We will take a wild run again through United’s award search engine improvement, Southwest’s Valentine gifts, getting points for Sony movies, hourly rates for help on assisting bloggers, how mainstream blogs are discovering the affiliate revenues coming from credit cards, a great graph showing you what happens after a credit card is swiped, two amazing pictures from the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards, two crazy guys climbing Shanghai Tower with a GoPro, 15 haunting photographs of abandoned buildings, more pictures and a scary video from Sochi, an illustration on how to survive falling through ice, and we end with some funny pictures as usual. Enjoy!
You can support TBB by clicking/forwarding any of our Referral Links and starting your online shopping at our NEW Amazon affiliate link . Or click on the Amazon Banner on the right ,thank you!
Thank you Southwest Airlines for sending me 4 Drink coupons for Valentine’s Day. I love you too. It’s the little things. Delta never sent me anything like that because the bean counters did not allow it.
United.com will now show Brussels Airlines award seats. Only LOT Polish, Shenzhen, and Singapore Airlines do not show up! It is expected the next airline to show up in the Delta award search engine to happen in 2019 at the earliest!
If you watch movies at the theater, make sure you save your ticket stub if it is a Sony movie. You can upload them to Sony Rewards for 200 points per ticket. It’s not much but it can add up you know. Sony does not make many movies. Right now the movies you can get points for are “Robocop2” and “Monuments Men”. I went to the premiere of Robocop2. I have mixed feelings about it. I think it is a solid movie, very well made and pretty good acting and action. But it’s just not that original enough. And we here at TBB really like original stuff!
Extra Pack of Peanuts is hiring! Pay is $10 per hour! In other words, you work for peanuts 🙂 Anyone want to help me out operate a separate page (like Frequent Miler does) of affiliate credit cards and maintain it? There will be no pumping in the Buzz posts because it just does not feel right. I give you 10% of what it generates. I run my baby the way I have been as I don’t have time to learn and deal with the affiliate crap. Heck, with my own and Mrs. TBB’s credit card apps it may be more than what you will make at EPOP lol. Outsourcing/automating affiliate stuff: Here is a business idea. Anyone? 🙂
Since we are in the subject of affiliate credit card links…I attended a financial blogger conference last year. I was an odd duck in there (it happens a lot with me) as I was a financial planner who blogged about miles/points/travel stuff. The main reason I went was to learn about blogging in general. It was money well spent as the beginner WordPress sessions were well worth the price and my time. I was also quite shocked that all these bloggers were treating affiliate income as something very normal. Obviously, I am still trying to make that mental hurdle I guess. Just to give you an indication of how “normal” this is with them outside the miles/points quirky world, here is a blog post at mydollarplan titled “Tips and Tricks for Planning Credit Card Application Sprees” unleashing many credit card affiliate links without even bothering with any disclosures at all. Can you imagine a credit card post without a single mention of a Chase card, WTF!!! More mainstream sites are learning where the money is in this business (it sure is not in Google Ads and Amazon links lol). You make up your own mind…I am shaking my head.
Here is a nice illustration showing how a card transaction is processed. It was found in this article “The New Chip-And-PIN Standard Is Creating A Big Opportunity For The Major Payments Companies“.
Gary Leff starts Milesholics Anonymous with a “My name is Gary and I am a Miles-holic” coming out article in thefix.com, an addiction website. I remember doing most of those promos too (save the disabled Thai farmers and visits from the DEA). I sure had some good laughs but it appears from the comments the people who frequent that site did not understand or appreciate the humor. Oh well.
These two crazy guys climb the Shanghai Tower, the second tallest building in the world. The views are beyond epic. WOW! If you are afraid of heights I advise you not to watch it without your mommy and daddy present!
This is a must click. 20 Highlights from the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards. By Twisted Sifter which I proudly have in my “Blogs I Love” list! I had a hard time to pick one so I picked two. Take a few minutes to check out these photographs, you will be a better person for it. Or maybe not, it is really up to you.
Go fat cows!
15 Extraordinary Pictures of Abandoned Buildings. By Bored Daddy. Some very interesting buildings shown here, this is my favorite:
You can bookmark this New York Times website to check out the best photographs from the Sochi Winter Olympic games. It is updated daily.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Insane GoPro Video Of The Olympic Downhill Skiing Course That Bode Miller Says ‘Could Kill You‘. OMG, this is insane. This GoPro camera has become such a hit!
