copperhead

Here Phil, this one's for you http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/copperhead035/schnauzie-no.jpg http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/copperhead035/schnauzie-no.jpg http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/copperhead035/schnauzie-no.jpg http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp201/copperhead035/schnauzie-no.jpg

I assumed he was joking about being a felon seeing how they didn't lock him up right then and there So Phil, if you are indeed a felon and got away with that, you may want to go buy a lottery ticket, because you are beyond lucky to not be in pound-me-in-the-ass prison right now.

A Journey is a minivan for someone that doesn't want, but needs, a minivan. I read they were crap up until the last redesign but I have no experience with them.

Oh, and get your CCW so you can't get hit for guns charges over something dumb

Phil, you did this 100% wrong. You could have resolved it without police officers targeting you, and possibly could have been repaid for it. Had it been me, when I first discovered my car gone I would have gone right back inside and talked to security about it, along with my direct manager. I would have informed them that I did in fact have my permit displayed and the car was still taken. I would have asked how to handle having an expense report filled out to compensate you for the cost. If they would have tried to argue, I would have called HR and said the exact same thing to them. Then, I would have gone to Scamrock, quietly paid them without putting up any fight seeing how they have my property locked up in a way that I have no legal way to fight. I would have taken pictures of every corner of the car and pictures of the permit being properly displayed before opening the car. After opening it and the alarm going off, I would have taken a video on my phone of it, speaking out loud that it is going off due to someone having broken in, and that things had been moved inside the car. I then would have checked to see if anything had been stolen, and documented it before leaving. Once its all said and done, I'd fill out the expense report at work for the tow bill, anything stolen and any damages, and tell them you would like nothing more than for them to reclaim the money directly from Shamrock. If the company doesn't pay, then I'd take Shamrock to court for grand theft auto, breaking and entering, theft of property and destruction of property. No where in that process would I have invited police to be a part of the mess, they aren't there to help you.

For driving either buy gas cards at the grocery with cards with big grocery bonuses like the Hilton cards or get the Penfed card with 5% cash back on gas. Or both

It might be worth it if you are trying to get one last credit bump to buy a house, otherwise I wouldn't worry about it. You could use chargesmart.com to pay the student loan off with the card to show a high balance so long as you can pay it off right away, that could show need for a higher limit. Usually you can apply online to raise your limit. A hard pull only dings you for 2 to 5 points, its not a big deal unless you have a lot of pulls close together

Those companies don't exist to be nice to people. Phil, complain loud to your management, make sure your coworkers know their cars aren't safe from being stolen either, see if you can get your management to threaten to fire shamrock unless they return your car and promise to be more careful in the future. Go to HR if you have to.

Here's a good thread on how often you can churn credit cards: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/credit-card-programs/1390371-discussion-timing-churning-different-credit-cards.html

time to drive it off a cliff

Hey Ken, since you usually use Holiday Inn: http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/09/25/priority-club-visa-80000/

I would go with - it depends. Asking for a credit limit increase can help or hurt you, depending on the answer they give you. If it is increased, then it will help you out. If they deny you, then it will ding your score but not by much. They would probably base their decision off of everything on your credit report, not just the score alone. If your debt utilization (debt owed to credit limit ratio) is over 50% I wouldn't do it. This means if you owe more than 50% of your credit card limits combined, regardless of which cards have the debt. If you have any cards totally maxed, I wouldn't do it. If your score is below the average score in my chart above (620), I wouldn't do it. What it boils down to is if it looks like you are having trouble paying what you owe, then they probably won't increase your limit. Banks only like extending credit to people they know will pay them back. Now, if you are stuck with decent credit and your debt load is looking good and you are just trying to find easy ways to bump your score up a bit, then by all means go for it. I would ask for an increase on the older one first though. No matter what, keep the oldest card. The second oldest honestly doesn't much matter, unless you aren't sure you will be able to hang onto the oldest. If you close it, you will get a small ding but then if you have other cards with higher limits then the improved debt utilization ratio from cancelling the low limit card will make up for it. If you want to keep the second oldest card, then if the first one is a success I'd wait a couple months then request an increase on the second oldest. If they won't increase it to at least $4,000 or $5,000 I'd cancel it, anything less wouldn't be enough to really boost your score.

yeah, there's really no way to condense it. There are many different angles to explore depending on whether or not you travel for work and how much money you spend on average, etc etc. Best thing to do is read read read then go out and just try stuff and see what works. Then just come up with goals, like "I want to visit Paris for 5 days, I want to stay in a 5 star hotel and I want to fly there first class for free" then you figure out what airlines fly there and which one you could get the most points with, then figure out which hotel you want to stay in and what way to get the most points with them. It seems like anything involving finances is just a game to play with the banks, the more money you can move around the better off you are, and this is a great example of that.

Sucks, but that would have been a shit ton of points for a cheap investment. You usually have to work a bit harder than that. Oh, and for the professional business traveler, Akula is correct. I wasn't sure where you fit in, and I travel more often for pleasure than work so I'm not in a position to worry about that stuff. I'm stuck playing the credit card game instead of playing the flying miles game. I'm lucky to fly once round trip a year, so I'll never have elite status on any airline ever. So for me, I'm way better off getting the Hilton cards that give gold status and just being content with that. Since you travel often, then you do want to break stuff up into more, longer segments so that you can get to elite faster which will build you points faster. I think his advice of sticking with one hotel chain is good advice for either side of the spectrum, but I'm far less likely to have airline loyalty since I'll never have status. If I come across points for an airline I'll use them, otherwise I'll just go with whatever is cheapest for where I'm going at the time.

