TODAY'S READ
Banks Go All Out With Higher Offers, CDC Fall, Travel Influencers, Interest Rates, Tunnel of Trees
We bring you content about how banks go all out with higher offers, the sad CDC fall, travel influencers suck, interest rates go lower, drive through Michigan’s Tunnel of Trees, travel to Japan and Belgrade, meet the smallest countries and the ones that drink the most coffee, the best Covid-19 coverage you have come to expect, a couple of the best writing pieces in investing and personal finance that you will love, no clickbait shit here, and LOTS more!
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There is a LOT in this post. You all enjoy the weekend and thanks for spending some of it reading my blog. If you are not into the frequent flyer miles/points game please feel free to skip the Miles & Points section.
Stay positive, test negative!
TOP PICKS
With the election so close here we go!
End Our National Crisis. The Case Against Donald Trump
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: Citi Premier 60k, 65k CitiBusiness AA, 20k Chase Freedom Flex, 100k AMEX Gold, 130k AMEX Hilton Business & Hilton Surpass, $300 AMEX Blue Cash Preferred, $200 AMEX Blue Cash Everyday, 70k AMEX Delta Platinum Business and 60k Platinum Personal (ending 10/28/20), 140k IHG Rewards Premier, 100k IHG Rewards Traveler, 5 Free Nights for the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless (ends October 29), 100k AMEX Marriott Business, 125k AMEX Marriott Brilliant, 60k AMEX Delta Gold Business and 50k Gold Personal (ending 10/28/20), $300 AMEX Blue Business Plus. Please use my Affiliate links.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me please, thank you!
Chase Sapphire Preferred 80,000 Points Signup Bonus with $4,000 Spend. I can now refer you to this card, please use my REFERRAL link, thank you! Offer ends November 7.
The increased offers keep coming! AMEX now offers 60,000 points for the Gold card that offers 4x on dining. AMEX also now offers 100k points for the Marriott Bonvoy Business Card and 125k for the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card. The number of points is not that big of a deal but, more interestingly an added twist, both cards offer Platinum status for 2021. And Citi finally decided to jump back in the pool with increased offers offering the Citi Premier card with 60k Thank You rewards points!
Marriott has come out with a credit card offer that offers 5 free nights for the Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card. This offer now ends October 29.
Since not much travel is happening, Chase continues to try to make its cardholders hold on to the cards: Chase Sapphire Cards Temporary Enhancements: 2x/3x On Grocery; Travel Credit Additional Options. No big deal as I am currently earning 5x on Groceries for a year with the Chase Freedom Flex card.
Not a bad idea for Delta to poach some elites from other airlines. Now if you could actually fly all the required flights to keep the Delta status until 2022…Delta Will Match Your Status with Other Major Airlines.
In an era with so many hotel brands anyone can hardly keep track of with a global pandemic we have not seen in a century, here comes Radisson Rewards with a new brand, WTF! Radisson Launches “Radisson Individuals” Soft/Conversion Brand.
One day we can burn some miles/points in some of these again: 20 Stunning Hotel Rooms With Private Pools.
I have 4,249,189 miles/points. It is an addiction and a ridiculous burden lol. I love helping newbies and long time readers can also help you in the comments too.
TRAVEL
I post some photos from my road trip to the Northwest Michigan area below in the Blog Buzz section, I hope you like them!
Good list to bookmark: 10 Scenic National Park Drives Everyone Should Do at Least Once.
No comments needed: The grit and glory of New Belgrade’s communist architecture.
Screw 4k, Japan in 8k, wow!
Reading this made me vomit: Travel influencers, meet authoritarian regimes. The influencer industry has grown to be cozy with some unsavory governments, but its clout might not be as effective as it once was. I am still vomiting, nothing has turned me off so much in travel lately.
This is very cool, Visualized: The World’s 100 Smallest Countries. Vatican City the smallest. Greece the 100th smallest.
