Starwood Preferred Guest 2011 year in review by the numbers.

 interesting  No Responses »
Jan 022012
 

My favorite hotel chain Starwood sent out a couple of interesting numbers and stats. This year I hit their highest level of status with just over 25 stays.

Here are some interesting numbers from SPG:

  • 22 – Most countries visited by one member
  • 75 – Most hotels experienced by one member
  • 91 – Most nights redeemed by one member
  • 10,862,000 – Most SPG points redeemed by one member
  • 19,670,583 – Most SPG points earned by one member

I’m really interested to see how the 19 million points was earned by one person. Some personal guesses are probably something involving convention planner or really heavy credit card usage.

 Posted by dan at 10:22 am

Don’t forget to register for the CNBC Million Dollar challenge!

 finance deals, interesting  1 Response »
Sep 182011
 

CNBC is hosting another million dollar portfolio challenge. The contest involves taking $1 million dollars in fictional play money to invest in a mix of equities and currencies. The grand prize is $1 million dollar and the 2nd prize is a Maserati GranTurismo. There are also 10 weekly prizes.

You get 5 different portfolios to try out various strategies.

The contest starts tomorrow so register already if you haven’t.

 Posted by dan at 8:15 pm

How to profit off American Express Gift Cards and the US Mint.

 credit cards, deals, finance deals, interesting  5 Responses »
Oct 232010
 

In this post I’m outlining how you can use Amex Gift Cards and the US Mint to score some free spending on your credit cards to earn miles/points and a little bit of cash.

I’ve mentioned this in the past and this is well publicized but if you haven’t heard the US Mint has been allowing people to buy dollar coins at face value with their credit cards for some time now. This meant that you could order $1k coins with free shipping on your credit card. You’d get the points/miles for the $1k purchase on your card and then take the coins to your bank for deposit or spend them at places that don’t take credit cards.

Note that the US Mint now limits people to $1k in orders every 10 days.

Another thing a lot of people overlook is that you can further gain by purchasing American Express gift cards at a slight discount. How do you do this?

There are cash back sites out there that will rebate you a % of your purchase made online. In short, they’re kicking back a percentage of the commission they get from referring you to the merchant. Big Crumbs is one of the cash back sites that currently gives one of the highest cash back percentages for purchasing American Express Gift Cards at 1.6%. You also get an extra 0.2% cash back of each of your referrals purchases at the Amex site. Note that you should never use a Citi credit card to purchase an Amex gift card because Citi codes all transactions from any financial institution as a cash advance (you won’t earn miles/points/etc. on that card and ma get charged interest).

You then use the gift cards you purchase to purchase dollar coins from the Mint. Let’s use an example:

Y purchase a 1k gift card with 1.6% cash back. You use that gift card to purchase dollar coins. In essence if I use my Amex SPG card I’m recieving 1000 SPG points and $16 (minus fees associated with receiving the card). Since you can purchase $1k worth of dollar coins every 10 days you can easily order 2k per month.

In summary:

Use promo codes to negate some of the Amex gift card fees.  The code EMSVCA1 removes card purchase fees (expires 1/15/10).

     Posted by dan at 4:59 pm

    McDonald’s Monopoly 2010 Game Overview

     interesting  No Responses »
    Oct 112010
     

    I’ll admit that I do eat fast food here and there. Sometimes I just don’t have time so I’ll stop by Wendy’s or McDonalds to grab some fast food. I found out the Monopoly game is back and I decided to create a overview of the game.

    First off, for those that don’t know how the game works. The objective is to collect all the property pieces of a certain color in order to win that prize. What most people will figure out that is for most property sets there is one rare property and an abundance of the other one/two. Chances are people who don’t play the game but eat at McDonald’s have thrown away key winning pieces in the past. Another thing people generally don’t know is that if you get a rare piece it’ll come accompanied with a phone number for redemption instructions.

    Here’s the items on the McDonald’s menu that have game pieces:

    • Big Mac
    • Large French Fries (four game pieces)
    • Chicken McNuggets (20-pc. or 10 pc.)
    • Filet-O-Fish
    • Medium Fountain Drinks
    • Medium and Large McCafe Drinks and Smoothies (Hot and Iced)
    • McGriddles
    • Hash Browns

    The rare winning game pieces are: Mediterranean Avenue, Vermont Avenue, Virginia Avenue, Tennessee Avenue, Kentucky Avenue, Ventnor Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, Boardwalk, Short Line (RR)

    Note that if even if you don’t get a rare game piece every game piece has a unique code printed on it that can be used to play the online game at PlayAtMcD.com.

    Free codes to enter online that give you a sweepstakes entry:

    • I6L6V4N4T10 – Comes on the side of the to go paper bags
    • MCRFREECODE - From my coke rewards
    • MCDWEMISSYU
    • CHANCEMONOP

    Chances are you aren’t gonna win the big prizes. I highly don’t suggest eating at McDonald’s solely just to play the game. However if you do happen to eat McD’s during the promotional run why not enjoy the free game. The promotional game has been around since my childhood and has a certain nostalgic factor to it so I do enjoy seeing it still around.

     Posted by dan at 9:30 am

    16 things that set Chinese Wal-Marts apart

     interesting  No Responses »
    May 262010
     

    Buzzfeed has an interesting bit on 16 items they only sell in chinese walmarts. Basically there are some things you’d guess based on cultural norms such as rice and a large selection of chopsticks. Then there are the crocodiles, frogs, etc.

    This is why I’m a big advocate of visiting supermarkets and stores such as Wal-mart when traveling. They can provide great insight into a country’s culture. You also get to see how global chains have adapted to a local market. Some people might shun visiting a McDonald’s when travelling but I definitely want to try a McAlooTikki from India.

