May 20, 2013: BAcon credit card conference, Peru, sky & scuba diving, Google Wallet & more

Found this somewhere, forgot where! See lower left corner
 

First, my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Oklahoma and everyone caught in the path of the horrific tornadoes!


MVP POST OF THE DAY

Loyalty Traveler talks about "BaCon Bits about credit card affiliate marketing". Must read in my opinion. I made a comment there expanding on the topic if anyone is interested!


TRAVEL

There are certain bloggers who love traveling in luxury. Okay then, how about one of you having a pic in a hotel suite with a Gold iPad huh? Can you do that? We are all getting tired of your rubber duckies at the Frankfurt Lufthansa First Class Lounge!

Crazy guy skydives into the Great Barrier Reef and goes straight to...scuba diving! From The Adventure Blog


MILES/POINTS

The Star Mega DO 5 tickets went on sale. I am not paying $1,200 for a coach seat because this site does not generate any money from pimping credit cards yet #justsaying

Get Hilton Gold with 4 stays in 90 days still going strong. Loyalty Lobby has all the details. Or you can spend $20k on the no fee Hilton American Express (this is where the affiliate link would go lol).

Milevalue wrote THE definitive post on getting to Peru on a lie flat seat. Too bad so much of the site is now dominated by credit card pumping but I understand the economics...

If you needed yet another reason to have more manufacturing spend methods...Google gets into the game, Frequent Miler has the scoop. Sigh.

Northwest vs Ginsburg. The rabbi wants $5 million compensation and the Supreme Court will hear his case! This one will be very interesting to watch!


ON MY MIND

The old man Frugal Travel Guy (the original one) can still crank out some good posts like the old days in "Diversify Your Manufactured Spending". There is a lot in there to decipher. And I always liked the advice "to stay a pig and do not become a hog...as hogs get slaughtered". This is definitely NOT Million Mile Secret material folks:-)

RomsDeals (an MMS interview graduate) is going all in on affiliate credit card links with Credit Karma. Travel Summary also started using Credit Karma recently. But many of the offers are definitely not the best current ones. This stuff is way too complicated for me and I do not have time to research. If there is a way to get them and stick them at a separate tab AND still allow me full editorial freedom ( I am not Jamie Dimon's bitch!) so, you know, friends and family can click them...please someone let me know, thank you:-)  Until then I like raising hell here, thank you for your support:-)

Delta Points says BURN BABY BURN (in all caps and in RED!) and serves a bunch of Chase and AMEX links. Some things never really change.

The Points Guy was on a roll with a mega credit card carpet bombing. I counted 37 of them! This is what is meant by Maximize Monday for sure! Then it was followed up by "My Virgin America Gold Elevate Status Ends - So What?". Ok, you think you will definitely see the Virgin America Visa pushed here of course. But noooooooo, it was not enough! At the end here come another SIX credit cards. Incredible!! May I suggest a name change to "The Credit Card Guy", it seems more appropriate!

Noob Traveler pushed more Chase credit cards and an excuse was found yet again (this time to fly Air Tran to Mexico).


ODDZ & ENDZ

China demolishes bridge. Wow

May 18 - 19, 2013 - Cuba, Virgin seat to seat, 1% vacations, Bluebird/ChaseInk award charts, solution to anxiety

Iceland. Found here

Sure slows down in the weekends!


TRAVEL

Thirteen days in Cuba. An absolutely beautiful post by Ruffin on the Road.

The Ridiculous Summer Vacations of the One Percent. From Peter Greenberg. Wow, ridiculous indeed. Best line was this: "All of a sudden splurging for the convertible from the rent-a-car place doesn’t seem too extravagant, does it?"

The hilarious things people say on Virgin Airlines. You know Virgin is starting this seat to seat talk service. Well, here is what this may lead to. Hilarious indeed!


