We have come to realize that the Points community is contracting, visit Northern Greece, get upgraded at the Crane Hotel, realize our food habits suck & so much more you will tell your mother and/or mother in law all about this blog #yes
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order!
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Banks Clamp Down on Award Credit Cards as Points Community Contracts. Read it and weep. Lets see some bloggers contract tooooooo! I have seen some posts reeking of absolute desperation recently so I hope we are not too far behind from seeing the first casualties. Hope it is not me first, darn tax season!
20 Things To Know Before You Go: Northern Greece. This area definitely gets no play anywhere near Athens and the islands in the Aegean Sea.
Another set of 11 most inspiring travel photos at Matador Network. We like to inspire around here and these always fit the bill! #1 is my favorite 🙂
Luxury suites in a hotel in a crane! Jacuzzi and bungee jumping, wow! Only $484 per night but hey if you do not want to pay you can get some cards with my links #smooth #anyone?
On Investment Charlatans. Your personal finance fix of the day. You know I despise financial product salesmen charlatans, watch your wallet! You are welcome.
Well, things are so slow so here is another great personal finance blog post. Bills Are Coming Due.
Incredible Fireball Cloud Over Portugal’s Madeira Island. #mindblown
What Americans Used To Eat. Fantastic piece about the evolution of food in this country. Not good.
As I said, things are so slow I am now resigned to post pictures of animals kissing. Cuteness overload alert!
MILES BUZZ
Loyalty Lobby whines about a pet peeve of mine: The Freddies Awards spam has begun. “Usually, these awards are so sliced/diced that everyone wins something and the organizers are usually the happiest because they use these events to drive business for them (or email list for spamming purposes in case of Milepoint/Insideflyer or whatever they are called this week).” and “Whenever someone is running these beauty contest you have to dig deeper to find out why. There is always a business case for the organizers in terms of consulting contracts or growing their spam email list in case of Randy et al.”
Breaking News: The TED Talk by The Points Guy will be titled: “Did you know your travel rewards cards can do this?”
If the buzz that Simon Mall gift cards are treated as cash advances is true, it IS time for basket weaving or Tai Chi. Or drone racing for my new hobby!
I play soccer every Monday night with my team, appropriately named “Gasping For Air”. We won our 7th game in a row and the title. Third time ever in my 40’s, what an amazing feeling this is #winning Then when I check the dough from TBBing I lose that awesome feeling 🙂
And I leave you with this…
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The game’s about up, isn’t it Buzz?
I’m heading back to bed for a long snooze.
Not looking good mate…
Waiting for some worthy positive developments…
waiting…
Answer to TPG’s question – “Yes, I knew they could make YOU a lot of money.”
Still can’t get over that he will be presenting on miles and points at TED….waiting for full disclosures to finally happen….cough
Did you see your buddy Yanis presented at TED – “Capitalism will eat democracy”
My buddy? Can’t stand that mfer! Biggest narcissist psychotic buffoon with the worst record as Finance Minister in history. Amazing anyone listens to him, just amazing.
Bronze! Woot Woot… Gak I hate Freddie spam!
Marriott spam is the finest….they win every year…talk about awards my fat Greek behind!
ROI must be terrible for the points dude recently. $30K for residence, TV, TEd etc,
but zero views and no interest as it seems. Is he gonna get fired by bankrate soon?
I wish I had metrics…
All I can say, judging from what I see, he is not hurting that much…
Why don’t you ever rip that friend of yours Angelina? She has been on a pumping tear the past few days, jeeeesus. Inferior Amex link pumping galore. Guess she never heard of the Benz or Ameriprise version. I think she belongs in the Ignore Blog list dude!
Everything is drying up all over and going way underground.
Does anyone know what ever happened to Marathon Man?
TPG giving a TED Talk? How low has TED fallen!
Thanks for your blog, it is always a fun read.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment…
It hurts seeing Angelina doing that… Diapers for two kids must be really expensive. This is some Titan level pumping!
I should do a poll: “What hobby will you migrate to next?”.
I have not seen or heard from MM in a long time, anyone?
Thanks for the kinds words.
MM is still around. I think once we realized the damage that public discussions and talking about deals was doing we decided to stop talking about it openly. Also once we realized that asking others/explaining to others what damage they were causing didnt work either we stopped that convo as well (fully aware that bloggers interests lie in direct contrast to MSers interests) FM MMS Brangelina and others are not your friends and arent helping you at all by making deals public they are only enriching themselves at our expense.
Do you guys still have a website or are you totally incommunicado?
Once we realized there was no changing hearts and minds the thought was it was better to go dark. King George is really the only site we still check semi regularly.
Thanks for the update Mileage Update, it rhymes 🙂
Say hello to him and I so agree with this: “bloggers interests lie in direct contrast to MSers interests”.
This hobby thrives in the holes…I mean, loopholes away from the lights of publicity, Nightlines and TEDTalks 🙂
MM should have never given the talk at Chicago Seminars but I forgive him, we all make mistakes lol.
Hope all is well, best wishes!
Congrats on getting you title and 3rd one! With coach Riley’s permission you may even use his trademark rights to Three-peat!
Side note on TPG, I was browsing T&Cs of Barclay’s Luxury Gold card. I noticed their marketing collateral relies on TPG.com review and comparison of the card to Amex Platinum. Just a gentle reminder, TPG site and trademark are owned by Bankrate.com, so Brian is doing all of this as an employee? Food for thought.
Cheers,
PedroNY
Heh.
