Barclays credit card, Flight Deals & Alerts, Blogger Moves, Travel Blogger Tips, Burn Miles to Asia, Seagulls, Colorful places, Delta Plane Bathrooms, Massages

61 Comments

1. First for second day in a row?

   1. Yep, we bow to your majesty!

2. Second for the first time?

   1. Third for second time?

      1. Lol, u guys are killing me!

3. Not sure about the TG F massage, since I’ve only flown on J out of BKK. But if you have enough time to see the city and head down to Wat Pho, there is a great massage place close by where you can get a full 1 hour massage for about the equivalent of 15 USD. The place claims to be where Thai massage originated – whether true, it was still a great way to relax after a long flight from NY.

   1. $15? That’s wasteful. I’ve never had a bad $5-7 massage in Thailand. 🙂 (Not kidding despite the smiley face).

      1. I will not have enough time to get to the city. $5 massage for an hour sounds lovely. Sometimes I think I am going to retire there one day…

         1. Eight hour should be enough time to see some touristy things and have a nice meal. Not sure but in Singapore they provided a 2.5 hour guided tour if you had a longer layover. Went saw friends in London during seven hour layover.

            @dginchlsea Business class passengers can get a half hour message as well. Same process, are and masseuse as the first class passengers.

            @ Andy you can also get a $5 hour long message on the beach in Sanur, Bali.

            1. I will be coming back from back to back flights DTW-FRA-BKK so I don’t think I am going to risk it as I will be a little bit tired. I like to leave plenty of time before flights because, you know, stuff happens. This is in October so plenty of time to ponder about it…

            2. Sounds like my kind of a place, too 🙂

      2. Is it true that a Thai body massage is give to you by a naked woman rubbing you with her body? I always heard that, seems like a happy ending would be a given. $15 bucks sound reasonable to me.

         1. I don’t know. I doubt that happens in the Thai Airways First Class lounge. Sure sounds like fun though 🙂

         2. Ramsey, the massage you’re describing would require a different sort of a therapist 🙂 And I doubt $15 would cover that, even in Thailand. Although, what do I know!

4. Fabulous photos today!

   1. Thanks. Too bad I had to throw in there that awful Delta bathroom pic 🙂

5. I wonder if the introduction of upscale-oriented properties will pave the path to rationalizing a big CC devaluation… “Let’s introduce Category 6 for these… And move lots of others into that category while we are at it. To enhance the experience, ya know?”

   1. Ask and ye shall receive. Lucky posted on new category 7 awhile ago.

      1. That didn’t take that long 🙂

6. Wait, you’re saying the Freddies are just a marketing gimmick for companies and an excuse for post filler? Incredible! Next you’ll tell me the Monkees didn’t write their own songs….

   1. There are some incredible numbers being thrown out as voters. How do they ensure these are not some paid hackers in India or Ukraine “voting” away?

7. Nice photo of the cinque terre, but it really isn’t as colorful as that. That’s some kind of photography trickery (maybe Andrew from Lenticular Travel can comment). Look at the color of the water. When we were there it was normal pretty water color, not bright green color. I know the site says they’re not the product of extreme photoshopping, but I’m not sure what exactly qualifies as “extreme”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an extremely beautiful place. And quite colorful. But I don’t remember it looking anything like that bright.

   1. Jamie, of course this pictures is not “real”. It’s a combination of over-saturation and local micro-contrast – the technique used in ever so-popular HDR images, where the real black shadows disappear and everything looks strangely flat.
      I don’t mind post-processing, but going over the top creates the opposite reaction. It’s not “natural” anymore and in my opinion people are looking for the natural beauty.
      My goal in post-processing is quite simple – I want to recreate the scene to match my “experience”. Very often pictures look much duller than what my eyes remember. It’s because of the UV, blue haze, reflections etc. Our brain can “process” those things out and clear the scene out. I do the same in my pictures. But sky is still sky, not ink and all the colors have to be natural.

      1. Yeah, it did look a bit too colorful…
         Still a nice picture.
         Andrew: Thanks for the pro commentary

         1. It was the color of the sky that gave it away for me. Still, it is a striking photo. But it was the seagull in the morning and the cutie in the lounge that I liked best today.

            1. Yeah, I had a nice combination of photos today…seagulls, Thai cuties, Delta bathrooms lol

   2. I’m with Jamie. Post processing is fine, but titling the article claiming those places to be most colorful, while they are artificially being made so is misleading at best.

      1. I did not know any better to distinguish. I thought Matador Network would not get that low as they have a decent reputation. It’s not as bad as “Hurry, hurry the sky is falling if you do not use my link to get your credit card” lol.
         Pretty cool picture, very psychedelic!