MILES/POINTS

Travel Summary put some effort to recreate some award charts for the Bluebird/ChaseInk points "method". I am fine with the affiliate link thrown in there as the post is very useful to readers and there is at least some disclosure. I wish I can say that for the majority of bloggers:-)
The way I see it is, with just Vanilla Reloads via Bluebird, I can get a one way trip to New York from Detroit for $39.50, and minimal time (I have CVS all around me) I can get a one way trip to New York from Detroit (via ChaseUltimate Rewards for 4,500 British Airways Avios points and have 500 pts left over!). At this point in my life, I just do not have the time and patience to be dealing with gift cards, PINs, people and machines at WalMart and driving to/from there; I already have millions of miles/points I can not burn fast enough!!


ON MY MIND

Points Miles and Martinis wrote "It's Back! 7x Points Staples And Chase Paper Tower Deal". We all love a good deal, it comes naturally to us in this hobby. Of course...it is a perfect excuse to throw SIX affiliate links to this post, yep folks...THREE Chase Ink Bold and THREE Ink Plus. One was not enough!

Delta Points has a giveaway: "SWAG Saturday! EVERYTHING IS BIGGER in Texas Right?". Umm, okay. Of course before we get to the giveaway we get this:
"I will naturally be paying with my Chase Freedom card as the 5x points they are paying as a bonus now is much better than the standard 2x points my Chase Sapphire card I normally use at restaurants is. For many “chain” restaurants I can still use my INK BOLD and INK PLUS to visit the gift card section and get 5x points that way also!"
Time to grab the Slim Jim to flog myself again!

You remember the Free Travel Guys who were interviewed at MMS? They have been on a giant affiliate link spree since then. Over the weekend they posted "Lufthansa 50,000 bonus miles credit card". Wow!!!


ODDZ & ENDZ

How I Cured My Anxiety. By CharlieHoehn. If you suffer from anxiety this article is for you. "Giving myself permission to PLAY was the cure for my anxiety." I think this is really good life advice too! When you play it does not feel like work, something I have always tried to do. And when it comes to blogging it is certainly all play so far!

Have a great week!

May 18, 2013 - Flying own plane, more Maho beach, Club Carlson deval coming?, MMS interview and more!

I just realized after all the blogs I went through....not much material made the cut here! Eclectic indeed? :-)  You don't want me to start posting filler stuff, do you?


TRAVEL

An absolutely gorgeous video from this guy who flies his plane around. MUST watch. Found at The Adventure Blog. Wow!

Did you know there was a beautiful plane crash memorial site in the middle of the Niger desert?Neither did I!

Ok, more Maho Beach extreme landings from Bored Panda. In the last video a girl gets blown away by a JetBlue jet engine!

More and faster wifi aboard Amtrak trains coming!


MILES/POINTS

Live from A Lounge did a Club Carlson survey and wrote "Is Club Carlson considering a program revamp?". Many of these surveys do not come to fruition. But this one made me afraid, very afraid. Very interesting approach if it comes to pass. Maybe we should all look to burn them Club Carlson points in a bit more urgent fashion, shall we? I think the shoe will drop with Club Carlson like the others but maybe not this year.


ON MY MIND

The Friday interview at Million Mile Secrets was a doozie! First thing you see when you click on the new Free Travel Genius (OMG, another FTG!) is this "I created this website to explain to my friends and family how my wife and I have been able to travel the world for free." Sure, we heard this one before buddy. And a bunch of credit card links are waiting for you of course! And a whole bunch of just one sentence replies. Well at least Daraius is not getting excited anymore by these interviews with renowned miles experts; we sure aren't!! I usually do not provide links in this section but I found the comments VERY entertaining, have at it! Please have some standards for the bloggers you interview, this one just did not serve your readers at all and is not helping the MMS brand!

