TBB Mission: To Entertain, Educate and Inspire. Aim to at least do one well!
This blog has been a labor of love so far. If you like what you see here, please let others know by passing them a link to my blog, thank you! Enjoy reading it and have a super nice day!
At a blogger conference with crazy schedule and horrible wifi with my new laptop, so I am running a day or two behind. I aim to catch up. I apologize for being late. Doing my best. I know this cost me some conversions lol.
TRAVEL
8 of the Most Lavish Hotel Suites. This is where TBB usually stays with his entourage buahahhaahahahhaha
If you can’t be a real pilot, you can fly the next big thing. In Los Angeles, you can now Fly the Dream, a new virtual entertainment store where you can fly an F-16 Falcon. Not cheap but it looks like so much fun! Reservations required. How about a trip report from a simulated flight here, anyone?
Tamas Dezso Photos of Romania’s Industrial Decay. Stunningly depressing pictures. Up your Ceausescu, rot in hell!
A bowl of rain. By Twisted Sifter. In Brasilia. Photo by Eurico Zimbres.
MILES/POINTS
How to do Credit Card App-O-Rama. By Saverocity. Very solid blog post, very useful for newbies. Only negative is that the absence of disclosure that the Barclays card is an affiliate link. In the grand scheme of what we see every day here at TBB, it is not much to worry about and the content is as solid as I would have written about this. But I am too busy reviewing blog posts for me to write such posts; I just wait for bloggers and then hit them upside the head with my incendiary entertaining commentary 🙂
Register for a Hertz promo to earn 250 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards bonus points for every Hertz car rental of two days or more October 15 through December 15, 2013. When you register and take a super short survey you earn 100 points right away!
When Social Media Blows You Away. By Just Another Points Traveler. It talks about the power of social media. As most of you know, I love Twitter. I started using it more than three years ago professionally and then I added my FlyerTalkerinA2 account. A few times I made a comment about my hotel room after check in and I received a phone call from the front desk offering to help me be satisfied with my stay, wow! I have won two major prizes: A trip to London on Virgin Atlantic (see trip report) and a fully paid Star Mega Do 2 trip! Here is a picture of the SMD gang on the ground inside Boeing’s factory:
How to track hotel prices over various dates (for The Big Win etc). By Head for Points. How did I ever miss this? And this is why this hobby can be so much fun, the knowledge you can learn is just super VAST and you ALWAYS are learning something new, the education NEVER stops!
ON MY MIND
As you all know, I am attending a financial blogger conference and the internet connection in my laptop is just super slow. I think there is something wrong with my new Lenovo laptop. Anyways, it is an outsanding conference and learning SO much about blogging. There was one session about WordPress that just blew me away. If I had attended it before I started blogging I would have saved SO many hours of fumbling around! Sadly, the list of plugins and other to do items has also significantly expanded. I have no idea how these big bloggers do it. Oh wait, I know how, they can afford to pay experts to do all these technical tasks! I focus on the content and keeping everything together. And yes I learned some things about monetizing but skipping all the sessions about “how I went from $2k to $700k in three months”, smh. Apparently, this guy Pat Flynn blogger about creating passive income streams is a really BIG deal among this crowd. I had never heard of him before…when I say this everyone looks at me like I am an alien!
I have many observations. I gotta tell you that 99.5% of this crowd just does not get what we do. They hear credit cards and their eyes glaze over!
I need to publish this post and go on to the next session. I have met many new people and have seen many old friends who did not know what I do at night 🙂
ODDZ & ENDZ
This “Fantasy Bra” from Victoria’s Secrets costs just $10 million dollars! I hope they take credit cards, lol.
13 Stunning Pictures Celebrating The Beautiful Colors of Fall. By Bored Panda.
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is intended for long time readers and miles/points addicts who follow the blogs in this space. Readers not familiar with this crazy hobby could skip this section! Do not take anything personal. TBB reviews blogs and tries to entertain above all. Call me Siskel. Furthermore, a link appearing in this section is TBB approved! The rest are just TBB crap; don’t take them too seriously, it’s mostly entertainment! You feel hurt the entertainment is on you? Well, excuse moi, perhaps you should try to earn the link if you are so sensitive with what appears in your blog, no one is stopping you! I repeat, this is about the blogs, not the bloggers!
