Let’s take a wild ride through some TBB blog records, do flippant flips, travel to Afghanistan and New Zealand, ride with an Uber driver, enjoy SNL, douchebags, 800 condoms in a box, reasons to take the window seat, and other irrelevant totally flippant stuff that is primarily here to entertain and put a smile on your face as you start your week!
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Traffic has exploded as so many of you are being entertained by all the action in the TBB comments! The last two blog posts have also had record comments too! As of Sunday at 11.55 pm there have been 134 comments at this blog post and another 154 comments in this blog post. If you are not entertained I will give you a full refund…oh wait lol. Thank you to all who contribute to the mission to “Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In that order“. Without your support this blog would not be around. I appreciate your support! New records make me want to do this for warm up each morning before I head to Panera to consume several cups of coffee!
Not much action over the weekend in the miles/points world. Just the usual pumpy posts of the same credit cards. If I had a dollar for every link I see I may have a shot for the Forbes list next year! So, this blog post will catch up on some material that has been accumulated for a while that in my opinion satisfies the blog’s mission (it is all about the mission around here, NOT conversions!).
Eastern Afghanistan’s Wakhan Animal Herders. There are some incredible pictures here, wow! By Frédéric Lagrange , more in his website.
For some reason I have always been fascinated a little bit by Afghanistan. I think it goes back to my childhood. My grandfather used to tell us stories about how the glorious Greek army had conquered so many lands in Asia, and he used to say they “went all the way to Afghanistan!”. Sometimes he would find some pictures of Afghans who looked a bit European and he used to show us kids: “See, see, these are children Alexander the Great left behind”. We always wondered how can children be left behind and whether one day our parents will leave US behind somewhere if we did not obey their rules…so it was kind of fascinating and terrifying at the same time! Classical Greek old person, sitting around collecting a high pension and remembering the good old glorious days and bitching about the politicians who are ruining Greece. Hmm, sounds familiar?
Magical New Zealand. Stunningly gorgeous HD video at Vimeo!
Uber cab confessions. Fascinating article from a guy who became a driver for a week.
SNL: “Nervous White Actors Audition for ’12 Years as a Slave’“. Leave it only to SNL to take a fantastic and very emotional movie and turn into comedy. I like this edgy humor! The last “actor” is a riot. I am just waiting for someone to go off in the comments accusing me of being racist or something. Let me preface that with: Buwahahahahhhaahahahahahahaha. You must see the movie by the way. It is VERY uncomfortable to watch but superbly well directed and acted!
Breaking News: The blogosphere, in my always humble opinion, has been invaded by:
What would you ever say or think if you sat next to a person like this? Moral of the story? Ride a plane where they make you stow away your bags (unless it is United I hear or…Spirit)!
Absolutely no comments needed for this announcement by the pilot:
Very inspiring article at Bored Daddy: “13 Things to Remember When Life Gets Rough”. May I add #14 for some bloggers? “Keep Chase credit card links at ALL Costs!”
27 Reasons You Should ALWAYS Ask for the Window Seat. By Twisted Sifter. Mesmerizing pictures.
Crap! Our Maui trip inter island flight with Island Air had a schedule change again! Back down to just 55 minute connection to get on Alaska Air flight out of Honolulu…We are going to risk it, there are worse places to get stranded!
Just when everyone thinks the Mileage Run era is over….Delta Points has started a separate Mileage Run website for…Delta flights! SMH!
Today’s personal finance article: The market is up 170% since 2009, but are you? – MarketWatch
Perfect product placement! Passed to me by Mark at TravelBlawg on Twitter:
Here is a pic of my daughter back in 2005. Can anyone guess which city and what this is?
Please do not feed the trolls. And please always be respectful of everyone, including the trolls!
Update! Comment #146 was just posted by TBB reader Hua in yesterday’s blog post! And it is EXACTLY what I have been saying all along ever since I started blogging.
@ Hua: I am taking the liberty and pasted your comment below for all to see because, you know, there can be a little chaos in the TBB comments section 🙂 Let me know if you want me to edit (your name?) this in any way or take it off the body of the post. And THANK YOU! I am pretty sure if you clicked on “Business Owner” you will get these five cards plus an additional two cards!