I never figured out the obsession with Channel 9. At Star Mega DO Dos, Lufthansa hosted us and I participated in a focus group about inflight entertainment. I suggested to kill Channel 9 and fellow participants almost physically harmed me. I guess they never understood my sense of humor:-)


ODDZ & ENDZ

Unbelievable pictures of wildlife from the National Geographic Traveler photo contest.

One of the most heart warming stories I have read lately. Deployed dad makes surprise return- disguised as catcher while daughter throws first pitch.

May 17, 2013 - Loyalty Awards, Cape Town, Grand Canyon, Mona Liza, Animal Camouflage, Chase Recon Dept

I thought I had more material for you today. But as I go through the day I keep eliminating entries as I narrow down my choices. If you have something that you think has a shot to pass my incredibly high eclectic threshold, please email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com or tweet me at @FlyerTalkerinA2


TRAVEL

A panoramic view of Chapman's Peak Drive at Cape Town.

Incredible picture of the Grand Canyon!

MILES/POINTS

"What's in an Award?" by Fozz On Uptime over at Upgrd. I think it is a must read because, well, it is a worthy subject to learn more of! And it sure breaks the monotony of being assaulted with yet another Chase Sapphire and Chase Ink Bold credit card affiliate link! The article ends with:

So, I ask, with a flawed voting process, lack of auditing and corruption, what is a travel award worth?  To me, nothing.  Over the years I've learned to give these awards very little credit as I've learned more and more about how they work.   Furthermore when you sit their wondering why a certain vendor won and listen to the explanation provided, they often don't line up to be truly accurate.

Personally, I always wondered how the Marriott folks win so many awards!! These awards do not mean much to me too! It is good marketing fodder for all involved in the business and a very nice way to spend an evening. The loyalty program folks burn some of their marketing budget on these events only to stick it back to us later by devaluing their programs because they were too...expensive:-) Sigh.


What's up with so many bloggers talking about how to take advantage of the Club Carlson 10k per two night stay promo? It is really not that big of a deal folks! Besides, I still have truckloads of them points! No mattress run material. If it was 50k for just one night I would be all over it!

View from the Wing had a nice post on how to keep your miles from expiring from a few days ago. I had it bookmarked in my browser and not in the Google Reader queue for some reason. Sorry about that.


ON MY MIND

Bloggers LOVE to answer questions like this: "Any idea if Chase is going to return the $300/30,000 point bonus for the Freedom card? Have the Chase Sapphire, so would like the points, but 10,000 is low right now." The usual links follow...Thanks One Mile at a Time. Zzzzzz.

We are not done....What is this? Everyone short on their bills today? View from the Wing conveniently informs us, sit down please, "Why You Should Add a Small Business Credit Card to Your Wallet". Come on guys, this is getting ridiculous! If I only had a dollar for every Chase credit card link my eyes have seen in my miles/points career:-)

Extra Pack of Peanuts does what it always does. Another app-o-rama play by play. Zzzzzzzz. And this blog has the weirdest graphics by far!

ODDZ & ENDZ

20 Amazing Examples of Animal Camouflage. From Bored Panda. Amazing indeed, I can't find some of them!

Moving Mona Lisa: The WWII Story. From Twisted Sifter. Incredible story and pics here!


CHASE CREDIT CARD RECONSIDERATION DEPARTMENT HAS CHANGED, BEWARE!!!

From this FlyerTalk thread by RetiredRoadWarrior

Me: Good morning. A splendid day, is it not? Hope you are well. I was wondering if . . .

CSR Cratchit: Declined!

Me: But but . . .

CSR Cratchit: What, you got a banana in your ear? I said DECLINED!!

Me: But but I don’t understand why my application . . .

CSR Cratchit: Too many inquiries!

Me: But but I’ve only applied for two Chase cards in the last 14 months.

CSR Cratchit: Listen, Toadstool, I said TOO MANY INQUIRIES!! Everywhere, not just Chase. Eight inquiries in the last four months.

Me: I believe it’s only seven, but . . .

