Pandemic Resilience, Citi Double Cash Card, Berlin Airport To Open, Relief Free Money

We always bring you the best Covid-19 coverage, how airlines and hotels continue to extend benefits to keep customers, the Citi Double Cash cash back card is great, the infamous Berlin airport may finally open, we travel to Eiffel Tower, go on safaris, go visit North Korea hotels, give you some resources for free money, how spending has been impacted, the richest people in the world, an amazing article about running faster when you get older, more awesome photography, pay respects to a great American Paul O’ Neill, wonder if Trump can pull another one, how George Foreman became filthy rich selling small grills and I cover the best blog buzz in the quirky miles and points world. Always freeeeeeeee.

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I have lots of awesome links for you for to start yet another quarantine or shelter in place or whatever you want to call this we are all going through…

COVID-19

I could turn my blog into a COVID-19 blog and not miss a beat you know…

This is just brutal: We Are Living in a Failed State.

The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message. [Yeah, it starts out like that and just never lets up. You have been warned, I do not agree with some of it…read the whole thing and be angry and vote your conscience in November, okay?]

And this is how it ends: We’re faced with a choice that the crisis makes inescapably clear. We can stay hunkered down in self-isolation, fearing and shunning one another, letting our common bond wear away to nothing. Or we can use this pause in our normal lives to pay attention to the hospital workers holding up cellphones so their patients can say goodbye to loved ones; the planeload of medical workers flying from Atlanta to help in New York; the aerospace workers in Massachusetts demanding that their factory be converted to ventilator production; the Floridians standing in long lines because they couldn’t get through by phone to the skeletal unemployment office; the residents of Milwaukee braving endless waits, hail, and contagion to vote in an election forced on them by partisan justices. We can learn from these dreadful days that stupidity and injustice are lethal; that, in a democracy, being a citizen is essential work; that the alternative to solidarity is death. After we’ve come out of hiding and taken off our masks, we should not forget what it was like to be alone.

They have figured out a bipartisan way how to reopen the country. It needs a lot of money. It should be led by…a functioning body. And good luck with that: How We Reopen the Country: A Road to Pandemic Resilience. As I was watching the video I could not help but think how far away we are from doing all these things smh.

I think we all realized how it does not really make much sense to depend on another country for so much of…everything! This article lays it all out: The US and China Want a Divorce, but Neither Can Afford One. This excerpt nails it imho.

For now and for years to come, talk of decoupling will far exceed actual decoupling. Not because anyone wants the status quo or the mutual dependency. Washington and Americans well beyond Trump don’t want to depend on China. Brussels doesn’t. Tokyo doesn’t. Xi Jinping doesn’t want the vulnerability to foreign companies or nations. But no one has the money now to force a fundamental change. It may be that this is the turning point, the beginning of the end of a multidecade marriage that has brought great prosperity to China and a wealth of affordable goods to the West. But this divorce is going to take a long, long time, which means that, for now, we are stuck with each other. The sooner that is understood, the sooner we can begin the arduous task of figuring out how to work most constructively with the world that we have, and not live in fantasy of a world we wish we were in.

Are we undercounting the people who have coronavirus in the US? Well, yeah, probably, the question is by how much. A New Statistic Reveals Why America’s COVID-19 Numbers Are Flat. Is the positivity rate really 20%?

This is great and so disturbing at so many levels: How does coronavirus kill? Clinicians trace a ferocious rampage through the body, from brain to toes. You read this and you just wonder out loud how much we still don’t know! Maybe it is time to turn religious?

Speaking of how much we still don’t know…how about another finding: What are ‘COVID toes’? Doctors discover symptom of coronavirus mostly seen in kids. Wow…

Looks like Trump killed another one: A Beloved Bar Owner Was Skeptical About the Virus. Then He Took a Cruise. Such a nice guy and so affected by the mental disease affecting so many of us in this greatly polarized reality we are all living in…

It is possible, of course, that Joe Joyce did not contract the coronavirus on a trip to Spain, where almost 20,000 have died from complications related to it. Although the combination of being on a cruise ship — a proven petri dish for infections — and visiting a country with a full-blown outbreak is hard to ignore. But there was a way he might have avoided the trip, his daughter speculated. “If Trump had gone on TV with a mask on and said, ‘Hey this is serious,’ I don’t think he would have gone.”

