TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
If you like what you see here, please let others know by passing them a link to my blog, thank you!
TRAVEL
Is Traveling to North Korea Ethical? By Wandering Earl (on comped trip). Great questions to ponder. Always fascinating stuff about this country. Unbelievable they have managed to stay in power for so long!
Rapid Travel Chai with a collection of fantastic (ok, I like them all!) videos from his 2nd trip to North Korea. Love the announcers, always sound like their pants are on fire! Every time I read stuff about North Korea I shake my head. Wondering how RTC’s account of his 2nd trip is different from his first and from the one above by Wandering Earl…
This must be a first! “Man Buys Promoted Tweet to Complain About British Airways”
MILES/POINTS
“Hyatt’s IT In Shambles as Reservations Gone For Many“. Per Loyalty Lobby. I made two reservations yesterday and they were nowhere to be found today on the Hyatt website! Yes, I do have the confirmation emails! I called and they are aware of the website issue but, due to the holiday weekend, they have not been able to address (huh?). Other reader on Twitter let me know it DID happen to them and reservations were nowhere to be found! I would check (or “garden” if you prefer) your Hyatt Reservations pronto!
Loyalty Lobby (he breaks most news than any other blogger) wrote ” Swiss First Class Awards Available Only Miles&More Senator & HON Circle Members Starting January 1, 2014 (Lufthansa To Follow?)” Looks like I won’t be experiencing Swiss First Class. I think I will get over it, thank you for your concern!
Travel is Free wrote “The Master Guide to using British Airways Avios – 9 must reads!” – Everything you wanted to know about BA Avios. Really!
This is how to get to Croatia with United Miles. By Mile Adventures.
ON MY MIND
The miles/points blogosphere has become a giant orgy of pushing credit card products! I need to start taking some psychotic drugs to come down because yesterday was just brutal (not quiet matching the Chase Ink card recent mega frenzy actually!). I mean, I felt like being ambushed by the SPG Amex every five minutes. And not only that, all the same freaking credit cards wildly cheered and encouraged by the travel miles/points bloggers financial salespeople to everyone so they can fly “for free” were also there under the most ridiculous pretensions! Clearly, this whole space is getting beyond ridiculous imho. I am a little angry right now, a little.
Having said that, it looks like the couple looking to hire me have not moved on as I had secretly hoped (so I could focus on the TBB project). They had asked whether to call on a couple of current clients and they finally called this weekend. Dang! I wanted to have all my free time to blog myself to oblivion here for you all:-) Anyways, if they come aboard the current blog reviewing pace will need to take a break. But TBB is not going away. I am not folding this baby. TBB may take a little different less time consuming angle on the whole blog reviewing gig (going through well over 1,000 blogs posts a day is just…brutal). #developing
Now if I had a commitment of 30 credit card apps/approvals every month of my affiliate links from you readers I tell this prospective client to go to my friend. Just kidding. Just typed this to see the face of my few favorite fans/haters…Was that a yawn lol?
ODDZ & ENDZ
End.Of.Summer.
New.School.Year
I am pumped. Enough fooling around in the summer, time to get serious!
From last party at our place. Nobody left hungry! So long summer!
BLOG BUZZ
Is it only me or isn’t it the ultimate filler post to have a monthly blog post with links to your top blog posts for the…month? Seriously? And you want ME (well, not me but you get my point) to click on your affiliate links for that amazing post that added so much to my life!
Frugal Travel Guy (the person) mailed in his weekly post to Frugal Travel Guy (the corporate owned blog) promoting his charity website and giving away some United stuff. There is really nothing else to write about to help FTG readers to travel in prices we can all afford?
I don’t care about flying Nannies anymore, done with that, no mas! How about Flying Masseuses instead?
Delta Points Monday Tip – Get Global Entry (links to post on December 5). Of course the post had the AMEX Platinum card link! (yep, this one pays the most!)