Are you sure you get 11,000 for buying it, or you can buy it for 11,000 instead of using cash?

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/09/flight-attendant-tries-to-bring-loaded-gun-through-airport-security/ Cliffs: A flight attendant forgot their CCW gun was in her purse and tried to go to work. Got detained at security, went into one of their molester rooms with an actual cop. Cop tried to unload the gun and managed to fire it into a wall. It was a revolver, yet he couldn't figure out how to unload it without a negligent discharge. Good thing they stopped that evil terrorist from murdering people :dumb: Oh, and she was charged with disorderly conduct to boot :dumb::dumb::dumb:

I've been looking hard. Once I find one the neon will be up for sale, but I can't sell it until then.

Find me a 2001-2005 BMW 330 with a manual transmission for under $8000 and I'll sell you my neon

How to have a dirt cheap ski weekend in Utah: http://www.travelbypoints.com/2012/09/22/book-your-almost-free-ski-weekend-trip-for-less-than-80-per-person/

:dumb:

I have some that's unflavored that I bought in Kentucky almost two years ago, never figured out what to do with it. suggestions?

because its dirty and full of shit from not being replaced in proper intervals?

IB allthatshit.jpg IB TL;DR edit - holy shitballs I just realized I need to be a travel agent. How well do they get paid, anyone know? edit #2 - I just realized I made my 5,000th post in this thread. Yay for me.

Looks like the closest airports are Mobile Regional Airport (MOB) and Pensacola International (PNS) Neither have a direct flight here here. So, the next step is to load the wikipedia pages that I linked above, and also bring up the page for CMH Now, what we are looking for is a carrier that has a connected city in the list. If flying out of MOB we have: American Eagle (American Airlines) through DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) Delta through ATL (Atlanta) US Airways through CLT (Charlotte) United through HOU (Houston) If flying out of PNS we have: Airtran through ATL (Atlanta) American through DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) or through MIA (Miami) Delta through ATL (Atlanta) United through HOU (Houston), IAD (Washington-Dulles), and maybe ORD (Chicago O'Hare) US Air through DCA (Washington National) or through CLT (Charlotte) So now we have our carriers and our routes. Next you have to decide what's important for you - collecting miles, using miles, shortest time, cheapest flight, or most comfortable flight. Southwest gives points based off dollars spent, to my knowledge the rest of the airlines award by how many miles flown. So if trying to earn miles you would look at American, Delta, United or US Air and come up with the longest distance for the cheapest price, but I think that's a stupid way to spend my time so I'm not going to look that up. I'm going to try to find the shortest travel time at the best price. OF course, your schedule would also dictate when you would be leaving, but since I don't know that I'll ignore it. It looks like the two airports are about the same distance, with Pensacola being a bit closer. I'm going to look up flights for this saturday since you didn't specify when you would be leaving. Remember my rule number one - always check Southwest and Airtran first. SW doesn't fly through either of those, so next is Airtran. That flight would cost $322, leaves at 6am, stop in ATL for 2 hours and 17 minutes, and arrives at noon. Looks like 6 hours to me but the website says its 5 hours, dunno why. My next choice for price is American. Most flights from MOB layover in ORD, screw that. They have one that's MOB - DFW - CMH for $332, leaves at 11:55am, arrives at 5:40pm. Cheapest they have from PNS is $558, so forget it. BUT right now American is cancelling a lot of flights. Their pilots tried to strike but were informed they weren't allowed to so they are all calling off. Don't use them until this passes by unless you don't care if your flight is cancelled or you get bumped. Delta from PNS is $600 all day long. Pass. Delta from MOB has a 7:10am to 11:46am flight for $331, stopping in ATL for 43 minutes. Now we're talking. US Air from PNS has a 2:30pm to 7:20pm flight that stops in CLT for 51 minutes for $321 or a 10:55am to 4:11pm that stops in CLT for an hour and 17 minutes for $321. From MOB they have 6am to 10:30am that stops in CLT for 34 minutes for $330. United has from PNS a 10:02am to 3:47pm that stops in ORD for 1 hour 7 minutes for $322. From MOB they show a "partner flight" which is just the US Air flight booked through them at 6am. Off the top I would eliminate American because of the problems they are having. Next I would eliminate Airtran because of the long layover. The remaining flights are all almost identical in price, so that's no longer a factor. This leaves us with: Delta: MOB - ATL - CMH 7:10a - 11:46a 3h 36min $331 US Air: PNS - CLT - CMH 2:30p - 7:20p 4h 50min $321 PNS - CLT - CMH 10:55a - 4:11p 5h 16min $321 MOB - CLT - CMH 6:00a - 10:30p 3h 30min $330 United: PNS - ORD - CMH 10:02 - 3:47p 5h 45min $322 Now it's just a matter of what time works best for you and which airport is easier to get to. Going strictly off the numbers I'd pick the Delta flight myself, its a red eye but not quite as much, smaller airport means easier to glide through security, and its the second shortest trip time by 6 minutes. Of course, you could always throw in seating preference. From the airline's website you should be able to see what plane you will be on and what seats are currently available, then go to http://www.seatguru.com/ to see where you would find the best seats. But here's another wrench to throw into the works - booking late means the price of first class/business class drops. That same $331 Delta flight has two available first class seats for only $471. For an extra $140, I'd think pretty hard about going for it. Which brings me to another travel hack - when flying Airtran, call within 24 hours of the flight and ask if they have any first class/business class upgrades available for your flight. If so they will usually give them away for $50-$100.

:fuckyeah: glad I could help