Well, it was a huge day in the short history of this blog! Being mentioned in both Frugal Travel Guy and my heroes Points Envy brought a lot of smiles in my face! I was walking around smiling so much I was afraid some people may think that I was under the influence of some substances. Note: I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan where medicinal marijuana is legal…arthritis anyone?
At some point I will have more to say on what my friend Rick posted about my blog. As always, all bloggers better not take anything personally…EVER! As my number 1 fan Karyn stated on the comments “My take on his new blog is its tongue in cheek”. Yes it is! Again, more later. Maybe one day I will wake up at 5 am to make a special post about this and expand on Rick’s comment about how “The travel niche space has reached a new height, depth, dimension, absurdity”. I agree, this blog was over due:-) It IS a sign that the market has grown so much to attract participants who rip the other participants like my good friends at PointsEnvy.
As mentioned a few days ago, every day I find more appreciation of what bloggers do. Coming up with original stuff is hard. Coming up with such stuff daily and finding the time to work on the blog is even harder. You see, I have no filler posts (credit card pimping, trip reports, and Mrs. TravelBlogBuzz said no way for a guest post unless it deals with Chinese food recipes or shopping mall excursions). It has helped me be more focused and manage my time better. I have been thinking about doing this for so long that I just had to give it try to take it off my “I do not want to regret” list. Next I need to face my fears and jump off an airplane (parachuting). Where will this blog go? I have no clue. So far I enjoy writing and getting some stuff out of my system. My therapist likes this too!
My heroes at PointsEnvy (counting yet PE?) came out with a confession about the Vanilla Reloads…You bastards, you were behind that memo!
And they kindly lead off this blog with a link to MY blogand THEN legends such as Frequent Miler, Lucky, the Points Guy and Mr. Pickles FOLLOW me. I took a screenshot and will frame it. I will show it to my grandchildren one day and tell them…”Your grandpa was a legend, he was even mentioned by PointsEnvy before some other legends”. I am on Cloud 9, heck I feel higher than Felix, that crazy Austrian dude who jumped from the stratosphere!
Omg! Did I just see a Spirit airlines trip report at Mommy’sPoint blog? This is as bad as seeing a tweet from a hostel by another blogger who does not dare do an actual trip report as he will lose his reputation. If you or somebody else ever think about posting a hostel trip report, think twice, please spare us the agony, you will forever be marked as that weird hostel dude/gal. We don’t want to read that stuff, it brings us haunting nightmares, we all fly First or Business and drink champagne like PointsEnvy! Oh, and never forget, friends don’t let friends fly Spirit!
Not sure if you noticed but me and PointsEnvy are on a mission to crosslink our sites to death. Our secret evil path to take over the market from Boarding Area (it’s probably down, don’t even go there) was almost accidentally revealed last night on twitter. Cooler heads prevailed at the last moment. Everything working as planned. We are in the execution phase now [Note: I did wake up at 5.21 am this morning because I needed to update this darn blog…if I keep this up I will feel like being executed which may bring me relief].
The Boarding Area went from bad to worse yesterday. Down for most of the day. Any day now the hosting will be fixed we are told repeatedly. Are they cheap or just plain too busy counting all the dough from the credit card apps? Confession: I do get tweets coming to my cell phone as messages. One of those special people is…Boarding Area! Yesterday was a slow day and liked it because they were down for so long. Then in the late evening my cell caught fire with a crapload of tweets from BA bloggers. You guessed it? It was the Chase Ink “new” cc links being pushed out. I could just sit back, watch my cell phone and see them all coming streaming in telling me that if I do not get the card through their links I will be condemned to hell or locked up in a jail cell forced to watch episodes of “Hoarders” 24/7. Guys, I know you appreciate it if we all click on your links ok? I am done doing so, I am going direct from now on to preserve the editorial purity of this publication. You can all go direct to the chase website you know. The more you click on them aff cc links, the MORE of them you get in return thrown to your faces. It is like crack. All the bloggers are high on crack. Ok, that was a mini rant. I can’t control myself remember? I am in my third therapist now, thinking of trying out a fourth one in 2013.
On contests, you steer clear when you read “expert judging panel” or “based on the number of votes”. Don’t waste your time, there is always some super talented person out there who will submit an entry that will make yours look so stupid or some kid with computer hacking skills or who has 4,987 friends who will vote for him/her. Enter random one time entry contests & use an email address to control the spam! Hmm, where is my National Car Rental prize by the way, still waiting for it!
I had to delete a comment yesterday. I guess this little blog has set another milestone. This blog does not discriminate and I could care less about what others do in their personal lives. Rants are welcome here but please let’s leave politics/religion/sex orientation stuff out. Unless you have an inside report on the rumored Elite status Hedonism Resorts are cooking up in 2013. If yes, I may want to interview you. Pics too perhaps? That will lead the hits to stratosphere! Hmm….actually, this could be innovative. We sure need some innovation in this space, it has become so boring ever since the end of the 5x/OD deal and the endless cc posts!
After seeing all the benefits of the Chase Ink cards I truly feel that I can recite them all without even looking, no teleprompters needed!!
Lots of little nuggets here by Travel Summary. Reload them Johnny! #antispoonfeeding!