8. MMS, graduate of Kellogg University Business School should write an article on “HOW TO KILL A GOLDEN GOOSE MONEY PRINTING MACHINE BLOG”. What is this kid thinking? What he did up to six months ago to build his brand, blog and readership was brilliant. It probably made him a ton of dough. But who can stand to read it now, even Newbies say “what is this sh*t?” His new job in Austin must pay him really well if he is willing not to put any effort into his money making blog and let it become a laughingstock. I don’t mean to be mean, hopefully D. will read this and evaluate. Buzz, I just don’t get it. Can you explain it to me, as you know I am slow………….PS Love the Calvalieri Hilton too (it will always be Hilton to me), there were always some very wealthy Euros poolside in their speedos (my apologies Buzz if you wear one). Ciao

   1. I like how his latest installment, part 917 or whatever we’re up to has 13 comments…. 3 actual comments, and 10 pingbacks to other parts of the TR

   2. Objection: assumes facts not in evidence.

      The blog, for all we know, could still be printing money, at minimal labor/cost.

   3. Didn’t MMS post a blog job a while back – maybe 6 months ago? Possibly he just gave his trip notes and a stack of photos to the new guy and said “go for it”. I used to occasionally give his blog a view, but there hasn’t been much relevant content for me in a while so now I don’t bother. It’s almost as if the blog has become something like a parody of itself. D’s posts in the early days had more value-add – I think he just needs to refocus.

      1. I think he outsourced the actual work to a team in India. *That* would be funny!

         (Ducking for cover, in addition to hiding behind “anonymous”……..)

   4. I think there is a time when bloggers reach that level of having enough readers to think of you as a God and keep generating the dough. They probably achieved some high financial goals and now they probably have lost that hungry feeling to build it up. I agree that the content has fallen off the cliff. As far as I know, MMS is the full time job. I just don’t see how this can be done if you are not a full timer (Gary Leff is an exception).

      It just goes to show you that being popular/commercial has little to do with quality. Look around you. No, look at my “Blogs I Ignore” Iist I have made. I rest my case 🙂

      I had a thought as yet another client of mine looks like they will be heading towards divorce. Can you imagine what a bitch it would be to take down all Emily photos if that ever happened 🙂

      1. I think he is just going to throw in a giveaway soon in order to keep the readership interested. Him and TPG seem to have them regularly between the multi-part boring trip reports for MMS and the incessant posts talking about the Chase cards or the Barclays Arrival card for TPG.

         1. Giveaways draw in traffic. And participation/reader involvement. I like contests and giveaways myself, don’t get me wrong. But I only enter if the prize is worthy to me. An upgrade or a some drink coupons or some amenity kit or some crap just won’t do it for me knowing full well that there is a ulterior motive for holding the giveaway…

            I have done two. One gave away a gift card a reader gave to me and the other was to give away a few lounge passes I had. It was fun. But not sure it is entertaining, inspiring and certainly is not educational. And if I do another one ever the prize will have to be something really worthy.

            I have not entered a travel blogger contest in a long time…..zzzzzzz

      2. one area that MMS is killing it is on SEO. I mean search any CC, any reward topic on the google, and more often then not, he’s a top three link.

         no doubt it gives him a constant stream of newbiews to con

         1. Yes absolutely, I forgot to make this hugely important point! I think MMS and TPG (in a lessser degree) are absolutely the ones who have mastered SEO. Any wonder why they have two of the most popular blogs (notice I said popular, not quality!). He should morph into doing consulting to other bloggers as his miles/points expertise and trip reports are, well, worthy to be ignored imho.

9. What part are we up to now in MMS trip to Rome? What was the over/under on that series?

   1. COINCIDENCE OR NOT you tell me…..The content hit the skids after Authorgate. Drew M. might of been the reason content was once informative. Now on his own, Drew is now knocking it out of the park daily with his Travel is Free Blog…..Buzz, Did you ever get a response from MMS on Authorgate or did he hope we would all forget.