I tried combinations of credit scores of 740 to 850 with monthly spends of 1,000 and 10,000. I also tried selecting cash back, hotel points, and miles — every result was the same five cards:
– Chase Sapphire Preferred
– SPG Amex
– Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa
– The US Airways Premier World MasterCard
– Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card
Why are all these results the same?
Also, I noticed that your recommendation engine says the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card awards “2 Points in your first year after meeting spending requirements.” I suspect that is supposed to mean nights, but it looks like the engine is broken as the “total rewards” should be two nights and 2,500 Hilton HHonors points (based on $2,500 of minimum spend.)
So, the information doesn’t seem to be very customized based on the data provided by the user. Widely varying spend, credit score, “rookie traveler” vs. “expert traveler” and desired type of rewards resulted in the same cards being offered in eight or ten different scenarios. Even if I select that I’m “apart” of SkyMiles or Membership Rewards, the same results are returned.
Essentially, what you appear to have built is a form that collects email and demographic data, and then promotes the same cards card (that likely pay the top commissions to you.) It is rather disturbing that you pretend the tool is “doing the work” for the user, when you’re not really doing any work at all — you’re just pushing the same cards.
This type of pimping under the guise of helping readers is what turns me off about many of the travel bloggers out there, and why I’m glad someone like George is around to bring attention to the likes of you and the methods you use to enrich yourself while claiming that you’re helping your readers.
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs I Ignore
Thank you for reading and supporting my blog!
Please pass my blog link to your friends and family if you think they will enjoy it too.
George
travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com
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Had to check if I was upgraded or downgraded on your list after the placement of it 😉
2nd – improving!
You and my son have a great name.
Well done Hua.
HuasDaMan!
Ditto!
I got the same five cards recommended as well. I have not commented lately. Gotten pretty ugly around here and I have found it more sad than entertaining.
Urban Dictionary
HUA! military term 1. Heard Understood and Acknowledged,
GOOD JOB MARINE!!!!
Buzz are you saving up for THAT BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING you are going to give your daughter?
Whoa, that’s an early post 🙂
JAL vs ANA pic made me chuckle… I mean… It’s a 74… They should have no problem staying ahead of that light twin below.
@ Matt: You rascal you 🙂
@ Simon & Harvon3: As long as you are improving. Apparently you are starting off with a great name 🙂
@Boon & bluecat: Hua put it so eloquently and in simple terms. But I am certain nothing gets through. Oh well let’s move on.
@smittytab: I am sorry.
@ Ramsey: Hey, I thought I was the idiot, Boon said so lol. I am not big on spending a fortune on weddings, especially big fat greek ones! I first need to get her through middle school and college. It will sure be so weird when that first boyfriend comes…how I will handle it? 🙂
@ Dima: I have to mix it up. Actually I had some other stuff I needed to get done so I posted early!
Day starts at the dentist tomorrow at 8 am. 2 hour procedure. Wish me luck=no pain!
Ignore the trolls please, it is just pointless at this point.
I don’t need some stupid tool to suggest what cards meet my needs. Even if I were a newbie, I’d rather make my own judgment after researching what’s available. Gary Leff’s three category system actually makes sense. There are cards (1) you get solely for the sign-up bonus, (2) those you get for every day spend (and/or specific category spend, based on your spending habits), and (3) those you get for the perks the card provides. Sometimes you can combine two out of three. It’s quite logical.
Frankly, one who is not logical, disciplined and realistic shouldn’t be playing this game. If you are the methodical type, you don’t need the tool in the first place.
Most people are not like us! They need guidance and will take action based on what they perceive as expert advice given out to friends and family for free to travel for free 🙂 They just don’t know enough enough to differentiate. Or they can check out my 3 lists lol.