     Posted by dan at 1:40 pm

    Things you can get other people to do for $5.

     interesting  No Responses »
    Apr 242010
     

    I came across an interesting website concept where people list things they are willing to do for $5.  The website is called fiverr.com and is open for anybody to sign up. Payments are made to fiverr through PayPal and sellers of services can cash out once they’ve reached a $40 balance.

    You can pay $5 for some pretty standard gigs such as wake up calls, help with your resume and translations. It doesn’t seem to be that bad of a deal if you need a basic task for which you don’t have the time nor expertise. The seller also makes a little bit of extra cash in his or her spare time also.

    There are also some interseting, fun and weird gigs offered. You can pay people $5 to talk in various accents, keep secrets, etc.

     Posted by dan at 1:41 pm

    US Treasury takes online donations to pay down national debt.

     interesting  2 Responses »
    Apr 152010
     

    The United States Treasury now has a convenient online form through Pay.gov to accept donations or “gifts to reduce the public debt”. You can give any amount you choose and two payment methods are offered: checking account or credit card (this would most likely include debit cards too). On a side note it seems the National Bank of Greece has also setup a “solidarity fund” to help pay down their national debt although they only

    All politics aside on government deficit spending I wonder how much money will be given each year and the reasoning for giving. I actually did give just to test out the whole process and gave $1 using my check card. I have to use my check card 5 times a month anyway so I figure I’ll spend $1 for the sake of research.

    The form is pretty basic. You fill out the donor information on the first page and then fill out payment information on the second page. You can choose to get an e-mail confirmation also.

    According to the real time US National Debt Clock, as of this post , the national debt is at 12.8 trillion dollars and each citizen’s share is $41,465 or $116,660 per taxpayer. The population is roughly 309 million while 109 million of those are taxpayers.

    Don’t worry you can spread the amount across multiple cards.

    http://www.usdebtclock.org/
     Posted by dan at 10:30 am

    Ryanair to consider charging for airplane lavatory

     funny, interesting, personal insights  No Responses »
    Apr 142010
     

    ABC.com is reporting that Irish discount carrier Ryanair plans to charge  to use the lavatory on the plane. The airline plans to charge 1 euro or 1 pound and remove 2 out of the 3 bathrooms on the plane to add seats. This isn’t a joke as other news outlets such as USA Today (Ryanair pushes ahead with plan for toilet fee) and CNN (Airline considers fee for lavatory use) have reported on the matter.

    Ryanair is known for being a no frills discount carrier with cheap flights between many European cities. They’re also known for charging fees for everything from checking baggage to checking in online.

    Supposedly the good news is Boeing won’t comply with Ryanair’s request because they believe it would compromise passenger safety. Why supposedly? I believe the whole thing is a publicity stunt. I highly doubt Ryanair would go this far to maximize revenue. However the whole publicity stunt worked because Ryanair is so known for no frills that announcing these “plans” had every media outlet reporting on the matter.

    Ryanair pushes ahead with plan for toilet fee

     Posted by dan at 9:34 am

    Get a person on the phone when calling customer support.

     interesting, useful tools  No Responses »
    Feb 262010
     

    A lot of my friends are always expressing their annoyance when calling the customer service number of a company and then discovering they have to navigate through a phone tree to speak to a real live person. This is extremely frustrating when you know the customer service issue you have cannot be fixed by an automated system.

    In the past I’ve always hit the number zero on the phone and that would generally skip the phone tree. However these days more and more companies think that by making more customers go through the phone tree that more calls would be handled by the automated system.

    I’ve been using GetHuman.com for a awhile now and recommend using it for instances where you have to call customer service and definitely know you’ll need a human but there’s a extensive phone tree obstacle to overcome.

     Posted by dan at 2:56 pm

    The shady world of cheap gift cards on eBay.

     interesting  1 Response »
    Feb 032010
     

    A month back I bought a $50 Fandango gift card on eBay for $25 to go watch Avatar in 3d with my friends. This amounts to essentially a 50% discount and with movie ticket prices hovering around $13-$15 it seemed like a great deal. I received the gift code electronically via e-mail instantly after paying through PayPal. I went to Fandango.com and had no problems redeeming the code and picking up the tickets at the theater.

    In fact, there was no problem using the gift certificate at all. Overall, I had a pretty good buying experience. However the problem comes in when the ethical side of me researches why the gift cards are so cheap. Generally legitimate gift card sale prices are pretty close to face value (and sometimes over if a buyer is getting a considerable cashback bonus or has a coupon).

    It turns out that this is a very common scam in which the sellers buy online gift cards which require no physical delivery with stolen credit cards and then re-sell them on eBay for a fraction of the cost. Generally if you don’t use the gift card you buy within a certain time frame the gift card will be invalidated once the fraud is detected. You’ll be out of luck in recovering your funds and chances are the seller is gone too.

    It turns out a number of other experiences all over the web tend to be with foreign sellers but I noticed that the seller with whom I had my transaction was listed on eBay as operating out of California. There are several possibilities here:

    • The seller is perpetrating the fraud themselves while based outside the US and is putting false location information on eBay.
    • The seller has buying the gift certificate codes from a foreign seller and may or may not believe he/she is selling a legitimate product.
    • The seller is in the country and is perpetrating the fraud themselves.

    I’m going to guess that the seller is being duped into re-selling the gift certificates from a foreign associate who’s using stolen credit cards to obtain them. This is one of the reasons why sometimes when law enforcement investigates cases of stolen credit cards being used to buy goods the trail often ends up cold or to a jurisdiction out of reach.

     Posted by dan at 10:30 am
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