TODAY'S READ
Vaccines Euphoria, AA Drops Change Fees, IRA Rollovers, Biggest Troll, Cheapest Miles
We bring you more on the vaccines euphoria, AA drops change fees, how to do IRA rollovers right, history’s biggest troll, cheapest miles to Europe, we travel to Siberia, South Africa, Denver, Belfast, catch up on the latest Covid-19 developments, the best photography links around, warn you about romantic scams, the origins of some tech companies will shock you, 60 days left to put this Trump lunacy behind us…will we make it? Will this blog make it to 2021, what else do I have to prove here? That I can write a quality blog and my inability to convert? So many questions to ponder, you all have a Happy Thanksgiving…I ordered from Whole Foods, we are staying home aiming to have many of them next year!
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TOP PICKS
Top picks are not excerpted at all. I recommend you find time to read every word!
I have been telling you science will save us. Never in a million years I would dream it would be so soon, cross our fingers!
The End of the Pandemic Is Now in Sight
This week started with a huge bang as Moderna announced even more encouraging news on its vaccine. The results were even better than Pfizer’s vaccine the previous week. It is early but we may be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Since I wrote this, Pfizer updated its results to make them 95% successful vs 94.5% for Moderna, hmmm, a little competition perhaps?
Moderna’s Covid Vaccine: What You Need to Know
Is this happening with you? I think it is happening to many of us…Must read. “Amidst the omnipresence of work, can our minds ever stop identifying with the constant need to produce?“
The Omnipresence of Work
I may have shared this one in prior TBB blog editions. Check how your county is faring and perhaps check how the county you plan to travel to is faring before you travel there!
COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool
MILES & POINTS
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If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me please, thank you!
These two offers now stand out if you can get them. Chase offers 75,000 Ultimate Rewards points for its business cards: Chase Ink Cash and Chase Ink Unlimited. Both are no annual fee business cards. Both have a $7,500 minimum spend in the first three months. Both cards are subject to the infamous 5/24 restriction. Please have a legitimate business and help this blog if you decide they are good for you, thank you. Ask us questions in the comments, I do my best to take a fiduciary approach in everything I do in my life, including this blog!
And don’t forget the nice 70k Chase United Explorer card too. See a list of cards available above, thank you.
It was a crazy week last week with all the Amex Platinum offers, including a beyond shitty one offered by affiliate channels that you can tell pretty easy which blogger has your best interest in mind or looking after their own pockets. Anyway, if some of you got the card this is a good post: Your Platinum Card Arrived. Here’s What To Do Next…
It is really weird seeing American Airlines continue to do away with fees, including now change fees for long-haul international flights. Article includes a nice table with the other covid related fee changes in the other airlines. And some warnings. I guarantee you when we get back to normal American Airlines will bring all these fees back first! Oh man, we will see a giant explosion when the pandemic is declared over, patience, keep it together!
I was asking some true experts about their guesses on further consolidation and none of them guessed this one: Korean Air Plans To Take Over Rival Asiana Airlines With $1.6 Billion Injection. Bye bye Asiana soon, I never got to fly you. Same with Norwegian Air…which filed for bankruptcy recently and is a good bet that it is just not going to come out of it.
Bye bye Silvercar, I never got to try you either. And no way in hell I am going to an Audi dealership to drive you now.
If you are going to stay in Choice Hotels you should register for its latest promotion.
TRAVEL
Let me just make a few comments about Southwest Airlines, the best managed US airline. By far. When there is a crisis, there are opportunities. And the airline is doing what it does best, trying to take advantage of the awful pandemic to expand. It is adding four cities this year and plans to add another six in 2021. Moving into Chicago O’Hare and Houston George Bush International airports are huge moves that are causing even more sleepless nights among the executive ranks of the other legacy airlines. No idea if it will be successful in these bigger more expensive airports. Heck, it could fail as that time the airline tried to move into Newark. But, again, these guys play offense while everyone else is reeling. Bill Gates thinks business travel will be permanently down 50% after the pandemic ends and Southwest is probably going to come out as one of the few (only?) winner airlines. As with everything in my blog, this is NOT investment advice!
