MORE CRITICS RAVING ABOUT PFD: I’m pleased to report Personal Finance Digest was recently added to the extremely prestigious “Blogs I Like” list over at Travel Blogger Buzz. “Short, concise, educational and just plain fun to read,” is how George put it. Thanks TBB!
30,000 MILE ALASKA AIRLINES OFFER: The nice thing about this one is that there’s no minimum spend. It’s good to see B of A’s long-moribund marketing machine starting to wake up again.
PAYPOWER VISA PREPAIDS FOR FREE?: Milenomics passes along some gossip concerning fee-free Paypower cards and redesigned Reloadits. That particular change probably won’t affect many of you, but it’s good to see prepaid issuers competing on price and I’m hoping it’s a harbinger of better things to come.
APPLE PAYMENTS UPDATE: Apple has filed a patent on its payment system. They’ve certainly got something in the works and whatever it is, I hope they accept credit cards.
Here’s an Apple tip courtesy of Vice.com: swearing at Apple’s automated customer response will automatically get you through to a human:
…The automated system that Apple uses (but isn’t limited to just this company) is programmed to listen for signs of distress. If that additional menu option is one too many and you unleash a volley of terse language down the phone, it will immediately connect you with a real person … Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are often programmed to listen out for certain keywords that might indicate they are about to lose a customer. By monitoring calls and immediately connecting a frustrated caller, the company may able to reduce the number of complaints is receives and retain the caller’s custom.
In unrelated but possibly interesting news for a few of you, Amazon will be offering a mobile credit card reader a la Square.
SPENDING UPDATE: That Jackson Hewitt card I linked to recently may not be such a good deal, says Freequent Flyer, who recommends pairing it with Evolve Money. And a bonus on that post is this nice tip:
I’m going to reveal one of my absolute favorite tricks. It’s not a secret, it’s not a hack, it’s just one of my favorite tools in my box: if you have a Fidelity Investment Rewards credit card (2% cash back American Express or 1.5% cash back Visa), you can easily verify whether any product does or does not allow ACH pulls by adding that account in your credit card’s online bill payment tab.
If you’re curious, here you go. And speaking of Evolve Money, Chasing The Points noticed that you can use it to pay off certain credit cards.
REAL ESTATE: Via Reddit, here’s a map of how much snow it takes to cancel school:
A BIGGER WIN: You may have heard of IHG’s “Big Win” promotion. But have you head about the Big Nguyen?
Simple. Go to Reddit, find some odd pictures from various locales, add some recycled gifs, and you’ll be on his Blogs I Love.