Sabre1

Thanks.... AR is a great way to keep the wife and kids accounts active!

mhen

What show won the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics of a Musical?
Matilda

Alan Cumming is from what country?
Scotland

Cicily Tyson, of The Trip to Bountiful, has appeared in all but which of the following movies:
Doubt

In what city did The Lion King premiere in the US?
Minneapolis

True or False? Once does not have an intermission.
False

What musical won the 2013 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography?
Pippin

Dr Jabadski

Thank you mhen. I’m impressed. It’s about 10:30am here in Kandahar Afghanistan and I just woke up and checked my email. I have one email a few minutes ago from “Follow That Page” indicating that one of the AR pages/questions had changed, which means I'll receive another 2 Follow That Page emails about AR in the next hour or 2 as they send me one per hour. Presuming you’re learning of new questions the same way, it also means that in just a few short minutes you accessed the questions, researched the answers, confirmed the answers, and then posted them here. I’m certain I speak for almost everyone else here when I say: THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

The only remaining question (for which there will NOT be any miles or points awarded) is: what are you doing up and awake and messing with AR questions and answers and FT posting at 2:30am or 1:30am or 12:30am or 11:30pm (depending on your time-zone)?

Thank you very much once again. Your efforts save me, and undoubtedly many others here, lots of time and energy.

Dr Jabadski

BTW, anyone else think the AR folks are getting progressively more lazy? I’ve been regularly doing 3 of the AR programs (US, Delta, SPG) for the 2 years since this thread started and the number and frequency of new questions has decreased considerably. Initially each of the 3 programs had different questions which were changed every few days. Then they each had different questions which were changed every 7-10 days with occasional recycling of a question from several months ago. Then they had some questions which were the same from one program to another. Now they each have identical questions which are changed every 10 days and with this last change they even recycled a question from just 10 days ago.

Clearly no one is going to get a free ticket based only on AR earned miles but it is a fun way to feed our compulsion and maybe extend expirations. And I hope we can all remember the “good ole days” of an occasional TWENTY (yes, 20 big ones) point question. I think I once managed to bag one of them, certainly the highlight of my AR experience!

Sabre1

Thanks for the update Mhen!

kirax2

Some big news that may be of interest to some of you:

I just received an email from Best Buy about their Reward Zone program.

"Points will no longer expire at the end of the year. Keep your points as long as you have activity in your account at least once every 12 months."

FullTimeFlyer

Well, Dr. J, you are certainly featuring an expansive concept of the location in your profile as "NYC suburbs." Some would call that an exurb... Of course I want to add my admiration to yours for mhen's work.

Interesting point about the changes in the program- I think some of them (such as the recycled questions, of course) are lazy, but I think the others probably reflect more AR's conscious desire to hold down cost of the points they have to buy for this activity. Certainly doing them less often, quitting the 20-point questions (which I never scored, regrettably) fit that idea.

As far as going to the single set of questions, for a while that had people flummoxed because then they saw "you have already answered these questions," on subsequent programs until those that were more dedicated went and opened more accounts. Could they probably take other steps to limit everyone to one membership? Probably, but maybe going that far isn't worth the trouble or the programming.

Here's a question for the group - I wonder what will come of the US Airways participation. Obviously they're only one of the two "merges." Will American end up participating? Who knows; that's why we have FT to speculate.

FTF

guoguo914

Can you do all three at a time (earn points for the same questions)???

Supersonic Swinger

The world has more than 4 time zones, which someone from NYC in Khandahar should be aware of. It's mid-late afternoon in Australia and Asia which is where mhen could be based...

beltway

Yes, of course. See my earlier how-to in post #549.

WideOpenSpaces

To the first comment, yes you are exactly right. Over the past two years, as the program continues to get more publicity and more people start to take part in the free trivia questions to earn free miles and points, costs have risen, and my guess is that the amount of people actually buying the high end tickets to earn points and keep the program viable has held relatively constant. AR makes money when you buy high cost tickets because they don't offer the program on the cheap seats. So as people flood to the program, they have changed the terms of the program to meet their business model.

When Best Buy started handing out free points via their Facebook page, there was a ton of new traffic generated to the AR program. Tons more blogs and forums picked up on the program (yet they typically only promote the Best Buy aspect and ignore the Delta/US Air/SPG programs). Again, with the huge surge in members acquiring free miles/points, AR adjusts things to meet the business model.

As to the second part about US Airways staying in the program, as of right now, AR has not given us any indication of what will happen. Ultimately, it will likely go away, and it's doubtful American would take its place. However, this is all still being worked out, and hopefully when they know something, we will be able to share it.

yoyo

Regarding changes in AR, I noticed macros used to work across different awards and the only thing you needed to charge was the initial URL. Now it is no longer the case.

bensim

Once again, thanks, mhen. Cheers.

Dr Jabadski

Good point, you are absolutely correct, my bad. I guess my USAcentricity was showing. For some reason I presumed mhen is in the USA. My apologies.

Dr Jabadski

Hopefully my current location is temporary, if for no other reason than MRs from here are darn near impossible. My location, for all intents and purposes, along with my heart, is still in Westchester County NY!