The right ways to get to Evian-les-Bains
I recently wrote about my trip to Europe which involved a very expensive cab ride about 50% of the way around Lake Geneva, from Lausanne, Switzerland, to Evian-les-Bains, France…
Episode 68 – South America travel talk with Dia Adams, the Deal Mommy
Episode Description
Dia Adams, aka the Deal Mommy, joins us to talk South America, Camp Mom, mom blogs, the new AMEX Hilton card, and more!
Episode
Hotel Status Matters Less for Families. Here’s Why.
UPDATE: My buddy Ed over at Pizza in Motion has provided a counterpoint.My rebuttal is at the bottom of the post.Greetings from Chicago! I’m here with Deal Girl on a
The low-hanging fruit of personal finance
On Friday I wrote about how people making payments in excess of the minimum to student loans need to make sure their student loan servicers have instructions to credit the
On compound interest (and peeking)
There’s no subject personal finance bloggers love gushing over more than compound interest. Conjure up a conveniently “assumed” rate of return, give it a few decades or a few cen..
One weird old trick to save money on student loan interest
Back in September I wrote about how structuring your borrowing and investing decisions properly in the first place is superior to continually trying to optimize and re-optimize t..
Doing Good, Join us for Happy Hour on 30 November, and bring a toy!
Last year, I partnered with Richard Kerr and Travel Hacking Award Travel 101 to host a Toys for Tots Happy Hour.
Frequent Travelers Do Great ThingsLast year you (the travel hacki..
401(k)’s are a bad idea, poorly implemented, that doesn’t and can’t work
Status quo bias is one of the most powerful forces in American political life, and to overcome it a party or faction usually requires some combination of internal unity, lobbyist
American Express's new co-branded Hilton credit cards
I’ve been reading with interest this morning about the revamped lineup of co-branded Hilton Honors credit cards American Express will be launching soon. Since I earn a lot of Hil..
The shopping cart trick: how to get a credit card without a hard pull
My esteemed blogging colleague Matt recently made it clear that he’s not an expert:
I’m not an expert, I’m just a guy. Sure, I’ve done some cool things with points and
On the dryness of powder
I sometimes come across a moderately sophisticated intuition, and find that while I don’t strictly speaking agree or disagree with it, I do find it basically meaningless without ..
On expectations, disappointment, hope, and parenting
Life sometimes throws you curveballs when you least expect it. This blog normally doesn’t address said curveballs unless they happen 30K feet in the air or in a different country.
How to make Delta's (bad) squeaky wheel policy work for you
If you spend much time around here, you know that I like flying on Delta. There are some catches, of course: if you prefer flying on Delta you’ll probably want
How you might be, but probably aren’t, affected by the TIAA “scandal”
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, and last week the New York Times published a pearl-clutching article that contained a little bit of knowledge. They reported that
Lessons Learned From Seven Years of Blogging
I’m about to hit seven years of blogging. I was going to write a new post, but realized most of what I learned this year reinforces and expands on what
A review of the Chase Sapphire Preferred, written by a robot
Editor’s note: there are a lot of Chase Sapphire Preferred reviews out there and they are extremely monotonous to read. None of them, however, have been written by robots. With
Episode 67 – Spencer Howard talks Asia travel & redemption routes, credit cards, and more!
Episode Description
We enter a Cortezless world by inviting Spencer Howard, miles aficionado, on to discuss trips to Korea, the Demilitarized Zone, overlooked redemptions, and re..
Anatomy of a (partly) award trip: France, Switzerland, Germany
This week I’m on my first big vacation since last summer’s Club Carlson-financed trip around Central Europe, which means it’s time for one of my patented anatomies of an award
Walmart Money Center debit limit problem solving; gone vacationing
I have never felt the impulse to constantly repeat, here on the blog, every manufactured spend technique that still works. People periodically send me e-mails or leave comments o..
The One Thing I Do To Feel Less Like a Tourist
It’s not always about what you wear, where you go, or where you stay. There’s one thing you can do every time you travel that immediately will make you feel
The Social Security magic trick
I often say I like writing about money because it’s an area of human activity that naturally lends itself to my unfortunate literal tendency. Today’s post is a good example
The United TravelBank card is a terrible credit card that nobody should get
Hi everybody! I’ve been taking a break from blogging because, frankly, I’ve been kind of bored with points and miles this year. But Chase has a bad new credit card
When did Hilton get so bad at processing award stays?
I’m no thought leader in travel, so I’m not going to paint this as a symbolic or meaningful decline in the quality of the Hilton Honors program, but I had