It has been a very busy two days for me and here I am in a Tuesday night with no blog post drafted so I will do what I did last Wednesday and just blast ten things off the top of my head again. I think you liked the post last Wednesday so since I have no advertisers or sponsors to please I will just…blog it. 🙂 I will skip the numbering as it messes up the formatting and takes more time to clean it up in WordPress. So, here we go, buckle up!
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The big news in the miles and points blog world is that the trend of having less independent bloggers like myself is continuing. The Points Guy just continues to buy more blogs and hire more writers to sell more travel rewards credit cards to newbies. And it provides a salary and benefits from what I hear so I do not fault bloggers for selling out to them. People got to eat and take care of their own. But please spare me all the BS how you are doing it all for the love of the hobby anymore okay? Anyway, the latest blogger to sell out to TPG is Ariana at Pointchaser. I wish her good luck and never forget that it is always “all about conversions” as her former mentor taught the newer generation of bloggers. A New Chapter. She is not making a lame try to say “I am going to keep my blog up and keep posting” as Drew of Travel Is Free had done and then never posted. RIP Pointchaser. Not going to miss the posts what happens inside her neighborhood WalMarts. 😉 I hoped the new chapter included law school. Oh well…
The RATs at American Express are at it again. RAT=Rewards Abuse Team. Just when you thought they were taking a break from abusing us they come back with a vengeance: American Express Claws Back Airline Credits Which Were Refunded by Merchant. This is going to hurt you guys. These guys are good. Now I am wondering if they have been talking to some of us, you know, consultants?
I found this pic at Twisted Sifter. A view of Manhattan from a helicopter, wow!
It has obviously been two very bad days in the stock markets. All the pundits who had been screaming since…2009 to get out of stocks are now back at it. It is ridiculous. I tell my clients anything can happen in the short term, we are going to be fine in the long term. I have been through the tech stock crash and the financial crisis mayhem. This bores me. It is always something and usually something nobody can predict. I do not remember any of those experts saying anything about a virus disrupting us in 2020. Or maybe it is the virus and the prospects of having Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump in the November elections. How awful that would be for our country! Anyway, not going to turn it into a political blog. Just going to take my shots here and there, I have no employer to conform to, looking at you Brian Kelly! 🙂
As you know I am continuing my running. I have my first race of 2020, the Shamrock 10k race on March 8 in Plymouth, Michigan. And I have a running coach who has been giving me running assignments. So, yesterday my assignment was this: “One mile warmup, run 1 mile at pace 7.30 or better, 1 minute rest, run another mile faster than the first mile, rest 1 mile, run another mile and try to do your best, 1 mile cool down”. I like the long races but I have a few 5k and 10k races coming up so I need to get faster so we have been working at that. My 1 mile PR was 7.11. So, in a not too cold rainy day in a local park I went at it and tied my 7.11 PR in the first mile. Then I ran 7.08 in the next one. And then in the third one…around mile 0.70 I checked my Garmin watch (too tired to expertly insert an Amazon affiliate link in here lol) and saw I may have a chance to go under 7 minutes and then I just went all out and finished it at 6.59. This felt as good as finishing my first full marathon! Then I took a nap in the afternoon, felt sooo good. I highly suggest you find a healthy hobby and prioritize your health. Yes you can be in your 50s and be as fast as me woohoo!
We canceled my wife’s trip on Singapore Airlines Business Class to Singapore, her and her family in Singapore and Malaysia both agreed that it is not a good idea. As these miles expire shortly, I used them to book myself in yet another Singapore Airlines Business class flight back to JFK from Frankfurt. I am taking the same reverse flight also as I need to burn these expiring Singapore Airline miles very soon. This is for my November trip back to Greece to run the Athens Marathon. Shoot, I still have 52k of them in my account and just 8k in my wife’s account. Not sure I can do anything with just 8k, any suggestions? I should go over 1 million miles and points burned in 2020 I think.
