We bring you the sizzling hot 35k SPG cards, the latest offers of Hilton credit cards, visit the coolest hotels and the Santorini Aegean Jewel, freak out with Amex clawbacks, pile up on the controversy about the “first” woman traveler to visit all countries, sigh with the end of the Lufthansa pilot strikes, laugh at a hilarious piece about working from home, look at some awesome wedding pictures from around the globe and more.
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Just in case you missed the first part of the Kazakhstan trip report yesterday…
Well, suddenly we get both Amex SPG Personal and Business credit card offers bumped up to 35,000 signup bonus via Mile Nerd. Note the higher minimum spend requirements. Amex, as a reminder,, will not give you the signup bonus again. The personal may require some browser acrobatics (incognito mode) to come up but came up for me. I am running low on SPG points, son may get one. These are not affiliate links, ask why your favorite blogger pumper does not promote these instead of the 25,000 offers they get paid for huh? Update: Pumping bloggers kept silent until they got their hands on their affiliate links, now off to the races PUMPING HARD! Don’t be a victim! And don’t use my links for these cards. Available now with my links.
If you recently got an SPG card and want to get matched to 35k SPG points, this is what you do.
Which Hilton Card should you get? Pretty good analysis of the two Citi cards and plenty of warning/rationale how to go about choosing one. I miss the good old days without any restrictions 🙂 Yes both of them are available here!
Airbnb has increased its bonus to $40 for opening an account and completing a qualifying reservation. Email me for a referral link.
I am sure you have seen something online about the “first woman to travel to every country in the world”. As soon as I saw this, my BS filter went way up and I was going to just ignore it like I do with so much pure BS stuff I see. And then Rapid Travel Chai wrote about it. I was going to ignore it too because, well, see the BLOG BUZZ section for a reason but perhaps you should read his post calling this out. If I had a PR agent like her… #mindblown
Finally, the Lufthansa pilot strikes may be over for a long time, yes!
10 of the coolest hotels around the world. We know some of them (Tree Hotel, Ice Hotel) but there are some others I was not aware of. Like the Hang Nga Crazy House in Dalat, Vietnam, wow!
I work from home. One of the most hilarious reads recently.
11 bad money habits to break before 30. If you are under 30, you should read this.
Santorini: A Jewel in the Aegean. Excellent review and great pics! No I do not moonlight for the Greek Tourism Board…they don’t have any money anyway. So, go there and spend spend spend, my mother is tired of seeing her pension going down!
Beautiful Wedding Dresses from around the world. I may have shared this one before…so worth it.
BLOG BUZZ
This section is for advanced level hobbyists and veteran blog readers
Amex clawed back a total of 175k in bonuses from 4 different cards. OMG, wow!
I am having VERY tough time to find Buzz worthy material, so much unimportant BS out there, wow!
Way too many back inks to View From The Wing from bloggers, yesterday was a huge day just plastic pumping to the max, yikes! Is the bank account low or something? Now where is DansDeals to complain here about my one paragraph pumping lol? Oh man, the complete ironic BS of this space is too much sometimes…
And I leave you with this…Lets pick on our allies across the pond, First this…
Followed up with this…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
TBB
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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
People people people
Order has been restored!
Damn you Scott Castle!
God, so boring… you couldn’t find anything, really?
Yes.
When you see headlines like this in Boring Area…
“My Seatmate Had Foul Body Odor…on a 10hr Flight”
Buzz-
Engaging post today..’they don’t have money anyway’…made me laugh, which is tough these days.
Looks like the guy in the Lima wedding photo is checking his CNN alerts for the latest Trump fiasco. Up the me, I’d be watching the senora to be in the red (and I don’t mean the queen, God bless or save her).
Hope they had a prenup 😉
There are too many rude tourists in Santorini.
I am NOT going back there.
Why go back? Been there twice, one as a young horny high school student chasing blonde Scandinavian girls and then one in my honeymoon behaving 🙂 No reason to go back but good to see once in your life.
Going there in May or September is highly recommended. June-August is just a mad house, over run by tourists!
It has become the #1 overseas destination for Chinese weddings!
Santorini looks gorgeous but I’ve always been wary of it being overrun by tourists – will have to think about the months you mentioned instead.
Not to put you on the spot but what areas in Greece would be your top picks for a first-time visitor – not for partying & chasing girls (too old & the wife wouldn’t approve of that!) – but more for interesting natural beauty, historical/cultural sites, hiking & outdoor enjoyment..that kind of stuff?
TBB probably only knows where to find blonde Scandinavian girls. Naxos is probably #1 nowadays.
If you go to Greece for the first time, you should probably do what most people do, spend a few days in Athens and then get away to a few islands. It’s probably the safest thing to do as staying in land can be challenging, maybe save it for another trip.
Mykonos – nightlife, gay mecca
Santorini – honeymoon, unique beauty, romantic
Crete – Huge, can combine with natural beauty/hiking/cultural/historicalsites.
Ios – party island, backpacking mecca, booze over the top barfing 24/7
More unique islands:
Zakynthos – Secret is out, in the other side of the Aegean, see Travel is Free trip report
Rhodes- Bigger island, lot to see, medieval castles in main town
Kos – Overrun by refugees, used to be a Doubletree for just 10k HH pts, not sure if it closed/rebranded
Paros-Standard tourist island preferred by some Greeks, get a scooter, don’t get into an accident!
Sifnos-Probably my favorite, u get away from hordes of tourists, and get a good balance of everything
Skopelos-Towards northern Aegean, not as easy to get to (ferry boat from Volos unless you fly into its more touristy neighbor island Skiathos), not as touristy as Skiathos, recent flooding may have impacted it. Special place in my heart, lost my virginity here to a Norwegian lol.