CSR Cratchit: You made an inquiry to the produce manager at WalMart as to whether the rutabagas were from Mexico. That’s eight.

Me: But but I believe my Experian is 787 . . .

CSR Cratchit: It’s 784 after I dinged you for a credit pull. Bend over and I’ll do another dozen pulls and spank you into Credit Hell, you degenerate jerk.

Me: But but my credit utilization is under 5%.

CSR Cratchit: Your credit utilization is 6%!!!! You are a fraud and a despicable human being. And you smell like the inside of a Russian horse doctor’s valise.

Me: You can smell . . .

CSR Cratchit: Thank you for calling Chase. Is there anything else I might do you for today? Sharp stick in the eye? Proctology exam administered by Genghis Khan?

Me: No, thank you for your time and consideration.

May 16, 2013 - NASA video FROM Space Shuttle, Spain, Delta Sky Club full of crappy booze, Singing on the plane, fuelpoints, My Kroger Story

TRAVEL

A dear reader (thanks Leigh) sent me this. WOOOOWWWWWWWWW!!!
Absolutely mindblowing video shot from the Space Shuttle during launch
Make sure the sound is up, way up! And the landing is just amazing. Just stunning video!!!

Take a Spanish Roadtrip with me. Love these vimeo videos! Found at Gadling.

Delta continues to squeeze its passengers. Now they are attacking the costs of the beverages served in the Sky Clubs. The Gate has the scoop and the gory details. I liked this paragraph: "Words such as shameful, outrageous, awful, disappointing, pathetic, insulting and mistake were also used by FlyerTalk members to describe the new beverage offerings."

The Flight Deal finally started covering Detroit Airport DTW for fare deal alerts! Woohoo!!  I do receive the @TheFlightDeal tweets on my phone! But since Detroit is a "low volume deal" airport they set up a separate webpage and twitter account for it @FareDealAlert !Will I be able to resist the urge? #remainstobeseen


MILES/POINTS

Daraius of Million Mile Secrets had a death in the family. Very sorry for your loss. I thought the three lessons were excellent:
1) Use Your Miles How You Want  (Yes, yes, yes! Don't worry too much about valuations per mile!)
2) Rehearse emergency trips ( I had a death in the family in 2009 & was on the plane in about 7 hrs since the phone call. Yes, Delta and double miles of course.)
3) Have miles in different programs (Diversify, diversify, diversify....but not too much!)

Loyalty Lobby (again) breaks the news of the AviancaTaca LifeMiles Award Chart Changes. Everyone was "Buy buy buy" when they had their 100% bonus promo. I said at the time I despise BUYING miles because I part with cold hard cash AND the airline is in control. Don't say you were not warned! If you already booked a juicy award, it's okay then:-)


ON MY MIND

Frequent Miler had an update post about his troubles at Lowes. As you all know, I am no shopping fan.   I went into Lowes for the first time in years a few weeks ago. I had the brilliant idea to pick up a few Macy’s cards. The whole transaction went bad, register froze, manager override involved. In other words, complete chaos! A pending transaction showed in my credit card for days before it finally dropped off. #totalfail You won’t see me in a Lowe’s again.

So nice of Milevalue to lay out the two different Amex Business Gold Rewards Card options. How conveeeeenient!

Anyone care to guess how long it takes for the Internet Brands at Frugal Travel Guy to come up with these churning "challenges"? I say five minutes tops!

Ariana of PointChaser keeps pumping out credit card related content at Frugal Travel Guy, yikes! Looks like I won't be featuring PointChaser stuff here again, too busy for more beneficial endeavors?:-(


ODDZ & ENDZ

First it was a passenger who could not stop singing Whitney Houston. Yesterday was one who was singing a Dolly Parton song! A clearly major back to back WTF moment in the history of aviation lol.