This looks amazing! This Historic Train Is Now a Permanent Luxury Hotel on a Bridge Over Kruger National Park. Looks a tiny bit better than an Amtrak cabin you guys lol.
For aviation geeks, this is the one! Collision. Twenty-four years ago, two burning planes plunged into the mustard and cotton fields of a Haryana village. It changed the way we fly. You don’t hear much about this one, fantastic read!
And it happened when a Kazakh crew misunderstood the instructions of the ATC at Delhi airport, bringing its plane directly in the line of a Saudi Arabian Airlines Boeing 747, in the worst mid-air collision in history. The sky seems like an infinite thing: vast, blue, borderless. But on a November evening in 1996, its grand expanse shrunk to a tiny passage, when two passenger aircraft crashed into each other. 349 people, everyone on board both flights, died.
Very cool video, wow! CITIES size comparison in 3D.
Ok, this was a fun video post by United! Denver International Airport Conspiracy Theories.
What a great article on a hotel: Belfast’s great survivor: The Europa Hotel. More than 30 explosions failed to close ‘Europe’s most bombed hotel’, but could COVID-19 usher in its demise?
The new Norwegian passports look gorgeous!
Interesting, thanks to the reader N. who sent this one in: Why Does Maine’s Busiest Airport Insist on Calling Itself a Jetport?
Love the photography in this one, so chilling (pun intended): Concrete Landscapes of the Far East: A Rare View of Siberia’s Soviet Architecture.
COVID-19
I hope this mRNA method works, I really do! If it does, the most encouraging thing about the Moderna vaccine may be this: Factbox: Moderna COVID-19 vaccine stability eases distribution challenges. It could mean we get the vaccine MUCH faster. There is something about the Moderna CEO I never liked, hope he proves us all wrong.
Hold my beer says Pfizer: COVID-19 shot 95% effective, seeking clearance soon.
Wait, we have more! Oxford team “delighted” as trials show COVID vaccine works well in older adults, but they’re “not in a rush”. We are heading in the right direction and we better not cut corners now!
You may wonder like I did how come it appears the vaccines are moving along so much faster this time? Sadly, the virus is everywhere, that’s why! How the Out-of-Control Pandemic Is Speeding the Testing of Vaccines.
Larry Brilliant is back and says that We’ll Beat Covid After We Go Through Hell.
I can not believe we are doing this to our health workers, even after what they went through earlier this year, heart breaking and just shameful! ‘No One Is Listening to Us’. More people than ever are hospitalized with COVID-19. Health-care workers can’t go on like this.
Excellent investigative journalism piece: The woman who fell from the sky – the pandemic crashes into Russia’s space city. Heartbreaking too…
I am definitely doing this, it is always darkest before the dawn! It’s Time to Hunker Down. A devastating surge is here. Unless Americans act aggressively, it will get much larger, very quickly.
From a nurse in South Dakota. Wow, what can you say about some people…
And more improvements on the testing front, hang in there you guys! FDA Approves 1st At-Home Coronavirus Test.
This will shock you! 3D Map of COVID Cases by Population, March through Today. OMG!
The German government ad about the latest lockdown measures, it is hilarious!
Ok, there is an explanation on the last two countries on the list of course! The Last Coronavirus-Free Countries On Earth.
PERSONAL FINANCE
You need to be very careful and vigilant about how this is done. Every time. Here’s the right way to avoid tax pitfalls and roll your 401(k) assets to an IRA.
A big part of my blog is giving back. By protecting you too. So beware of romance scams out there okay? South Haven model shows a different side of romance scams.
I am not sure why I am sticking this one here but why not, it is my blog and I can do what I want! Tech’s Bizarre Beginnings & Lucrative Pivots. Samsung started in business with dehydrated fish, seriously?
Yeah, Google Pay was always out there. Like a little fly circling around an elephant’s ass. But now it appears they are getting more serious with it so it should be very interesting to see what happens: Google Pay’s massive relaunch makes it an all-encompassing money app.
