A shorter TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web, one in each section, such as the current stock market insanity, AI causing institutional collapse, music stars drug abuse go together, the 10 optical illusion destinations, how Google Flights rocks and that’s about it, see you all Friday with the usual much larger blog post.
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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.
This is truly a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.
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BLOG HOUSEKEEPING
Another rare Tuesday post bringing to you just one eclectic read in each blog section. This blog keeps evolving. No guarantee that you will start seeing posts on Tuesday. The Friday mega blog posts should continue…for now.
Between the mega Friday post and this mini Tuesday post, if you only could have one, which would you prefer?
PERSONAL FINANCE
Leave it to Jason Zweig at the Wall Street Journal to write about what is going through the minds of many of us lately: Why This Stock Market Makes So Many of Us Want to Scream.
You can agonize trying to time the market correctly or maybe it is better to have a long term plan and stick to making decisions based on such plan? So many tried to “play” the tariff measures only to have such steep losses shortly after Liberation Day reversed fairly quickly.
Now, markets have erased April’s losses after Trump backtracked on several tariffs and a court decision Wednesday cast doubt over his trade-war plan. That has many people wondering if they should be more fully invested. Their paralyzing dilemma: They aren’t sure when or how to do that. “I don’t have FOMO,” says Michael McCowin, an investor in Madison, Wis. “I have FOGI: fear of getting in.”
The guy quoted above sold all his stocks and went to cash in early 2024. He is 86 years old and used to be the Chief Investment Office of Wisconsin’s pension board! And he recognizes his move is not advisable for most people which is certainly true. Anyway…
A shift like McCowin’s is “not about mitigating risk, it’s about mitigating regret,” says Meir Statman, a finance professor at Santa Clara University who studies the psychology of investing. “The fear of getting back in is the fear of feeling really stupid,” says Statman. If the market goes up before you get back in, “you’ll have to buy stocks back at a higher price and say, ‘God, why did I ever sell?’” If it goes down after you get back in, you’ll kick yourself over that, too.
Some market stats we all should be aware of:
Since the end of World War II, the S&P 500 has lost between 5% and 10% 63 times, and it has dropped between 10% and 20% 25 times, according to Sam Stovall of CFRA, an investment-research firm. It’s gone down at least 20% 14 times; three of those were epic losses of 40% or more. In the worst declines of at least 40%, the downdrafts lasted an average of 23 months, and stocks took an average of 58 months—just under five years—to gain back their losses in full. (These figures don’t include the reinvestment of dividends, which would have shortened the recovery times.)
And of course do not forget:
…market timing is much harder than it seems. As John Montgomery, founder of Bridgeway Capital Management in Houston, points out, getting out of stocks before a crash is only a fraction of what you need to do as a successful market timer. You have to be right about your economic forecast, when it will begin to take hold and when it will end. You also have to be correct about when and how the stock market, interest rates and other variables will respond. “You have at least four opportunities to get it wrong,” says Montgomery, and “if you’re off by only a couple of months, that can destroy any chances of making money.”
Finally, Mr. McCowin could still be proved right, anything is possible in the short term. He obviously does not need the money and perhaps he is trying to preserve the inheritance he will leave behind to his kids and grandkids. If he does need the money or he has no kids/grandkids, he better be right! Because…
SCAMS/CRYPTO/AI/TECH
Sobering deep dive into what is going on in the big picture: The Four Phases of Institutional Collapse in the Age of AI. How democracy, expertise, and institutional memory are eroding during technological change – or @grok is this true?
Wonderful and alarming thoughts on…what happens when we experience massive technological change at the same time that the institutions meant to help manage that change are being dismantled or threatened or ignored?
The author comes up with the four phases of what we are going through…
Trust Erosion
Knowledge Erosion
Capacity Erosion
Algorithmic Substitution
Not going to excerpt more, please read in its entirety if you are interested on the subject. Avoid stupid clickbait shit all over the internet please, focus on more important things and…fight!
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ODDZ & ENDZ
Fascinating article, especially if you are into music: How Common is Drug and Alcohol Abuse Among Music Stars? A Statistical Analysis. With very interesting findings, such as:
…music stars have one of the shortest lifespans of any profession, with an expectancy comparable to boxers, military figures, and race car drivers.