I am getting to New York burning 7,500 British Airways Avios points to fly American Airlines to La Guardia from Detroit. And for the first time ever I used the Chase Travel portal and burned 11,872 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to fly direct JFK to Detroit on Delta. This is all for the trip I am doing in November to run the Athens Marathon in Greece. I already have two nights booked at the Athens Hilton, I will need a few more nights in Athens. I have options with my Hyatt and Radisson Rewards points. I just need to find my way Frankfurt to Athens and Thessaloniki to Frankfurt, I have some time to book those. I will again try to spend a night or two at my favorite Thessaloniki Hyatt and I will also need a night in the Frankfurt airport. I am beginning to enjoy burning my miles and points again.
I have been listening to these lately: The 50 Most Drug-Addled Albums in Music History. They are great and the descriptions are just wild. For example:
Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician (1987)
You never know what you will learn here, I am all over the place. Because variety is the spice of life. Or so they say. Whoever is they. I don’t know what I am talking about, sometimes I think I am losing it. 🙂 Ok, here we go, I love this and hope you do too and it inspires you to go crazy on my credit card links! Especially now that my portfolio is so down…and if it keeps going down I may be applying for a job at The Points Guy #notreally. The pic below was found HERE.
Ok, you guys. That is 10 paragraphs for you. I think I can do this. We are at 9 conversions this month, one more and Wednesday posts will appear in my blog in March. Of course the Mondays and Friday posts stay. Unless The Points Guy comes to me and offers me a billion dollars. I am laughing and so should you!
And I leave you with this…
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Good morning!
The AEx airline credit trick was very cute. I wonder how much is being clawed back. And once clawed back does the account get special attention.
I don’t know but from what I hear they go back…way back like early of last year!
Finally DoC said to not post data points in the comments in his site. It was about time. All these RATs gotta do is just read some of these blogs and then…boom! Bloggers in this space are not in it for the love of the hobby, it is their livelihood. This space thrived on staying under the radar and being immaterial to the financials of companies we used to screw. Not anymore.
I have been warning about this for years. Thank God I am still doing it for the love of the hobby and the 10 cc conversions I struggle every month to do lol.
The big shooters are all underground. Do not trust bloggers, especially ones who glow for getting a job at The Points Guy! Then again, how in the world this company can afford to buy so many blogs and bring so many full time writers is beyond me.
Wash your hands people!
She sold her junky blog for a small check. I always thought her biggest crime was getting people to keep using TPM all the while the dude was going under. Wonder if she was getting a cut to give such bad advice, directing people to lose lots of money to a huckster? She belongs with TPG, how very Ingy of them all.
The blog was not sold from what I am gather.
Many pushed TPM. I did not.
Your last line was funny, the one with Ingy in it 🙂
After a few months of training, I ran my first-ever 5K this weekend! Felt way better after that than I did after a one mile “fun run” with no training.
Re the 50 albums–iirc Gibby Haynes started out as an accountant.
All right, nice job!
When in doubt I always have a voice in my head saying “take the next step”.
Gibby Haynes started out as an accountant? LOL
Bronze! For the Pacific Northwest! I had a FR with Amex 3-4 years ago and it “Scared Me Straight”. I play those guys very carefully. You can work within their rules and make progress, but the greedy speed fest some bloggers describe and urge people to do is gonna bite a lot of people on the butt.
Glad you guys canceled on that Singapore deal. Things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better from the looks of it!
Good work on the running, too! I’m rooting for you!
Same here with Amex.
It may get worse…it may not. Time will tell.
On that 50 album list is one of my all time favorites: The Dead Boys-Young, Loud and Snotty, a classic punk album that makes just about every top 10 list of punk LPs. Produced by Genya Ravan, a legend in her own right.
