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Helping you and your family save money on your vacations to Disney and beyond

Missing Deals, Making Deals – Serve, Rite Aid, and Diamonds

So the news hit today that Rite Aid and Dollar General will be allowing fee free cash loads onto Serve. The only reason why this matters is because there are already reports that prepaid gift card loads have been successful (a friend of mine loaded a bunch today).

I’m in danger of missing this deal because I was not prepared for it. When Redbird died, the best practice was to switch over to a Serve or Bluebird as soon as possible. If you were on top of things, you wouldn’t even have missed a month of loads. I didn’t go out of my way to do anything of the sort because Walmart is far and I can’t stand it. It wasn’t a priority for me.

Rite Aid, on the other hand, is across the street from me. But unlike others who started liquidating immediately today, I wasn’t able to. In fact, the fastest I’d be able to get up and running is a week or two. If, like me, you were lazy, feel free to follow Doctor of Credit’s checklist.

There is, of course, the chance that I completely missed this “deal.” Rite Aid registers could be hard coded in two weeks for all I know. It’s happened before. That’s why it’s important to be prepared to jump on things as soon as they happen. That usually means not staying stuck in a dead system if you have an alternative.

One deal I did manage to jump on was the Hyatt and Hilton Diamond status match. That was a pretty nice stocking stuffer and it only happened because I happened to be awake at 1 AM. Still don’t get what the heck Hyatt was thinking but I don’t understand marketing in general…

My feelings about both these “deals” are the same – I am neither overly excited nor overly disappointed. There really is no point. In this day and age, the 24 hour news/blog cycle makes every deal feel like the best deal in the world, every devaluation feel like the worst, and can often cause me to panic/make bad decisions. Well, no more. Stick to the plan, jump on deals if you are lucky enough, don’t sweat the ones that you miss. There are always more fish in the sea.

My free parking dilemma

After two months of adjusting to a new addition, we’re back on the road again. No flying, but after a two hour drive we’re in our favorite local weekend destination: Portland, Maine. We’re back at the Hyatt Place Old Port (no suite though this time), and even if the rest of the weekend is a bust I’d already consider this trip a success. I’ll have more on that later, but wanted to write a quick post about a random “issue” I have.

For some reason, I have a major philosophical opposition towards paying for parking. It goes beyond just saving money, I think, I just go very far out of my way not to pay for parking at all. I’ll circle in Chinatown for 45 minutes before paying $10 to park in a garage.

How this relates to our trip to Portland is due to the $18 valet parking charge at the Hyatt Place. Last time we were here we arrived on Saturday and stayed on Sunday and Memorial Day, so I was able to street park for free after 6 PM. Arriving on a Friday night, I’m going to have to deal with parking all day tomorrow.

Still, I refused to pay the $18 for the convenience of parking. I hate valet parking in general, since I like having access to my car immediately. Though you can see the foolishness in that kind of thinking since I can’t have my car immediately if it’s parked on the street blocks away.

Instead of paying $18, I’m going to move my car all throughout the day tomorrow, probably paying about $10 in parking altogether at meters. Now that I’m typing that out it seems even stupider that I didn’t pay for parking, and that’s not even including the fact that I’m risking a ticket if I don’t get back to my car in time.

Theoretically, I feel like chasing these tiny dollars, especially when it comes at the cost of a ton of convenience and with a decent amount of risk, is completely stupid. In practice, I just can’t bring myself to pay the parking fee. Am I crazy? Do other people treat paid parking in a similar fashion? Or are there other areas where you save a few pennies even though it’s basically irrational? I’d love to know.

Oh, and I should add, I blew all the money I saved on parking on like, four oysters. Delicious, though.

The Obsession

What lengths will people go to to save a dollar?

There is small group of like minded individuals who are afflicted by a condition that can only be characterized in two words: “The Obsession.”

The Obsession drives people to do crazy things for a dollar. Obsessists, who are otherwise perfectly sane people, spend more time at Walmart than a sane person should. In fact, they go out of their way to go to Walmart. They LOVE Walmart. And they hate Walmart.

Obsessists will go to any lengths to save a dollar. They will waste three hours of their time to buy 28 Disney gift cards in order to save $20. This doesn’t even include the six hours of research it takes to figure out how to save that $20.