The Scandinavians sure drinks lots of coffee, wow! The 25 Countries That Drink the Most Coffee in the World.
- Finland // 26.45 pounds
- Norway // 21.82 pounds
- Iceland // 19.84 pounds
- Denmark // 19.18 pounds
Amazing photography here: Freezing cold war: militaries move in as Arctic ice retreats. Enjoy!
COVID-19
This is painful to read. Inside the Fall of the CDC. How the world’s greatest public health organization was brought to its knees by a virus, the president and the capitulation of its own leaders, causing damage that could last much longer than the coronavirus.
I have blogged about the coming hell to break loose right after the first vaccine comes. This article explains it all: First, a Vaccine Approval. Then Chaos and Confusion. Brace yourselves.
Have you wondered how Africa seems to be handling the Covid pandemic better? Me too! Here is why: Five reasons why Covid-19 has been less deadly than elsewhere. Have we become a shithole country? Answer in the comments!
The Financial Times did a thorough investigation about China and Covid-19: What Went Wrong in Wuhan. Were they slow in Wuhan? Absolutely! Was the system of governance a major reason for this, oh hell yes! In a bizarre and contrarian way, was the Chinese system of governance instrumental in getting control over the virus? The honest and sad answer is yes. Irrespective of all this, there is no excuse for countries to totally screw up the response to it!
“Most of Asia really respected this, had systems ready to go, and did a lot of work in January and February for the day that was coming when they were going to get smashed,” said Dr Fisher. “Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world needed to get smashed to have that realisation. As we said in our February [WHO China delegation] report, this virus can have devastating health, social and economic effects but the world is not ready, in capacity or in mindset, to deal with it.” Prof Wang added that for all of the Chinese system’s shortcomings in the earliest days and weeks of the outbreak, the rest of the world should have been on high alert. As soon as human-to-human transmission was confirmed and Wuhan went into quarantine a few days later, countries could have prepared themselves for its arrival as effectively as Taiwan and South Korea did, among others. Most did not. In particular the Trump administration’s response will go down as one of the worst national security failures in the history of the US republic, with the virus breaching even the White House and infecting the president himself. As Prof Wang said: “For other countries not to have taken [the virus] seriously, there’s just no excuse.”
I like the advice in this article: How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists.
With cases exploding everywhere, here we go again with more countries to follow: Ireland goes back on lockdown. Also in my city of Ann Arbor with our daughter in a dorm: Washtenaw County issues two-week stay home order for U-M students. Meanwhile, the President praised himself in the last debate that he brought back football, sad lol!
We all have learned so much about viruses, epidemiology, vaccines, antibodies and I can go on and on. But in this article you will learn about adjuvants. Adju, what??? There is a tree in Chile that is absolutely essential to vaccines, wow! The Tree That Could Help Stop the Pandemic. The rare Chilean soapbark tree produces compounds that can boost the body’s reaction to vaccines.
PERSONAL FINANCE
I really enjoy reading the memos by Howard Marks. Because they are so eloquently written: Coming Into Focus.
I love the behavioral aspects of finance. And crashes and bubbles and stuff like that. I really enjoyed reading this: Psychology, Behavior & Markets. I am not a quote type of guy/blogger but how can you argue with this one by French philosopher Blaise Pascal?
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”.
If I hear another mention of the word “unprecedented” I think I am going to flip! Visualizing 200 Years of Interest Rates in the US. Wow…
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
Yeah, what a year! New York’s Year from Hell. Son is leaving at the end of the month as well.
Looks like early voting is shattering records, great to see! It is a privilege in a true democracy to change governments in the voting booth and not with violence like we see in banana republics. Let’s see if we become one soon, sad lol. And check some of these out, which one is your favorite? Eight of America’s Most Unusual Polling Places. Mine is this one below 🙂
ODDZ & ENDZ
Remember those weird incidents in the US embassies in Havana, Cuba? And in China as well? Well, they have kept on happening in Russia and even on US soil. The Mystery of the Immaculate Concussion.