CREDIT CARD MADNESS:
Milevalue – Top Ten Credit Card Bonuses That Are About to Disappear [yeah, really!]
One Mile at a Time – Last and final call for the Starwood American Express 30,000 point sign-up bonus [last & final call, the Dos Equis guy is pissed off now he has to wrap it up!]
The Points Guy – The Ins and Outs of Earning Starwood Elite Status With The Amex Platinum and SPG Credit Cards [just in case you missed the prior thirty eight posts about the SPG & Amex Platinum cards – hey, go for both!]
Delta Points – Get 5k Skybonus points for new member again & other Delta promotions for the month [ of course, did you think Delta Points will let the last day go buy without selling the SPG cards, come on! What do the SPG cards have to do with the headline? Beats me! Words do not begin to describe…]
View from the Wing – Last Day for American Express 30,000 Starwood Point Offer [ TBB Prediction: This will not be the last day to get 30k. See you next summer ]
Johnny Jet -NFL Team Credit Cards – It is really entertaining to watch mainstream travel bloggers get a hold of the affiliate credit card gravy train. Now pushing the NFL cards. This is at the end: Full disclosure: This post contains affiliate links but I would recommend this card with or without the referral fee because it’s just that good. As always, thanks for your support! ]
Mommy Points – One Day Left for Limited Time Increased SPG Amex Bonus [ One day left, just one day. Is this card the best thing since sliced bread or what?]
The Points Guy – Reminder: Starwood Preferred Guest Amex 30,000 Point Bonus Ends September 3 [ Because 346 reminders was just not enough!]
Deals We Like – How the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card Annual Fee Pays for Itself – [Part 9 of 11, almost over, hang in there!]
Matthew on Live & Let’s Fly (on Upgdr) – Last Call for 30K Starpoints Bonus from Starwood American Express Card [Just like at a cheap bar by an alley downtown…]
CENSORING/FEEDBACK/BULLIES/PERSONAL ATTACKS ETC & OTHER STUFF FROM THE RECENT SARAH STEEGAR DEBACLE:
Brian Cohen at the Gate wrote a fantastic piece on the recent controversy about Sarah Steegar. You can read more about what happened in the two links. But I want to especially point out Brian’s views on the whole Feedback thing (and, for the record, I fully agree with!):
If you happen to be a “blogger”, do not sweat the small stuff. Develop that thick skin. No matter how well you write or how valuable or useful is the content you post, you will always have a “heckler” who is determined to cut you down…
…
Feedback is a gift. If someone is willing to use their valuable time and effort to give you feedback, accept it and use it to further improve what you do — even if the feedback is little more than a personal attack…
…as I would rather have negative feedback than no feedback at all. Go ahead — call me anything you want. Personally attack me, if you feel the need. I may not enjoy it — but I can certainly take it and I will not censor it or delete it. At least I know someone is reading what I write…
…but I will certainly be more likely to respond to genuine feedback with suggestions for improvement over personal attacks any day of the week — and if you are hoping for me to launch a personal attack in response, save your typing fingers, as it ain’t gonna happen.
Keep your spirits high, Sarah and Gerry. Do not take those personal attacks — well — personally. Continue to strive to improve the content that you post…
TBB: So, to all the bloggers I have constructively criticized here, you are very welcome. You know someone cares enough!
Have a great week everyone!
Wall
P.S. Thanks!
First first first
I think you are doing this to mess with some people. It’s ok with me;-)
Get a life life life
Well, *I* missed you!
My first time still up when you post!
New school year tomorrow. Daughter is freaking out about this whole locker thing in 6th grade. And must wake up at 6am to have her whole hour in the shower to get ready.
Big changes looming in the household…
My kids’ fabulous fifth grade teacher warned us that the locker thing is the absolute bigger fear for kids entering middle school. Hard for us adults to get our brains around it but that was what she said. Good luck to both your kiddos. I always found September to be the harder months as all three of mine started school each Sept. – two kids and a husband! You will survive.