Yesterday Larry Kudlow, Director of the National Economic Council under President Trump, went on TV to declare that the US has the Corona Virus under tight control. I predict that will last less than 2 weeks. If so, the big question is: Who will they blame? You know if there turns out to be 10,000 cases in the US (or 10 million), Kudlow’s not going back on CNBC (where he worked for 10 years) to say “Hey, I never said I’m an infectious disease expert. Orange hair told me to get out there and calm the markets”. Then Trump will start tweeting about how it is all the fault of (pick some political enemy).
And then there’s Ariana and TPG. I always read her step-by-step posts about MS, so I didn’t have to figure out for myself where to park at Walmart. Maybe she can get Ingy a job over there running the Credit Card Selling Bloggers Hall of Fame. They could have a big dinner every year, maybe in South Dakota where they could tour credit card processing centers. And the big award of the night will be The Green Goose, given to the blogger who did the best at goosing his or her readers into credit card sign-ups.
I award you the MVC=Most Valuable Comment today!
Not sure what the prize is. a free authorized CSP card? 🙂
I wish Trump and his minions just STFU as they are making everyone more nervous!
Your last paragraph had me ROFL, thanks amigo!
If i was a Democrat I’d want to pretend the debates didnt happen last nite as well. Enjoy voting for the Socialist and getting Trump for 4 more years
Thanks Nostradamus.
I found the Point Chaser blog one of the more honest of all blogs. The biggest secret in the points game is MS. What cards allow it, what banks allow it, etc. She was the only one that would tell you exactly what she was doing and how. Not a single other blogger will tell you that. Go to one of the miles conferences and no one there will tell you either.
Ariana was unique. And, her blogs were well written. I enjoyed her trip reports.
I will only click through to a credit card when I think the blog provides useful information. I do not do that with TPG because the information is so shallow. Maybe that is OK because folks will get the credit card through TPG and then use 50K points for a coach fare.
That’s why one reader used to call her ” Taliban of Miles and Points”
While there weren’t many people writing explicitly about MS, it was hard to consider someone an expert or authority figure after recommending structuring without knowing it was illegal. Maybe it was a one off and everything else was perfect, but I wouldn’t risk using anything I read there without secondary verification.
@Byron: The biggest secret in blogs is getting readership by serving them content that is “unique”. For true MS enthusiasts, what she was dishing out in public was stuff that hooked you and many others who are not “deep in it”, so to speak. She knows a lot more but some stuff is just not blogged about ok? She was telling you the easy stuff in a unique style admittedly that got you to come back. She will be a perfect fit at TPG, she has had lots of practice at FTG and PC to attract newbies. And that is where the big $$$$ are!
You need to understand why more advanced MS types will not put the real info in public. There are lots of RATs out there (see my blog post below, point #2..or is it #3, too lazy to look now, it is past my bedtime).
I also must admit I enjoyed her trip reports. She is kind of quirky and stubborn as hell…like me 🙂
Shallow information is a MULTI million dollar business Byron. Thanks for supporting independent blogs like mine who fight for hours for ten conversions per month! And I am not even angling for a job man!
@ Shannon: If Trump will make peace with the Taliban, maybe we should too?
@ Brenton: Byron, listen to Brenton. I remember the structuring post…created buzz and clicks 😉
I’m guilty of having a few Butthole Surfers LPs and CDs. Never got around to see their concert. Closest I got was Ministry (they co-wrote Jesus built my hot rod with Gibby Haynes from BS). I can’t believe he’s 62 years old. Never thought some of these guys would grow that old.
Ministry is my favorite band. And they responsible for my hearing loss at the concert in Chicago during…I think it was my 7th time seeing them. It is SHOCKING the front man Uncle Al is still alive…and I find the list incomplete without one album by them, sad!
I did not know that about the “Jesus built my hot rod” song, thanks.
Was never into the Butthole Surfers I must admit.
Hit 11 conversions today.
TPG is sending his Mergers & Acquisitions team to meet me. Bwahahaha.
If you can stop applying and hold off until Monday (March 1st) that would be great.