Art of Manliness (love the blog name!) has this fantastic illustration on how to survive falling through ice. This may save your life, you are welcome.
And I leave you with this:
Oh, Happy Valentines Day!
If you think he/she won’t go along with that, maybe he/she will go along with this one? I hope so for your sake.
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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Third
1st, but really 2nd?
Last. Just kidding, please comment away 🙂
I can help you with a credit card affiliate website. I have made lots of mistakes with mine, so i know what *not* to do in the future. I am assuming you already got approved by creditcards.com?
You assume too much 🙂 Let’s discuss over email next.
Side note, how come you got ride of your super long URLs and instead have short URLs? I think you are missing out on some Google keyword search results. I think Google gives you higher standing in search results if the keywords appear in your URL, not just metatags. Just my 2 pence gov’nor.
That was my fault. I started this post earlier so I named it “Wed” and then I forgot to go back to add the full title to it. Oh well, I was never good with that seo stuff. I still don’t know what a metatag is and how to get one (please don’t laugh)
Looking at the source code for this post shows you are using Yoast SEO Plugin and your metatags are “United, Sony Rewards, Paying Peanuts, Affiliate Credit Card Link Carpet Bombing, Miles Addiction, Shanghai Tower, Sochi, Valentine’s Day phone sex – TravelBloggerBuzz”. Metatags are the keywords you enter at the bottom of a WP post. I would separate them by commas for every word.
For example, my recent post titled “March App-O-Rama Thoughts: Hawaiian Airlines (35,000 Miles), Discover It ($150 Cash Back), Barclays Arrival ($440 Cash Back), Chase Ink Bold Visa (50,000 UR”…
I have the following metatags: “march, app-o-rama, credit, card, application, status, thoughts, hawaiian, ha, airlines, 35,000, miles, barclays, bank, america, discover, it, $150, cash, back, sign, up, bonus, minimum, spend, spending, promo, arrival, $440, chase, ink, bold, visa, mc, master, mastercard, 50, ur, ultimate, reward, points, citi, citibank, american, aa, executive, 100, $10, 3, 4, 5, months, us, olympics, flex, travel, credit),american airlines,american express,amex,award travel,cash back,chase,citibank,credit cards,frequent flyer miles,ink bold,promotions,travel,travel credit cards,ultimate rewards,us bank,credit card advice,current promotions”. The first half are based on what I type into the metatags box, the second half are the keyword tags I select for each post.
We can chat over email in more detail.
Oh that Yoast plug in…it is there, I used it a few times. No time to learn what it is and how to use it properly. Will email you sometime this weekend.
Sociological observation on the miles/point blogs:
A little less than one year ago, we had a running back-and-forth going in which many of us praised Frequent Miler’s approach to affiliate link posting and creative authorship while denigrating frequent link-pumpers who added nothing to the hobby except lamely re-publishing deals that were found elsewhere and relying on lazy filler content.
Others (e.g., Rick) replied that, well, in short, not everyone can be Frequent Miler. He’s a full-time blogger who puts his own skin in the game and is always on the hunt. Other bloggers have jobs, kids, etc. And many beginners simply need to have their hand held through the first few steps.
I could find an example of this exchange, but I’m busy.
I think that, with advances in the hobby and blog world to this point, the defense that “not everyone can be Frequent Miler” is invalid.
There are a number of advanced deal-finders and creative types that do what FM does, and at times do it better. I’ve recently learned lots by reading the Saverocity crew, Miles Abound, and the Free-quent Flyer, to name a few. (The OGs are in the MS forum at FT, of course.) I’m sure I’m missing out by not reading others. I think FM (and by extension the bigger copycat blogs) was late to mention Evolve, which I had already gleaned from FT and the Free-quent Flyer.
One can plausibly argue that these blogs are for advanced hobbyists. However, the difference between these authors and, say, Daraius, is that the former are actively adding to the body of useful information available to hobbyists, while MMS is not.
These authors show that producing FM-level/style posts is possible for those with skill. They should be applauded. And they put the rest of the hack filler/affiliate pumpers to shame.