MY KROGER STORY

The year was sometime in the mid 80s. I was a poor college student and I was in my second year in the US. At that time Kroger employees were on strike. I had no idea about these things and I remember going to a Kroger store and all these people picketing outside. It was weird, in Greece when workers strike they just break or burn things; here they were holding signs! I do remember coming out of the store with my cart and one dude almost assaulted me and yelling to my face that he needed to feed his family too. I was like, "Hey dude I just bought some ramen noodles and hot dogs (they were on sale), buzz off". Every time I pass by a Kroger that ridiculous moment comes vividly back to haunt me. I do not think I have been back inside a Kroger more than five times tops since then! So, you all enjoy the fuel points....if they last that is;-) To FM and Hiker T: I DO know the value of fuel points. I could have made a killing on them if I had a yacht lol. I just never played because I am just...weird sometimes:-)

May 15, 2013 - Northern Michigan, Maho Beach, Yemen, overhyped AA, 75k Amex offer, 1% moms

On with the show...

TRAVEL

Northern Michigan Country Dreamland HD Video. WOW!! Love these timelapse videos. This is in my back yard! Found at the Adventure Blog.

Extreme Plane Spotting at Maho Beach, Saint Martin. BEST pictures I have seen! I need to get there one day...

The Faces of Yemen. From foXnoMad. I really like ordinary people pics!

You Went Where??? wrote an interesting post "Don't Believe Everything You Read on Blogs: American Airlines Is Not The Second Coming of Jesus Christ". What, it's not? :-) You know it is an entertaining read with an opening like this: "If you are a regular reader of a few of the major travel/points blogs, it would be understandable if you thought two things: (1) every two or three days, there is an AMAZING credit card deal you would be a fool not to sign up for, and (2) American Airlines is the most amazing air carrier in the world, all of its planes have brand new lie-flat state of the art seats, and that its elites are treated like royalty.  Neither of these things are true."

Christopher Elliott says "I’m just wrapping up a super-secret project that could change your life. Honestly. I’ll have an announcement on that soon." Honestly, I am afraid. Honestly2, I don't care!


MILES/POINTS

75k AMEX Membership Reward Points for the Business Gold Rewards Card
Good until May 17, 2013 or whenever Amex feels like it.
$10k spend in four months, annual fee waived in the first year. READ THE FINE PRINT. If you are new to this and you don't like reading the fine print get another hobby please. If you think $10k is a lot, do a Google search on "manufactured spending" :-)

Frequent Miler is at it again with "Best options for buying $500 Visa gift cards". I am not into grocery shopping and I do not shop at Kroger. I never understood the logistics of them fuel points, any blogger who wants to do a blog post about it to enlighten us?

Plastic Jungle bites the dust.


ON MY MIND

It is amazing to me how credit card pumping bloggers almost trampled themselves to push the short lived affiliate AMEX 75k offer last week and then when an equally impressive offer for the same 75k offer came through (for $10k minimum spend instead of $5k spend) they were well, err, not so eager to get it out! What I found appalling was that some who mentioned it tried to stick in the same post a bunch of other affiliate links (you know, the usual affiliate links you see every day)! Couldn't you , just for a SINGLE day stick to the offer and hold yourself from assaulting your readers with the other links as you will have the opportunity to do so again....tomorrow? :-) And, of course, the most appalling was watching some bloggers who are obviously way too busy to even mention this offer while they were acting like the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders for the affiliate Amex offer! But I digress. I could call names here but it is already past midnight...I am trying to keep this together. Feel free to comment, TBB does not censor!

The Points Guy managed to stick sixteen credit card links to the post about the 75k non affiliate Amex offer. Sixteen!!!

Mommy Points wrote "Top 11 Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses Available Now". Because 10 was just not enough:-)

Delta Points promotes Adam who also blogs at the Boarding Area at Point Me To The Plane and runs award booking service Juicy Miles. My readers had plenty of comments about this. When I read "Skymiles are an extremely valuable currency" I almost started flogging myself :-)

Extra Pack of Peanuts, known for always being on top of all deals, is promoting the...Lufthansa 50k credit card deal!!


