You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[gasman]

Originally Posted by timun

Brilliant. I ####ing hate that they prompt you for the Air Miles card too. I feel bad for the cashiers, as I know they have to ask as a matter of course, but the programming on the self-checkouts is asinine.



On the subject of what grinds my gears: Air Miles, overall. It was always a stupid program for the consumer. I stopped collecting years ago, after they announced they were going to introduce an expiration policy. When they announced miles would expire five years after they were collected I just redeemed what few miles I had on a flight, tossed the card in the garbage and never used it again. I had thousands of miles collected, but the redemption rates were so crap and the "earn" rate so incredibly minuscule that it wasn't even worth keeping the card in my wallet anymore. About 95% of all the miles I ever had (which I collected for about 10-15 years at that point) came from the 'bonus' miles I got when I signed up. On average I was otherwise earning a paltry ~120 miles per year. After five years I wouldn't even have been able to redeem for a waffle iron or some other dumb knickknack #### that I don't need; hooray...


Reward points schemes overall are such a waste of time and effort to me, and getting credit "rewards" card offers in the mail RGMG. Reading posts on https://old.reddit.com/r/churningcanada/ is a window into a world that is so, so bizarre to me. The energy that goes into it reminds me a lot of when I was a kid and would see people "couponing" at the grocery store checkout; (mostly) ladies who'd have stacks and stacks of coupons clipped out of flyers and newspapers.

In order to make Air Miles and the like be worth the effort it seems like one would need to spend tens of thousands of dollars per year on their card. Maybe I'm a lot poorer than I thought, but aside from living expenses like mortgage, property taxes, insurance I pay for just about everything else on my credit card, and if I spent more than $15,000 per annum I'd be surprised. The only things I ever collected Air Miles on were groceries, gasoline bought at Shell once in a while, and the odd home improvement purchase at Rona: it was nowhere near enough to be worth getting my card out of my wallet.

It really depends on your situation and obviously your income but $15,000/year on a credit card is only $1250/month, that probably wouldn't cover groceries and/or gas in my hosehold.

I put my entire life on a credit card, absolutely everything I can. Even to the extent of negotiating with the car dealership the last time I bought a car (6 years ago) to put 10k of my downpayment on credit. The reason - 2% back - In a year I can churn well over 60k on a credit card and that is $1200 in cash back, and it doesn't cost me a dime.

[timun]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Using 95 air miles to get $10 of groceries is probably the best deal there is. Therefore I just keep redeeming $10 at a time and my air miles never accumulate. And this week at Safeway you get 25 miles back when you redeem 95, so really only 70.

Just look for small deals. Like 30 miles for 6 $2 box of crackers that you would have bought anyways. That's $3!

I used to do that, GirlySports: use the card for "small deals". However, usually the "small deals" were NOT for "things I would have bought anyway", and the earning rate otherwise—1 mile for $20 spent—is so paltry it's pointless. If you're not buying those "buy two of ____ and get 30 bonus miles" things on a regular basis then the $10 cash for 95 miles deal = $1,900 worth of spending. (!!!) 0.5% cashback at that point; whoop-de-####ing-do!

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by timun

I used to do that, GirlySports: use the card for "small deals". However, usually the "small deals" were NOT for "things I would have bought anyway", and the earning rate otherwise—1 mile for $20 spent—is so paltry it's pointless. If you're not buying those "buy two of ____ and get 30 bonus miles" things on a regular basis then the $10 cash for 95 miles deal = $1,900 worth of spending. (!!!) 0.5% cashback at that point; whoop-de-####ing-do!

That's right. Only use for buy 2 of deals. I have kids, I need a lot of that crap. I need cereal, I need bagels. Also those bonus boom deals, again for things I would have bought anyways. And using with BMO Mastercard.

[timun]

Originally Posted by gasman

It really depends on your situation and obviously your income but $15,000/year on a credit card is only $1250/month, that probably wouldn't cover groceries and/or gas in my hosehold.

Absolutely it depends on one's situation. In your case I presume you have kids; I don't. I am averaging $130/mo. for gas and maybe $350/mo. on food so far this year. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am admittedly miserly. It pains me to spend money.

In a year I can churn well over 60k on a credit card and that is $1200 in cash back, and it doesn't cost me a dime.