Is someone you know taking money for free? You can be sure that person is an Obsessist.

Whenever a new rewards program is announced, you can be sure an Obsessist will be there to figure out how to buy as many Xboxes as possible. In fact, Obsessists will go to any length for a deal – including visiting cities that aren’t worthy of hosting the Olympics just to make some money. In fact, a dream vacation for someone afflicted by The Obsession is any city that contains a strip mall with a Staples, Target, Walmart, and Kroger.

Obsessists know the best way to fill up their own gas. And how to never miss an AMEX Offer.

Obsessists are the only people in the entire world who read Terms and Conditions.

One well known characteristic of The Obsession is the existence of imaginary friends. Kate. Birds. Twitter followers. Helpful Walmart CSRs.

You can always tell when a group of Obsessists gets together. They eat, drink, and chat like regular people. But you can identify groups of Obsessists by the one telltale moment that occurs every time they get together. Regardless of age, gender, or any other identifying characteristics, during a gathering of Obsessists, everyone inevitably pulls all of their credit cards out to compare and contrast. And then they argue about opportunity cost.

The Obsession manifests itself in different ways. Some Obsessists love cold, hard cash. Others like to travel as much as possible as cheaply as possible. Others love to travel in luxury at a great savings over face value. Others just love gaming the system.

That means there is diversity amongst the Obsessist pool. At any given time, three Obsessists might be utilizing The Obsession to realize three different goals. This protects The Obsession from burning out too quickly. Multiple avenues, multiple revenue streams, multiple ways to survive.

Which is important, because one thing about Obsessists – they can be fiercely territorial. The Obsession is a condition that wants to stay hidden, away from the prying eyes of those who would destroy the Obsessists. Every time a deal gets outed, Obsessists weep. Even those who have only been at it for six months. Especially those.

But that’s the thing about Obsessists. Sometimes they can blow things out of proportion. Like the number of people who read Rolling Stone. Or the number of people who watch Nightline, or live TV at all for that matter. Or the number of people who actually read Rolling Stone who actually can put the time in to be part of The Obsession. Or the number of clubs that still play the Macarena. Rest assured, true Obsessists don’t even have time to read. Or watch TV. Or do the Macarena. Or take care of their children. Sometimes.

Becoming a true Obsessist requires dedication. Hard work. Organization. Free time. The true Obsessist never gives up – there is always a deal to be had. When one deal dies, there’s always another one around the corner.

It’s true – The Obsession has gotten harder as time has gone on. More people have tried to become Obsessists, meaning there is at times less profit to be made. Windows close faster than before. The internet happened. Reddit happened. Twitter happened.

But rest assured, if you’re an Obsessist – the game will never get the best of you. You might have to adjust, you might have to change things up, but you’ll come out on top. Because hard work pays off. No matter how much the sky seems to be falling, the true Obsessist comes out ahead. Because they work for it. They earn it. They sacrifice for that dollar. And they’ll get it. Because for The Obsession, people will go to any lengths. For everyone else…it’s just a hobby.

On Children, Convenience, and Being Cheap

I’ve spent the last two podcasts talking about how I was going to write this post but it took this from Matt to finally kick my butt into serious gear.

Thanks to our latest major life change (family size increase of 33%), I’ve been thinking a lot about how to balance the following three things: children, convenience, and being cheap. I realize this is an oversimplification but that’s the way my brain best processes things. By being cheap I more mean “saving money” but saving money doesn’t start with the letter C, so…anyway.

Back when it was just the two of us, I was all about maximizing the travel experience. I was happy to take an extra connection if it meant another first class cabin or I’d book a longer layover if it meant a chance to try out a cabana. Ever since M was born, my mindset has slowly begin to change and with H in the mix now it’s just going to get more interesting.

M and her little brother - wait till they get on a plane together
M and her little brother – wait till they get on a plane together

Points with a Crew once wrote a post on the Traveler’s Triangle, positing that out of time, price, and location, for any given award ticket you usually can only maximize two of the three (to this day I still don’t get why that post didn’t gain more traction). At first, I thought children, convenience, and being cheap was like that – you can usually get two out of the three square. On further reflection, I actually don’t think these three things form a triangle – usually what’s best for your children is what’s most convenient and often that prevents you from getting things for cheap. It’s more like an acute angle…or something.