Frugal Travel Guy (the blog) is asking readers to sign up for not one but two services: Score Big and the new FTG product called Wallet. Exsqueeze me but I will pass, I watch my wallet! Let me rephrase this..what I mean is “Hell NO”. Instead of going around developing new products how about improving the content of the blog? About to get ranty…so I take a deep breath…and move on! Out of all names…Wallet? Wallet? Smh.
Milevalue: “Dear Mashable Readers” And the slide continues. Coincidentally, I bet my credibility that this blog never made as much money as now.
Million Mile Secrets mega part trip report continues. It is amazingly intense!
Example 1:
We received large portions.
Pic of plate with large chicken portions
Caption of the pic says: Large Portions of Chicken
Example 2:
grilled fresh cheese with a cherry marmalade…
Pic of plate w/ see above
Caption of pic: We Also Tried Grilled Cheese With A Cherry Marmalade
I don’t know about you but I just can not wait to see the next one 🙂
And I leave you with these, courtesy of THECHIVE.COM
First? Second?
Looks like first, high five!
Think you’re being a little easy on the no affiliate link disclosure on the newbie app a rama there, George.
It is widely known that I go easier on bloggers who produce good content. I mean, look at how I treat Dan at Dans Deals 🙂
C’mon, George, not a single disclosure? That’s amateur hour, especially after the high horse routine last week. Seriously…some standards here, please?
Did you talk to the blogger about it?
Some bloggers aren’t aware of disclosure guidelines until a reader informs them.
Saverocity goes the “vague disclosure text at the bottom” route, the same one that FTG and others use (and that we’ve argued over). FWIW, F2B uses the same approach and has a linkoffers ad for the same card on its front page at the moment.
Not good. Makes it a guessing game for the careful reader. But all my outrage at this is exhausted. I agree with Dia that good content and being a favorite blog shouldn’t excuse one from ethics standards, whatever the heck those ethics standards are.
The Mashable MV post is atrocious, but not really any new information on Scott’s behavior/honesty. She paid $89 unnecessarily, got 5K less than she could have, no renewal miles, and Scott pocketed $50-$100. ‘Nother day, ‘nother sucker.
@TJ – Not really a defense. Author reads this blog.
In the picture above, it’s raining on the Chamber of Deputies. From a plaque I photographed in front of the Congress:
“This Oscar Niemeyer project was inaugurated on April 21, 1960, by then Vice-President João Goulart. [ed note: whose remains are currently being exhumed to see if he was assassinated while in exile in 1976.] Home of the Legislative Power, it is made up of two domes. The largest, a convex one, is the House of Representatives, symbolizes that it is open for all ideoligies. The smallest and concave dome houses the Senate. It symbolizes the idea that within this space, thought, consideration and equilibrium should reign.” [all errors in original]
Thoughtful, considerate, equilibrated crooks.
The above was me.
I say that tongue in cheek, Deal Mommy used to hide disclosures too. I had a discussion about it with her on FT. I think she discloses at the bottom of posts now.
I do, thank you! I’m especially sensitive to this specific blogger’s lack of transparency on this specific issue because of the oh so holier than thou rant last week that went just thiiiiiiiiiiis short of accusing f2b of buying twitter followers and having a general lack of ethics.
Hi pot, meet kettle.
Understood, I unsubscribed this week.
Hi Dia
Not sure where the confusion was in that post. I DID say that F2B bought twitter followers and I did say it was an ineffective customer acquisition strategy.
Are you saying otherwise ?
Also regarding the lack of affiliate link disclosure, I’m willing to listen. Is it a must have thing in each post or just something that is felt should be included?
Cheers
Matt
Dia
Let’s dig further, I just looked at how you address this dirty affiliate game- you use Groupon and Ru La la type links in post, the right at the bottom say ‘affiliate link in post’ but not referring to what or where.
The links you use are choice links. By which I mean you are forcing the reader to choose between sending you cash or making cash themselves.
I see no talk of how you are taking money from your readers pockets by using your links.