ODDZ & ENDZ

"Wealthy Manhattan moms hire handicapped tour guides to bypass lines at Disney World". Oh...this is so so wrong!

May 11 - 13, 2013 - Argentina Ghost Town, Cave Diving, Timelapse, Club Carlson promo, Chinese Inventions

I am rearranging the sections and now place TRAVEL first.

ON MY MIND will have what comes to mind when I go through the blogs. I NEVER take anything personally. When I mention a blog I refer to the business (it is a business, isn't it?) and not to the specific blogger. Think of it as constructive criticism and, more importantly, as ENTERTAINMENT. Please make fun of my blog too, it amuses me!

In a few weeks this blog will move over to Wordpress which, it appears, it means I will have to re upload all the pictures. This is something I dread doing. Oh well...

I am behind on Flyer Talk reading & PMs. I am getting there, be patient por favor.

I will do my best for daily blog updates but sometimes my eclectic taste just does not produce enough material so...I may slack for a day or two. How convenient huh? :-)

If you like my blog please let others know. You can email me at travelbloggerbuzz@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @FlyerTalkerinA2


TRAVEL

Argentina Ghost Town Re-Emerges After Being Underwater For 25 Years. These are some freaky pics!

The Ocean Is My Playground: Cave Diving. Incredible Video, WOW!!!!! Found at the Adventure Blog.

When Google, NASA & TIME come together they produce Timelapse. Very cool! See how Earth changes over the decades. You can even type in the place you want and sit back to watch how it changed over the years.

Yomadic is at it again with "Photography on the Mean Streets of Macedonia". Yep, he is one of my favorite bloggers. Always great pictures and I always learn something from his posts.

USA-Mexico Border. Amazing pictures here!

The Israeli Prime Minister wanted to sleep on a five hour flight. So, he ordered a bed installed in the plane. Cost: $127,000. Thank you Israeli taxpayers, booo!!!!!

10 Wonderfully unique beaches.

Onion does an investigative report and here it is "FAA Report: Spirit Airlines Is The F***ing Worst". You will have issues controlling the laughs, I sure did!  Quote gems like: "Nobody with any shred of dignity should ever fly Spirit Airlines" and "In addition, the report confirms that the airplanes suck, the terminals suck, and the seats—which don’t even f***ing recline—suck." Warning: Foul language all over this piece!



MILES/POINTS

Club Carlson's new promo is 10k points per two-night stay between May 13 and July 21. Register here.

Points And Travel joined First2Board

Jason Steele had a nicely written post on Green Dot Money Paks at The Points Guy. Newbies would love it. Why am I not linking to it? Because it is my blog and I can do what I want here:-)

I got another check from ebates today. I could easily slip in my referral link right here again but I am too lazy to do it. #justsaying


ON MY MIND

I started finally seeing some blog posts about the Boarding Area BAcon conference (Of course no words on what the credit card pushing execs talked about!). The reasons I was not invited were: I do not eat bacon (too fat), drink beer (prefer wine), listen to country music (prefer techno). Mystery solved:-)

Frugal Travel Guy pushed the UPromise World MasterCard. Saved us from more Chase and Amex links for a day! After The Points Guy recently pushed the AARP card. Give them an A for trying to spice it up:-)  Nice job on the redesign by the Internet Brand tech guys by the way, looks so much better. They can work on my site and I promise to stop bothering you for a while wink:-)

Thank you One Mile at a Time for yet another brilliant post about how to strategize how to apply for, yep you guessed right, the Chase Ink cards. %&^$%$#&()+

The Noob Traveler wrote "The Business Rewards Cards Making My Wallet Fat". Some are not even pretending anymore;-)


ODDZ & ENDZ

Chinese DIY Inventions. Must click, so clever/bizzare/interesting/WTF with pics!