      1. Drew M is writing for CrazyTravelGuy, I think. And he hasn’t helped that one “unhit the skids”.

         1. Our definition of good (killer content, non biased, not pimpy, good disclosure practices, censoring policies, etc etc) has NOTHING to do how these businesses define GOOD. For them it is primarily about the $$$$ conversions, everything else is secondary. I disagree. And life goes on. I better stop there….Screw it, it’s my blog. The desperation in the site you mention is so evident…even in decent posts it all goes haywire when a credit card link (or several) is thrown in there in the end as an “editor’s note”. We only hypothesize, we don’t know the real $$$$ numbers. Supposedly Delta Points was killing it and he now has no Chase links….
            I ignore these blogs as I always ignored most Top 40 songs…
            And life goes on like I said.
            I miss my old self, things were more fun. I wish I can clone myself or better yet afford to hire some ghostwriters….Looking at you Drew M. 🙂

   2. If that was true it would have been the most brilliant move ever done in the blogosphere, bar none! I find it unlikely but do not know for sure. I told D to come clean. He wanted to talk to me off the record, I refused as this issue I thought was quite important to let it die. Well, you know what. Commercially speaking, he did the right thing. Lost a few readers but most who frequent that site do not have a clue anyway….so as long as they keep on clicking the cards he will be just fine 🙂

10. Apparently you do not read The Gate anymore, George, as I covered the story almost a year ago pertaining to the smaller lavatories aboard Boeing 737-900 aircraft operated by Delta Air Lines:

    http://www.flyertalk.com/the-gate/blog/18544-smaller-lavatories-means-more-seats.html

    I am disappointed, since I obviously still read TravelBloggerBuzz. What am I doing wrong?

    1. I am not an aviation geek. I saw the story in Business Insider and it stated that these are brand new planes so I thought I had a scoop on it. Besides it was anti Delta so I am always up for it.

       I do read the Gate. I read everything still, I am a reading machine! There is no rhyme what ends up here, I just go through my rounds and I pick whatever my brain thinks should appear here. It just hasn’t happened with the Gate stuff lately…Nothing personal! I don’t know. Dazzle me more? 🙂

    2. Not enough stewardess pics. You can never have too many of those.

       Do that, and maybe TBB will link to you. (Make sure they are from Air Mykonos and you are golden…)

       1. Air Mykonos went bankrupt, greek style 🙂

       2. What about photographs of George dressed as a female flight attendant? Would that help to increase traffic?

          Hey — at least I can say that I have never used affiliate links in the 7.5 years I have been “blogging”!

          1. A hairy Greek in drag, that’s the ticket 🙂

             7.5 years with no affiliate links, wow? This is impressive! Did you see Whatsapp was bought by Facebook for $16 billion? They had a strict policy against ads! Very impressive if you ask me.

             Anyways, my wife will not tolerate me devoting so much time to TBB for maybe $1 a day, that is not even half of a small coffee at Panera 🙂

             Bottom line, this was started on a dare 15 months ago. I hope I entertained, inspired or educated some readers along the way. I sure have entertained myself. No price tag on that, it’s priceless.

             I need to get some sleep….

             1. Should I begin counting my $16 billion now or later?

                Perhaps I will go to sleep as well so that I may dream about it…

                …and yes, it is true: no affiliate links in 7.5 years in any weblog which I have ever authored.

11. From FM’s blog re: MileValue’s fuzzy math on the Arrival card

    “While I agree with Bill’s overall analysis, I think Bill would agree that it would be ludicrous to say that $100 is worth $102.04”

    With all due respect to Frequent Miler, the people at MV’s blog would say anything to sell cards, regardless of how ludicrous it is

    And to the person above who said MMS used to be “value add”…. he was never that. He used to be “value take”… he grew by taking material from other sources and adding a red arrow

    But he’s not even that anymore

    1. Loyalty Lobby has started adding the odd arrow! John has also started overlaying captions on his photos. It must take ages but has no added value as fas as I can tell?!

       1. He has great content, and regularly is the first to break news….. but man is his layout terrible

          1. And I thought that LL’s layout was pretty good…

    2. There were people who benefited from MMS’ red arrow. Put another way, the MMS blog would be better if there were more red arrows than there are today. (Never thought I would say that)

       1. Only if those Red Arrows are pointing in the direction of another blog

12. Thanks to Brian Cohen and you Buzz for clarifying that the lavs are getting smaller on the new jets. What a relief!!! I know that I am getting fatter by the minute and when I recently went into a 737 lav and thought to myself Holy Sht i’m going to need gastric bypass soon. In the “old days” you could have a threesome in the center back lav of a 707-331b.

    1. There’s a simple solution, get X credit cards and you might have a 3some in a shower!

    2. Bwahhhhh, ha, ha!!!!! Hilarious!

       Love, guera, new president of Ramsey Fan Club.

    3. @ Ramsey: I had the same thoughts too so I am glad I am not the only one lol.

       @ ABC: I think you are on to something. Maybe the constant posting about the Companion Pass had something to do with threesomes 🙂

       @ guera: Ramsey is the President of the TBB fan club. You are the President of the Ramsey fan club. I think there is a pattern developing here….

13. Uh how could they leave off Happy Ending massage?

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