My links, when used, are not. They do no harm since they only offer the best value to the reader. The link you mentioned is the best available offer, if the reader uses it they leave nothing on the table, but with yours they leave the cashback or points they could have earned through an online shopping portal.
Based on that I’m amazed you would call me out for ethics…
Now back to me, because yes I can improve. I don’t want to say when my link is an affiliate link or not because in my opinion it is detracting from the content. But I could be wrong and welcome critique.
For example I wrote on Friday about the Amex gold biz card, an entire post on a non affiliate card. It’s content for contents sake.
Going back to the app o Rama post, I thought it was fine to suggest 3 cards that I think are valid best choices and since you don’t lose anything include an affiliate link in one of them.
I welcome feedback from everyone here about the morality of that and do listen.
Best
Matt
Hi Matt,
That’s funny…you went around and around with me being cagey on twitter insisting you didn’t say that F2B bought Twitter followers:
. Whatever. At least now you have the “integrity” (?) to admit you were throwing around accusations of which you had no real knowledge. Well, Thanks for that!
And as to disclosures, I’ll let you do your own homework regarding FTC regulations. I’m happy with where I stand with my readers, the law, and my conscience. You’ll notice that the Rue La La link you reference is a sign up only…as in I don’t make a penny from the purchase, only the email subscription (not taking money from anyone’s pockets on that one, sorry!),
Whenever I list a commission-able item, I also list ebates (with the exception of Amazon, which doesn’t pay on most portals) . You can quarrel that I should list CC portals as well, and if one is particularly good (See UR and Kohls) I do, but I’m not a purely points blogger and don’t pretend to be. I suppose I could also list other portals, but I find ebates to be best for newbies as it has no minimums and pushes “out” (as in you don’t need to request) payments, and damn it, it’s my blog!
I actually think offering readers the choice to pay me or not is the RIGHT thing to do, not the wrong thing. With your system, you’re not informing readers which cards are commission-able and which aren’t…leaving them without a vital piece of information. If you were buying a car, wouldn’t you want to know if the sales person were getting a bonus to sell you the clunker?
Note there’s also a huge difference between an ad in a sidebar and a link in a post. An ad is fair game for a blanket disclosure…any reasonable person will know it’s an ad. A link within text…that’s much more murky according to both common sense and the FTC.
But here’s the thing that you’re not getting, Matt. You brought this on yourself. I don’t pretend to be the expert on all things disclosure related. However, I also don’t pretend to be a holy, sanctimonious, perfect, tell everyone what to do, I give 25% of my base to charity so give 75% of your money to me “rock star” who has the right to pass judgement on others who are trying to do the best they can by others while making a living for their own families.
Anything else you’d like cleared up?
Happy Birthday,
Dia
I don’t like the format of this commenting system as I don’t know where it is going to show up!
I am trying to catch up after a trip to St. Louis for a conference. So just a few things:
You know, after following blogs in this space for a while, they all build up deposits and withdrawals of trust by each post. Do you see how I never give any crap to DD even though he almost never discloses in the body of the posts (unless it is a paid advertisement)? Saverocity has built up and non disclosing it was one withdrawal. What really matters is that the site has been publishing some killer content lately. This is how I see this space. Am I biased? Of course, I am human!
Anyway, I agree again harvson’s assessment. It is REALLY hard to do this stuff right AND survive! I am learning more as I go along…
harvson3: “But all my outrage at this is exhausted.” – You won’t believe how I can identify with your statement!
I am sure Saverocity will listen. He is traveling this week. If not, call him out on it, especially when he calls others out 🙂
I can’t wait when you all call me out LOL.
I love the dialogue, we can all learn from each other! In the meantime, TPG, MMS and FTG are hard at work editing the cc links for tomorrow’s posts lol
Dia
I used the term bought above simply because it is one you have attached yourself to in the ensuing dialogue.
My point in the comment here was to clarify I wasn’t beating around the bush regarding first 2 board and their acquisition of twitter followers, the post was quite open.
The clarification on terms here is like Clinton ‘not having sexual relations’ sure f2b may not have paid cash for a list (though that is equally possible) I think at the very least money was paid in order to acquire in an inorganic manner.