Harvson, Gotta disagree with you here. If your target market is newbies, aka fresh credit card meat , and those with little or no knowledge on the advanced techniques, you are going to write entirely different content than the advanced blogs. The language will be plain and simple and to you, an advanced player, You read the post with a jaundiced eye. Of course it seems worthless to you, You know it all already. But newbies eat it up because it is much better than the cryptic BS on FT
And FM made a moral decision to NOT put links in his daily posts. That is not brilliance, just a decision he made. It doesn’t make other bloggers bad. It just made their blogs less attractive to you. There is no right or wrong answer here. Just an approach to the market.
And lastly, with the advancement of blog technology it may be easier for some to catch on and produce great presentations, but it does not lead to great posts or great layouts. For example, George continued with a home page for months that had nothing but the same pimp for the amazon ad and that is all it showed. Day after day after day. Ugh.
Blogs are attempting to educate the world from Rookies to Advanced. You happen to be on one end of the scale. There are literally thousands of people that owe many of their first cheap travel experiences to blogs like MMS and that is a good thing.
It all comes down to two issues:
1. If you don’t like a blog, don’t read it. the negative commentary here does little or no good whatsoever.
2. Bloggers are people of all intelligence levels, just like the general public. Think of all the people you know in the world and pick out one of just average intelligence. Got that person in mind. Mine is George for example.
Remember half the world (below average) including half the bloggers, are dumber than that.
Scary thought isn’t it?
I need to respond to two things Anonymous brings up:
>>>>>>>>>>>>George continued with a home page for months that had nothing but the same pimp for the amazon ad and that is all it showed. Day after day after day. Ugh.
I feel horrible about this! I really DID NOT REALIZE this is how it looked until a reader alerted me to it and I changed it right away starting with today’s blog post. I apologize to all. I probably lost many readers this way and I can go cry in the corner by myself. But I don’t fret about things in the past I have no control over. I am not up in this seo friendly techie design stuff.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Think of all the people you know in the world and pick out one of just average intelligence. Got that person in mind. Mine is George for example.
Thanks for the compliment, I always aim high 🙂
I will have more thoughts on the subject later on, I need to go pay my property taxes and do oil change to my car right now. It is snowing again. &^%$#
Thank you to both for taking the time to share your thoughts, I really do appreciate it.
“It all comes down to two issues:
1. If you don’t like a blog, don’t read it. the negative commentary here does little or no good whatsoever.”
I’m not here to bless the world with goodness or CC offers.You only read the “good stuff”? I watch sh!t movies. I sometimes start reading horrible books. I’ve had $4 wine. Had good fcuks and bad.Various highs and lows. I even travel in coach. It gives me reference points.I recommend everyone to expose themselves to filth. Boardingarea is a good place to start. It sometimes makes me feel warm and fuzzy reading DP or a sterile OMAAT trip report. Add in a top 5 OR 10 Best CC report and I’m in heaven.
harvson3: Thanks as always for taking the time to comment. I agree with your conclusion: “These authors show that producing FM-level/style posts is possible for those with skill. They should be applauded. And they put the rest of the hack filler/affiliate pumpers to shame.” This is the essence of the three lists I have produced here. It is skill, hard work, adding value to the reader vs not that much skill/pretending, lazy work and putting own pocket book before the reader.
Anonymous: First, thanks for taking the time to comment, you show that you care! I agree with your terminology referring newbies as “fresh credit card meat” as, imho, this is exactly how this target market is primarily viewed upon by you know who. This target market is much bigger and makes more commercial sense to target it if dinero is your primary motivation. Yes, they eat it up because they don’t know any better and these blogs just don’t do a good job on educating them as they always put the pocketbook first. I mean, even in somewhat decent posts we have an intervention by editors to push more cards (like it was not enough already!).
I believe FM’s decision was not only moral but it was good for business too. Yeah, my home page sucked so badly, I am embarrassed by it as I was too busy going through blogs to find some great stuff to feature here that readers likely would not have the opportunity to read elsewhere. I could be researching affiliate companies and finding ways to pump more cards but this takes away from serving the reader. Then again, money was not the reason I started blogging and I do not do things primarily by money because then it becomes, you know, a real job. And that’s not much fun when it becomes, you know, a real job 😉
You do what you wanna do of course. If people want to talk about other businesses (blogs) they can do it here if they want because they would likely get censored if they attempt to enlighten or correct errors in those blogs (many more conversions—->more profits if those readers remain in the dark). I am done yelping them, I have my three lists and I feel I have contributed something positive by taking a stand laying them out. I think readers helping the bloggers in my two Love and Like lists improves world peace and understanding 🙂
I am proud to be average which is vastly underrated! lol.
