In the end, very few people take the time to master the art of free travel or free groceries… but I can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to take the time for free travel. Extreme couponing gets you 5 gallons of toothpaste that will take up a room worth way more than the tooth paste. But with travel hacking, you can do very simple things to earn enough miles for first class flights on the finest airlines to exotic locations. Flights that are worth $20,000 can be had for next to nothing, if not nothing. Really, why wouldn’t you take the time to rack up at least a few hundred-thousand miles?
Seriously though, the same people who would rather just pay for a flight than take the time are missing out. I can’t say the same for cheez-its. You could pay $2.50 for cheez-its and save yourself an hour of scowering coupons. Right? But with travel hacking, an hour of research (or 10 minutes to simply email us), can get you a $1,000 flight to Europe.
Indeed! The hourly compensation for financial and travel activities is usually (though not always) better. I do keep my eyes open for the occasional awesome Slickdeal to take advantage of, though those have been far and few between lately. I’m always happy to pluck the low-hanging coupon fruit, such as that Target coupon that’s come out the last two Christmases, and to play off supermarkets against each other by going for their loss leaders each week, but in general bank and travel deals are more lucrative, and more fun.
Do any of you mess with couponing? Or are you all travel and credit cards, all the time?
The rewards of couponing……and the rewards of travel hacking.
The twist in this investment comes with Winmill, they own 222,644 shares of Bexil which at current prices is worth $11.187m. They also own 25% of Tuxis, which is worth about $400k. An interesting side note, Tuxis might be worth a look, they are trading at 18% of their 2007 book value. Both of Winmill’s public subsidiaries are worth $11.5m in total. Winmill’s own market cap is $3.045m, meaning they are trading for less than the value of their subsidiary stakes alone. The market is valuing their investment management business at less than zero. Winmill also historically had some cash and securities on their balance sheet, let’s call it $2m. Their historic liabilities were close to zero.
CHINA — A Chinese woman almost lost her life savings recently when termites invaded a wooden drawer in which she kept a plastic bag containing 400,000 yuan: the equivalent of $65,000 U.S. dollars.
It was only after the woman decided to redecorate her house in Guandong Province that she noticed the termites had dined on her nest egg. According to the Guangzhou Daily, the money was given to the woman by her children.
A local bank generously scanned the remaining cash and was able to identity 340,000 yuan which means the termite’s meal ultimately cost the woman roughly $9,786.
SOUTHWEST 50,000 POINTS: After being rolled out early this year and then yanked in April, the Chase Southwest 50,000-point offer is back! Thanks to Fatwallet for bringing this to my attention. There are actually four different offers (annual fees are not waived, alas):
What do you do with those points? They are pretty valuable if you just redeem on Southwests’s “Wanna Get Away” fares, making those 50,000 points worth around $800. You can also get the Southwest Companion pass if you get 110,000 points (easily done if you get both the personal and business versions, and don’t forget that you can transfer points in from Ultimate Rewards as well) and take along a friend for free on Southwest for a year.
You can also redeem for a variety of gift certificates–in fact, my wife and I just redeemed some Southwest points for Bed, Bath, and Beyond giftcards. Incidentally, for those of you with babies and small kids: did you know BBB giftcards and coupons can be used at BuyBuy Baby, and vice versa?
BUT WAIT, THAT’S NOT ALL: Thanks to One Mile At A Time for pointing me to this Roms Deals post heralding the arrival of a Chase Fairmont credit card app with the $95 application fee waived for the first year. The bonus with this card: 2 free nights plus breakfast for two at any Fairmont hotel.
Fairmont is a high-end hotel chain, the kind I won’t be staying in for a while until my kids get a bit older. But this is one of their hotels I would love to stay at some day:
That’s not a castle, it’s the Le Chateau Frontenac, a Fairmont hotel overlooking Quebec City. If you and your spouse both get this card, that’s a four-day luxury trip for you two. Fairmont has hotels all over the world, so have a look at their site and see if anything interests you.
I talked about Disney a bit recently and wanted to talk about my experience with the Disney credit card so I could warn you away from it, but the topic really deserves a column of its own. Disney has a lot of brand loyalists, and I’m sure a decent number of them get this card thinking they’re getting a good deal, but in most cases they’re not.
There are technically two Disney credit cards. There is the regular version, which has no fee, and the Premier version, which has a $49 annual fee. Unless you’re a hard core Disney fan who’s going to drop a few grand on Disney merchandise, neither one is worth getting for three reasons:
The rewards earning rate on both is weak compared to the many alternatives out there and does not stand out in any way.
The rewards points are limited in their usefulness.
The “all sorts of amazing Disney perks” are weak.
Let’s dig deeper into those three items, starting with the rewards structure. With the no-frills, no annual fee version, you get 1% back in the form of “Disney Dollars”… and that’s it. There are about a hundred no-annual-fee credit cards I could list off the top of my head with better rewards than that.
With the Premier version, you get 2% back at gas stations, grocery stores, restaurants, and Disney properties, and 1% everywhere else. Again, you have to pay $49 for this privilege, whereas if you have the Fidelity Amex or the Priceline Visa you can get 2% back everywhere with no annual fee.
And of course, you’re limited with what you can do with the 1-2% that you earn, which is our second point. The “Disney Dream Reward Dollars” are nightmarish from a consumer perspective in that once you’ve earned them, you’re pretty much obligated to spend them on Disney products–theme park tickets, theme park meals, merchandise, etc. The one slightly redeeming feature is that you can redeem the dollars toward airfare as well (fortunately, Disney doesn’t check to make sure the ticket has “ORLANDO” marked on it).