Thank you for your support.
I gotta go, gas masks on sale at WalMart!!!!
Last line was a joke, relax!
I like the “Ten Random Thoughts” Format.
I share Byron’s thoughts about PointChaser — she has a certain authenticity that was an asset. Too many similar voices in this space. I know the MS stuff stirs up a wasp’s nest of reactions, but geeze… she also put up with a lot of toxic commenters.
I do wonder if TPG bought her site (like with TIF) or not — her comments make it seem like she didn’t sell it, but its also a competitor of sorts with her new employer. The ad network she’s a part of likely means it can continue to generate some pocket money even without being updated.
It seems crazy how much effort Amex puts into antagonizing their customers over “gaming” rather than just closing loopholes going forward, often in defense of their market-inferior features. Their prerogative, but when Chase and Citi have broad travel credits, this stuff from Amex seems petty.
Hope you don’t let the 8K Singpoare go to waste, that’s pretty close at least to useful — if it were me, I would top up to 12.K that covers domestic US (or Europe) one-ways.
Congrats on the PR. Athens Marathon seems like a fun goal — keep thinking if I ever go for a marathon, I’d want it to be a destination travel one.
Your comments clearly show you are NOT a casual observer 🙂
Agreed on the “certain authenticity”. Oh yes, the blog space is so full of voices that sound so similar. I do my best to be different. You know, random, you just never know what will appear here. Found an article about dolls that will post on Friday that will shock you! 🙂 Yeah, she has very tough skin, I only got hit hard by Ingy and John. Ramsey and MU I can tolerate since they always lose our arguments 🙂
My understanding is her blog is not part of the transaction. But I doubt she will have any time to do anything with it. Like Drew at TIF. They need to work and they have performance evaluations and corp stuff like that. TPG is making it worth it for her to not worry or care about PC at all.
No kidding about Amex, WTF is wrong with them. I am still amazed they would have legal respond with a two page letter to the cfpb complaint we lodged for not giving son a Delta card signup bonus. Two pages, crazy! And petty as hell!
Thanks on the SQ miles. It was 8,500 and I think I found a 12,500 award. Just transferred 4k from Amex MR, it is not instant but they should be there tomorrow. I hope.
Yeah, looking forward to Athens, the original marathon.
Thank you.
I find it fascinating when someone isnt tossing the bloggers salad that the person is a toxic commenter. What is they just disagree with the post or their presentation of the topic?
I refer to TPG as the Toilet Paper Guy because of all the shit that get’s posted over there… How can there be so many clueless morons reading that site?
MTFA – Make TPG Flushable Again.
Well, they sure sell lots of credit cards by pushing toilet paper!
For business, never underestimate how many clueless people are our there, NEVER!
Most of you are LOL/24 so I would rather not talk about it #crying
I start shaking my head now when a post starts off with “I knew it was time for a change” or “I have been offered a fabulous opportunity.” It’s flat-out embarrassing to be honest.
I will keep that in mind when it is my turn 🙂
Is Ramsey ok? Thanks for the 301k man!
ahhhh, you are getting what you want. Must have been tough to eat that S-sandwich for 3+ yrs as the market raced higher. But now we have a pullback and you jump right in with a comment
Ah…so Jim says to buy the phucking dip at exactly what point?
We are not going to have Trumpie tout the Dow again lol, what a moron…It’s like living by the 3 pointer in the NBA. And you die with it too!
I warned you to enjoy it all while it lasts amigo…
such a weird position to take. I wish you the best with it. Most have to be invested for growth to reach their financial goals. Dont know why an advisor would be so excited if someone loses money when its out of their control
Moral of the story: Do not show off touting Dow gains. Because only phucking morons do that. We have no control of what happens in the stock market in the short term. Anyone knows that but phucking morons.
Took my extra cash in IRA and put it in a low cost index fund Thursday or Friday. Been waiting for this.