I am bored. Nothing exciting is happening in the blogosphere. No mistake fares, no short term credit card haunting “EXPIRES AT NOON” headlines, definitely no new exciting mega signing bonuses in the horizon. There will be new Club Carslon cards out on December 1 but before you get too excited…they will be issued by stingy US Bank.
I see the same old stuff being published and repeated by everyone. Or very inconsequential events being passed as news. Very few bloggers publish original and interesting content. I realize now how hard this is! We all live busy existences and sometimes time constraints and life events get the best of us. We here at TBB don’t have filler posts to fill in those blogger block days! This is obviously not a profit seeking venture; if it was we would starve to death! Thank God we do quite well in our real jobs and have some time to devote to this labor of love. The only exciting thing is getting on a plane on Thursday to attend Frequent Flyer University in Los Angeles for the weekend. It is always a special time to socialize with fellow addicts. And, in this hobby/addiction/game, it is amazing how much there is left to learn; in each meeting I go to I always learn something new! Strongest.crack.ever!
Note to FTU participants: I get in Thursday aftenoon & will have a National car for a day as I drive to the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica. I am free for dinner and/or drinks on Thursday night. If you are around & have time to meet please let me know. Plan is to have breakfast at the hotel and go for a run at the beach and drive over to LAX to drop off car and take shuttle to Radisson on Friday afternoon.
Note to readers: I am thinking of a contest. But I want to make it unique. No luggage tags, Southwest drink coupons, lounge passes or gogo session codes. Any ideas? I want to make it worthwhile to enter and I want to ask for your feedback on where TBB goes from here.
We here at TBB assume you already follow most other bloggers and sometimes we will highlight truly deserving posts. Mostly, we like to highlight content that really made a great impression on us that you may have missed. I mean, do you really want me to reiterate how you can transfer American Express Membership Reward Points to Virgin (with upcoming 35% bonus) and then to Hilton 1:2? Or how the Award Wallet folks found a way to get around the incredibly moronic Delta policy to restrict access to Skymiles accounts? Not sure who broke the news…very shortly pretty much every other blogger has repeated the same “news”.
What caught our eye yesterday?
Loyalty Lobby has some hotel review videos, it is like watching hotel porn for us in this hobby!
You thought you were into travel? How about this guy who has been in EVERY country! And NOT on planes, wow!! I thought we were nuts, this guy is way up there!
Merchants appeal $7.2 Billion card-fee settlement. I do not follow the industry much at all. All I know is that this can not be good for commissions to credit card pushers and/or rich signing bonuses. Please comment if you have a more informed opinion!
Gadling has an excellent gift guide for travel.
Creepy Mannequins by Kathy at Will Run for Miles. Creepy indeed. And them bow ties, arggh:-)
This was the very first post by FrequentDreamer on FlyerTalk: “… *any*one seen Jelly Bellies in the inner Bay Area? I’m fine with just having fun with gift cards at Orifice Desperate to meet min spend but just curious. I have been to at least 7 Convenience Value Service (though that S part is debatable) and the rackus is emptius.”
The FT Moderator closed the Deal Killing Blogs thread, Major Boo!!!
This post was cranked out at my local Starbucks. I think it is definitely missing the influence of cheap wine we usually drink at home that gives us them crazy ideas, you know, sexbots and longevity orgasms and things of that sort.
Bluebird.
Definitely down for a meet up! Am free Thu evening. Dinner or drinks sounds like a great idea…hopefully more folks can join in as well!
Just tell me when/where for Santa Monica on Thursday! They have good happy hours near the pier.
LOL, love the last word in your post today!!!! BTW, can’t wait for tomorrow’s post. Should be very entertaining, and what will make it even more entertaining is that you can rip FTG a new one without having to worry about him coming on here crying like a little baby that you are whining about him………………or else you get a $50 Marriott GC!!!! Love it!!!!! 🙂
Yet another idea for a future rantpost: ever notice that bloggers don’t often talk about limits on churning a card? For example, that you might not get the signon bonus for an AMEX card unless you have not had one active for 12 months? Are they downplaying this because they get an affiliate bonu$ regardless of whether or not you get the extra points?
But maybe I am getting paranoid… Damn possible in this hobby!
And Citi cards have an 18 month waiting period! Sometimes bloggers remember to post these sorts of “limits” and sometimes they forget.
It has been a really crazy day. No time to post anything or reply here.
Sandeep and pointstopointsb: Iwill be at the Fairmont Miramar, perhaps meet there say 7 pm? Lobby?
gregorygrady: Bluebird:-) Can u see if they will revive the closed FT thread, perhaps move it to OMNI if they won’t?
bluecat: U may be a little paranoid on this. But you are right, not much publication about this. Then again, there are ways to skirt soem of these “rules”. That slick Dan of DansDeals has done it several times:-) Aff bonues get paid by approved app, yes. Signing bonus posting or not has nothing to do with it, you are right.
You are REALLY getting in FTG’s head.
The past few days him and his cohort had long posts about credit without putting in affiliate links mid-post (even when they specifically brought up CSP or Ink Bold)
Today he did one of those “churning challenges” and recommended the non-affiliate AA card instead of his affiliate link? How do you know that your blog is getting to FTG? because just last week his churning challenge recommended using the affiliate AA card. Wonder what came up recently that would recommend different AA cards 1 week apart? Hmmmm….
What’s next? Maybe next week he’ll also recommend the best Hyatt CC offer instead of his affiliate offer? One can dream
As long as he does not bring up the Royal Caribbean Visa, or the Alitalia card, or heaven forbid, that would be the lowest of the low…the Spirit card!
I will continue speaking whatever comes into my head. My therapist noticed a substantial improvement in me ever since I started blogging and has strongly encouraged me to speak my mind. Doing so saves me money as I do not see her as frequently; she is not cheap but she is worth it!
I noticed what you wrote. I am laying low…more on tomorrow’s blog I am writing now.
Angry Bluebird:-)
Sounds good! Perhaps you can email me at sandeep@sjbvision.com to coordinate?