F2b seeking to increase its twitter followers is not an unethical nor illogical thing to do, it doesn’t make you or any of the bloggers bad people.
As I mentioned I was trying to let this slide because hammering home the point wasn’t my intention, but your desire to bring it up again and again here and on twitter is getting tiresome.
Since posting I’ve been inundated with messages from other bloggers and people encouraging me to go further with this and ‘expose’ further but I’ve ignored them because I don’t have an agenda against you guys.
So let’s not get personal.
Now, onto the matter at hand, am I selling clunkers? I approach the work on Saverocity as a fiduciary and even without an additional disclosure in post I always seek the readers best interest.
I can add more disclosures but frankly in a post like that I see no difference between the three links included, they were all equally good to the reader.
When I get back I’ll make some changes.
Now, onto ‘bringing this on myself’ what did I bring, the wrath of momma? Do you want to move on with things or keep this nonsense up?
Ingy must be smiling big time. Deal Momma comes across as angry with a capital A
I’m actually really mellow irl…until I encounter bullies. Bloggers aren’t that different from 5th graders.
Dia,
It’s funny you should use the term bullying when you are the one singling me out for special attention because you are ‘sensitive’ to me right now, both here and on twitter.
Maybe we could move along from the silly jibes and act our age eh?
Mixing it up by posting at an atypical time, eh? Glad you are liking the conference.
Wonderful photos of fall colors. The colors here in PDX have been especially nice this season but of course it doesn’t come close to what I remember from autumns back east. Still, it had been a gorgeous week out here in the Rose City.
Had a trip planning session with my H (as in Husband) at Starbuck’s this morning and decided on the next few domestic trips we’ll do, which will make this week’s churn more directed than I have been so far. Too soon to be planning a big trip as we don’t know H’s teaching schedule yet for the summer. But I am happy to focus on Las Vegas (late Dec.) Seattle (early August), and Philly (early Sept.) for now. Plus we need to use a free night in any SPG hotel before the end of Feb.
Las Vegas may be bumped by some other city if something good pops up. We want to be away for 5 or 6 days at some point between mid December and early January. Not celebrating Xmas, we need not go over the woods and through the snow to grandma’s…. So I need to check a bit. The cheap rates at the Excalibur combined with the fact that, while I have been to Montecarlo, I have never been to Vegas, had me booking some refundable reservations there. #developing
Travel is Free (I know, it is not) had a cute post on the history of this hobby today: “Our History: Everything from fuel dumps to credit card commissions.”
Sun is shining outside so I am out of here!
Use Priceline 🙂
But before I go, anyone know the best SPG hotel in Vegas? Maybe we should do a day there….
The Westin is a dump. Jamison (Points Summary on F2B) has a review if you must go SPG. The Lake Las Vegas resort is nice, but is quite a drive. I’m a Hyatt girl, so am partial to MGM…(TheHotel is my fave).
Thanks. The deal is we have a free night at any SPG we must use before it expires….
Las Vegas is a dump. Amazed anyone continues to go there.
Did you know The Fantasy Bra has two bodyguards. Now that is a great job!
I would love to have that job, even without benefits lol
I am a big fan of WordPress, it is amazing how simple it makes blogging when you have the w rite plugins installed. I’d love to go to a wordpress conference or learn from more advance “pressers?” Do you know of any such events?
I laughed at the part where people’s eyes glaze over when you talk about credit cards. If they think having 5 credit cards is a lot, you know they are clueless.
You get ‘WordPress meet-up groups’ in a lot of places, there is an active London one. However, you need to be careful. A lot of people use WordPress for building corporate websites, and what they have to say does not really relate to blogs. The WordPress ‘expert’ I hired to rebuild Head for Points at the start of the year really struggled, especially with Genesis Framework stuff, despite having an impressive resume of corporate WP sites.
The conference was phenomenal just to learn about blogging in general. And some incredible WordPress stuff too. Of course I have no time to implement anything 🙂
Also, I like how MMS circles the VRCs in this post (since most of us have never seen them before): http://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Vanilla_Reloads_Family_Fare_01.jpg
Oh, we’ve been down this road before. See MMS raise the ire.
