Lets go on a wild ride checking out the top 25 Travel Rewards credit cards, the Southwest Companion Pass, Discover car rentals, Starwood Hotels Map, Chase Freedom card changes and travel to Liechtenstein and Nanjing. Also we have again three top personal finance articles guaranteed (lol) to increase your nest eggs by being smarter Investors and improve your Boomer Retirement (hint: stop trolling online) and how to prevent suicide. We end as always with the best Blog Buzz online. Actually it is so good we tend to throw up accounting for all this masterful pumping orgy of credit card sales mania of these bank servants! Churn churn churn…oh wait, they can’t say that, it is not allowed 🙂 Peace in the Middle East….in Ferguson too! Buzz on!
TBB Blog Mission: To Entertain. Educate. Inspire. In That Order
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MILES/POINTS
The Top 25 Credit Cards. By Mile Nerd. Best credit card list on the net!
Maximizing The Southwest Companion Pass. By Travel is Free. OMG, it contains absolutely no Southwest affiliate credit card links in the post! I know this has been blogged to death but I still learned something new here. The taxes to/from Nassau and Punta Cana are a bitch for a “free” ticket and a nice table about the hotels you can stay in the international locations! So, why are you clicking on the credit card links of other bloggers who just press “Template # 47SW” for the 345,568th time that is full of the affiliate credit card links huh? Maybe you want them to pump you more? Think!
Excellent Flexible Bank-Point Airline Transfer Partner Master Guide. By Well Traveled Mile.
Complete Map of Starwood (SPG) hotels. By Travel is Free.
Chase Bank is devaluing the Freedom card, mainly eliminating the 10% annual rebate if you had a Chase checking account. Do not expect this to affect how bloggers sell the card when an especially juicy commission is being offered via their affiliate pumping channels!
TRAVEL
Hey, go take a selfie at the Grand Bretagne Hotel in Athens (Starwood property). It has a designated selfie spot!
Why Are We Cutting Our Trip Short. By The Onion (H/T to TBB reader James)
PERSONAL FINANCE
3 Easy Moves That Can Boost Your Nest Egg By 60%. At Money.
Smart Investors Ignore the News. At MarketWatch.
Top 5 Retirement Expectation of Boomers. At Think Advisor.
ODDZ & ENDZ
“If you are considering suicide or know someone who is, please call a suicide hotline. They can help. They’re free. They’ve saved and helped so many of us, including me“…By The Bloggess, please read this post if that applies to you or send it to someone who you think may need it!
Finalists Of The 2014 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Competition Will Leave You Wanting More
Acrobatics at the Nanjing Youth Olympic Games in China – in pictures. Amazing pictures, wow!
Photograph: Feature China/Barcroft Media
BLOG BUZZ
Note: This section is for long time followers of this hobby and references to blogs/bloggers may not make much sense if you are new to this. You are welcome to stay and read it of course but if you go WTF just remember this note!
Real world tests of the Boingo Hotspot app. Some good – some meh! – Delta Points is suddenly in love with the Amex credit cards. Some nonsense about Boingo and bang, click on my Amex Platinum card links. I am not responsible that Amex prohibits telling readers they pay $250 per application! Hey Boingo sucks but click on the Amex Platinum link anyway…doeeeeeeet! And I wonder why this blog never gets any angry comments, are they like family? 🙂 Wait. Delta told Expert Flyer to buzz off so I am waiting to see how Delta Points will take that and sell an Amex credit card!
13 Credit Cards That Offer Primary Rental Car Insurance – Million Mile Secrets Where is the exclamation mark??? I would just delete that template if I was the ghostwriter behind this one!
Double Denial Day for Marriott at Our House – Frugal Travel Guy. So tragic! Stay Chase-y my friends. There was ONE comment. Just imagine if the comments were answered…but busy trolling FlyerTalk these days. Yawn!
Delta Gold SkyMiles (50,000 Miles) – Top 10 Benefits! – Million Mile Secrets Reaching deep deep down to get to 10 to sell these cards!
The Best Value In Points Programs Can Be With Partners – Frugal Travel Guy Wow, deep! What a shame could not stick a few credit card links in there. What is going on at FTG these days? No comments…no surprise!
I went to CVS yesterday. No not for those, for a Flu shot! Do you get one? Should you? – Delta Points. Get your flu shot, wow! So sad not to insert a credit card in there…how the hell did this happen?
What’s up with View from the Wing publicizing non public/targeted hotel elite status links? Maybe this is what Chris Elliott is bitching about?
Top 0% APR Credit Cards That Earn Points & Miles – The Points Guy Where credit card selling has been elevated to mega expert pumping form! Coming up next: Top 10 Credit Cards That Can Get You Laid!
Why I signed up for the United Explorer 50k offer – Frugal Travel Guy Where the credit card pumping never stops!
For TBB journalistic purposes, I am a Frugal Travel Guy list subscriber. And this is the crap my eyes get abused with:
Hello folks,
We first told you about the amazing 70,000 hotel credit card on July 24. It’s a limited time offer, so that 70k could vanish at any time. If you want it and haven’t gotten it yet, what are you waiting for? Curious about which card we’re talking about? Take a look at this post.
Questions about this or other topics? Feel free to email us.
Best,
Frugal Travel Guy
Best Annual Spending Benefits Rewards Credit Cards – Noob Traveler A phenomenal credit card pump post. Just so you know what this travel blogging is all about!
Last Call for One of the Marriott 70,000 Point Credit Card Offers – Deals We Like Last call? What the hell is this, a bar?