Daughter missed orientation (which included locker training) because she was in Paris. So I took her to school and let her play with the lockers for almost 40 minutes. I think she got over her fear 🙂
it is amusing to me who lives in a place without middle school, ahahah!
Dawg tried to be first. . Now I have to go read the post!
Ok 🙂
At least my spg Amex post is unique :). I was able to churn the Amex spg.
Aha, don’t let me go back and edit the post:-) Been doing it every year, rotate personal and business
It’s abouth time they increase the sign up bonus to keep pace with point inflation. The devalued the program earlier this year. =this is not the best offer ever as some bloggers claimed. Inflation is a b!tch. Sorry don’t want to go all Austrian here
>>>>>>>Sorry don’t want to go all Austrian here
Lol, loved this line!
Lol…no offense intended, but rookies make me laugh sometimes.
Can you elaborate?
Sometimes reading some of your reader’s questions I am in awe of them! You have a wide range of readers and some are newbiest of them all. I think doing an exclusive seminar for them (kind of like a 101 course) will go very far for your business.
Too bad you did not do the interview questions. I think my readers will be educated to learn more about you. I understand.
Forgot to add you to the list above…again! 😉
Lists of previous months posts are not filler! If you try it yourself in WordPress, you’ll find its a massive pain because you need to recreate the link and text manually for each one.
My excuse is that us Europeans get 4-6 weeks vacation time so my readers genuiney have been out of it for much of August!
By ‘not filler’ I meant ‘not easy filler’ – writing a normal post would have been far quicker
I can empathize about what a pain is testing links!
I think it is fine for European for the month of August. We all know nobody is working there lol.
So all those bloggers now covering the demise of Swiss 1st class availability –
Are they going to remind us that 2 months ago, they were endlessly shoving “YOU GOTTA HAVE IT!!!!” Lufthansa Mastercards down their readers throats in large part because of availability to said 1st class?
I expect them to throw this out and then use it as an excuse to push the SGP Amex again, lol
Good thing Wandering Earl isn’t a practicing lawyer. Those reasons for visiting North Korea are full of holes. Here’s an easy one: NK is a totalitarian state; your tourist dollars go straight to the state. Staying at a commercial hotel in Shanghai isn’t the same.
Please excuse my verbosity below.
I think the difference between Rick and you comes down to seeing different parts of the elephant that is this hobby’s blogopshere. When looking at the blogs, you and I see some sharks out to profit off organizing publicly-available information, often with undisclosed hazards for users and a lack of transparency. Rick sees a growing community of people sharing information to the mutual benefit of all, with some compensated more than others for their efforts to organize and present the various parts.
In truth we’re both right, but that’s because the blogs/community are organized into tiers or subcategories.
At the top tier are the established brands, all the front-page BA bloggers, TPG, MMS, FTG (the blog), and perhaps Dan. At the second tier are the comers and strivers: the top F2B bloggers, Milevalue, Travel Summary, and others that are well-known but aren’t sponsors of seminars. At the next tier are the niche or more familiar to insiders than to outsiders. And at the bottom tier are newbies starting blogs, because they just MUST share these “secrets” with more than their friends and family (because the last two groups are saturated and probably have stopped listening).
I think perhaps there might be different standards for each of the groups.
The top group are businesses, full stop, and worthy of Consumer Reports-type criticism when they put forward subpar product. They’re not altruists or hobbyists, and their product is often stale because we’re jaded, experienced insiders. (Newbies still find it useful, because they just stumbled across these opportunities and face a learning curve.) In fact, some of them are outright awful, and barring significant change, I think it’s fair to recommend against patronizing or reading them. Friends don’t let friends read TPG.
The bottom groups should be pressed for original takes, perspectives, and insights. I still think unique or niche blogs have a future. The world doesn’t need another MMS. However, at the lowest levels authors are still hobbyists, and it’s unfair to automatically assume that they’re only looking for affiliate links and cashing in. That’s not a fair shot.