E.g.:
“I hate to say it, but if your average reader needs a blog post to figure out how to load up a Vanilla Reload card to their Bluebird acct, then your average reader is an absolute moron.”
And just imagine about the ones on the tails!
@ Grant
Come on man, at least have the decency to give him a reacharound. Didn’t he help you with some traffic on a gloomy Friday? And not just one Friday, but he lets you grab some nuts almost on a daily basis there by letting you backlink when you provide your valuable input to some random moron’s question, since you know, you are of the helping kind ?
Yah a lot of us absolutely despise MMS blog and a few other blogs, because they represent everything that is wrong with the excessive commercialization that has become of this hobby via used-car salesmanship practices. Your comment is deplorable since you received direct help from him/his blog. Do you not have any respect for yourself?
I agree, you should be standing up for MMS.
Plus the greg comment that harvson3 points out is terrible. I can’t believe he allows him to say things like “I’d like to wring your bowtie”. In the process of trying to point out that MMS is “killing a deal” he proves to be a lowlife. I don’t like it a bit. Being a good person is way less important than blaming a potential deal kill on MMS. ^
I got turned around… two tabs open and reading. O_o :-p
Guys, give the kid a break, he had a great point: We did NOT need any of the red circles in that pic, Emily holding the pics again was enough!!! Grant: AgendaDude has an agenda against MMS for a while:-) But what he said “…excessive commercialization that has become of this hobby via used-car salesmanship practices” about the hobby overall is, I am afraid and very sorry, true.
I will do my best to avoid used-car-salesmanship tactics when I decide to monetize or fold like a cheap suit lol.
Drew: What??
supposing they do take credit card…I wander what the return policy is for the 10 million dollar fantasy bra…
If it’s at Costco you may have a great deal.
I was thinking Costco too…all the way!!!
joking, come on!
OMG, reader question, ‘do elites get pet in cabin fees waived?’ The answer of course is no, but you can still sign up for credit cards!
http://thepointsguy.com/2013/10/are-in-cabin-pet-fees-waived-for-elites
That was the lowest imho.
Just a note on the stone statue(s) of Korean kids playing some (to us weird) game: it seems its a traditional Korean kids game, its displayed in many places, I’ve seen murals of it in Korean restaurants. Google ‘Malttukbakgi (말뚝박기)’ and start scratching your head…
Thanks for the feedback. I have seen many weird things..and this is one of them!
Hey, TBB, I think I figured out why Milenomics may seem hard to read even though the font is quite similar in size and shape to how yours displays, at least on my Mac. Milenomics appears to be a shade of dark grey, while yours is black. Also the background colors are not the same. As a result there is a bigger contrast between your background/print than his (hers? Is Milenonics a guy?).
All you bloggers reading this might take it under advisement – your website may look pretty or cool but if the contrast between background and lettering is not high and sharp, it can be harder for us readers. Especially folks like me, whose eyes are closer to retirement than yours may be!
I take it back. Both are indeed black (now that the glare on my laptop is reduced!) but the background colors are not the same white. And oddly, Milenomics seems easier to read to me than TBB. But both are worth the effort. As I plan my next churn, his/her posts on strategically building miles balances are bring quite helpful.
Oh, maybe it is not me or my laptop! I was reading an old Milenomics post and it appears that Milenomics used to post both in a grey color and a smaller font! Maybe some of the old posts never got converted or I had an old link!
Either way, I do find Milenomics to be great!
I can’t pinpoint it either. I prefer to read his blog on my Samsung phone or my ipad. He/She needs to make posts less lengthy. And from what I learned at the conference, reduce sizes of paragraphs. People HATE big blocks of text. Of which I am guilty of course. But I always aim to improve 😉
I wish someone would put up the slideshows from the blogging conference like they do with the FTU’s and all that. I’d love to learn more WordPress techniques!
BTW thanks for putting me on the list!
Test – having trouble commenting.
Love the update. “Pictures of a plate with chicken, pictures of chicken on a plate.” The image from India? with the little boys is odd…
The boys image is from South Korea. Odd is an understatement! Thanks for the comment!