Woman: Would you like to buy some Itchy and Scratchy Money?
Homer: What’s that?
Woman: Well it’s money that’s made just for the park. It works just like regular money, but it’s, er…”fun”.
Bart: Do it, Dad.
Homer: Well, OK, if it’s fun…let’s see, uh…I’ll take $1,100 worth. [he walks in, sees all the signs: “No I&S Money”, “We Don’t Take Itchy and Scratchy Money”, etc.] Aw!
Disney dollars are like real dollars, but more… “fun”
But at least you get some great perks with the cards, right?
No. I’ll list all the perks given on the card website and go through them one by one.
10% off at Disney Store and DisneyStore.com. Not bad–but then, unless you’re going to drop a few grand on Disney merchandise, it doesn’t make up for the card’s many weaknesses.
0% APR Vacation Financing. If you have to finance a vacation, you shouldn’t be taking it. And if you just want 0% funds, there are many cards out there that offer an introductory 0% APR on all purchases, not just vacations.
Theme Park Perks.There’s a character meet-and-greet for cardholders at Epcot. We tried to get in during a late September visit last fall and the line was ridiculously long, so we passed. And mind you, this is during one of the less crowded times of the year. You can also get 10% off meals at some of the Disney lodges and 20% off some of the guided tours.
$50 Onboard Credit on a Disney Cruise. Not bad, if you’re going on a Disney cruise. Though note that you have to book the cruise with the Disney card to get this benefit and forsake potentially lucrative earnings from other credit cards with better rewards.
Disney Vacation Club® Financing. “Disney Vacation Club” is another way of saying “timeshares”, which, as you know, are a terrible investment.
Unique Card Designs. That’s not even a perk, it’s a feature.
In conclusion: Poor rewards, poor redemption options, lame perks.
If you want to use credit cards to offset a trip to Disney, you could do a lot worse than to use the Fidelity Amex or Priceline Visa to get 2% back on everything and fund your theme park ticket purchase. If you don’t live within driving distance of Orlando or L.A., you could rack up some frequent flyer miles using any one (or more than one) of a number of generous credit card sign-up bonuses. You could use the Starwood Amex sign-up bonus if you want to stay in a Disney property, or maybe the Club Carlson card if you want to save money and stay offsite. We stayed at the conveniently located Radisson resort for only 9,000 points per night on our family trip.
But whatever you do, don’t get this card. Disney has some great products, but they are also known for separating people from their money, and that’s really what this card is all about.
$125 CHECKING ACCOUNT BONUS FROM REGIONS BANK:Here you go. Open only to residents of AL, AR, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MO, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA. (Thanks FWF)
$150 BONUS FROM PNC:Have fun. This one’s open to residents of AL, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, MD, MI, MO, NC, NJ, OH, PA, SC, VA and WI.
BUYING AND SELLING STUFF FOR FUN AND PROFIT: Being an internet reseller is a niche some people have figured out to the point where they can make a living at it. Other people do it as a side gig, sometimes for profit and sometimes for points, and Frequent Miler gives you some ideas on how the game is played. This is an area where being a credit card geek can serve you very well since you can work stack credit card bonuses and portal bonuses, not to mention coupons. FM’s sources for resale items: Kohl’s, Staples, OfficeMax, Lowe’s, and Drugstore.com.
HOW TO BOOK A ONE-WAY DELTA AWARD FLIGHT: It’s not possible to book a one-way award flight on Delta using Delta’s system, but it is possible using somebody else’s system. Points, Miles, and Martinis reports on a nice little travel hack. In a nutshell, you convert Amex Membership Reward points to Flying Blue points (that’s the Air France / KLM frequent flyer program), then check availability and book the reward from the Air France website. Very clever!
Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, but for tax purposes, it is treated differently. Most residents of Puerto Rico, with the exception of federal employees, already pay no federal income tax. A person needs to live 183 days a year on the island to become a legal resident.
…The new tax breaks are a radical shift in that they focus on financial, legal and other services, not manufacturing. Puerto Rico slashed taxes on interest and dividends to zero from 33 percent, and it lowered taxes on capital gains, a major source of income for hedge fund managers, to zero to 10 percent.
The incentives work with existing United States breaks. While residents still have to file a federal tax return, they do not have to pay capital gains taxes of 15 percent on assets held before moving and sold after 10 years of island residency.
You could certainly do worse than spending 183 days a year in the Caribbean.
The U.S. territory has a bevy of social and economic problems that appear to be getting worse by the day, making it an inhospitable place for a wealthy individual seeking safety and stability. Crime broke through record highs in the last few years and has started to spill into the wealthy neighborhoods of San Juan, the capital. The violence and economic malaise show little sign of abating. It’s a long way from the financial paradise the Puerto Rican government is trying so hard to portray it as.
…Politically, Puerto Rico is in a state of flux, which means its new investment law could be countered or revoked. There is a reason why Puerto Rico hasn’t tried this beggar-thy-neighbor kind of tax war with the U.S. in the past — it makes Washington angry. That’s a big deal given that Puerto Rico receives around $22 billion from the U.S. every year in the form of aid and subsidies. That makes up around a quarter of the island’s GDP. It could see some of that aid sliced off if it nails some big billionaire fish like Paulson.
Well, shoot. Where the heck is a guy supposed to flee to these days?
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