I think this blog should (and does) do a good job in highlighting unique takes and perspectives. Positive feedback along those lines helps the hobby in general, and counterbalances the endless laments over credit-card pushing. One can be exasperated over how stale blog posts are without being angry. I obviously believe there’s space for criticism, both positive and negative, and I would stop reading this blog if the criticism was only negative. I also think the community at large would stop listening to this blog and its commentators if TBB did nothing but naming and shaming, as some comments have requested.
For the above reason, I read the FT External Resources forum only rarely. The forum seems to be dominated by kokonutz slamming BA blogs and top names out of no agenda more sophisticated than spite. I really can’t figure out what his/her take is beyond “X sucks. Doesn’t X suck?” I feel this attitude lowers what might be a productive discussion, because there are some smart people posting there from time to time.
In sum, the blogs/hobby comprises both sharks (memorably, from MileNerd, “shrewd businessmen disguised as dorks”) and hobbyists. The community is heterogeneous and not homogeneous. I think Rick is right when pointing out that not all should be torn down or scolded. However, to the extent that the community comprises functioning businesses, criticism of the product is valid. Saying that these businesses/bloggers should escape criticism because they “are just trying to help” is bullsh-t.
Switching topics:
I think blogs are made worse because the science of marketing is poor.
Obviously Brian, Daraius, and others have figured out SEO optimization. Newbies searching for “travel using miles” and other naive search terms stumble upon them.
So why the repetition of the card offers? Did putting up an SPG Amex 30K link on August 30th persuade those who were on the fence for the previous twelve posts on the same subject? Was the post on August 31st decisive? What about Sept. 1st? Presumably (I hope), newbies who are only are their first or second visit to the blog aren’t looking to open new credit cards soonsoonsoon! without thinking the hobby and process through first. Do authors really believe that some people will be persuaded to get the SPG card only after they read part 7 of a 9-part series?
I think credit card sales pitches go up frequently because of the assumption that more volume will lead to more buyers. I think that assumption is faulty, or at least unsupported, especially on the internet. Everything else online is a click away. On the radio, I hear constant pitches for local car dealers. When I go shopping, I’m going to remember which are the local Honda and Ford dealerships with selections. But when online, I have Google to guide me. There are dedicated pages at each blog that list the best deals, not to mention the sidebar ads. Constant repetition is neither persuasive or helpful. At worst, it’s insulting your audience to assume that they can’t make decisions without constantly offering them options. That’s why FM can still get affiliate link clicks without active marketing: leaving the cards in the background is a signal to your readers that you think they’re smart enough to find deals and optimize on their own.
I do understand, of course, that the banks are at the other end yanking the chain for more marketing. That might be a significant part of the explanation.
My ideas on this are still half-formed, and I’d appreciate it if anyone has insight into the scholarship and literature on online advertising efficacy. Or on the banks’ or affiliate companies’ pressure for repetition.
“Presumably (I hope), newbies who are only are their first or second visit to the blog aren’t looking to open new credit cards soonsoonsoon! without thinking the hobby and process through first.”
The above statement kind of answer a big chunk of the rest of your post – why they have 15 part series
Because most newbies AREN’T coming to the blogs looking to open new credit cards “soonsoonsoon”, bloggers will shove the card down their throat endlessly with “YOU GOTTA HAVE IT” language
And the blogger probably won’t have any disclosure of the risks of what they’re doing or proivde semi-cautious language. The blogger won’t have any disclosure about how 95% of the things they’re writing on SPG trying to pass off as an expert are actually taken straight from SPG.com. The blogger won’t have a ton of disclosure about how it’s just 5000 points more than the offer they can get year round
It’s not by accident – the true newbie is the easiest group to target and takes the least amount of original content to do so with. That’s why the travel blogosphere is so oversaturated with blogs “catering” to newbies – they’re not really catering so much as it is targeting. Because you’re not going to convince more advanced FF’ers to get your CC just because you copied somethign from SPG.com
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>It’s not by accident – the true newbie is the easiest group to target and takes the least amount of original content to do so with. That’s why the travel blogosphere is so oversaturated with blogs “catering” to newbies – they’re not really catering so much as it is targeting.