I also thought GL’s 3 category system was brilliant actually. But it should be modified a little bit for cash back cards as in Cat #4) Use the crap out of it and temp them to shut you down or…something like that 🙂
I also agree with your last sentence. Most are not cut of for this. Therefore, I don’t know, I can’t help it seeing 5 or 7 cards being recommended to a “rookie” traveler with no cards. That’s just recipe for disaster (and mega $$ for the provider). In my own opinion as always 🙂
“Let’s take a wild ride through some TBB blog records, do flippant flips, travel to Afghanistan and New Zealand, ride with an Uber driver, enjoy SNL, douchebags, 800 condoms in a box, reasons to take the window seat, and other irrelevant totally flippant stuff that is primarily here to entertain and put a smile on your face as you start your week!”
Has to be THE best travel blog intro I’ve ever read. Deserves a prize.
The bar is set pretty low. Most intros in this space lead to Rome (your favorite Chase and AMEX CC).
And then have 377 posts about the trip to Rome
I am still laughing about that box with 800 condoms in it. I wonder if she realized if that was there!
Sometimes I go back and read posts from months ago and wonder how in the hell I came up with that stuff!
Entertainment folks!
Regarding Afghanistan and Alexander the Great: Razib Khan has looked into the genetic data and not found any evidence to support this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2013/07/alexanders-soldiers-left-no-mark/#.Ux2Vz_ldV7s
Are you doubting my grandpa? He also used to say a few badass fighters made it all the way into Japan but he was not able to verify about that location 😉
Yeah but if you have a 240″credit score, the tool won’t push you those 5 cards. So, um…. Something?
But if you wouldn’t be accepted anyway with that score, nothing is lost by telling you not to bother.
There is a lot to be gained from readers reacting with “Ah, look at that, so nice of them to tell me not to apply, they are not out to maximize their revenue”. Just wait until they hit that “magic” number 🙂
BTW, Alexander the Great was a really cool dude, covering such an expansion of the Greek empire was unbelievable, especially keep the communication, life expectancy and transportation options in mind.
That said, Alexander was really from Macedonia though… the Athenians didn’t consider them to be part of their culture and they spoke a different language and didn’t follow the civic structure the Greeks were so famous for 😉
Macedonia is a Greek province. The Spartans did not consider the Athenians as part of THE culture either, actually they thought they had too much of it and were a bunch of sissies. 🙂
You know how Greeks feel about this and you are trying to mess with me, I know it! But I am not going to play with you because I know you are not going to lose it lol.
@TBB, FTG credit card recommendation tool 2.0 is coming soon. Instead of recommending which credit cards to get, all you do is enter your name, address, SSN, and income. The tool will automatically apply for the “perfect combination” of credit cards for you and do all reconsideration calls for you. Just sit back and wait for your 5-7 credit cards arrive in the mail. #thefuture
Why stop there? Have the tool call up and try to get high retention bonuses? Maybe even cancel them for you and reapply! Talk about the Killer App! Whoever develops that is going to be rich 🙂
Fucking brilliant! /sarcasm
I tried out the tool
It recommended me the 80K Priority Club Visa, the Hyatt Visa, the Fidelity 2% card, the 50K AA card and the Fairmont Visa
Excellent advice! Thanks FTG!
Hahaha reports on FT are the 80k Priority Club bonus isn’t working any more, some folks are now getting 60k. #RIP
Bombshell: F2B co-founder now blogging again at BoardingArea?!
http://lufthansaflyer.boardingarea.com/lufthansa-dramatically-expands-ife-offerings/
What the heck is going on at F2B?
@ Steve: Hilarious!
@ StickyWicket: That 80k Visa has been there for ever, RIP! Wonder if we can get the IHG MC if we have the Visa, hmmm.
@ StickyWicket and Nick: Wow! Bloggers don’t work out, it happens. But when a co-founder bolts…
CURIOUS: Does anyone know how much the FTG blog (the corporation) pays for a submitted post/article? I just visited the blog again (it’s been a little while) and the content seems to be improving. Surprised (pleasantly) to see that.
I think part of that is due to other bloggers they now have enlissed. Are they doing it gratis, for the cross-references, or do they get paid a bit?