I had heard of “cytokine storm” but never knew exactly what it was. But this article explained it all and it is…terrifying! What it feels like to survive COVID-19’s dreaded “cytokine storm”.

Andy the Lazy Traveler makes the case for staying home for now: What’s Wrong With the Reopening of America in the Midst of COVID-19? Denver 1918, That’s What!

I always wondered about that myself… Why Some People Get Sicker Than Others. One of so many mysteries with this virus…or maybe it is us! Sticking with science was great throughout the article but the author could not hold back until the final paragraph where he kind of let it go and in the process hurt the credibility of everything above it, come on!

And then, boom! New York antibody study estimates 13.9% of residents have had the coronavirus, Gov. Cuomo says. That number is shocking! Assuming the tests were not all wrong…Maybe we are way far along in this herd immunity thing? And fatality rates are way lower than we thought? It is like we are all watching a play by play in epidemiology and infectious diseases…wow.

MILES & POINTS

HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: New: The CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum now offers 70k AA miles. There is an offer for the United Explorer card offering 60,000 miles. The IHG Rewards Club card offering 140k points too, highest ever. For a standard workhorse card I recommend the 60k Chase Sapphire Preferred card. For a standard premium card I recommend the 50k Chase Sapphire Reserve card. For a standard 2% cash back card I recommend the Citi Double Cash card. Available with my links. Lets move on!

Another recap: How coronavirus is affecting frequent flyer benefits, travel loyalty points.

Cash back cards are back in vogue. The one I recommend is the Double Cash card by Citibank. You can read more about it but please come back here to apply for it, thanks! Citi Double Cash Card: Earn 2% Cashback, With Option To Transfer Into Miles Via Citi Trifecta; United Business Class To Israel From 42K Points.

Anyone out there who does not have a Rakuten account yet (formerly Ebates)? Well, help is on the way! If you join with my REFERRAL LINK you can get $30 after you spend $30 shopping online through it. And I get $30 too, what a deal! (Deal ends May 1, 2020). Before you do any online shopping you should use an online comparison site, I use Cashback Monitor.

Finally! IHG Rewards Club One Year Member Tier & Free Night Extensions Due to Covid-19. And not only that…IHG InterContinental Royal Ambassador & Kimpton Inner Circle Renewals Through January 2022.

Air Mauritius also entered administration/bankruptcy. You did not care? I don’t care haha.

TRAVEL

The cursed airport is about to open, is this for real? And they sure picked a year to finally open LOL. Berlin’s Infamous BER Airport Receives Green Lights From Inspectors, On Schedule To Open In October 2020.

I must admit I did not know some of them: 12 Eiffel Tower Facts You Probably Didn’t Know.

These guys take you on live safaris that you can watch from your home.

What a sight! Where did the airlines park their airplanes? You can just watch minutes 4.00 to 7.30, wow!

I love the photos: Hotels of North Korea.

You know things are so rough in this industry when…The New York Times Drops Travel Section — For Now. Yikes!

PERSONAL FINANCE

Click it, sit back and watch all the changes, wow! Richest people in the world since 1997.

Stunning infographic: How COVID-19 Consumer Spending is Impacting Industries.

Solid comprehensive list: COVID-19 Loan and Relief Resources for Small Businesses.

ODDZ & ENDZ

I just loved this post about running, the influence in our life by our parents, life and stuff like that: To Run My Best Marathon at Age 44, I Had to Outrun My Past.

Check out some photos from the Sony World Photography Awards.

That was a fun read: How the Game-Changing George Foreman Grill Made History. I knew it was successful but I really had no idea, wow! And no, I never had one.

A few days ago we lost a great man: Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill Dies At 84. I always admired this guy. He was a Republican by the way. Too bad we don’t have many of these guys left to lead.