I agree 100%. The newbie market is VAST and aggressive selling (w/ less transparency of disclosures, etc.) WORKS. It’s a freaking goldmine out there. And this is the reason for the existence of these huge gatherings, feeds the pipeline. Unless you fall for the “all done for charity” line.
Maybe I targeted the wrong reader group from Day One lol.
Wow, harvson3, amazing comment! Thanks for taking the time and yes this will make the “Weekly Gems from the Comments” post!
I agree on everything except one thing:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>So why the repetition of the card offers?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>I think credit card sales pitches go up frequently because of the assumption that more volume will lead to more buyers
Being more aggressive, repeating the card offers day in and day out, leads to higher clicks—–>higher income. Obviously, we do not have transparent numbers to back this up but I assure you that it IS true! Humans procrastinate in general so sometimes it takes several reminders. And never underestimate the power of SEO that brings total newbies in the next “must get 30k spg amex card now!” post.
More pitching ( I prefer it to the word pimping, for the record) leads to higher sales volumes.
Why FM does not do it? I think it has to do with several reasons: 1) obviously his way has been working enough 2) personal style & ethics, 3) less greed (it is NOT about maximizing profits). But, as Dan at DD said, FM is an outlier. The rest must aggressively pitch to keep them.
New client signed up today. So TBB will change. Must feed family and get those college funds up to par in case kids want to go to a “good school”. Enough fun for 10 months you guys 🙂
FTG and DP are throwing a party right now lol.
“Friends don’t let friends read TPG.”
I reckon TPG is on course to do $1m of revenue / year. This is based on his stated readership numbers, extrapolating the card aps that my blog does (most of which do NOT pay me, but I still list all the UK cards) – and this is without grossing up to reflect his constant pushing vs the lack of pushing I do.
Got to give Brian credit for that.
In terms of commercial success TPG is killing it, that’s for sure!
I see today a “Top 25 cards with lowest minimum spend”. I am just amazed the slicing and dicing of the same cards a site can do!
Way too much selling for me, turns me off, way off.
harvson3: I love your comments and believe you to be on the right track. I think both of us have valid points but that doesn’t mean you tear down the whole blogging industry with generalizations.
If you want the crux of the problem here is my take:
Those that read more than two or three blogs in a day are ADDICTED to the hobby. Addiction is a very bad thing. Having 30 blogs in the same homepage of Boarding Area is BAD when they have so many general interest CC pimping blogs. How many of you read the NY Times Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, LA Times and San Fran chronicle the same day along with USA Today?
That is a newspaper ADDICT. Those that are complaining are causing their own problem with over saturation. I am guilty as well, but getting better at it.
I think it is your responsibility as a reader to chose three or four blogs at most and that is it. Done Period end of story. Pick your favorites. YOUR favorites and read those ONLY. You miss a deal or two because you picked the wrong blogs, you will reevaluate your reading list, but stop whining about hundreds of blogs. Stop acting in an addictive manner. There is not enough info to go around to all the blogs we have.
And you are also correct re: tiers of blogs. Some are commercial,. Some are niche and they will cover the news differently. Pick the ones you like and if they over pimp you. Take them off your list and replace with one that doesn’t pimp as much. Whining will not solve this problem. Personal accountability will.
“There is not enough info to go around to all the blogs we have.”
Flat out incorrect
The reason everyone (especially your former blog) regurgitates canned and oft-repeated info is because they want the affiliate $$$, NOT because there aren’t enough info to go around.
