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Just bought EQP to requalify for IHG Diamond through end of 2025! Since I usually buy miles for 0.5 cents, the $768 to buy 110,000 EQP was only a $218 premium, and I get Diamond again
Ran into the Mexican car insurance scam with Budget in Merida, Mexico 🇲🇽
Base rate was $18 USD a day, but if you didn't get the CDW costing minimum $85 USD a day, I had to put down a deposit of 330,000 MXN / $16,000 USD which obviously got rejected by all my credit cards.
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I wrote earlier about how the Uber ride pass gave access to 30 minutes of free JUMP bikes a day. I’ve been pretty happy with it so far, except for when a bike is too far or gets snatched from me before I’m able to reserve it. I was surprised recently when I started seeing a $3 fee to reserve a bike! That’s not free anymore, even if the first 3 minutes are free.
I decided to hop on one the other day to see what would happen. I finished my ride and waited for the receipt.
Online grocery delivery has been around for a while, but Asian groceries have been an underserved market. I was always willing to make the trek out to the local store for fresh ingredients as well as for the dirt cheap prices.
I recently discovered Weee! which does delivery from local Asian grocers, with free shipping above $35. Availability seems to be in most US states. Doing some inventory browsing, they seem to have most of the items I want, even fresh ones, for near Asian grocery store prices. Green onions for $0.29! Uni!! And more! A couple items were missing, but overall I’m pretty happy with the selection and price. I asked a couple of friends to check the selection, and it seems to vary based on location (someone in Indianapolis said there were very few fresh items there).
I’ve always been a big fan of Google Fi for the convenience, speed, and simple pricing, but always thought it was a bit costly for my needs. However, Google has just put out a new plan that fits my needs perfectly.
It’s a family plan, with 1 person being $70/month, 2 $60/person/month, 3 $50/person/month, and 4+ being $45/person/month. You get unlimited high speed data up to 22/GB per person and throttled speeds after. Furthermore, you get bundled Google One membership for everyone.
I accidentally stumbled across a great deal for people with JUMP bikes / scooters in their city. I had purchased an Uber ride pass for $24.99 a month for other reasons. I live in San Francisco, where JUMP bikes (but not scooters) are plentiful. I’ve been playing with JUMP bikes recently, and after I got the ride pass, noticed that the app was now saying I got 30 minutes a day of rental minutes free! I ride around 6 times a week for an average of 8 minutes each. At a cost of $0.15 per minute, that ends up around $28 of JUMP costs. Plus, I get all the normal Uber ride pass discounts too, so it’s a great deal!
Well, only the difference in taxes actually.
I was recently in need of a flight from Kilimanjaro where I was on safari as well as climbing the mountain, to Brussels, Belgium where I was planning to attend Tomorrowland. Posts on those trips to follow. The cost to flight that route in business class on Star Alliance is 52,000 Singapore miles, which is the lowest easily obtainable currency. I searched for availability and could only find reasonable flights for my date, with the last inter-Europe segment in economy. The routing was JRO-ADD-MXP-BRU, so I figured a short 1 hour leg in economy wouldn’t be too bad.
Aloha from the Big Island of Hawai’i, which is now easily my second favorite island (after Oahu)! I’m wrapping up a 7 night stay at the Marriott Waikoloa Resort, reviewed at the bottom of this post. But first, I wanted to share many hours of research for anyone who is planning their own trip to the Big Island. I found one particular website to be most helpful – Love Big Island. Definitely go to that site and browse like, every page. They keep it nicely updated and unbiased.
The itinerary was SFO-JFK-DUB in both directions on Delta, with the domestic segments being served by Deltas premium service, complete with white tablecloth meal service and lie flat seats for those fortunate enough to afford it.
Given that I was paying “cash,” I was not one of those people…
Until about three minutes before my flight.
My JFK-SFO return segment had been oversold for a few days, and I had even been asked at the check-in kiosk in Dublin whether I’d be willing to volunteer to be bumped in exchange for compensation. Of course I said yes, since I was on my way home and there are plenty of routes home from New York so I didn’t expect too much of a net delay.
When I got to JFK, my heart was pumping, and I hung out at the gate so I could make sure to be the first to talk to the gate agent and reconfirm my spot on the volunteer list.
At about t-45 my name was called. $800 to get on a flight getting in four hours later. $OLD!!!
Or at least, so I thought. They needed two volunteers, and I was the first of them. As they made their final boarding calls I counted down the number of names they had called and thought I had done the tracking correctly within one person (which, by virtue of the fact that I was volunteer number one, would have been sufficient).
At five minutes to departure, they asked me, and the standby who would be taking my seat, to come to the gate. Naturally, I went without my things, mentally basking in the moment.
But that never came. “We broke even!” I was told triumphantly by the gate agent. “You can get on the plane.”
The other volunteer and I looked at each other with disappointed eyes. But then, as we walked the jetbridge, the gate agent asked our seat numbers. What?
As the two standbys boarded, they were told to take our seats. The gate agent stops us. Double what?!
“Your seats are 7a and 7b,” he said.
Some quick mental math told me I had just been given a complimentary upgrade into Delta One! I have no status with Delta, and it’s normally a route that requires an upgrade certificate or co pay to get an upgrade on.
I won the travel hackers’ lottery.
Starts at around 2:42:00. Sorry I can’t link directly to that point in time!
Here’s the slide deck, because you can’t actually see it in a lot of the video:
Cathay Dragon is Cathay Pacific’s rebranding of its subsidiary, Dragonair. Dragonair is primarily a regional airline but does serve some mid-hauls with lie flat seats.
Oh wait, did I say first class….?
