I signed up to make this post and another

1. thanks everyone for the info in these forums the seat poaching stories and DYKWIA stories have left me rolling in laughter

2. thanks for the tips on rewards programs like E-Rewards and others and the tips on manufactured spending (that will probably be what I look for most in the future)

3. I did not read this whole thread (it is LONG) and hopefully this has not been posted before, but here is a tip for E-Rewards I hope might help someone now or in the future

I was not getting surveys from them for a bit of time when I had way too much free time (perfect time to waste time on surveys) so I went to the trash folder in my email and started clicking on the links in those trashed survey offers and lo and behold the links were going to available surveys and many of them were for what I considered to be above average dollar amounts $3-$5 dollars and I qualified for and completed several of them and was credited and the ones I did not qualify for I was still getting my $.25 as well

so the tip is if you are not getting surveys for some reason and desire to complete a few or if you are say $8-$10 dollars away from getting to say an even $100 dollars needed to cash in for 2,000 SWA miles and you think you need to go ahead and get to that even $100 dollars and cash in ASAP because you have a known trip in a few months and want to use your E-Rewards points towards those miles.....well go to your trash folder (if you never seem to empty it like me) and start clicking away and there is a decent chance you will get enough surveys to get to the dollar amount you are aiming for

hope this helps someone in the future

and just an aside I was still not getting surveys for a bit after that and wondered it I had run afoul of the rules somehow with the above method, but then out of the blue the surveys started to flood in and reading this forum and others I am not the first to have a survey dry spell and then suddenly a new flood of them