen” or more lol. I still have not decided whether to take a shot at a 75k Capital One Venture Rewards card to add to my Capital One Venture X. Because I just want to find out what Capital One will do. Or maybe I should not mess with them because the bank is so weird. And I do have that 250k Amex Business Platinum targeted mailer somewhere on my desk looking at me…Let’s get to a new month and we shall see. Also, maybe it is time to circle back to Bank of America and Alaska Airlines miles but the current offer does not excite me that much. Can we get one for at least 75k please? My #1 wish is for Hyatt not to devalue Alaska Airlines miles become transfer partners with at least one bank, preferably Chase.
July 2024 Blog Stats:
Buy Me A Coffee coffees sold: 3
Credit Cards sold: 6 (two are mine, lol)
Credit Card referrals: None
Other revenue: $0
Email subscribers: 556
Instagram followers: 118 (actually I try to post here regularly, mostly past travel photos)
YouTube subscribers: 28 (this channel took an eight year break and it shows)
If you have any suggestions on how to improve this online marketing please let me know. I was an accounting major in college and it shows lol.
ADVANCED
The only surprising thing about this is that it took so long: Pepper Rewards massively lowers earning rates.
Amex has been doing this for many years, here is another round: Easy Peasy! Earn 20,000 Bonus Points with Amex Pay Over Time (YMMV). If you have not been targeted, maybe you should look into this: Amex Pay Over Time, How to Unenroll And Why You Should Do It. In the old days I used to do this repeatedly but it looks like Amex has caught on with me lol.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 120k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 75k CHASE Ink Business Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Business Unlimited, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture X, 75k CHASE United Business, 75k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards AND $250 Travel Credit, 150k AMEX Business Platinum, two 120k CHASE Southwest Business cards, $1,000 Cash Back CHASE Ink Business Premier, 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 1,225,957 miles/points year to date (1,148,286 in 2023) and have 4,096,440 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.
Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!
Let me leave you with this: The photo below was found here.
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
Thank you for reading my blog. If you enjoy it please forward it to a family member or friend. Or Buy Me a Coffee, thank you!
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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This site may receive compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. Travel Blogger Buzz and Your Best Credit Cards may receive a commission from card issuers. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not necessarily include all financial companies or all available financial offers. The editorial content on this page is not provided by any of the companies mentioned, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone.
Good morning!
I did not realize you had a youtube existence! I know now!
Now that Delta has hired a VERY important lawyer to go after CrowdStrike, all sorts of truths will come out in discovery.
The reputational fall off on the 5 con-men is really interesting. Ponzi’s name is now a generic term and if I remember correctly a lot of money was actually returned.
Thanks for your hard work!
I posted the links to my Youtube tiny channel several times. I think many times readers just skip over some stuff that is always there, like the standard paragraph on the top listing the various methods to support the blog. So, I think I will be mixing those now throughout the posts, so thanks!
Yeah, I saw what Delta is doing. Typical Delta, aggressive to the max, these guys could use some humility. Talking about the guys in the executive suite.
I had never heard of that kid pretending to be a Saudi king, unreal!
Lots of good stuff to read over the next couple days, thanks! I have some cloudy thoughts about the blog thing and assorted other stuff but I need coffee and some time to make what I think make sense.
Good on you getting the kids to start to work their own system on all the points and miles! I’ve tried to explain stuff to the Daughter but it is all just buzzing (sorry) in her ears.
More later on after I’ve read some of the things here. Time to get laundry going and cook breakfast as there is no Mrs Carl to do that stuff. This is a solo trip nowadays!
Thanks for the blog, I *always* enjoy the posts.
Went for another Ink Business Preferred for my daughter last night. Parting goodbye gift, she has been using the Chase points. With new address going forward it will become extremely difficult to do this going forward. Life moves on.
Not enough readers which leads to not enough support. Which is fine but it is NOT improving, which absolutely blows. Most have attention span issues, I mean, look at the rise of TikTok and YouTube. Blogs are not doing well across the board. Add to that increasing bank restrictions on blogs and just consolidating the affiliate route to an increasingly smaller circle of mega pumpers, well, the writing is on the wall Carl. I am just one guy here pouring my soul into this baby and it’s just not working. The online world is just strange and I am not the type to go along with all the “shocking” clickbait shit that goes with it. I mean, I spent no time promoting it is a big part of the reason. But that takes away from reading good shit to bring to you guys.