(Not trying to start anything here, just sincerely curious about this part of the business)
It’s not about bringing in improving bloggers BlueCat…. it’s that you’re reading it for the first time in a while
You can’t give a fair assessment to the content of FTG.com until you go back next week and essentially see the same exact content with a few words changed around
Apparently the same cards that can get a couple to Phoenix can also get a couple to Scottsdale. Who’d a thunk it
“You can’t give a fair assessment to the content of FTG.com until you go back next week and essentially see the same exact content with a few words changed around”
You have no idea how much that turns me (and I’m sure other readers) off. Give me View From the Wing any day. Atleast Gary blogs about what’s happening in the news. It’s rarely the same thing twice.
I hear next travel challenge will be how to get to Duluth, MN and I am…excited!
Writers get paid PER article.
And no, I would never write there, our styles are not compatible. I mean, just 800 condoms in a box and all that 🙂
I am not feeling well. My new dentist is very anesthesia friendly, been in a daze all day and still cant’ feel my mouth!
I’m sure that Rick and how get paid $300+ for their articles while the other writes get around $150.
Breaking News: Per FTG tweet: Rick is coming back to write more!
Fellow Junkies,
I was able to pull off the two browser trick with Barclay and get the US Airways 40k card and the Arrival card at the same time. This was the first time I have applied for any Barclay card. Also the 80K priority club card appears dead but there are switching to master card so possible to churn again.
I had both the US and Arrival card at the same time (but not applied at the same time). So, that’s really good. Barclays can be weird to deal with!
I wonder if we can have the IHG MC while having the Visa…
During my last churn I also got both the Arrival and the USAir card. I did not use the two browser trick; moreover, it is my second USAir card and the first remains open. I tossed in the USAir as the final app, figuring nothing would be lost by then.
I attributed my success to the fact that, with CITI soon to be the AA card king, Barclay’s wants cardholders, and so was willing to give me a second USAir card, as well as two cards in the same day.
The suggestion to try it as I did came up in comments over at Milenomics. The churn was shortly after the 100,000 CITI AA offer popped because I did that one at the same time.
Just got another 10k US miles from my wife’s US Air card…before the annual fee is even billed. It’s like clockwork. Time to close this baby too.
Wow, F2B is crashing and burning
Not surprising. The “we won’t shove CCs down your throats like BoardingArea” sales pitch was nice in practice, but doesn’t mean much if the content isn’t good
Saverocity has done a much better job of becoming what F2B intended to be, Matt’s odd defense of FTGs tool notwithstanding
(side note: Hua nailed it nearly perfectly. The one small thing he left out, Raffles pointed out in the comments)
I added to Raffle’s note 😉
I will refrain from further posting about the F2B situation to stop encouraging trolls to spend more time here than they already are.
I thought Hua’s comment was perfect so I added it to the body of my blog post.
The encouraging email I have received has been, well, very encouraging indeed!
Thanks for the kind words. At first I thought the troll’s presence was interesting, then entertaining, and then it just seemed like something was very wrong with the whole interchange. I have lost respect for this individual and don’t understand what is motivating it all. Not a fan of bullying of any kind and frankly think the internet is a place where this can really thrive.
See above: Per FTG tweet: Rick is going back to FTG to write more!
Rather than crash and burn, I’d say it’s more like an A340 being parked in the desert. It’s a plane that they said should never have been made in the first place, the industry was switching to an all-two engine platform, but they insisted four engines still could work and would fill a valuable and profitable niche. There were some successes at first, including some surprising partners jumping on board. But time has taken its tool, the industry has consolidated and is getting lean. The plane costs more to operate than the revenue it brings in, regardless of the manufacturer’s insistence that it’s successful and viable, and just needs to be remarketed and reconfigured. Partners have not received the return on investment they were promised, so they’re parking them on tarmac in Victorville, It’s only remaining economic value is a few spare parts that still have some usable life, just waiting for the opportunity to be swapped out into the thriving two-engine platform, or maybe even one of the next-gen systems starting to roll off the line.
I don’t actually believe that about First2Board, I just wanted to rip on the A340. Their shake-up is probably just boring business stuff.
Thats an interesting interpretation… 🙂
@ TJ: Awesome/Brilliant…I am in awe 🙂
@ LH Flyer: Good to see you posting here. Good luck with your new direction!
@tbb Thanks! Very excited about things going forward!
