Saturday, September 29, 2012
Categories: Africa , Air Asia , Airlines , Asia , Bhutan , Car Rental , Chase , China , Credit Cards
in Africa , Air Asia , Airlines , Asia , Bhutan , Car Rental , Chase , China , Credit Cards , Delta , East Asia , Hotwire , Iran , Middle united kingdom policy towards immigration East , Miles and Points , North Korea , Priceline , RapidRequest reader questions , South Asia , Sri Lanka , Tunisia , United , Websites
Because Delta works best for me at this point in time, given my personal situation. Diamond status is pretty sweet in many respects. And most of the very smart people at FTU are United flyers, I am not going to outsmart united kingdom policy towards immigration them, so best to till a different field.
Since I am NYC-based, I could quite easily united kingdom policy towards immigration shift my travel to United with a status challenge. Then I would have United to love and hate instead of Delta. Since the year after the merger Delta has made no efforts to show they value me as a customer. Million miler status is nearly meaningless since they only grant pseudo-elite silver status, so shooting to finish 1M and get all the way to 2M is too far away to be sentimental. NWA inter-Asia 20k awards and booking those on nwa.com I am sentimental. Delta I feel little.
You need an agent, going local is easy and cuts out the middleman. Only hard part is getting your bank to send a wire transfer to a bank account in Bhutan that has little more than a bank name and Kingdom of Bhutan, they will keep wanting more address info from you. See here for agents in Bhutan, North Korea and Iran . And a reader mentioned that the airline with the coolest tail in the business, Druk Air , now has online booking, removing a big headache.
Costco Travel first, then get a baseline from Hotwire and work Priceline. AutoSlash gets a lot of press and I understand that it is supposed to lower prices over time as they apply various discounts, but whenever I try them the initial sticker united kingdom policy towards immigration shock compared to Costco is too high and I have not had had the time to see them through to the end.
For me, I do not care about so-called 'aspirational united kingdom policy towards immigration travel,' in the sense that my aspirations are about the destinations I visit, not the plane seat that gets me there or the bed I sleep in. That's just me. So I value a first or business class award little more than economy and have never redeemed for anything but economy.
Cash I value. Cash in the bank I value. Cash in my brokerage account that I can invest now and potentially have a large return I value. Cash that airlines/hotels cannot willfully devalue or even cancel I value.
Many investors would be thrilled with guaranteed 2% monthly returns . That is a rational calculation that travelers should weigh against the often emotional consideration of other types or earning and rewards, where much of the value is perceived, the old how much would you actually pay for that $10,000 ticket? debate. If that percevied value is higher than the rational value of cash back, then go with the perceived.
Just kidding, I made that up. But I did get to stroke my first ever Sapphire united kingdom policy towards immigration Preferred card, melted me like a Bill Clinton handshake . Though no surprise that it lost in the first round of the great debate.
Categories: Africa , Air Asia , Airlines , Asia , Bhutan , Car Rental united kingdom policy towards immigration , Chase , China , Credit Cards , Delta , East Asia , Hotwire , Iran , Middle East , Miles and Points , North Korea , Priceline , RapidRequest reader questions , South Asia , Sri Lanka , Tunisia , United , Websites
That sounds like you are making 2% on your total investment amount every month. But with a 2% cashback card, you are given 2% of the transaction amount, and then it is up to you to find an investment that can yield 2% monthly return, or 24% annual (compounding ignored)
@Leif Karlen the analogy is not perfect but I am treating the 2% as money coming in like income, with the underlying expenses that earned it as the investment. Yes, this is a simple interest analysis of one period, the 2% does not later compound united kingdom policy towards immigration unless you then find an investment. But the comparison is to earning miles and points that certainly do not earn any kind of interest or compounding either. Choosing miles and points over a 2% cash back card means, united kingdom policy towards immigration in a rational sense, that you should value the potential future benefit of the miles and points earned per dollar spent at more than the present value (to you) of 2 cents. Do you agree?
The Capitol One Venture was one of my first credit cards, and I got alot of value out of it with the 2% travel credits. When the annual fee came due, I cancelled it since I had so many credit cards at that point. Kinda wish I had kept it now. At the time I was annoyed that I had gotten it before they offered the 100k mile match. I had ideas of applying for it again but haven t gotten around to it.
@guera oh my, that is a question to get me going. Where to see beautifully preserved Roman ruins to rival Italy and have them all to yourself? North Africa. I was in ecstasy. I shared dazzling Dougga with a few goats, united kingdom policy towards immigration walked the El-Jem Colosseum, and saw Jugurtha s Table rise on the horizon.
I don t know if anyone has calculated an informal historical inflation rate for airline miles, but I m sure it would be much higher than for dollars. Let s assume it is 12%, versus 2% for dollars. Let s also assume that you were to invest cash in an investment as risky as an airline, you would demand a 10% real return rate. Hence, you should demand united kingdom policy towards immigration about 20% more miles to be indifferent between cash/miles if you are planning to spend them one year later, compared to if you were going to spend them today.
united kingdom policy towards immigration Thanks for the Tunisia links. There is one thing that is noticibly absent in your pictures PEOPLE! I love it. I visited the Museum of Roman Civilization in Rome (really it s in the suburbs in the EUR neighborhood) several years ago. It has models of the best roman ruins around the Mediterranean, and many of them are located (as you well know) in North Africa and in Turkey. It gave me a lot of travel ideas.
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