Current thinking is to keep going and at least get paid for my own cc links. Until it is time to go to Thailand for the ETF conference. And this time I am just going to enjoy my vacation taking time off instead of stressing about the blog and what to post and putting it together and all that goes with it. Takes hours to bring this to you guys. I have turned away potential clients willing to pay me thousands of dollars each quarter. So, to fight for one or a few hundred dollars per month in my blog to mostly cover the costs. It is, well, weird. I am known to be stubborn as hell but this is getting a little too much after all these years.
For blog lifetimes, this blog should earn a entry to the record books. Which probably means the blog creator is just a really weird guy who minds quality over money to the point of perhaps being certifiably insane. Lol.
Focus on health, rest is not that important.
Thanks, will respond later.
Decided to go for Chase InkBusiness Preferred card #3 in my household. Treat daughter with a goodbye gift so she can book trips to see friends all over the US and preferably us. Developing.
The humidity here is unreal. Has to end in a major storm.
Instantly approved, boom.
Congratulations! It’s amazing how long you have been blogging for a relatively small audience. I kind of miss you calling out the Frugal Travel Guy! hehe
Oh yeah, I miss Rick. He probably still reads my blog every day. I think he bet me sometime in 2015 I would quit shortly. And here we are. He was probably about 10 years short 🙂
I’ll be disappointed if you shut up shop as I do enjoy your content. However my days of credit card applications are over. I dare say by the end of the year we will have culled to having 2-3 cards each. We got rid of all AMEX last year. We just don’t have the spend anymore to make it worthwhile to have too many cards. Now I just need to find ways to spend down our last 2 million points, which never seem to decrease no matter how much we redeem
BTW new hotel suggestion for you to crush on like I am. Artic Bath, SLH redeemable via Hilton. https://arcticbath.se/ Now I am kicking myself for pissing away all my Hilton points on second rate properties in Hawaii over the past 5 years.
Thanks. I have been thinking to shut it down for more than 10 years around here. So, as I say in each post, enjoy it while it lasts.
I have posted about that hotel a few times here. For its amazing architecture. I had NO idea it was an SLH property available with Hilton points. I only have abt 300k+, will it be enough for one night? 🙂
Your 2 million is my 4 million. Been trying to go below that number but every time I come close I go for the next round of cc clicking. Three Chase Ink Business Preferred cards in the past 2 weeks, decided to gift my daughter one of them as her parting gift on Tuesday, will post about it on the blog tomorrow.
I’m seeing an over water room for 100k a night so your balance will give you 3 nights. Other desire for me is WA Seychelles because who doesn’t love a house giant tortoise. Other than these two not seeing too much in any program to get excited about.
Hilton appears to be gaining on Hyatt in all fronts. I was actually expecting something like north of 300k per night for that one.
Looks like you’re not the only one losing Chase links: https://milesforfamily.com/2024/08/01/a-change-to-how-this-blog-makes-money/
Yep, you will see more of this type of posts. This affiliate business with the banks is rough and so much full of BS, masquerading in “compliance” thingies. Basically, if you have the volume of sales you are approved to keep pumping. If not, “we are taking your links because of compliance”.
I have them still but I can not link to them directly. Which will no doubt lead to less clicks. Hopefully my readers are not newbies and will know how to find them.
Only an insane person will keep a blog like mine up for so long. Thank God I don’t need the money because if I did I would have never started it lol.
I keep saying to help small blogs to preserve ongoing enshittfication but it’s not getting through.
I am discovering so MANY miles and points credit card sellers on YouTube, OMG!
I love your stuff. I normally use your links when the card I’m looking for is accessible and bank rules permit. Anyway, I just did my first buy me a cup of coffee ever and want to say thanks. At some point you’ll give up but in the meantime you’re kind of an icon that counterbalances the megablogs and I for one appreciate that.
Thank you! Saw this at 4 am today as I was getting ready to put the final touches on the new blog post that I just published! Nice way to wake up in the morning to see someone cares enough to do this. You have no idea how actions like this managed to keep this blog going for so long. If more did it I would not be whining here why this blog just struggles $$$ speaking while charlatans are raking it in. I know I should not compare but…
When this blog is discovered and gets bought by gazillions I would share it all with all seven of you supporters who have been carrying this blog for years.
Check out the new post and enjoy the weekend.