Here I’ll help you out – here’s some topics that either don’t get covered or get grossly undercovered. Feel free to you or any bloggers who are struggling to find original info to cover any of these:
1) AA credit cards – rarely ever gets covered in the blogosphere except when making the obligatory mention in top-10 linkfests despite being one of the 3-4 best cards out there
2) Hyatt Visa – the whoring of it came to a halt when it stopped paying affiliate commission. Rarely ever see it outside of posts which will contain a lot of other links
3) Fairmont Card – regular readers of most blogs can overheard be saying “huh, what’s a Fairmont?”
4) PC Visa – Sign up bonus that can get 2 free nights at many Intercontinentals. Don’t let the readers know that!
5) Fidelity Card – remember those times that the bloggers reminded their readers that for 99% of them, Fidelity is a better cash back card than the Barclays arrival?
6) Any hotel program besides SPG (because of the SPG Amex), Hyatt (because of UR points), Hilton (because of the Hilton reserve) and now Carlson (because it recently started paying affiliate $$$). Did you know there are these programs out there called Choice Privileges, Priority Club, Wyndham and Marriott? Neither did I
7) LAN Airlines – a zillion mentions of British Airways, no mentions of LAN even though they have a similar award chart with 0 fuel surcharges
8) Family travel – there used to be a few family travel blogs that had words like “mommy” or “family” in the title. But they’ve since become your typical run of the mill CC pimping blog who once in a rare while might talk family (usually if UR points are in some way connected to it)
9) Car Rental programs – they don’t have affiliate cards. tough luck readers
10) Airlines that don’t pay affiliate credit or have 1st class suites – I know, crazy huh…. talking about…. yuck… Jetblue. How degrading
There you go. Some topics to discuss next time you feel forced to pimp UR links, but only because you have nothing else to talk about (and not because you’re trying to milk all your readers for affiliate $$$)
no more mention of lan because the spg transfer ratio devalued. of course which i wrote about.
Steve:
That was a beautiful gem man, wow! I am in awe!
@Jeff – as someone who read the blogs pre and post the LAN devaluation, trust me – that wasn’t the reason. They didn’t cover it before then either.
@TBB – that was just a list off the top of my head
Some other ones I thought of since – OTA’s, Hotel Reviews at places other than the Park Hyatt Tokyo, finding award space (including when there’s not an opportunity to pimp the crappy US Air card MileValue), airline news
Unfortunately, these topics don’t often pay the people who post about them. Which is why for the most part LoyaltyTraveler and Wandering Aramean are the only ones who give them more than token mentions
Steve, why not start your own blog? You can complain about it all you want but you are not going to change what others write.
You want to share that content on those topics for he good of the space, you are now challenged to do so.
Cool story bro
Do you always move the goalposts when you get called out on blatant lies?
Ingy: “There’s not enough info to go around. That’s why there’s so much repeating”
Steve: “Actually that’s false. here’s 10 thinigs off the top of my head that get either no coverage or far less coverage than it deserves”
Ingy: “[insert complete non-sequitur because he has nothing]”
I am addicted, no doubt about that!
I used to read all these papers, I now read them on my phone lol. I miss newspapers. I still get the Sunday NYT once in a while. And of course the WSJ 😉
>>>>>>I think it is your responsibility as a reader to chose three or four blogs at most and that is it. Done Period end of story.
I agree! And make TBB one of them and you are totally covered. Maybe you may laugh too. Laughing is healthy. Laughing at yourself is fantastic, you should try it sometimes.
I do not think Steve is angry by the way.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment as always.
I admire the way Harson writes and thinks. Wish i had his talent and brain.
FTG has a STAFF? A Staff to turn out nothing worthwhile to read. Turn the site over to Drew M. and send the others out on a coffee run and errands. That would be my idea to turn that thing around.
Speaking of turning around a business, I’m hooked on that show THE PROFIT on CNBC. Anyone else?
MMS is about as cutting edge and informative as junk mail. Why did you let this happen, D?
I miss the comments from Milesforfamily, I think she’s boycotting TBB. Maybe my next comment will get her back.