@ ABC: LOVED your comment. MVP material. You are right, you nailed it! I need to find time to do the Gems from the comments blog posts and add yours on top. You made me laugh which is awesome! It is painful what I do reviewing these blogs and, you know, it is indeed very entertaining too! Giggles 😉
RE: “Remember half the world (below average) including half the bloggers, are dumber than that.”
Strictly speaking, this is not mathematically correct: median is not the same as average.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Median George!
Came here to say this, but saw it had been posted already. You have a bunch of math/stats nerds among your readers, TBB!
Thank you anonymous2, my new nickname, “Median George” Lolololololol I dig it!
sounds much more sophisticated than average George 😉
The common man: Eclectic content attracts eclectic readers, what can I say? 🙂
Fifteenth.
“Think of all the people you know in the world and pick out one of just average intelligence. Got that person in mind. Mine is George for example.”
This kind of comment REALLY turns me off. George is gracious to make a joke out of it, but I wouldn’t be here every day if I believed it. And I wouldn’t be following him in his other life on Twitter if I believed it. This kind of comment sure reminds me of previous ones I have seen here….Has Ingy returned to comment-land? If so, I hope it is a “comment-run” and like with mileage runs, that he left as soon as he arrived.
Happy Valentine’s Day, guys.
“Fifteenth” – That was funny!
Thanks for the support. It does not turn me off, it comes with the territory. It is the internet after all.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you too!
But it is REALLY OK for commenters to call people MILF’s, question their sexual preferences, accuse them of using coke in the lavatory and not have George remove the comment? And somebody called him “average” and that is REALLY upsetting?
Seems to be a bit of a double standard here
Lucky wins the day with his post on redeeming Korean miles. Nothing in there that Gary hasn’t already written but a nice job putting it together.
I marked to read that while abusing my body doing a cardio machine at the gym. There has been some really good stuff today actually. I could pump (pun intended) tonight but I think I will hold myself back and make the Monday (more like Sunday night) post longer…As you have noticed, I just make it up as I go along.
I believe that stock exchange on Brussels has been turned onto a gorgeous museum. Funded perhaps by the Rothchilds?
It’s a beautiful building. Great if it was turned into a museum. Rothchilds, who are they? 🙂
Gary and Lucky are going into overdrive humping Korean Air miles because they need a selling point for Chase cards. “You can fly United coach” just isn’t going to cut it
The rest of the usual Chase spokespeople haven’t gone that route yet, but that’s only because most of them aren’t really experts and thus don’t know how to use KE miles until Gary walks them through it at the next FTU
In truth of course, the best cards to get the first class travel don’t provide an affiliate link. So don’t expect daily mentions of them.
This.
Sometimes I think Steve reads my mind and types out in a comment 🙂
So what are the best cards to get first class travel that we don’t know about because they don’t pay?
Well the best cards for first class travels are the multiple 50K AA offers and the 100K AA offer
Also, I like how you twisted my words – YOU know about them, because you follow very closely
But unless you are an avid daily reader, or were around the day the 100K offer broke, you probably never heard about it, since it’s barely been mentioned since
To use but one example, on MommyPoints blog, I didn’t see a single mention of either the 100K offer or the multiple 50K offers for the AA card over the first 2 weeks. Over that same time span, I see no fewer than 9 different posts which have the CSB/CIB/CIP links, more than half of which only had the links for the sake of having the links, and not because it was of significant relevance to the post topic (spare me the “they’re the same ecosystem” excuse)
“I like how you twisted my words – YOU know about them, because you follow very closely”
Not twisting words, I was genuinely wondering whether I was missing something (and unfortunately, I’m not).
“But unless you are an avid daily reader, or were around the day the 100K offer broke, you probably never heard about it, since it’s barely been mentioned since”
Gary linked to it today, and it looks like twice on Tuesday. Gary and Lucky both listed it at #1 on their ‘top 10’ shills this month. Doesn’t exactly seem like a secret.
You’re right though, both Lucky and Gary have spent a good amount of time on the ins and outs of Korean SkyPass and I can’t imagine either would have done it without the need to pimp Chase cards.
They’re doing a great service, though. We don’t have to click their links if we don’t want, but it’s a great incentive to get them to do the work for us. I didn’t know about the cheap Alaska Airlines Hawaii redemptions Korean offered, for instance.