The bottom line is, kids, even the well behaved ones, are more or less completely unpredictable wildcards. That means when I am planning our family travel, I need to minimize all other possible wildcards that can be thrown into the equation. Every extra connection is a potential wildcard, every extra piece of luggage, flight times, or even gambling on grabbing an empty row. Obviously, travel disruptions are something you can’t account for, but you can minimize their potential hazard by doing things like scheduling a nonstop flight.

So I’ve started to come up with some general rules of thumb for myself until my kids are old enough to handle more. I of course reserve the right to break all of these rules to get into the Lufthansa First Class Terminal.

1) One layover maximum – stringing together two smooth flights with one child is pretty difficult. My guess is stringing together two smooth flights with two children is an even rarer occurrence (remember I’m dealing with an infant and a toddler). Three smooth flights with two children seems like a statistical impossibility. Luckily we can fly direct to both Europe and Asia now, which leads to my next rule.

2) No one night stays, unless being used to break up the journey – at this point, I think a one night stay is just crazy. By the time you finish loading everything into your hotel room (and we try to travel pretty light even post family expansion), it’s time to load it back again. I can see us doing this if we have to string two long flights together in a row, but if we’re already in our final country of destination, two nights per hotel minimum. Can’t mess around checking into the hotel across the street to accrue stays with toddlers in tow.

3) For now, traveling as a family, not the destination, is the priority – this is tough and I’ll probably get push back from my wife about this, rightfully so. Personally, I just want us to go somewhere, and I’d rather prioritize that (and, say, take a direct flight) than prioritize where we are going. My wife’s counterpoint likely will be that if it’s not a destination worth going to then what is the point of going through all the trouble in the first place? Which is a fair point – I’m not going to take my kids to the opera just to take them there (extreme example).

I bet M misses drinking in the First Class Terminal too
Preferably our one layover gets us into the FCT

 

4) Points “maximizing” will have to take a seat on the backburner for a little while – I’m no longer going to try to squeeze every cent of value out of my points. You have to understand, I kind of have a backwards philosophy when it comes to my points. Like, if I spend 62.5K to fly with a connection to Hungary I tell myself that’s more valuable than spending 62.5K to fly direct to London. Yes, that’s a stupid way to look at things, and I’ll need to stop doing that. It also means that if I can grab two saver seats and pay for one standard to keep the family together, I’ll do that (I fully believe in “splitting the team”, but that’s when the team is a bit older). It also means that I’ve been focusing more on cashback so we can buy coach flights to domestic destinations instead of focusing my game solely on premium international redemptions.

5) If I have to pay a change fee to make things work better for us, I’ll do it – this is kind of a weird one. But the question is, is it worth a couple hundred of dollars to have a less stressful flight? Three years ago I’d have said no way – now? I think it can definitely be worth it. A lot of times, a flight can set the tone for your entire trip, a rough outbound journey can set you back mentally on your vacation for days. With two kids, nobody can take a break since it’s almost always 1v1. So if at any point I think the itinerary we’ve strung together is too stressful, and paying a little bit of money can offset that, then that’s probably what I’m going to do.

Final Thoughts

As always, I recognize that we are blessed with two solid paying jobs and the ability to take these luxuries. Ultimately, what I’m saying is this. For our family, if we want to prioritize traveling with our children, we’re going to also have to prioritize convenience for the time being. That might mean not being able to emphasize being cheap for awhile. In the end, that’s something I’m happy to live with if it means I get the chance to broaden my kids’ horizons.

I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts about how they balance cheapness and convenience once they have children in the mix. And of course, the biggest problem a lot of people might have with all of this is – why bother dragging your kids around the world in the first place? But more on that later.

