HOW TO PARK FOR FREE AT THE AIRPORT: You may recall a discussion of renting your stuff out for fun and profit a while back. In a similar vein, Frugal Travel Guy tells you how to get free parking at the airport:
Flightcar is a new service that offers free parking to those who are willing to rent out their vehicles for the duration of their trip.
Parking is free regardless of whether the vehicle is rented out or not. If it is rented, the owner is paid $10 per rental for compact cars or $10 per day for large/luxury vehicles.
The service is currently available at Boston Logan, San Francisco international, and will be expanding to other airport locations nationwide.
They also insure your car as well. I suppose if you have an old beater, this would be an attractive option, not so much if you have a really nice car. It’s an interesting business model, and hopefully they can make it work.
THERE IS A NEW ANGRY BIRDS CREDIT CARD FOR SOME REASON: In an effort to meet the nation’s insatiable demand for mobile video game-based financial products, Rovio has teamed up with UMB to offer the Angry Birds Platinum Rewards Visa:
Awesome designs! Big rewards! Free game download*!
Rovio and UMB have teamed up to bring you the awesome Angry Birds® Visa® Platinum Rewards Card. Personalize your card with your favorite Angry Birds character – and enjoy a ton of great rewards and benefits!
Unfortunately, the website gives no information whatsoever about the allegedly great rewards. Perhaps it uses the UMB rewards system? But if you look on that site, there is no information about rewards either, unless you log in, which you can’t do if you don’t have a UMB card.
The Angry Birds Credit Card! It’s got great rewards… but you’re just going to have to trust us on that!
WHY A PERFECT CREDIT SCORE IS A BAD IDEA: This Forbes contributor is out to achieve an 850 FICO:
Two years ago, I began an every-other-day ritual of checking my credit score. And that ritual gave birth to a mission: I’m shooting for 850, the perfect score.
Al Bingham, author of The Road to 850, is quoted in the article with some interesting thoughts:
According to Bingham, a perfect 850 may not even be possible.
“The highest I’ve ever seen was an 847,” says Bingham, who tracked 1,500 credit scores for several years while researching scoring systems. Sprauve says that when FICO examines credit scores, they do so in ranges, so even if someone did have an 850, they’d never even see it.
So, you may ask, why bother?
“It’s a pride thing,” Bingham says. “Everyone wants to have achieved the highest score possible. When I encounter people who have an 820 or 830, they’re always trying to get their credit score higher. It’s a challenge to them. I haven’t come across anyone who has a very high score and just says, ‘It doesn’t matter any longer, I’m high enough.’ ”
820 is way too high. The highest credit cutoff I can remember seeing for good mortgage rates is 760–anything beyond that is gravy. Your FICO score is an asset, and if you’re at 800, it’s an underutilized asset. Apply for a few more credit cards! Bring that score down a bit and score some sweet bonuses!
The whole point of having a good FICO is so that you can use it to get stuff you otherwise couldn’t get it. An 850 FICO is like a Porsche with 0 miles–sure, it’s pretty, but what’s the point?
Classic! Love the part about insatiable demand for mobile video-game based financial products. 🙂