And I was expecting marijuana/LSD/ecstasy use to be much higher (and heroin less):
…rock, punk, and jazz musicians commonly struggle with heroin, country artists frequently grapple with alcohol, and a notably high proportion of funk musicians contend with cocaine abuse.
TRAVEL
Interesting travel link to share with you: 10 Optical Illusion Destinations. You have to see it to believe it—or not.
Yangzhou Zhongshuge, China
Floating Trees, Finland
Magnetic Hill, Australia
Underwater Waterfall, Mauritius
Tunnel of Love, Ukraine
Upside-Down House of Trassenheide, Germany
Oregon Vortex, USA
Rakotzbrücke Devil’s Bridge, Germany
Uyuni Salt Flat, Bolivia
Santa Cruz Mystery Spot, USA
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MILES & POINTS
As I have started putting together two big family trips (Greece and Thailand), my starting point is Google Flights. And it should be yours too. This Google product has improved so much in recent years that it has become indispensable in all things involving travel planning. And here is a great tutorial to learn how to take advantage of its powerful features:
The card below still remains the #1 travel rewards credit card offering the BEST bang for your money. Well, the bank actually pays us to get and keep the card. Yes I have it myself and yes I get compensated if you apply and get approved with my embedded link. Don’t just ignore the paragraph below, take it seriously and go for it. And good luck getting approved, always not a certainty with Capital One bank.
The 75K CAPITAL ONE Venture X card has a minimum spend of $4k in the first three months. If you like simplicity and looking for one (premium) card, I highly recommend this card (and yes, I have it myself!). It has an annual fee of $395 but it comes with an easy $300 statement credit for travel booked on its own travel portal, essentially turning it into a $95 annual fee card. But wait, there is more! On each card anniversary you earn 10,000 points essentially making it FREE! Every dollar of spend earns 2 points and flights booked on the travel portal earn 5 points per dollar. You get access to Capital One and Plaza Premium airport lounges and a Priority Pass Select lounge membership and, this is important, you can add FOUR authorized users FOR FREE who can also have their own Priority Pass Select airline lounge membership and, this is BIG, they can bring in unlimited guests with their FREE Priority Pass card! You can transfer your Capital One points to up to 18 Airline and Hotel Transfer Partners. No foreign transaction fees. Free Hertz President’s Circle rental car top elite status. Cell phone protection and PRIMARY rental car coverage. Awesome seats at baseball stadiums for just 5k points each. And lots more. If you prefer, this is my personal referral link.
MAJOR UPDATE: That amazing free ride accessing all the Capital One and Priority Pass airline lounges is over with the 6/3/2025 announcement finally, it was heavenly while it lasted. Basically, no more free lounge visits other than primary cardholders effective 1/1/2026, please see details HERE.
As of today, I have burned 399,648 miles/points year to date (2,027,816 in 2024) and have 4,672,949 miles/points in the bank.
Remember, you are NOT allowed to ever carry a credit card balance!
Let me leave you with this:
Some of the links are behind a paywall. You can try to read them using Archive.is.
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Feel free to contact me anytime at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com, all feedback is very appreciated.
George
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First!
So, as expected, the Venture X lounge access was nixed, good while it lasted
Used to go with family of 5 for free. Now, PP lounges won’t allow guesting but charge 35 each, and AU with access need to pay 125, so it’d cost me 150+ for a visit, no thanks.
Sigh
Yep, I need to update the post. It is shocking how long this lasted.
This game is losing its edge day by day, cut by cut.
Had an alert with Pointsyeah for a United award to Greece flying Swiss Air in Business…only to go there and click on each route and get the error message that magically the seats disappeared.
I am already too much in the hole with $0 revenue credited in TBB Enterprises…What am I doing here sometimes I wonder 🙂
It is June 2025 and absolutely nothing about the World Cup in the US next year. Me thinks getting tickets will be easy, sad.
WC experience has been going downhill for some time. FIFA’s greed is making tickets unaffordable for regular fans, becoming more and more a rich people/corporate crowd thing. Very hard to get any decent individual game ticket, just packets which cost 1k+. If you throw on top of that the state of affairs between US and Canada/Mexico, it’ll be interesting/sad
I think 2026 is the first WC I miss a game…since 1978.
It will be interesting to see how it goes with all the Trump shit…
Well! A nice surprise twice today! A Tuesday edition of TBB and got word Alaska will be having (not sure exact date) non stop service Seattle to Rome! Yay!