Best website to do research on Greece, by far, is this site:
http://greecetravel.com/
Researching Naxos
Bourdain did a show from there
Naxos is awesome. Great food, nice people, also Zeus hid from his father in a cave there! Even in June it was empty, save for a few EU tourists.
Santorini is still worth a visit. Just be prepared for throngs at sunset.
Mykonos… If you’re 30+ or in a relationship it’s not worth visiting. That said the ruins on the island nearby were pretty cool.
The Dalat Crazy house is pretty epic. Reminded me of a gaudi house + Disney castle. Too bad Dalat itself is pretty meh.
I should do Naxos one day…after I do Zakynthos!
Cool, thanks! Thinking maybe of hitting Greece in 2018 – already booked up this year pretty much.
Skiathos – an island a special memory for George!
Not Skiathos, Skopelos is the one! We had no luck in Skiathos so we moved on to Skopelos…probably the best decision of my life woohoo.
Videos of a crazy guy climbing up cranes and the Eiffel tower:
http://www.avclub.com/article/these-first-person-daredevil-videos-are-great-if-y-250383
I bet this dude will not make it…soon.
Looks like your old roommate NoobTraveler is back trying to sell Amex SPG cards today.
KUMAR AND RAMSEY are now at Delta Points, WTF? ……………………………………………just kiddin
I liked the MMS interview of Miles Per Day, it was totally worthless, just like MMS.
Maybe Steve is now Jizzy Gillespie?
I see all these protests going on everyday here in PDX, where the hell was everyone when we needlessly invaded Iraq, causing the death of many hundreds of thousands lives? For Transtesticals to use the Woman’s Room they protest here, for Bush destroying the Middle East, Meh. WTF?
Looking for a fat Oprah Gravatar
Actually a lot os us protested the Iraq invasion.
As President W said back then “Fool me once……..”.
Yep, the pumpers kept silent until they got their hand on to their affiliate SPG links…and now it is off to the races. Even Noob Traveler came back from the dead to sell more plastic!
It never ends.
For the record, the 35k SPG offers are now showing up with my links.
I hope I get a few clicks because I am way in the hole this month after picking up the tab for the TBB reader meetup in San Diego and paying Nikos!
I am going to spare you all the blog post selling these cards like everyone else is doing….Maybe I do another rant with the “best” pumping language…Maybe it is Mommy Points with “Great news” lol.
So if I had a SPG Amex from 2006-14 I cannot get the 35k?
some speculate it’s 7 years since you last held the card.
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/american-express-consider-lifetime/
How many bloopers in one post until it’s time for Gary to hire a copy editor?
“8 Business Class Award Seats in Both Economy and Business to Israel With United Miles”
Perfect, I’ll take the business in economy please.
“American Express Membership Rewards points transfer directly to Air Canada but bear in mind that Aeroplan adds fuel surcharges for Air Canada flights while Aeroplan does not.”
Say what now Gary?
Via http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2017/02/16/8-business-class-award-seats-economy-business-israel-united-miles/
I reread my post as soon as it gets posted at 6.30 am. And I feel so embarrassed if I make a mistake, today I had a period instead of a comma!
If I was that careful never to mess up any affiliate links like Gary 🙂
Pudge is an abomination. Nobody that’s supposedly smart could possibly have soooo many spelling/grammar mistakes, in virtually every post.
But doesn’t that seem normal now? I read a lot in this space, seems like less than 25% of posts DON’T have language/communications mistakes. And that’s even with the advent of spell-checkers!
Those who can, do
Those who can’t, teach
Those who can’t teach, teach teachers… (h/t Matt Groening)
https://twitter.com/trumpregrets
Showed promise…should have kept it going
That press conference was something else, even by Trump standards.
What a moron, OMG!
It is updated daily. Click replies.
I have Greece penciled in for mid-October. Probably a 50/50 chance I am out of here by then (grumble mumble grumble – no f’g partnerships – grumble mumble grumble).
Dumb noobie-type question: will you get any $$$ from Amazon if I buy branded gift cards (e.g. Hyatt or Southwest)? My guess is no but thought I would ask…
Watched a really strange reality show during lunch. Bizarre to be honest. Didn’t know SNL was on Thursdays…
#TBBon
This is why I like to work alone…so I don’t have to deal with breakups. Good luck!
Not sure abt your Amazon question if you were asking about me or in general about cash back or something? If purchased after clicking on my Amazon banner link…I think it is okay. Unless you go for JetBlue miles…can’t believe that deal is still on!
I have always said the US President is insane!
I love TRUMP
Shaking my head…
was specifically asking about using your Amazon link to get some $$$ into your pocket so you can “upgrade” to a venti.
in re: partnerships — we were fine until one partner’s wife decided to ream him sans Vaseline in a divorce. I knew better. I always know better. Experience is a wonderful thing — it allows to recognize when you’ve totally f’d up AGAIN.
/mini rant
Thanks and I hope it works out man!
Pointing out the bad practices of other bloggers to justify your own pimping is like Donald Trump defending the Muslim ban by saying Obama’s the one who identified the 7 countries.
LOL holyfield has a good point there
Fake comments!
@Evander Holyfield
Winner winner chicken dinner!
How come you are always FIRST with the affiliate links pump posts?
I had chicken for dinner and it was disappointing tonight.
Doing Turkey for a month in April. Should I add on a short side trip to Greece, or postpone it until I can go for longer?
Did anyone else notice how Pence was given the all-clear in the Flynn debacle? Priebus Minimus setting up contingency plans.
much ado about nothing
Fake much ados!
Pence is out of the loop. He would have to read about Trump stepping down in the newspaper
Whether that’s a personal or directed choice it’s the correct political choice.
Am I cynical for believing the GOP would ride a crazy horse to win the race, then shoot the horse and give the award to the GOP jockey?