@PedroNY: I owe you an email reply, I will get to it. See how I omitted mentioning a time/date? #clever
Thanks for the congrats. I remember the second one years ago. 43 secs left, opponent was going to win it with a tie. 1-1 until my shot from near the center court line, through traffic and bang in the right corner. Could not help but go to their fans (wives and daughters overly supportive of their husbands/fathers) and gesturing to them to STFU 🙂 It was like the Lions beating the Packers in a playoff game! The glorious memories! Still in cloud 94!
Very interesting find on the Barclay card and TPG. No idea what to make of it. That site is so full of non-transparency I think it is sickening.
@ harvson3: Nice find…How would anyone trust to verify anything over by tpg.com is beyond me. And that’s how the online financial products marketplace works I guess. I spend enough time on this blog and made too many enemies so I am going a little bit softer on naming names. I save it for Twitter when I see their posts in a list I have 😉
Um, just to be clear, the Lions have never beaten the Packers in a playoff game!
I for one would not be opposed to a bit of specific naming & shaming / pointing & laughing on this matter.
/in a grumpy mood.
Me too. Panem et circenses.
See reply above 🙂
Who is Grant Martin (Skift article)? Looked pretty amateurish, almost as if it had been written by the blogs interviewed/cited. Maybe it was written by Travel with Grant?
Grant Martin I think is a freelancer. He writes on things related to points and travel. He interviewed me once for an article about redemptions.
Article was pretty short I thought. Probably meant as a short plug in a slow day and not a full featured article…No idea. But the message came through…
I would not mind seeing some of these a-holes (I know you don’t agree with the name-calling) losing their links.
At the same time, I would not mind seeing some lazy newbies going way over their heads signing up for cards that require 10k spent in 3 months without a plan crashing and burning. I wouldn’t mind seeing the idiots who flash their gebit cards at WM crashing and burning either.
This hobby (for a lack of better term) is heading straight to the wall. As MileageUpdate said, it’s a zero sum game and the bloggers enrich themselves at our expense. You can already see that some of them have gone way past being a sellout in order to get more affiliate dough.
So much anger, why are you so upset? Do you really want someone to get into $10k hole due to CC sign ups with no way out? Why would you eish that on someone? I am at a loss about rationale here.
Maybe so outdoor activity or organized sport or some road biking will get your positive vibe back…if you got any.
Cheer up,
PedroNY
Let me return the comment. If noobs apply for a crappy Amex business card for a lower sign up bonus using Lucky’s link without a plan and without doing any homework, then they deserve what’s coming to them.
Most of them are too lazy to do their homework and think that the bloggers are “helping” them. How can one completely fail to see the obvious conflict of interest? All the bloggers care about is selling. They don’t care whether award space is terrible (or tough to score) or that the avenues to meet the spending requirements are all being shut down…
Just watch the next credit card post by a titan. Everytime a commenter call them out on being a shill, not only the commenter is a minority but all the stupid fanboys are quick to call the commenter “hater” or “troll”
So you are just venting? That’s what I am trying to get at… why are YOU so upset? Just don’t visit their blogs… have a gin & tonic if you want, go out for a swim, churn a card… LOL.
Happy place,
PedroNY
The whole hobby depends on banks taking advantage of people who go for these cards and then, you know, stuff happens and get behind who then proceed to pay interest up to the wazoo for many many years. This is what allows more responsible hobbyists to “play”.
I have no doubt that many who discover the heavily marketed Titan blogs fall into this category. Many also do not and they can enjoy the fruits of this fun hobby. Of course you will never hear from the first category, the pain is just too deep and real. But the selling that just goes on and the amount of it is just effing offensive. We all do not want to be sold damnit! Everyone tries to sell us every day (looking at u Comcast dude! etc). Anyways, they are in the business of online marketing credit cards. And no they do not understand they are being sold, I mean, has TPG ever come out to say to his readers to Bankrate yet?
And yes somewhere right now there is yet another credit card post done by staff working at a Titan blog. It just never stops!
Please no need to call names, Titans would be fine 🙂
Throwing out a positive here on a grumpy day.
Applied for a long overdue IHG card for wife through the TBB link and did a little business spending through the Amazon link. Slush fund to treat the interns!
Thanks a lot. I have not kept up with the IHG card as we kept ours. I am not sure if you can get the 80k points. If you only got 60k send Chase a SM message and refer to the 80k, they usually give it to you. If you are ever short 20k IHG let me know. I don’t feel good when readers go for credit cards with my links that may not be the best offers (not in my control). I told that intern to go through them and prepare the comment like BestOffersPatrol used to do.
No sweat…couldn’t find 80k anywhere – so settled on 60k. Wanted to lock in before April with possible new Chase rules. The only real card I think is a absolute win for the annual fee so it’s a long-term (until devalued) play.
According to the FT thread, if you call the 800 application number you can get the 80k bonus by applying over the phone.
I think this is exciting news. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/us-cuba-sign-deal-commercial-flights-36973163
Screw that, TPG and MMS made it there already.
Hope I beat them to Iran before the floodgates open there!
Iran will definitely be cool.
never going to see Iran open the way Cuba is about to, good time to visit Iran and can’ wait to hear about it.
Hello, busy lately.
Who exactly is MM, I mean it is a blogger right ? Million Mile something?
Anyway, I told you I had a long weekend in Cabo right? Stayed at a little bnb for $55/nite, it was decent and the hospitality was great. Hurt myself a little jumping off a waterfall, maybe 40 feet high, (it gets taller every time I tell it).
Great discussion today.
MM = Marathon Man