You can read travel influencing shit. Or waste your time on Instagram and TikTok shit. Or you can learn something here, your choice: A Master List of 1,500 Free Courses From Top Universities: 50,000 Hours of Audio/Video Lectures to Enrich Your Mind
Actually,this is a really good post on the subject 🙂 What I learned about male desire in a sex doll factory. The woman writer visits a factory and you won’t believe what happened next! Sadly, no shocking video lol.
Amazing work here: The Annual Winners of the Photomicrography Competition.
This is pretty cool. Select a year and it will return all the words that were first used in print that year: Time Traveler.
Hats off to this guy. And you read this and can’t help but wonder how many morons are out there, dear Lord! How a Fake Rent-a-Hitman Site Became an Accidental Murder-for-Hire Sting Operation.
Love these! Weather Photographer Of The Year Winners Show The Stunning Beauty Of Nature.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
Spirit finally realized that having a decent frequent flier program can squeeze some major dinero from the banks, so it decides to finally start one, lol! Spirit goes revenue-based, makes elite status easier with new Free Spirit program.
Even Capital One bank is increasing the signup bonuses for its cards. If you are really desperate and shut out everywhere else, I guess you could get a couple of hundred backs cash back on the Quicksilver card and the SavorOne card. I mean, really desperate that is!
Public enemy #1 of the churning hobby is the Amex RAT guys, wow! Another Wave of Amex Shutdowns is Underway.
My running is interrupted until further notice. Lots of walking instead. Old sciatica issue has come back after several years, last time it was taken care of by a cortizone shot in my lower spine and I hope it does not get to that again. I am really sad about this, I just can not see myself breaking any new PRs for a while, boo!
Did a road trip to Northwest Michigan to finally visit the “Tunnel of Trees” area, a 19 mile drive from Cross Village to Harbor Springs. Also took a drive through Petoskey. Lots of domestic tourists doing the same thing. Mega trips are out, road trips are in!
I saved the best for last for you Rams 🙂
The two poster blogger boys in Boarding Area do not even hide it anymore. Give the ghost writer a raise, WTF!
I need to get someone to Hawaii in late November. How would you do it? Getting hard to keep track of which airlines fly there and all the different testing requirements!
One Chase Freedom Flex card minimum spend done. Working on that 30% $6k spending bonus on the Southwest card next. As I get new cards I have decided to let some old ones go, bye bye one Discover and one old Freedom card. Wife hardly ever uses her no annual fee Chase Ink Cash card, thinking about letting it rip too. I still have not closed the CNB card, waiting to get a coffee mug burning my last 2k points, it was backordered lol. I am thinking about going for that Marriott card with the 5 free nights and burning them on the Marriott resort in northwest Michigan Gregg Frequent Miler likes but not sure if I will pull the trigger, try to convince me please. The $450 Capital One bank bonus is in, easily transferred into it $50k and held for three months from an investment account at TD Ameritrade, amount that was just sitting in cash earning nothing anyway. All the other bank bonuses I see are small for the hassle, I like easy these days. How long do Chase referrals take to show up?
Took my wife out for a nice dinner at a nice Ann Arbor restaurant, the Chop House. Her 32nd birthday, again! It still has a 50% off the whole bill birthday special! We are not vegetarians by the way lol.
And I leave you with this…
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.
The post Banks Go All Out With Higher Offers, CDC Fall, Travel Influencers, Interest Rates, Tunnel of Trees appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.
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By: TravelBloggerBuzz
Title: Banks Go All Out With Higher Offers, CDC Fall, Travel Influencers, Interest Rates, Tunnel of Trees
Sourced From: travelbloggerbuzz.com/banks-go-all-out-with-higher-offers-cdc-fall-travel-influencers-interest-rates-tunnel-of-trees/
Published Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2020 10:30:22 +0000
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