My annual spending on absolutely everything—mortgage, utilities, insurance, property taxes, cell phone, internet, gas, food, clothes, etc., etc., etc.—is usually about $35,000. I'm otherwise socking away a few grand every month...

[timun]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

That's right. Only use for buy 2 of deals. I have kids

There's your problem right there.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I had to laugh cause I stopped into shoppers ten mins after reading your post and was greeted by a self checkout screaming at a customer on the other side of the store, lol. Man, those are loud.

Do the Shoppers ones have a volume button? Some of em do and I’ve turned some down before.

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Do the Shoppers ones have a volume button? Some of em do and I’ve turned some down before.

Really? That's even a option? Good to know.

[DownInFlames]

If you have a flashing yellow light at an intersection you don’t have to stop, although you probably should because the morons with a flashing red are likely to assume you have to and will go.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

If you have a flashing yellow light at an intersection you don’t have to stop, although you probably should because the morons with a flashing red are likely to assume you have to and will go.

The only way to be as safe as possible a driver in Calgary is to drive defensively and to never assume that other drivers will follow the laws and do the right thing in any situation.

[Ashasx]

I have entered almost 50 yellow pepsi cap codes online and haven't won a damn thing

who actually wins these things

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

I have entered almost 50 yellow pepsi cap codes online and haven't won a damn thing

who actually wins these things

PepsiCo.

[DownInFlames]

What’s with all the fake sluts following me on Instagram? I need real sluts following me.

[Engine09]

Airmiles.

Been looking at flights to Australia, last fall a single round trip was at 12,000 miles, now bumped up to 18,000 miles. $350 fees.

Flight to Lisbon, 5,800 miles but the fees are $850. Booking and paying for a regular non-airmiles flight to Lisbon is around $1,200.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by btimbit

Nope, just Chrome on my phone

Spoiler!

how the heck do you read that? Is there some setting on mobile chrome to increase the font size I am not aware of?

I'm use Tapatalk (and hate it) but at least I can read the forum. Plus I use voice to text a lot, so prefer mobile because of that.

A different message board I read (www.bigfooty.com/forum/) uses Xenforo to run their board, and it's really quite good on mobile.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by DownInFlames

What’s with all the fake sluts following me on Instagram? I need real sluts following me.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Engine09

Airmiles.

Been looking at flights to Australia, last fall a single round trip was at 12,000 miles, now bumped up to 18,000 miles. $350 fees.

Flight to Lisbon, 5,800 miles but the fees are $850. Booking and paying for a regular non-airmiles flight to Lisbon is around $1,200.

Not necessarily airmiles fault. Airmiles always covered the base fare and then the fees were extra. Until now the fees were a small portion, but airlines have added in a large surcharge due to unexpected costs.

Flight to Tokyo used to be $1000-$1200 by AC or 12,000 airmiles + $150. Now it's $1830 by AC or 11,000 air miles + $770, all because AC's base fare is $1075 but have an additional $658 surcharge fee. It's that fee that's making airmiles not look reasonable anymore.

[Engine09]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Not necessarily airmiles fault. Airmiles always covered the base fare and then the fees were extra. Until now the fees were a small portion, but airlines have added in a large surcharge due to unexpected costs.

Flight to Tokyo used to be $1000-$1200 by AC or 12,000 airmiles + $150. Now it's $1830 by AC or 11,000 air miles + $770, all because AC's base fare is $1075 but have an additional $658 surcharge fee. It's that fee that's making airmiles not look reasonable anymore.

True, but the 6,000 mile hike on the Australia flights is brutal.

Overall it's been good, 3 years ago I booked 2 flights to Krakow on miles, fees were so low I don't even remember what they were. Maybe $185.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Engine09

True, but the 6,000 mile hike on the Australia flights is brutal.

Did base fare jump a lot for the Australia one?
I need the fees to disappear so I can use mine up finally. I expect with the loss of Sobey's and the income from it, the airmiles per $ redemption rate is going to change for the worse.

[bc-chris]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The only way to be as safe as possible a driver in Calgary is to drive defensively and to never assume that other drivers will follow the laws and do the right thing in any situation.

unfortunately, this is not exclusive to just calgary

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

how the heck do you read that? Is there some setting on mobile chrome to increase the font size I am not aware of?

Just good ol zoom