September 5, 2013: Mile Nerd’s Epic Rant, Delta & Korean Air fight, Danang Vietnam, TBB ponders future, and more Buzzzzzz

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!

MVP BLOG POST OF THE DAY

Mile Nerd with his best rant ever! Am I a Hater? No, But You Are I wanted to post this up on top because I think it is required reading. I elaborate in the notorious BLOG BUZZ section below!

TRAVEL

Heels First Travel wrote ” Beware Extra Complications From Multi-Airline Bookings“. Good cautions here about what can happen when you book such trips. I always aim to book on the airline websites  and avoid, if you can, mixing airlines as it makes things so much simpler!

Delta and Korean escalate their fight. By The Cranky Flier. I would love Korean to teach Delta a lesson and leave Sky Team! And don’t you just love the picture below?

The Selfish couple at The Selfish Years (still wonder why in the world they came up with this name!) are back from their one year traveling romp and posted their Top 10 Stays. Beautiful pictures and some of these locations we have all seen in trip reports. What stood out to me was the Intercontinental in Danang, Vietnam for some reason…it had escaped me! Looks like a great bargain with IHG Rewards points too!

MILES/POINTS

Epic post by Travel is Free (is not): The Master Guide to Airline Alliances, Fuel Surcharges and Frequent Flyer Miles  Studying this post newbies are ready to start taking Intermediate courses 🙂

Best Options for buying merchant gift cards. By Frequent Miler. Blogging…at its finest.

If you want to learn how to redeem British Airways Miles on American Airlines flights the post by The Miles Professor is recommended! [My comment did not post, fyi]

All Hotel Promotions valid during September 2013. By Loyalty Traveler.

Decent post by Mommy Points on “Using Miles and Points for Ski and Snowboard Trips in the Western United States” If you are into the white stuff (NOT cocaine!) you should probably read it.

Amex added another category in its Gold Rewards card that earns 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar for Computer Hardware, Software, and Cloud Computing. Well, Mrs. TBB sure has not received this letter. And what is it with “Only select Business Gold Rewards Cards“?

ON MY MIND

After reading Mile Nerd‘s brilliant piece, I need to reevaluate some things. This hobby may be getting a little, just a little, way too obsessive lately you know. My new client wants to get started asap and we are having our first meeting early Saturday morning. I told them to have lots of coffee and they are going to provide lunch (yes I make house calls). So I expect less time focused on TBB, at least until I get them to a good shape which may take some time. I expect to learn more about this blogging world in the blogger conference in St. Louis next month and will need to make some decisions. Most likely posting every other day may be good for me and strive to be even more eclectic.

Believe it or not, you non bloggers really have no idea how time consuming hard work this is!  If I had known last November 9 (TBB start day) what I know now I would NOT have jumped into the ring! I am busting my butt every day to produce a quality blog and entertain/educate/inspire my readers. And I have not made a dime (well, actually I made $45) yet because, well, the reasons are complicated. Mainly, I do not feel right neglecting what my blog does (TBB reviews blogs….lots of them…like 597 of them!) and focus on ways to monetize. Yes I am an idiot. But do not underestimate the personal satisfaction of growing my baby ( I see TBB as my baby now…yes I NEED help!) and meeting so many of you whose words of support really mean a lot to me. I do not want to fold like a cheap suit damn it. I want to influence this community to improve because, let’s face it, the slimy elements are growing like weeds and choking it! Anyway…I am rambling now.

Everything is up in the air, no idea which direction to take. I think the MAIN reason you read me is to get a good summary and review of the prior day’s blog posts ( I try to make it entertaining, some hate me for that and I really don’t care that they just can not take criticism well!) and discover some new places & sites & actually learn something. Maybe you like my up front style and speaking my mind from my “experienced watcher” position of this hobby addiction. Or you just come here for the fireworks in the comments! Or you just can’t stand me (that’s cool too).

I know you are not here primarily for my hopelessly long Trip Reports, that’s for sure! I always thought mixing my other passion (personal finance) into TBB just does not make much sense. But maybe it does. Or going all positive. I mean, I see TBB a bit like Siskel & Ebert critics. It would be hypocritical (and completely boring too) if I just said good job to posts that deserve it (which I am proud to do every day!). Any ideas you have please let me know, express yourself in the comments or by email.

This is good therapy for me, so cathartic!

ODDZ & ENDZ

I found this educational as I have never even heard about most of these described here: 25 of the Most Brutal Methods of Execution From Around the World. Makes hanging or electric chair appear humane and charitable! And I learned many new words. If you do not want to ruin your day or just want to be totally disgusted, click the link at your own risk, you have been warned!

BLOG BUZZ

I just can’t take it anymore on the constant cc carpet bombing that happens in so many blogs!

The Points Guy sells the Thank You card but can’t help pushing the following cards in the same post: Barclay’s Arrival, Chase Sapphire, Chase Freedom, and Capital One Venture card. Say what? The Capital One Venture card too? That is just too much to take, excuse me. What is next, the Carnival card? The Disney card? Or the new one by Huntington Bank or what?  Good to know TPG survived and thrived in Coach in his flights to Cape Town. Brian is one of the nicest and coolest guys you will ever meet. I just don’t like some aspects of the TPG blog. To TBB, it is always about the blogs!

Bloggers loved AMEX for slightly changing the bonus categories in the Gold Rewards card so they will at least have an excuse to push it one more time.

