The MOST invested for the LEAST return?
 

While this may look idle or contrarian in this venue, I'm obviously getting at offers - programs, promotions - that waste a lot of your money and/or effort and/or time, in reality yielding very little return -- e.g., bogus, or fairly bogus. The good in this thread would be to wave people off of offers that look good on their face, but aren't. Keep in mind even the "big" ones that yield credit that is just too difficult or impossible to redeem, or it translates into pesos on the redemption end. One more component: It must take work -- not the "Well, I was doing it anyway, it was no skin to just have my account number on there" kind. Money/effort/time vs. ROI.

For me, there are three (types):

- The iDine dining programs, especially when there are much more lucrative dining award (actual $) programs nowadays.

- Sweepstakes. No matter how little effort they take. Seems to me that a company does a sweepstakes when they don't want to spend the money on a real promo, but they want to stay in front of us. Admittedly, this is a reflection of the fact that I am an abjectly unlucky fisherman.

- The standard 50-100 miles per car rental, when it involves a miles chasing component.

What say you?

AAdvantage E-Shopping seems like it. Often it takes months for the miles to post and even then it involves several emails. Last year I waited over 6 months and sent several emails to collect 230 miles for a Nike shoe purchase.

After investigating how difficult it is to cancel the service, this stamps.com offer for 2500 Chase Ultimate Reward points I read about on thepointsguy seemed pretty questionable.

http://thepointsguy.com/2011/09/2500...th-stamps-com/

Fiji Water. $30 for a case of water that runs about $3 for Safeway generic brand. Delta miles never posted (though others had no issues). Never again.

Would have to agree that rental car miles are so low that they rarely trump discounts. Idine is just gravy from the one participating restaurant that I normally frequent.

Currently the US Airways grand slam seems like it would require an awful lot of time and effort assuming you start from scratch and would not otherwise have reason to book a single transaction. Though the payoff is probably good for retirees and others who don't value time.

Delta Airlines SkyPeso Program

^

Some of those programs where you answer questionnaires or take surveys.

Coke Rewards.

My ex wife. It was a trip from hell and regardless of the "upgrades" I purchased for her, she still sucked the miles out of me. Lousy investment - advice to all men - stay single, travel in the pointy end and go on lots of mattress runs!

The consensus at the BA forum seems to be that the heavy extra charges you have to pay for BA award flights to and through the UK make cashing in miles for BA economy flights a waste of time and money. You still pay hefty charges for J and F award flights, but at least you're getting to fly in those premium cabins for much less than you'd pay if they were revenue tickets.

I find the hotel programs to be a money trap.

E.G. = 25k points (at 1 or 2 points/$) for a $150/night hotel @ IHG Friends and Family Rate, or $190 full priced fare.

I found a Holiday Inn Vacation Club hotel (the Orange Lake Orlando property), and it was $62/night in September or 25k points a night.

I did the stamps promo before it got pulled and when most people said it took just a few days for their miles to show, mine did not. So I got impatient and called UR and they kinding deposited 2500 for the inconvenience and then said they would investigate it regardless, saying they did want to honor the program if I had signed up for it. (All screen shots were saved). They said if I got the miles on top of the courtesy, I could just enjoy both. Cancelling stamps took 2min tops, emails confirmed cancellation. I did not waste my time with the $5 free postage. After the courtesy post, I dont care if the actual stamps promo even shows, I've moved on.

The insurance quotes are 50/50 in my book for waste for reward.

Hearing how many miles you lose converting audience rewards to miles puts it as a waste.

Dining works for me, because I get easy miles for eating where I would have once a week anyway.

I deleted Mypoints after the 750 sign up came through. Careful of UA, they claim its 500 miles, but its listed at 750 on their own darn website even today. Man they have some real "winners" working that airline.

CO is a crappy ... program to get your tedious 100 promos from, way too much work for something you sign up for right through their website. They have the same lazy old farts running their missing mileage department who have had their butts cemented into their seats for way too long now, and who that I sincerely hope they get shown the door after the merger completes. (UA is NOT much better in my opinion).

I wont touch teleflora again, screwed me out of 3000 miles - again CO! Its been months I've been dealing with CO's b.s. back and forth story of "please send us receipts, etc" Five times they have had receipts, screen shots, and you can't get through to a supervisor. There's not enough population control (nor birth control) in the world.

And then there's the Sittercity fiasco.... dont get me started...!

I more enjoy card sign up bonuses.

(did you strike a nerve?)

Glad to hear the stamps.com deal wasn't so bad after all (I was scared off by bad reviews on how difficult it was to cancel).
Overall though, it seems that anything that isn't a straight up spend or sign-up bonus is not only often not worth the effort it takes to fulfil the requirements, but also not worth the effort it takes to get the miles posted.