Ben comes up with the funniest, oddest, weirdest stories while traveling. This one about his ugly sweater is another crazy one! Dang it, I was hoping he would have pics of that Brazilian couple in Cathay Pacific First Class instead. Or them ping pong balls. WTF George you sick, so sick! Ben, brilliant move to sell it but you should listen to Mr. Pickles, you sold too low! And please allow Frank back in to comment, I miss him!
Star Mega DO participants flew back to the US from Europe last night. At the Hyatt reception they learned that the United charter flight today would be on the Dreamliner. Twitter caught fire, I bet you there were instant orgasms when Tommy announced it. Come on, I even knew about this and I am not even attending! Why don’t you work off all those calories Hyatt fed you last night and go for a run? Kathy at Will Run for Miles will lead the run!
I just can not believe how many travel blogs are out there. I mean REAL travel blogs, you know, they post about travel and not acting like Chase card reps!
I am giving Rick the Frugal Travel Guy a one day reprieve from my rants to pay back for writing about me yesterday. Hint? Rick, I did NOT start my blog as “outlet to relieve the frustration caused by us bloggers killing his deals.” I just started it as an outlet period, my therapist always talks about constructive outlets and weird things of that sort.
MMS: You all knew it was not going to last. Wife pics are back. And dissecting/spoonfeeding the Southwest visa to death. Shoot me!
Hey Milevalue, that was two good posts in a row! I wonder when the Chase Ink cc post is coming? Come on, you are late!
Bloggers are after me to convert me! One even sent me a Chase Ink CC aff link by direct message on twitter. Wow!
Have been looking to do some National Parks. The pics here are just stunning from TravelWhimsy
Weird story about how Delta terminated the Skymiles accountof a musician AND his cello at the Wandering Aramean site, hi Seth! This is just too weird, there has to be more behind this. I am waiting for something similar to the United breaks quitars/cellos parody videos any day now.
This is just way too funny! How to Tell if You’re Involved in thePetraeus Scandal
What did I get myself into, I need to clone myself, Gary see you online tomorrow at 5 am.
I just read FTG’s post. What an unnecessarily nasty screed. I look forward to you continuing to point out the self-interested credit card points masquerading as content and the greed and inanity of many blogs and bloggers.
Adam, thanks for reading! I added your blog to my insanely long Google Reader list! Iam having fun with this and I will speak my mind even though they are all trying to bribe me:-)
George, reading your blog is better than earning points & rebates from Staples. -:) Following your tweets for a long time, but this is 10x better. Keep it on.
George….good stuff again and twitter is the best! I wonder if I’m your first groupie too?
@Adam , don’t refer to FTG in a negative fashion…that’s for George to do. Besides, FTG has been blogging for years and deserves a break from snarkism. 🙂
Thanks for the mention, and for not roasting me!
Your blog is the first one I read now (albeit in Google Reader, sorry, that is how I read all blogs :D)!
TravelWhimsy had no idea you had started a blog, so I urged her to start reading. A hearty “thank-you” on her behalf!
I am curious to find out who the true “Points Envy” is/are. Are you bringing them to the LAX FTU?
OK, I think I may have to nominate this for best miles and points blog post of the year (…and not because I was kindly mentioned – but muchas gracias!). It is not often I’ve come across a blogger who manages to turn ranting into such a compulsively readable post! Admittedly I don’t keep up with all the miles and points news on a second by second play like some of the experts out there, but I think this post succinctly sums up a lot of the drama in the space I’ve been hearing about from Mr. Travelbypoints.
My motto is “to each his own”, but in the meantime I’m looking forward to reading more of your therapy. Welcome to the blogosphere!
@Allen: “…reading your blog is better than earning points & rebates from Staples. -:”
Thanks a lot! Don’t get too carried away now, this may be going too far!
@K2o: Groupie? Oh, I wish! I made some jokes on Twitter that I was going to bring my entourage to FTU but when they found out I wanted them to fly Southwest with me…they disappeared:-) Yeah, FTG that old veteran who sold at the all time high, I am just getting started. The only way for him to be saved from my rants is to keep mentioning my blog in his…Please tell him;-)
@travel summary: Hey, I post the best posts and roast the worst ones. So…watch out.
@Jimmy: Thanks for the kind words. If you find out who PointsEnvy is please let me know too:-)
@TravelWhimsy: Thank you very much for your kind words. I am just an overstressed and overworked man letting my inner voice, err rant come out as my therapist keep saying it is therapeutic. He does gets on my nerves, need to find another one:-) Did I say I LOVE the photos I linked to?
Thank you! I’m forwarding your compliment to my husband so he will quit complaining the next time I lag behind to snap some pics (the pics of his back that frequently pop up in my trip reports are not me trying to be artistic, it’s just typical scenery on our trips).
BTW, I thought you and FTG were really good friends. No joke. Guess I have to brush up on my miles and points blogger relationship chart now. 🙂
Great – now thanks to you and Travel Whimsy, all the Anti-blogger fans will be heading to our beloved Yosemite and Yellowstone! Just think of the overcrowding problem you’ve caused! Another great deal screwed up by bloggers…
@Travelwhimsy: Yeah, I was going to rant about his back but I wanted to close my post on an up note;-) I still consider Rick my friend, I hope he does too. As I said, nothing here should be taken personally ever! Yes sometimes I may lose it….I can’t help it, several things set me off!
@Anonymous: Yeah, sorry about that, it has become a norm lately…having another deal screwed up by bloggers:-)