- Win A Free Night With Marriott Sweepstakes by Danny Deal Guru. I normally don’t post sweepstakes, but 1,000 nights is quite a lot – although I suspect that will just draw even more entrants so best of luck!
- Birch gets your credit card rewards in order by TechCrunch. At the moment Birch looks to me to be trying to do too much at once and not excelling in any particular category, they are a new start up so lets see if they can improve their offering or not.
- Tim Cook Shares Apple Pay Stats — Sort Of by PYMNTS. Adding one million users per week is pretty impressive, but it’s kind of pointless unless they are actively using the app. The increase in transaction volume is good, but a 5x return on last year is pretty small considering the low numbers they were probably doing then.
- New (Targeted) United Explorer Card Offer: 30k Miles + $100 Off a United Flight by PointsCentric. I think most people would be better offer with the 55k mile offers that come around frequently, unless you value United miles at under 0.5¢ per mile and if that’s the case then this offer is still pretty lackluster.
- Why Travel Boycotts Are A Bad Idea by Nomadic Matt. Not sure I entirely agree with this post, for example I wouldn’t currently visit North Korea because essentially the experience you’re receiving is curated by the government and you’re not able to freely interact with the locals to make a positive difference. Instead the tourist dollars are funneled into the regime instead. It was a similar issue with Burma/Myanmar in the past, as well.
- Bet You Didn’t Know: Entering Priority Pass Lounges Without a Physical Membership Card by Frequent Miler. Always good to have the app on hand, I still carry the physical card incase I run out of power (and not all lounges accept the app)