Is all the good news on the vaccine front baked into the market performance lately? As always, when it comes to short term market moves, nobody knows. Everyone has an opinion. Like everyone has an asshole. Focus on what you can control and allows you to sleep better at night. If you can’t sleep at night…your asset allocation needs to be adjusted. If you know what it is lol. Oh, also, there is an obscene amount of cash on the sidelines…Where is it going to go and when? Let me check my crystal ball…
CURRENT EVENTS/POLITICS
Must read: How Trump Sold Failure to 70 Million People. So many fell for it again, SAD! The president convinced many voters that his response to the pandemic was not a disaster. The psychology of medical fraud is simple, timeless, and tragic. Can’t wait for this guy to go away, so phucking exhausting, so much unnecessary death!
Wait, there is more about the sore loser! Trump’s Crazy and Confoundingly Successful Conspiracy Theory.
And still, many voted for him and also elected spectacularly mentally challenged candidates like this genius from Georgia…
I don’t watch much TV. But I always watch 60 Minutes. But before it started last Sunday, there was an NFL game going on. And then this happened, what a catch wow! DeAndre Hopkins’ Game-Winning Grab Was the Best Hail Mary Catch Ever.
BREAKING: It is almost here, let’s take a virtual look at the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library. Bwahahahaha!
If you are shocked by the latest non conceding Trump shit, where the hell were you for four years? We have two months left, expect more shit! We accuse shit hole banana republics for doing this stuff and now they will say shut the phuck up and point to sad mentally deranged Giuliani…
ODDZ & ENDZ
Fun fun post: Who is the biggest troll in history?
Sorry, no shocking videos in this link: Best-Selling Books of All-Time. But I guarantee that the winner will, wait for it, shock you!
Everything about his work: Van Gogh Worldwide.
Probably one of the best photography pieces featured here: 25 Portraits Of Rare And Endangered Birds That Look Simply Stunning. I had the hardest time picking the best one to feature below!
Another photography gem: The Top 100 winners gallery of Close-up Photographer of the Year.
Look at this, epic! A Perfect Photo of a Kingfisher, 720K Pictures in the Making.
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.
Andy The Lazy Traveler is back: Back to the Basics: Cheapest Miles to Europe in the Post-COVID-19 World.
Very interesting finding, maybe the “lifetime” is 5 years? Bending Amex’s Lifetime Rule. I tried numerous times to get the 125k offer to come up to apply for son without success. Oh well, maybe next time…
Son left for Hawaii, flew First Class on AA Detroit to Dallas DFW to Honolulu. He said flights were packed. Did two negative tests just in case one did not arrive on time. Showed negative test results on the app at the Covid people at HNL Honolulu airport. I used my last IHG Rewards free night that was expiring in less than a month (how come IHG has not extended these huh?) for him to stay his first night in HNL before moving in with a few friends/coworkers at an Airbnb. He plans to WFH (Work From Honolulu) for the rest of the winter. Why? Because Hawaii has very low Covid cases and is safer there than in Michigan with his sister coming back from college next week. Pray for us lol.
I missed watching movies in the theater. I hardly watch any movies at home. But there was one movie I can not forget, one that still scares me whenever I think about it. And it is so virus “friendly”. If you want nightmares you should watch it, it is on Amazon Prime: 28 Days Later. And acknowledge that you were warned!
And I leave you with this…Ok, you get two this time, not sure how long I can keep blogging you guys…
TBB
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The post Vaccines Euphoria, AA Drops Change Fees, IRA Rollovers, Biggest Troll, Cheapest Miles appeared first on TravelBloggerBuzz.
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By: TravelBloggerBuzz
Title: Vaccines Euphoria, AA Drops Change Fees, IRA Rollovers, Biggest Troll, Cheapest Miles
Sourced From: travelbloggerbuzz.com/vaccines-euphoria-aa-drops-change-fees-ira-rollovers-biggest-troll-cheapest-miles/
Published Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2020 11:30:32 +0000
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