Good stuff here as always but if I had to choose, I will always pick the longer lasting and more packed Friday edition of TBB.
Noted, thanks.
I saw that Alaska to Rome news, great.
Too bad about the Venture X lounge access. I’m lucky that Dulles has a Capital One
lounge which is better than any Priority Pass lounge I’ve been to. And Las Vegas
has just opened another.
Thanks for the optical illusion link! Next time I’m in Santa Cruz I’ll have to visit!
Yeah, I am heartbroken. But looking back we all knew that gravy train was going to end at some point. Not allowing even one guest to primary cardholders stings, ouch. I am losing faith in this game every day. Just saw a YouTube dude glowing about the First/Business class trips he has taken, of course for free after y’all click on his affiliate cc links…and then revealing he has been “in the game” since 2023, phuck meeeeee.
I need to see a shrink. Revenue in the past 18 calendar days in this “venture”: $21.86. I am losing my ass and hours of time closing in on 13 years, it should be enough. Why can’t I just quit??? Ok, don’t go there…
Been thinking…
After Chase implemented “compliance” changes and knocked blog revenue somewhere between 40%-50% down…today came Capital One to nerf the 2nd biggest revenue source of this blog. I never was paid minimum wage here, this was a fun project that took a life of its own and I am spending way too much time on it…and now it is actually costing me actual $$$ on top of all the time. Not seeing me doing this much longer. Yeah, said this way too many times. But some cards were sold here and there along with a few coffees, managed to deduct me some business expenses I would otherwise continue to pay and it was all good as I kept up interacting and becoming friends with so many. Along with some heartfelt emails telling me what I do matters. But I am tired. I need to reinvent myself…
To be continued…
Maybe it is time to become Mile Nerd, posts something on the 1st of each month, kill Mailchimp. And just focus on travel and burning and finally seriously addressing my firm’s succession planning…
The game is not going well not helping the situation lately too…
Hey Buzz,
Thank you sir for another great Tuesday post. I’m with Carl, Friday works the best for me. However if it’s easier for you, any day is great. I understand entirely if it’s your time to walk
away and just want to thank you for extending yourself the last few years, it’s been a great
help for me personally.
The World Cup, like all sports, seems to be run by lots of grifters as well these days. Too much strain on the athletes and ticket prices that are otherworldly. The average family can’t afford tickets to games any longer which is sad. The constant barrage from betting companies doesn’t help either. Only a matter of time until the Knicks, Pistons, Vikings and Tigers have their
very own meme coins…let’s hope not.
I am planning to make the opening home game for Larissa next season, looking forward to it. I have not been to a live sporting event in quite awhile. Pretty sure the last basketball game I saw was the Bad Boys & Chuck Daly or Air Jordan vs the Warriors during their RUN TMC days.
If you have any insight into tickets, please let me know.
That illusions link is fantastic.
Thanks again George and enjoy the rest of your week!
Yeah…been extending myself while revenue hits are getting way too bigly. Couple that with the state of the hobby and its steepening devaluations/restrictions/etc…
Good points on the WC. Not sure about sports teams coming out with their own meme coins…but then again when the Prez just keeps doing so why not?
AEL FC Larissa notes:
Waiting for the season schedule to come out, I think by mid June. I would love to catch a game and would be ecstatic if I can bring familia along. I remember I brought my son to a game when he was very young, not sure he shared his dad’s affection. But he sure enjoyed the ice cream and Coke.
So, things have totally changed as far as attendance of Greek First Division games. Everything is electronic via an app that every Greek uses. No paper tickets. Which means you can not just walk up to a ticket booth. All game tickets are to be finalized online (with QR codes) by midnight of the day before. I have the app but hardly ever use it. I have no idea how fans from abroad will be able to see games this coming year. It is confusing as hell. This is one of the measures to combat stupid hooligan violence. It is working as now it is much easier to identify these assholes with cameras and their location. But it leaves fans from abroad in a pickle. I don’t know man. Season is to start mid to late August I think. Current roster moves show that the team will fight to save relegation. My grand plan to build this blog from scratch and after 10 years accept a multimillion dollar buyout so I can buy the team, I think, it is not working LOL.
Let’s all have a moment of silence for the Capital One Venture X lounge access.
Thursday greetings! Probably won’t help your trip planning but FYI, AA starts direct service from Charlotte to Athens today.