This is crazy enough. Might as well make our travel more convenient
This is crazy enough. Might as well make our travel more convenient

An Idiot Abroad – TV Review

In some ways, Karl Pilkington is the opposite of everyone who partakes in this little hobby of travel hacking. For starters, he really hates to travel. In fact, he seems to hate trying anything new. He’s like that friend of yours who would be perfectly content sitting on his couch all day. He also doesn’t have to do any “hacking” – it’s his job (for this TV series at least) to be sent to travel around the world and thus all his travel is paid for. Except he absolutely hates it.

The "condor's view" of Machu Picchu
The “condor’s view” of Machu Picchu

But let’s take a step back. An Idiot Abroad is a television program that aired on Sky in the UK from 2010-2012, so in that sense it’s a bit dated. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s timeless. It comes from the minds of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the minds behind the original UK version of The Office, Extras, and a whole load of other things. I’ll get this out of the way now – if you don’t like that particular brand of awkward, sometimes cruel, sometimes politically incorrect, cringe-worthy humor, this show might not be for you. But if you can stomach it, the show is well worth your time.

The premise: Karl Pilkington is a “typical little Englander”, which according to Wikipedia is “an epithet applied in criticisms of English people who are regarded as xenophobic and/or overly nationalistic and are often accused of being ‘ignorant’ and ‘boorish'”. Ricky and Stephen, who are his close friends, send him around the world in an attempt to open his mind. In Series (Season) 1, he visits the seven wonders of the world, in Series 2, he chooses items off of a bucket list to try, and in Series 3 he follows the journey of Marco Polo.

Sunrise as seen from Mt. Fuji
Sunrise as seen from Mt. Fuji

Along the way, however, Ricky and Stephen prepare a set of incredible experiences for him to partake in. They are incredible both in the sense that they are amazing and anyone would be lucky to do them (like trying out land diving in Vanuatu) and incredible in the sense that some of them are so humiliating it’s absolutely hilarious (like sumo wrestling in Japan or training with a Shaolin monk). Karl shows up in any given country and basically follows an itinerary that has been set for him and the series films his reactions to the different cultures he meets and experiences along the way.

To say this man is the star of the show is an understatement – I can think of no other person who they could do this kind of show with. They say he’s like Homer Simpson, and it’s apt – he’s a bit of a buffon, ignorant to a fault at times, but eminently incredibly lovable. What I love most about the series is that he is game for almost everything they put him up to even if he absolutely hates it. And although he can sound very insular at times, as you get to know him better (if you were a fan of Ricky Gervais’ old podcast in the 2000s you already know him), you realize that there is some deep, weird kind of philosophy to the way he thinks. And, frankly, his views often are less offensive than ones you’ll see every day.

The man himself - Karl Pilkington
The man himself – Karl Pilkington

I recognize it’s tough to put into words what this series is about, so I’ll just tell you why it appeals to me, a lover of travel. First, in the occasions where Karl visits somewhere I’ve been, I look upon it fondly. Secondly, I’m at times jealous of the things he gets to do – they make him hike across the entire Great Wall! OK, I probably wouldn’t want to do the whole thing, but it’s so awesome he gets to see some of the non tourist invaded parts. Third, the show inspires me to travel more – it almost feels like all these amazing experiences are wasted on someone who often doesn’t appreciate them. Finally, it reminds me that there is always somewhere new to go and something new to experience – that’s exciting.

If you’re not sold yet, let me just say one last thing – the show is absolutely hilarious. From the Fear Factor type stuff Karl has to go through to his reactions it, so much of it is just comedic gold. In fact I was inspired to write this and rewatch the whole thing because I saw a tweet on my timeline from one of the soccer writers I follow who had just discovered the show.

He realized later it wasn’t a new show, but you get the point. So fire up Netflix or download the program for one of your long haul flights – my guess is only 1 out of every 4 of you will regret it. I’ll leave you with this gem from the man Karl Pilkington himself, which will give you a taste of his genius.

“I never wanted to travel. Didn’t go abroad until I was 21, 22. And now I’ve been all over the shop…I don’t know if it’s changed me that much…when I go home I still like a biscuit and a cup of tea. A cup of tea and dunking a biscuit, I’m well happy. And that’s the right way to be, innit? You can be into traveling but the world’s only so big, innit? So eventually you’re gonna run out of places to visit. Whereas biscuits, there’s loads of em’.” – Karl Pilkington

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