If you are looking to see the worst tattoos in the world, come to Portland, Oregon. We are the Bad Tattoo Capital. I cannot understand why an attractive woman would desecrate her body with tattoos yet most do. More importantly why would a young obese unattractive (ok, ugly, no sense in getting politically correct now) girl, get cheap bad looking tattoos? Save our money, they ain’t gonna make you look slim or hot…. Editors note, full disclosure, Ramsey is not male underwear model material himself.
That Saint Louis conference you are going to next week Buzz, has Anthony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Noob Traveler and Colin Powell as speakers. How we they able to land Noob Traveler?
Yes, FTG (the blog) does have staff! Has had staff for a while!
Drew M. is a machine.
I think D at MMS is traveling and content has suffered badly lately.
Milesforfamily is boycotting blogs with lots of drama because she does not need it she said.
I never understand the tattoo thing either.
My conference in St Louis is in mid October. No Ziglar, no Robbins, thank God! But Jean Chatzky will be there 🙂 NO idea how Noob Traveler got that gig but he is doing it right…in targeting the newbie market. I plan to ask him in Q&A “How do you make money from your site? How much money do you make for each AMEX Platinum card from your site?”. It should be fun 🙂
Ramsey buddy, this new client signed up today! There was a TV show some time ago or a movie (Pulp Fiction?) that there was a guy cleaning up bloody crime scenes. His nickname was “The Cleaner”. Call me the Cleaner with this case, incredibly complex mess to correct!
TBB will need to be adjusted. No idea how yet.
#developing
Just wanted to let you know that your buddy @milevalue was pimping the SPG card today and I asked him what happened to his blog. I wrote that it used to be good and now he was a cc whore. For some reason he edited his comments and removed it. Thin skin.
Buddy? Don’t think so. Censoring in that blog has been going for a while. Not sure if it is done proudly or not;-)
So pathetic – FTG (the has-been blog, not the mosquito infested nonagenarian) chose Ink Plus as the #1 card
Why did they choose it as the number 1 card? Because you don’t have to pay it off in full every month like Ink Bold
So basically it’s the best because you don’t have to pay back in a full on a credit card that you should never in a million years put a single dollar on if you won’t pay it back in full
In related news, FTG favors jetski’s over Toyota Camry’s for transatlantic travel, because you can’t cross the Atlantic Ocean in a Camry
I thought it was going to be the Platinum Amex but I was informed that one was picked #10 or something. I was hoping for a surprise pick like the Arrival card because, you know, maybe it would fit well with some frugal readers. Not shocked it was the Ink Plus and Ink Bold #1 and #2.
Funny how frugal travelers all have businesses these days…
The practice of not knowing what monetary benefit will be paid to the cc provider is just plain wrong imho. But regulators let them get away with it…It is sad anti consumer environment. Just lighting the fire here to elicit pro capitalism comments lol.
Multiple good points made above, with some errors. Will reply when I have some time but probably not soon.
“More importantly why would a young obese unattractive (ok, ugly, no sense in getting politically correct now) girl, get cheap bad looking tattoos? Save our money, they ain’t gonna make you look slim or hot…. Editors note, full disclosure, Ramsey is not male underwear model material himself.”
Maybe a woman who wants a tattoo gets a tattoo to please herself and doesn’t give a crap what you think…same as men have done for generations without pondering whether doing so will make them look slim or hot. Oink.
I personally do not think tattoos are attractive in both men and women. TBB is open to express opinions and thank you for voicing yours!
LX F availability has been a “needle in the haystack” type of experience. Very Very rare so the fact that they will make it policy will not shock many and will affect virtually no one. LH will likely reduce F awards simply by reducing F cabins by about 30% in their long haul fleet in the coming years. The ‘mega-order’ that is due any day for new aircraft will provide an insight into LH’s thoughts on 3-class cabins going forward. Expect less F.
Thanks, you are the authority on Lufthansa! Certainly sensing this lately more and more ” Expect less F”