For cash back sites, I used Fatwallet the most, followed by e-bates. Signing up blind for e-bates doesn’t come with any bonuses. Being referred by an existing member gets both the new member and referring member $5 most of the time (after the new member makes a qualifying purchase). Through the middle of February, though, e-bates is currently offering a $10 signup bonus (again, new members have to make a qualifying purchase — by February 14).

So this is a good time to sign up and start using e-bates. To be clear, using the link about does earn credit for me as the referrer, I pass it along only because not using a referral link won’t earn a new member any bonus.

We can travel basically anywhere in the world on a whim. Average roundtrip airfares between New York and London were about $6500 (in today’s dollars) back in the 1950s. I could fly there for $500 in 2 weeks. Despite rising fixed costs, airfares continue (for the most part) to be incredibly affordable in ways that most other countries can only dream about. It’s changed the way we keep in touch with friends, go on vacation, and do business. We’re all better off because we can fly off to Michigan to visit friends for $150, when driving the same route would cost about $180 in gas.

Frequent flyer programs and the growing airline alliances have allowed us to visit roughly anywhere in the world for free — and it is truly free for many of us, as we accumulate those miles on our companies’ dime. 20 years ago Albania was closed off to the rest of the world. This summer, I called Continental, used 50,000 miles (thanks to work trips to Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta, mostly), and 10 days later was on a plane to Tirana on a Skyteam partner. If we can stop complaining for a moment, think about how insane that is. The world has become accessible in a way it never has before.

I wholeheartedly endorse all of the above — except the advisability of flying to Albania in coach. Egads.

This is an employee code, so it’s up to you whether you’re comfortable using it. It’ll work for online orders without difficulty, it certainly has in the past.

The W bed itself is the plush top with a featherbed (get the featherbed protector too so the feathers don’t poke you!). But you also have pillowtop for a softer effect.

A queen plush top bed with boxspring and frame is less than $750 delivered with this offer.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This adds American to Continental, Northwest, and Delta in the stable of airline lounges accessible with a U.S.-based Amex Platinum card.

With Continental, Northwest, and Delta all in the same alliance the Amex Plat was a slightly expensive way to get lounce access compared to buying a membership in one of those programs (which gets you access to all three programs’ lounges, without the limitation of flying on the carrier whose lounge youre using. So getting the card had to be justified by other benefits, such as the Fine Hotels and Resorts program… a valuable feature for those likely to make use of it. (Sure, benefits like the Amex Platinum concierge – Circles – is nice, but not orders of magnitude better than the useless folks at VIPdesk that come with less expensive cards.)

Now, with American’s lounge too, the card amounts to two separate lounge memberships for much less than it would cost to buy them separately. And that’s on top of the new benefit this year of up to four free domestic companion airline tickets in a calendar year (not to be confused with the international business class ticket that’s less useful to me as it requires a full fare on the paid ticket).

Way to go, Amex!

I am on a Continental flight from Houston to Washington and — in the first class cabin — the majority language is Spanish. I am one of only four English speakers.



Forget taking our jobs — they’re taking our upgrades!

* for the uninitiated I suppose I must point out the tongue-in-cheeck nature of the missive.

The Small Business version of the card also offers 16 credits as a signup bonus and a $59 annual fee.

I believe — though have not verified this myself — that the Southwest Visa can be churned (along with the British Airways Visa, Marriott Visa, and Priority Club Visa). Used to be that all Chase products could be signed up for multiple times, earning the signup bonus each time. That’s no longer the case with the United co-branded cards. But I don’t believe a lockdown on this has taken place with the other Chase products such as this one.

Anyone with recent experience, please share in the comments.

(Thanks to Carol for the pointer.)

In England it was calculated that one horse was needed for every mile of a journey on a well-maintained turnpike road. So, for the 185 miles from Manchester to London, 185 horses had to be kept stabled and fed to deal with the seventeen changes required by the stagecoaches which traveled the route. Those horses in turn required an army of coachmen, postillions, guards, grooms, ostlers and stable-boys to keep them running.

…

A journey from Augsburg to Innsbruck by stagecoach, although little more than 60 miles as the crow flies, would have cost an unskilled laborer more than a month’s wages just for the fare.

Kinda puts gripes about airfare in perspective.