The Marriott 70K Offer Is Ending Wednesday – Frugal Travel Guy Ummm, like I said. These guys never stop! When there is no pretending they just sign it as “FTG Staff”.
Chase Freedom Eliminating 10% Bonus For Checking Customers – One Mile at a Time So, so sad news. Throwing in this post four links to the Chase Sapphire and Chase Ink cards in addition to two links for the Freedom card, I bet, not so sad. And I got my number one fan railing for the injustice of me desperately “pumping” my Amazon link LOL.
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs I Ignore
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TBB
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First. Again.
Just saw it. Second.
Third! Darn you guys are quick!
On Lichtenstein, I’ve driven through it on my way from Switzerland to Germany. I’m surprised that he actually stopped. It’s just typical Alpine scenery, but I guess it would be cool to get your passport stamped or something.
Actually, I did not get my passport stamped, Erik — but I would have liked that.
It may be typical Alpine scenery — but I personally enjoyed it. Liechtenstein seems like it would be a nice place to live.
George, thank you for the link. I appreciate it.
I enjoyed the photo. Makes me want to go to Liechtenstein. THIS scenery is why I love to travel. More please 🙂
I will do my best, icicle. I have some trips coming up this autumn; and I will have you and George in mind when I take photographs.
Liechtenstein is drab and boring to live in, I had a job offer there and took a deep look at living there, no way Jose. And of course cost of living is pretty high.
Thank you, Oliver2002. I can see how it can get boring — especially if you eventually get tired of looking at the scenery.
Math equation for George: Liechtenstein – scenery = ?
Hmmm, is this a trick question? 🙂
Re MileNerd, I think you will find the best card list on the net is mine! Is there any US site which lists EVERY miles and points card, updated each month? 🙂
Wouldn’t be so hard to do …..
@ Sam: You are back!
@ smittytabb: Moving up!
@ Erik: Bronze here is an accomplishment!
@ Brian: I would love to get a stamp in my passport. Yeah, unique place. Always wondered about it. I hope it’s in the same group as Greece at the next soccer tournament 🙂
@ icicle: Reminds me of Insbruck I so enjoyed back in my college days!
@ Raffles: Yours is done with a template I assume? 🙂
My last comment got me thinking about movie scenes that represent bloggers. Here you go.
Travel Blogger Buzz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WINDtlPXmmE
Frugal Travel Guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8y6DJAeolo
Delta Points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFLPn30dvQ
The Miles Professor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9H12xTl_98
View From the Wing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzuvQXDUybE
One Mile at a Time and VFTW friendship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qIV_4JVEN8
LOLOLOLOL
This site, after hours of work to produce this masterpiece, brought in $2.47 through Amazon yesterday and I am not mad as hell 🙂
I was able to get my dick drawing addiction under control after I stopped reading VFTW.
This guy, VFTW, is just too much. He wrote another …I’m a big baby article, this time on hotel coffee. I harass him here only because he is such a Prima Donna.
I wouldn’t eat pancakes even if they were free 🙂
Amazing how many bloggers who would never in a million years step foot in a Marriott all of the sudden discovered it
I guess they needed something to hold them over until the next 50K offer for the airline they’ll never step foot on…. sorry, I mean the next AFFILIATE public offer
Good to see FTGs attempt to sucker newbies extends beyond the blog, credit card tool and Chicago Seminars…. apparently they need to do it by email as well.
Yeah really!
Waiting…
Chase is also devaluing the regular Sapphire card, which I hold because, I don’t know, it ages like a cheap, crappy wine. This update will give me an excuse to cancel and open up another Chase sign-up bonus spot.
https://www.chase.com/ccpmweb/shared/document/sapphire_english_programrules.pdf
Some highlights from an email:
Edited to add: Stay Chase-y, my friends.
I am starting to get the hang of this SEO thing you write about. I was looking for an image to illustrate a post I was drafting on “The Psychology of Miles and Points.” First I searched Google Images for psychology. Next, I searched Google Images for miles and points. What pops up are a ton of pictures of Emily — the quintessential frequent flyer. I guess that is why MMS writes multi-part trip reports and includes so many pictures with repetitive subheadings.
That’s what I am talking about! TPG and MMS are masters in this!
Check how he codes the pics in the latest credit card sell post (all the 50k cards). Every pic is titled as the headline with _02, _03 and so forth. Master marketer.
You are exactly right! I learn something new every day!
If you refuse to call out your buddies, I will. Because they do worse than anyone you made fun of in today’s Buzz. Just Another Points Traveler is at it again with a Marriott pumping post with no mention of how people can refer friends. That’s FOUR pumping posts since last Friday night. Almost every single day. In response to my comment saying she hid in a paragraph that there is a $50 additional United credit and is pushing inferior affiliate links stealing $50 from each applicant, she responded saying the link doesn’t work. That’s BS. I didn’t see any comments anywhere it doesn’t work. It works perfectly fine and every other blog on BA is coming clean about it. Shame on her!
>>>>>>>>That’s FOUR pumping posts since last Friday night.
My definition of history is much longer, come on.
Yes I don’t like it either.
But when you say things like…
>>>>>>>> they do worse than anyone you made fun of in today’s Buzz
I disagree….because pretty much everyone on that list has been doing it every single day for a VERY long time. So much in fact that….they made the world famous TBB list.
I need to finish another blog post.
Thanks for the support. I am assuming you clicked on my Amazon link, you know, for that $2.47 per day I made yesterday for your entertainment? 🙂