Hey Steve,
Thanks for the compliment on the site. I am not sure what F2B were trying to achieve and how we are doing it better, but for me my philosophy is that I want to make revenue from the site, but I don’t want to screw people over.
We bumped heads with our affiliate guys last week and would not change our content to appease them, at our loss. Ultimately, I want Saverocity to be about sharing ideas that help educate and improve the reader, and be driven by that, not by affiliate revenue, though I do feel an obligation to the guys I brought onboard and am always worried about how the ramifications of actions can unduly harm their own revenue generation.
Luckily, the team we have are also people centric, and are sticking with the principle of content over clicks, and I hope that soon the revenue will reward that ethic.
As for my defense of the FTG tool, sometimes I see things that trigger the defense, in the comments of that post I saw clear acts to bait/troll Rick into a reaction, and then lesser actions to feed that fire, it reminded me of mean girls bullying.
I say what I see, not always in my best interests, but the same way I look at this comments section and I see someone like Grant trying to be clever, it seems to me that he is trying to win brownie points by sucking up to the sentiment, which I think is just a crap way to be.
So, yeah, the game of poke the bear, and call him a troll whilst trolling away is disappointing to watch here in the comments, and yeah, the FTG tool isn’t perfect, but it could have been worse, and could have been built differently, in a way that I would have accepted all the attacks on it.
Anyways…. that’s just my 2 cents 🙂
Matt: Love your approach about blogging and putting content over clicks. Sure it is not easy!
Not sure Grant deserved that…he was just messing with me, we do that on Twitter a lot. He is a good kid.
We will have to disagree on two issues; bullying and the Tool. Oh well, we can talk about it one day over beers and also talk about AUM vs retainer fees too 🙂
Thanks George, I guess someone gets my humor. For the record, I’ve made as much credit card revenue the last 2 months as you have :/
Like I said on Twitter a few days ago, “warning: travel blogging is not a get rich quick scheme.”
Last night I had a dream: Someone ordered 800 condoms with my Amazon affiliate link! Too bad I then woke up suddenly 🙂
Wow, what a crazy surprise to pop over to TBB and find that I was quoted by George! Anyhow, thanks for the comments… I don’t feel like I did anything special. I suppose that Rick is just following orders from the owners of FTG, but it seems disingenuous and truly rubs me the wrong way.
Rick’s not following orders. He just got a check to put his brand on a crappy product, and gladly took the money without regard for whether it was a quality product or not (or for rookies who are being told again their best interests to open up 5 cards at once)
It’s like that cruise seminar he’s getting a free ride to attend – had no issue with the “industry executives” who were attending said cruise despite repeatedly criticizing FTU for those same reasons
Hua, that was an awesome comment. I got a lot of supportive email about my blog post and they all loved your comment!
Whatever happened to the cruise?
There is something to the Afghan-Greek connection. There’s a region called Nuristan that is dominated by ethnic Greeks who claim descent from Alexander’s troops. They’ve integrated with the ethnic majority, but still trace their roots back to the Greeks.
Maybe we are related? 🙂
Love all them dirty weasels pimping themselves out for the Hawaiian Visa
http://boardingarea.com/canadiankilometers/2014/03/10/usa-hawaiian-airlines-mastercard-now-issued-barclays/
http://boardingarea.com/pointsmilesandmartinis/2014/03/quick-way-to-70000-miles-with-hawaiian-share-miles-feature/
Funny, at least the kid who is supposed to be writing about CANADA was honest.
“Today I got an email from my affiliate company which told me the about the relaunch of the Hawaiian Airlines® World Elite MasterCard®.”
I guess it took an email because he couldn’t have figured it out by reading VFTW or MMS months ago. I guess it didn’t pay out then.
Sorry, maybe i should have said the card didn’t pay out an affiliate commission before, and now it does. Oh wait…
One of those blogs is in my Ignore list.
Take it easy on Jeff, he is a good kid. At his age he knows more than many in my Ignore list combined 🙂
Check my new blog post about the Amex changes. Jeff: Stick with Accounting, it’s a great field that will prepare you well in life. I stuck with it for 7 years until I discovered it was not for me. But it gave me a great foundation about business in general and people, excellent experience to build from.