News and notes from around the interweb:
- The absolute worst credit card has a new contender, although I think that First Premier still holds on to the title.
- Ways that passengers are cheating Uber
- There’s been really good partner award availability using Delta miles
- First class is worth it. I think the author conflates domestic and international a bit, and is flying on someone else’s dime. What the piece is saying, though, is that premium cabins are better than coach — which hardly seems novel. And yet I see this article getting lots of praise and social sharing in my feeds.
- Extend the expiration of your Hertz points by 24 months for free.
- You can join the 40,000+ people who see these deals and analysis every day — sign up to receive posts by email (just one e-mail per day) or subscribe to the RSS feed. It’s free. You can also follow me on Twitter for the latest deals. Don’t miss out!
There are some really bad credit cards for those with bad credit. I guess they do serve as tools if your credit it terrible but allowing you to at least open one and if you are careful you could rebuild some credit. I would suspect that they could have a negative impact on your FICO score if you opened one with good credit. Kind of like HFC or American General Finance used to impact your score.
How about the worst reward card. I nominate the Visa Black Card https://www.blackcard.com/
The “First Class is Worth It” is accurate and makes some great points. However, flying first class isn’t always an option, and although I am affluent, it’s not in my psyche to casually drop 5K or 10K on a flight, however, lengthy and luxurious it may be.
When I have the points, I will fly First, especially long haul trips with multiple stops.
However, when I don’t have the points–or want to save them for another trip–the option I most frequently use is to purchase economy w/ preferred seating, or economy plus, and break my trip up midway with an extended 12-18 hour layover to accommodate a hotel stay. This works especially well when going USA>EUR>AFRICA, or USA>ASIA>OZ.
I have a question. I booked a flight with Turkish airlines ORD-IST-CAI and paid for it(I know, I’m new to the points thing). I have a UNited card with 50,000 points on it and was wondering if I can use them to upgrade to business class and if it’s worth it on Turkish airlines. I have a P fare.
@DaninMCI certainly one of the lesser values relative to annual fee…
There are many “wrong” things about Mr. Arruda’s first class column, but the inaccuracy that stands out in my mind is the “networking” potential. Most int’l biz class seats are set up for privacy; it seems very unlikely that you would have a conservation with a seat neighbor. Indeed, the only conversations I can ever recall having on such flights — and they were brief — were while stretching my legs by the galley.
Domestic FC has less privacy and, I suppose, more potential for conversation but, honestly, how many conversations have you had with your seatmates? I’ve had very few, and I think the vast majority of FC travelers aren’t interested in talking to their seatmates.
As far as FC being financially “worth it,” I’m skeptical. Enjoyable, yes. But if you actually BOUGHT a FC seat, I’d bet you’d be financially better off buying the cheaper coach seat and putting the difference into your retirement account. Not that you’d necessarily be happier, but you’d be wealthier.
If I was in J or F and got seated next to one of these “professional networkers”, I would PROMPTLY ask to be reseated…or offloaded if that wasn’t possible.
He means domestic first class, I think. If he was talking about international flights, he would say business class. I don’t need networking with some salesdroid but yeah after a certain point, what are you saving it for? I’m not wasting my time in economy any more jumping all kinds of hoops to save a few bucks. One thing I don’t get is why he cares about status if he actually buys first class tickets. All that stuff like free bags, front of the plane, front of the line etc. comes with the first class ticket whether you have status or not…You no longer have to worry about jumping through a bunch of ever more ridiculous hoops to get treated right.
Yeah, there are several good reasons to enjoy F, whether as a rule or as a treat, but only an idiot really believes he can justify it Financially. What a crock.
What I have seen in both F and econ is that all the action is in the back of the plane. Except for some CA to India flights and some domestic USA F is full of snobbish people when in econ they are usually 100Xs more friendly, interesting, and sexy!!!
Funny how a company like Uber that prides itself on breaking the law and disrupting the legal regimes that govern the economy is now upset at its customers doing the same thing? Does anybody see this as ironic. Can we really fault the customers for acting as uber does?