trooper

Wow.....

Got the popcorn going and waiting for the next instalment. ^

Will he post again?

If so, will it be to utter the classic cry of "That's Different!!"

Waiting with baited breath.... (whatever that means...)

Astrophsx

mrpickles

Wow, some people have wild imaginations and like to embelish the story and then think it is 100% true.

buschoi

Totally agree it has been there for a long long time. Time will tell if it disappears soon.

Mountain Trader

I"ll play along.........

deleted

darwin76

The commons analogy is a poor choice for these discussions.

These deals are not like a fishery or a field of blackberries in that they have a definite carrying capacity.

Let's look at the two ends:

1. The deal is known only to one person. That person never shares it and milks it until it dies a natural death.
2. The deals is broadcast on CNN. Many hundreds of thousands take advantage of it before it dies.

Will the total benefits accrued in scenario (1) outweigh those from scenario (2). Probably not.

In example (2), CNN is a major media outlet likely to reach deal administrators beyond the dealhunting community.

Ideally these things are confined to the dealhunting community. Wide distribution among those who will use it with limited distribution among those tasked with killing it may outproduce a mass media airing.

What are the criteria for finding that balance?

We want the deal to be readily available within the dealhunting community. That increases your chances of being able to milk it. If no one learns of it, then no one benefits.

Since the prisoner's dilemma was brought up, here's how it applies: in these scenarios, it's best to cooperate, not compete. Cooperation (in the context of the game) gets many more people on board creating a much larger pool of benefits accruing to the community.

In the long run, the vast majority of users will come out ahead by drawing from the community pool. Over a sample size of enough deals, maximizing the rate at which benefits accrue will have a much greater influence on total payout than the longevity of the deal.

Keeping the deals completely off the radar keeps them exclusive to a highly limited fight club of extreme deal hunters. If you're not part of that clique, then your benefit is zero.

By contrast, keeping it alive longer but with greatly reduced benefit drastically shrinks the benefit pool.

Not all deals are killed by discovery, especially when people use FW rules and never call. Maximizing the number of participants in a deal which ran its natural course once again maximizes the overall benefit pool.

There are three classifications of deals with wide sharing:

1. Deals killed extremely early by wide sharing.
2. Deals killed slightly early by wide sharing.
3. Deals which run their natural course despite wide sharing.

(2) and (3) obviously favor wide sharing to create the largest possible benefit pool.

Only (1) might not benefit from wide sharing, but even then, there is a chance that the community hitting it hard for a shorter period produces a greater benefit pool than holding it closely.

The simple solution is to cooperate. You'll gain more benefit over the long run by being able to participate in a greater number of deals. The only people who don't come out ahead through cooperation are the deal guru psychics with a seemingly infinite knowledge of every deal available. Unless you telepathically learn of deals in your sleep, then this is probably not you.

Hofu

Are PIN based transactions & Debit card purchases the same?

Thanks everyone.
A very big THANK YOU to all who have submitted wonderful ideas.
PM me if you want to know what a huge family benefit these ideas have resulted in. I can't say thank you enough!

Surface Interval

The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance that it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.

It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it means “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe.

Now you know . . .

Happy

Yes. Debit card transaction requires PIN.

In a broader sense, you can use the PIN on your credit card, at the ATM to withdraw cash and that becomes a Cash Advance on your credit card - quite different than the Debit Card transaction as you probably fully aware of.

Hofu

Thanks!
Earlier last year I had that Continental Checking account with Debit card.
IIRC, it required a minimum number of "pinless debit card transactions" every month. Instructions made a point to use the debit card like a credit card and NOT enter a PIN. That's why I asked. Seems like not all debit card transactio's are pin based...or maybe I don't recall correctly?

Thanks!

Happy

When the debit card is used without PIN, it would essentially turn the transaction into a "credit card" transaction by the function of it, despite a debit card is used to perform it.

You should notice that when you do not use a PIN to make a transaction, the amount does NOT show up immediately on your bank account when viewed online. It takes several days before the transaction would show up and money deducted from your bank account, as the transaction is processed as a CREDIT Card transaction and processed differently than the PIN based transaction.

When you use PIN to make a transaction on your debit card, the amount is IMMEDIATELY deducted from your bank account in REAL TIME.

Hope the above would help you understand it better.

JudyJFLA

It is taking forever for BOA to get me the Alaska Airlines Debit card. This will all be over and the smoke will clear before I get to go to Wallyworld....

JudyJFLA

FTnoob101

It took them over a month for me to receive my card

Hofu

Excellent clear & thorough explanation. Thank you!
2010 was my first year and very, very successful.
I can definitely see the benefit of using a PIN based transaction to speed up the reconciliation of accounts so transactions can be closed & make room for more transactions....