Marathon Man

Hahahaha you are so right! I too secretly wish to be that guy. We all must admit that. Some here have enjoyed some stages of puddingdum too but relative to his score at the time, not much can compare. Especially if everyones doing the same thing. I mean beans and coins? Great miles but thats poppy cock too. Too many people. The pudding guy excelled in something no one else or very few did. And he was exponentially higher than all of them. The only thing that comes close is when people who could afford to drive Escalades were driving to movie theater dumptsters to get cups with AA stickers on them and diving in for smelly bags of miles. I really do wish i could have done that one once but we didnt have the theater chain here

AlohaDaveKennedy

MM: Quack, quack - get with the times! We expanded way past the comfy cushions and dish racks....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdoGVgj1MtY

[QUOTE=Marathon Man;19650010]the DSüCs ("Double Secret über cardinals," or DUCS or DUCKS or QUACKS) as we could call them, don't 'shut you down' from deals anymore... No, what they do now is try and wear you out so you don't WANT to do business with the company with which you are having issues!

They hold funds, make some sort of internal glitch, pass the call to people who say, "Yes, I'm Sarah and I'm the only one here," and then when you call back everyone's name is Sarah... or they institute protocol that you have to ride through some pipeline of in order to get to the other side weeks and weeks from now just to get your money back... and they make you tell yourself, "Never again will I get involved with that thing!!!..."QUOTE]

Marathon Man

Hahaha man i love ya

Anyway i think at this point we need bad song lyrics:

Bye bye vanilla bean pie
Drove my chevy to the od but the gc rack was dry
And good ole boys chimed in on ft and cried
Singin ya my store was out too and no one knows why

[QUOTE=AlohaDaveKennedy;19661090]MM: Quack, quack - get with the times! We expanded way past the comfy cushions and dish racks....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdoGVgj1MtY

mnscout

Whatever floats your boat. If you truly believe that the bloggers with their miniscule fan base can ruin deals faster than Flyertalk that has 450K REGISTERED members, then keep playing in your sandbox. It would be nice, of course, if you fellows, manage not to insert blogger-bashing into every single thread in Milebuzz, but then again, everyone has their own idea of fun.

QL_714

Who said FT is not at fault. You should get your facts straight.

amolkold

I think there's a medium between what your two ideas are. Sure, FT has 450K registered members, but how many are active readers? Sure, there are lurkers, but how many? On top of that, how many are reading MilesBuzz? Look at FacesOfFlyertalk, there are people who don't even bother with credit cards and only get miles from travel.

The blogs are geared toward credit cards and deals. Google "Vanilla Reload" and tell me how you can find an FT link? The only one I see is about the thread that started less than an hour ago. Believe it or not, I actually think that the way we discuss things on FT keeps them here ... calling them beans or PPs, rather than literally spelling everything out.

mnscout

OK. Help me. What are the facts?

Rommie2k6

So is beans really dead for OD? Isn't beans supposedly coming to the red hospital?

mnscout

You have a good point but you don't know the answer either. I would go on the ledge and assume that even the Mile Buzz alone has much more power than all the blogs combined. Besides, we are talking about a fairly advanced technique. Newbies who mostly frequent those blogs will not go out en masse and ransack ODs and Walgreens. Maybe a few of them but not in the numbers that have made Chase pay attention. This is more likely a job of more advanced hobbyists, the ones that can be found right here in the HOUSE.

But even that is a moot point. The point is you just can't control the information. To demand from a blogger to hide the deal is like demanding from a reporter to hide a juicy scandal. That's what they do, and if they didn't they wouldn't be doing their job.

sk8uno

Whether we like it or not, this is the truth and it's not going to change.

BakerStreet

Checked out six stores in Manhattan. Four had the card but only two would accept credit. One had a large sign saying "All pre-paid cards are cash only; debit cards sometimes possible"

aarato

Gift cards are and will be there, it is a bit more work but still is a deal

Marathon Man

Many stores in MA have long since had issues with selling certain things...

Shaws supermarkets wont sell a variable gc to a cc, just cash or debit.

My local stop & shop used to let me buy $500 visa gcs with my groceries and now needs all transactions with gcs over $200 to be done over at the service desk. They need to call into your cc brand (amex, mc or visa) for an auth and then let you swipe but its cumbersome now

Cvs gets antsy over the sale of any gc when paying with another gc... For example, you cant really use an amex gc to buy a visa gc

Few if any stores allow you to use any store gc to buy any other type of gc

Staples max visa mc or amex gc is $200 and with a $6-7 fee!

Most if not all wg wont sell to a cc and not many places sell mos to anything but cash.

And the list goes on. As well we have one od and they never had vns or so ive heard. Its hours from my hacienda.

The common thread in all of this is that stores cite something like, "well sir there had been lots of fraud so its policy..."

What i think is happening now is that everywhere else is catching up to us. We should call this Vanilla Care lol

caGALINDO

I stopped by OD before I went in to watch SKYFALL, the rack was full... dayummm I'm in heaven I thought.

I ran into another FTer making a last dash. Pretty cool. We practically bought em' out.

The manager didn't know anything about "pullin' them off" tomorrow.

amolkold

Lucky you! I scoured my area in SoCal, could only find the 1 that let me buy 2x$200 (so $8 for 2000 UR). Most of the stores just closed at 8pm.