*the first 2 weeks…. of February
Bloggers who take comps.
http://thepointsguy.com/2014/02/using-miles-for-my-first-trip-to-australia-melbourne-hamilton-island-and-sydney-here-i-come/
“At the time I was rebooking my Australia trip, I got invited to attend some meetings in Hawaii where a portion of my travel will be reimbursed. ”
He’s going to Hawaii. He’s flying Hawaiian Airlines. Barclays just started issuing Hawaiian credit cards.
I have a client who is one of the top salespersons in a big IT company. Going to an all paid luxury cruise in Europe as his reward. Same thing applies in this space for tops salesmen pretty much…
I don’t know about you but I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for part 25 of the MMS trip to Italy.
For a moment I was horrified when I saw Part 23, Part I…..I was expecting Part 23, Part II and on and on before we hit Part 24 🙂
There’s something about ‘Anonymous’ that seems familiar. That knowledge of newbies, that familiarity with the business. I just can’t put my finger on it.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 🙂
And complaining about TBB not moderating comments…
Two thoughts:
1. Gawker had a fascinating post about a week at sea on a Paula Deen cruise (http://gawker.com/gravy-boat-my-week-on-the-high-seas-with-paula-deen-an-1522108382), which reminded me (only because of the subject of cruises, not because there is any other connection) — wasn’t FTG hosting a cruise? All the links on the original post have gone dead http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/2013/11/road-warrior-and-aviation-enthusiast-cruise-may-18-25-2014.html.
2. I find it fascinating that TPG can routinely throw in references to dropping over a half grand on a hotel room night or spending thousands to buy miles for first class tickets, but in Part 426 of the MMS trip report, they repeatedly stress over and over again that they save money in other ways to be able to afford the two nice dinners on their trip (they don’t have cable!). It almost comes off as too defensive. Anyway, I wonder if this says anything about the relative audiences of TPG vs. MMS.
Wow, that Gawker article is a riot! And that image of Deen’s ass is horrifying 🙂
This is my own personal opinion only. And, you know, I am average or median…or whatever. It is very easy to let money get to your head in this business. And you can see it very easily how each blogger handles it. Even thought it pays to market a middle class every day common man persona (who makes a killing flying first class and staying at luxury hotels for free u know) sometimes, well, the money gets to your head and you start looking at things differently and sub consciously expect things that you would not do otherwise before you were laboring in a job at a cubicle.I expect that of TPG and MMS is moving that way even though he keeps resisting it. I mean, did you look at the portions in that restaurant? I don’t care about the taste, the least I expect is to be full when I drop some mega bucks on such meals 🙂 The most interesting transformation has been with Mommy Points when she started burning points to fly family and grandparents to Kansas City to First Class trip reports on Lufthansa 🙂
On the contrary, which I find remarkable, is Dan of Dans Deals whose sense of a deal and scores has continued pretty much at the same “rate” without being spoiled by the $$$ as far as the web brand goes. He probably drives a Ferrari but does not flaunt it lol.
Okay, I need to finish the next TBB post and then work on some tax returns. Thanks for taking the time to comment and the links.
While Mommy Points’ posts have definitely moved upscale (“getting my 4 year old to Hawaii in C”), I find her thoughts are still well anchored-witness that post on the toughest part for traveling couples being the transitions. Hard to criticize her writing about trying to get her family into long- haul business class when that ‘s what many of us spend so much time doing.
She’s not writing for the coupon crowd, but I still find her relevant. And at least she doesn’t run around the internet posting acidic comments she’s afraid to put her name on.
I absolutely agree with everything you stated. And she is the BEST in responding to comment and criticism…unlike others you mentioned 😉
Not only upscale in the plane but also the hotel. If you don’t have diamond status at Hyatt, how will a family of 4+ afford staying at Andaz and eat? Why not mention how to get an overall affordable stay in Hawaii. Back in the day, Ingy would cover this aspect in a reasonable way. I rarely see MP doing that. I assume that most large families care more about the destination than a nice seat in an airplane. A toaster oven isn’t a solution for every family!
This is awesome http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/manufactured-spending/1552441-most-extreme-measures-you-have-take-manufactured-spending.html
Wow, indeed! I will add it to next post “NO VR, just VD” and “Will fruck for VRs” lololololoolololool