Hi all, my name is Colt. I live in Pittsburgh, PA (not an MS wasteland, thankfully). I actually just started MSing within the last month. I stumbled upon MS after thinking the CSR promo bonus was an unusually good offer. That thought led me to read more about it, and I learned that 100k Ultimate Rewards is indeed a rare and good offer. So that led to me opening a new credit card, and then after wondering how I'd meet the minimum spend, I fortunately came across MS. In the last 2 months I've been reading a lot on blogs and flyertalk and trying to absorb as much as I could. After about a month of reading, I decided it was time to use my new card. I've done some very simple MS so far. And I've been fortunate that I haven't run into any issues, despite using several different locations already.
I've always been interested in maximizing the value of something. Cashback portals, rewards, discounts...Any opportunity to leverage a system/offer/idea to benefit me or others, and you can count me in. So I'm obviously interested in MS, but also would like to do some churning. If I think a little more about what led me here, I'd attribute much of it to the fact that I finally feel like I've got my personal finances in order. I still need to review the rules of this site, so I don't want to violate anything in my 2nd post, but I found a budgeting tool that has been an absolute game changer for me. With the help of that, I now feel comfortable enough to handle multiple credit cards, MS, and other things that could get out of control if you're not actively tracking/managing them.
Looking forward to learning from all of you, and contributing on the subjects that I'm more familiar with!