O’Neill’s approach to leadership involved “leading with values, leading from facts,” his son said, adding that O’Neill “used this values-based approach to everything he did.” And he listened to people with different ideas. “I believe in inclusiveness in policy issues,” O’Neill told Fresh Air in 2004. “I like … the idea of including the smartest people on every issue, no matter what their polarity is, because it’s a way of sharpening your own thinking. And so I’m an includer.”

Can this guy do it again? I hope not but it is his election to win or lose. Donald Trump’s Greatest Escape. God help us!

BLOG BUZZ

We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.

Holy crap The Points Guy? Check out this Flyertalk thread. Based on post #1406, someone writes a post about a “success”, is promised a gift card and still looking for it, SAD! And then post #1408 is hilarious as hell, must read!

Some familiar faces in this film about frequent flyers. Shook my head watching The Points Guy saying how points can change lives, seriously? Hey, anything to get them newbies roped in to sell them credit cards so you can change your own life too. Oh, wait, you can change lives of children with, wait for it, points too phuckingalpha!

Another blog bit the dust: Frequent Flyer Miles 101. Tried to corner the newbie market and then TPG happened…The list of bodies dead blogs are starting to pile up…So many listed in both Milesfeed and Pointsbuzz that are not alive anymore, they should go through their lists and clean them up.

The information will come out. Look, there is no secret that this blogging thing is facing an existential crisis right now with travel that has ceased, ad rates tumbling, phucking Amazon reducing commissions, banks taking away credit card affiliate links, award booking services practically out of business and should I keep going? Whoever is in this to make money and has fixed overhead costs and payroll to meet…it is going to be an uphill struggle. We all hope it is short and everything comes back to normal but…I think we are all starting to realize that this is going to take a while.

The bloggers who do this for fun mostly and no real fixed overhead costs (payroll? lol) will be fine as we will continue to blog, maybe a little less. The ones making this their career, well, good luck and I hope you have a strong enough cash position so you can last. Hey, if things get really low we can all get a job at Amazon lol. Ok, where was I going with this? Oh yes, the info will come out. Check out posts starting with #1197 onwards. Boarding Area is having issues and it should not be surprising, EVERY travel related outfit has issues right now! So, again, help a blogger you want to see keep going before they become another Bezos bitch ok? Actually, it is not all that bad out there. One of my clients got an amazing job offer last week…from a tech company that specializes moving operations to…the cloud!

Stefan, of Rapid Travel Chai, does video interviews using Facebook Live. He recently had Tiffany Funk of One Mile at a Time. It was really good. I have never met her and I was very impressed with her knowledge and very likeable. Where will Ben be without her I wonder. I learned a lot. She confirmed the frenetic work ethic of Ben (50 to 60 blogs posts per week WTF!) and imho I find this so unhealthy. She also confirmed every $$$ is down: ads way down, affiliate credit cards way down, their award booking service pointspros negative (!!!). They also took some shots against TPG where they are posting new “content” every five minutes it appears.

One of these days I will focus on SEO…yeah right. I also found it kind of odd how in these pandemic times we were listening about flat bed seats and how participants were commenting on them seats…it just does not feel right. Personally, having a cottage up north in Michigan in the woods (with kick ass wifi) sounds a lot more appealing these days than flying in a metal tube with asymptomatic virus carriers. I can’t believe it is me who typed the previous sentence, WTF is happening!

Is Milepoint still around? Why?

You know the struggle is real for money for bloggers…when you get this mega ridiculous post to trick them to apply for credit cards, desperate enough or what? The Best Metal Credit Cards 2020 (Durable and Strong) at Johnny Jet.

Those AA security guys are up to it again: The American AAdvantage Account Shutdowns Are Being Grossly Misreported; Are Their Auditors Struggling To Justify Their Existence?

In case you missed it, American Airlines has now moved Morocco from Africa to Europe…for award purposes.

Every time I look back at my post and I am proud. Then the next day I look at my $ haul and it is so demeaning…only an insane person would still do this for so many years. Je suis insane. And really tired…

And I leave you with this…

TBB
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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.