I did not know about Qatar points on Bangkok Airways, thanks. And hell no I am not playing with the JAL website ever again, I am still traumatized by it lol.

Thanks a lot for all the Samui tips, took notes!

Just booked a rental car from Sixt for the duration in Samui.

Chiang Mai and Krabi are on the list but likely next year. I haven’t even been to Pattaya yet. Then again, maybe that is a good thing lol.

Will be in Bangkok for a while and Samui around Thanksgiving.

And wear your helmet 🙂

Apparently you can get creative with JAL as well (Cap1->JAL promo), but JAL’s website is awful. Was really easy to book with Qatar.

As for Samjui: Lamai is the chill spot. Chaweng the party spot, way too busy. Expats live up north in Bophut, but I hate the big busy road there. I got stuck in Lamai for 5 months during COVID and had a $250/mo villa, ahh the good old covid days.

In Lamai: Tropical Toe Knees has some great ribs and brit food, just what your wife wants to eat I’m sure. Crystal Beach is also really great there. Hungry Wolf in Chaweng has an amazing burger. Secret Garden up in Bophut has great ocean beach views and a wonderful breakfast.

Samui is really wonderful but there’s not really much that stands out. Typical Thai same-same. I think the Taxi Mafia is still strong there so I’m not sure if Grab or Bolt are working yet, which makes it hard to get around. The drive around the island would be a fun day-trip either rent a car or hire a driver. Or maybe you’d just run 🙂

If ya head over to the mainland, there’s lots of interesting things. In January I did this totally fun and quite local trip on a floating bamboo raft with Thai Moogatai (hotpot) over near Khao Sok national park. Khao Sok is insanely beautiful, as is the whole area around Krabi. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5zFsP-oFz2c

I’ll be up north riding my motorcycle end of October till Thanksgiving so if you make it up that way let me know!

https://youtu.be/qJhJk_QRPrk

My latest upgrade in the Thessaloniki Hyatt Regency.

Sadly, it is all on Ethiopian Airlines with, please sit down:

KUL-SIN-ADD-LFW-IAD-DTW

On 787-8 Dreamliners…

My initial gut feeling is to avoid…any thoughts?

Rakuten to Bilt:

Blogger who got bought by Bilt marketing team —-> Game changing [LOL]
Me—–>Who cares!

Sorry to hear it turned out like this – that sucks. Good thing is that the Schwab card runs these high bonuses every so often, so maybe best to just wait for that next go around. I have the Platinum card currently, so will wait to cancel that as I’m sure they won’t approve me for the Schwab one while holding that. Sucks they added the lifetime language to that card.

What a waste of my time. I poured on my charm and rep would not budge other than “you can reapply after 7 days”. Told her “Look, I was not approved because of the…we have received multiple applications from you recently…blah blah so not sure reapplying is not going to force the same decision automatically again”. She says I can reapply in 30 days again then LOL.

Anyway, I could not get my app in front of two eyes to take a look at it. All computer algorithm based now I guess.

Moral of the story, do not apply every day! Minimum once a week. Preferable every after 30 days.

I even asked to give up the 125k SUB and she gave me the whole spiel again like outlined above. I may apply next week one more time, will stick with Google incognito. If not, in early November (but cutting in too close to my Thailand departure date which I wanted to avoid).

Keeping the crappy Amex Business Platinum for now I guess…

So, here we go:

@ DML: Yeah, we’ll see where this AI stuff goes. Still feels so weird me being the observer of marathons and not being in them.

@ Sam: That sounds like a cool concert indeed. I am calling Amex today to recon my Schwab Platinum card, maybe I can talk my way through them and get it along with the 125k points. Went from the popups to “you applied for this card too many times”. These banks are not that easy to figure out lately…And with Chase going that once in a lifetime rule has me…looking at paid Business Class tickets and not flinching at the prices I am seeing…Not that I am pulling the trigger yet but this is progress 🙂

@ David: Thanks again for the 5 coffees. Just read an article about the even more high powered attorney she hired for her appeal. I won’t be shocked if she does not spend a single day in prison 🙁

@ Carl: The only time we clean the house is when we invite others…it appears lol.

@ Nick: I will look out for the Roofman movie, sounds very interesting. And I do remember that dude living in a Circuit City store, I think I blogged about it here, certainly BC (Before Covid).

You all have a great week. Material for next Friday post is adding up…

Received an email with link to check my status after “the decision”.

I was expecting an outright denial.

Instead, at first, I had visions of hope seeing “provide requested information”. But after clicking on that I got to the actual decision letter:

————————————————————–
Dear __,

Thank you for applying for Platinum Card® from American Express Exclusively for Charles Schwab.

We value your Membership and appreciate your interest in another American Express® Card.

We regret we are unable to approve your application.

The reason for our decision is we have received multiple applications from you recently and you have reached the maximum number of applications we will accept.

blah blah blah

———————————–

There is a phone number that I will call tomorrow Monday but don’t expect much.

So, moral of the story. Once you apply and get the dreaded popup, go back and lay it off while you increase some spend on Amex branded cards. And try again the next month. And so forth….unless you find that elusive link with no lifetime language and maybe that works, going incognito most likely.

Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Will respond to comments later today.

I assume those ‘pending review’ messages mean the algorithms didn’t knock me out. I usually wait since I can call after a rejection to offer ‘additional information’.