Just a quick update on what I’m up to points and miles wise. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’ve pretty much ceased all MS (occasionally relying on Kiva) and am happy to pay 3% for cash on a cruise to meet bonuses. Reselling was a great experience, but I decided that to commit to […]
Ramblings from my latest Minimum Spend rush
I’ve happily moved away from almost all manufactured spend, but recently found myself with a somewhat pressing need to meet some hefty minimums. I learned some good lessons here, that perhaps will help. One thing I’ll suggest is that if you’re currently happy with doing giftcards/money orders or have some other gigs running, it might […]
Standby upgrades with miles using AAdvantage
We recently booked International travel and decided to put the flight on to ‘Standby for Upgrade’ using miles. Firstly, I didn’t know that this could be done, so maybe it is new to some of you too, secondly, I learned some more from the process. You just have to call up AA and ask […]
Reflecting
I’ve been hearing constantly how the points and miles game is a dead duck, so I started thinking about what’s different in my world. Thinking about points and miles today, I have to say that they are less important and exciting to me than they were when I first found them. I don’t actively chase […]
Hacking Business Travel
Recently FreequentFlyer wrote a post on hacking business travel. You should read it, it’s good. However, there’s a few conceptual points I’d like to address when it comes to business travel, and you can apply them to your personal life too. Business Travel is already hackedThe first rule of business travel is that it is […]
Le roi est mort, vive le roi!
“It’s dead. What’s next?”A phrase that we hear increasingly these days in the world of travel hacking. But what is this world, and how do you fit into it? Over the years I’ve found many people overlapping into travel hacking and into other things, certain people have an eye for a deal. I’ve heard from enough […]
Travel Hacking, Life Experience and Net Worth
Noah wrote a thoughtful post about how much we are actually saving through travel hacking, as it might often be the case that we become the game, instead of the player. The topic is complicated, and very individualized, but here’s some thoughts on it from my perspective. Can ‘gaming’ a loyalty system cost you more […]
Love and Hate in the land of Travel Blogging
I’ve been reading a few posts recently and trying to figure out what makes an ‘Approved’ blogger vs a yellow rat bastard who is trying to ruin our lives. A key thing seems to be intent, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions….Let’s look at a couple of posts that have surfaced […]
Can funny money be worth more than real money?
Funny money can be found in the form of points/miles/cash like points/resort credit and whatnot. Interestingly, the default approach to valuing ‘funny money’ is that is worth less than real money. Logically, this makes sense, as the money must be used within a closed ecosystem, whereas real money possesses that fungible nature that crosses borders.But […]
Leverage
In this post I’d like to attempt to merge two topics from the forum, and add in a little more food for thought. The overall topic that we will be looking at is the cost of cruising full time, or pretty much living on a cruise ship, the ghetto way.The neat way to live on a […]