I don’t read One Mile at a Time‘s trip reports anymore. Feels like I have read them before. Must be working for him I guess. I think the blog needs a little refresh perhaps? Can an award booker help me book an award with Janesis? 🙂

Delta Points posted some stuff about some survey that had Cincinnati airport CVG as Number 1.  Yep, that’s all you need to know why anyone should bother with such a survey. He likes grapes from Michigan and says never use Skypesos to rent a car from Budget. Thanks!

Frugal Travel Guy (the blog) with another “Travel Challenge” where the inferior US Air card is pushed, you know, the one with the annual $89 fee (which somehow does not make it into the out of pocket cost!). And it is 30,000 US Air miles after first purchase and not 35,000 (of course it is not clear, who cares as long as the app is approved!). And if applicant does not get approved for the Premier card version,  well who cares? FTG (the blog) still gets paid! At least the FT offer is stated but points to a specific post on FT that has a non functioning first link (newbie gets scared at this point and runs back to the affiliate link?) So, to recap, the non affiliate offer has the $89 annual fee waived & gets 35,000 US Air miles after the first purchase when the affiliate link promoted first has only 30,000 miles after first purchase and NO annual fee waived. There is more but I will stop here.  Sites that do this consistently (include Milevalue in this lot!) are not recommended by TBB. If I am wrong please someone correct me; I have been wrong before! TBB believes in the strongest terms that Readers should ALWAYS come First! I am sure frugal travelers would be better served saving $89 times 2! Nothing to do with capitalism or getting angry or yawning. I wish I had more time to work on a “Top Ten Blogs to Avoid” or something like that. I must admit I get angry sometimes 🙂  Or just say “Readers: We have bills to pay so please help us out by clicking on these links”. Spare us all the cut and paste “challenges”! Ok, who am I kidding? I missed you buddy please come back…please lol.

Deals We Like really likes the Chase credit cards!

TheMrPickes responded to Gary Leff about that Australia/Brazil deal. I spoke my mind about this a few months back. I have the link in yesterday’s post. To avoid these controversies perhaps we should go back to non commercial venues to exchange ideas and help each other, huh? If I am asked to keep something a secret I always keep a secret. End of that, let’s move on.

Mile Nerd’s epic rant post:

I love people who express themselves and the ones who pretend to love and care but are haters..well, they sure are slimy lol. There is a lot of truth in this awesome rant. Maybe I should turn off my comments? I will sure have more time to look into the monetizing aspects lol. Please, take some time to read this, it’s a must read. I think we all need to get a life woohoo!

“I didn’t want to make this into some kind of blog-reviewing website. There is one of those already and he does a great job.” – I get a compliment from Mile Nerd, my life is complete now 🙂

“The description of the MileNerd blog should really read, “Just the most miles in the fewest words possible – plus an occasional rant.” – Beautiful!

“As someone who deals with and observes the people in this group, the truth is, a lot of you really do suck. And some others of you are amazing. I wouldn’t expect the people who suck to understand why they do. Does a crazy, irrational person on the street stop and articulate the reasons they act so crazy? Of course not. Would a child be able to pause their temper tantrum and explain how self-control will come with age? Uh…no. So if you truly understood why you sucked…you wouldn’t suck.” – This passage, right here, is the essence of life. Be amazing. For those of you who suck, there is no hope but please try to suck a little less, thank you! Obviously, if I suck I would have no idea about it, so please remind me in the comments. I use to officiate high school soccer games and always found it amusing when parents yelled at me “You suck”…good times!

“There’s a pretty high level of real world social awkwardness with this group” – Right! I think we are all truly sick people!

“Try to learn how to feel comfortable expressing feelings” – Express them please in the TBB comments.

“You, many of the blog-reading, point-obsessed, mile-earning public. You are the haters. You have so much resentment for blogs that it doesn’t even make sense anymore. Yes, we know a lot of bloggers are sellouts. But you jump on them for posting deals (isn’t that the point of blogs), for not posting deals, and for all of their money-hungry ways. There are so many more important things you should spend your time worrying about than blogs. Is it really worth all that energy? Not so fast, sellout bloggers. If you don’t acknowledge that you are haters too, then you’re more blind than most. When you provide “tips” that aren’t in the best interest of readers, then you are a special breed of hater. You’re a hater who pretends to be acting with love and care. Very slimy.” – This is just pure brilliance! I want to remind my audience that TBB reviews blogs and expresses an honest opinion which should act as constructive criticism…so there! Slimy haters are the lowest of the low lol.

“Some of you aren’t deep enough into this game to know or care about any of this. That’s good. Earn your miles and points, but just be careful of the people you learn from. This game is full of haters and users. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. Still, it’s a beautiful thing to be able to take your loved ones on fancy trips while saving thousands of bucks. Focus on that, not the nonsense and hate. And if you have a problem with someone, be comfortable enough to express your opinion. Too often, people would rather call themselves “polite” than what they really are – repressed, awkward, etc. You are allowed to have all kinds of feelings, not just the “good” ones. Now get out there and express them!” – This is indeed great advice! For all you newbies who got into this hobby and now waste your time reading blogs and bitching how another blogger killed another deal…I have a deal for you, just read TBB and that’s it! And one day you can click on TBB’s affiliate links mega lol.

Thank you Mile Nerd for so eloquently putting every thing in perspective. I need to get my life back me thinks…The End.

Just noticed no travel pics so I picked one of my own trips:

And I leave you with this:

|

|

|

|

|

|

See you tomorrow? 🙂