Tropicana Juice Boxes @ 10 pts per carton (used to be higher).. the promo is over.. I think I only entered the code a couple of times.. very time consuming, and doesn't add miles up very fast, so ditched the practice.. still bought the juice

in terms of hours invested per miles they will eventually receive, the AA-cartera is probably the worst payoff I've seen as of yet.

After putting some money in a brokerage to get miles, I thought I'd invest some instead of just letting it sit in cash. Between the loss when I changed my mind a couple days after the stock price went down and the comissions, the "free" miles ended up costing more than 1.5 cpm, which is on top of not having the money in bankdirect for a month. Although I guess I get the tax deduction on a small cap gains loss.

Transferring for miles bonus is one issue,

You deciding to invest, and losing money is completely another issue.. Maybe its just better you didn't pull the trigger on some securities.. I guess the lure of miles in this case, caused an enticing draw to securities that resulted in a loss..

How many miles did you earn as a bonus for transferring?

Right, but not for miles, the money would have stayed in cash (bankdirect). Nothing about the promo obligated me to invest, so you're right that my own independent investment decision caused the loss, not the promo. And by investing I could have made money, so I got something in that sense. But in a but for sense, the promo cost me money. It was for 25k miles.

You need to use the 25K at a 290 euro a night holiday inn in Paris, or a 285 USD Crowne Plaza in Hong Kong instead.

Well, the decision to buy security really should not have anything to do with the cash sitting at the brokerage firm.

To all fairness and honesty, you cannot blame the promotion offer for your investment loss. Your investment decision should not be done based on "just because I have this money sitting at the brokerage account, so I need to do something about it..."

Well, it is more of the opposite -- when not in a brokerage there was no opportunity. In any event, I still think it is within the spirit of the thread. There is a reason brokerages give people incentives. They want you to try their services. So, if the question is what kind of stuff makes for bad returns to get miles, I think my experience is instructive on miles buzz.

My argument and the lesson would be treat miles transactions strictly as miles business. Don't get caught in the switches, or it can be expensive.

Oh, man, yes. Forgot to add that to my hall of shame. Maybe right at the top, for frustration right when it happens. In many other cases, we have to wait weeks to learn that we have failed. ("Gx" Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points are an example of the latter.) And I'll raise you, toomanybooks: The surveys we spend the 15 minutes they said it would take - only to find out that we don't qualify. Or the blanket, "We already have our quota of survey-takers" at the same juncture - which sure makes you wonder if they actually didn't like your negative answers. . .

For everything you say about BA, Thunderroad, the same goes for bmi. bmi have been most generous, in my book, with their miles for joining, surveys etc. But then when you go to redeem the miles, you find that it only works out to a meager percent discount on your spend, when you consider all of the UK's t&f. (I have seen t&f on flights out of LHR that were actually multiples of the free base fare.) Thus they have become useless to me because I now avoid flying through the UK (esp. LHR) at all costs. And after all those generous survey-generated bonus miles (including < five-question surveys!). Seemed like a great investment of time in the event. Shame because I did like all other aspects of bmi's Diamond Club (lounge privileges at low status level, and one-way awards before they became prevalent in Star Alliance partners). Someday, I'll probably regret stopping keeping track of what I have with them. I digress.

But I do want to emphasize that I think bmi and BA take the rap and loss of business because of all the governments' t&f.

BA at least definitely deserves that 'rap' for its fuel surcharges on award flights.

Oops. Fair enough. Indeed.

Self-disciplined, my friend.

You know what you are going after and dont be swayed by temptation. It is no different than the CC companies dangling big bonus and hope you to spend spend spend, or worse, carry the revolving balances and pay hefty finance charges....

Dont play "victim" - after all, nobody forces you to take the offer.

But yes, your story can serve as a reminder that one needs to be careful not to be "caught" unprepared in the process of pursuing miles.

Couldn't agree more. Also MFU from premium economy to business is pretty good value.

The proposed new Avios rules may make short haul economy a little better value from what I've been reading with a fixed tax rate.

e-rewards is something I have spent quite a bit of time on and still not got enough to convert to miles!!! Not worth it IMO.

Investing into securities for myself is sort of like gambling, unless one truly understands the financial position of a company.. That means, reading and understanding financial statements, looking at their debt average, considering eps, comparing industry comps, and seeing if multiples are in line.. If good value, then buy.. if not, don't..

But, investing to most, is getting into a stock tip, and getting burned.. which I've seen millions, actually hundreds of millions of dollars get wiped out at a blink of an eye..

100% agree with this statement..

It's not just investments too. I mean, if there's a certain wine one likes to order at restaurants and the normal restaurant he goes charges $30, but he goes to a restaurant because it's on the miles list instead of his favorite, and they charge $40, that's like the investment story if you order it. There's no problem ordering it, and enjoying it, but all other things being equal, the lure of miles led that person to an opportunity to spend more. And it's ok, and maybe he had a great dinner, but the miles cost an extra $10.

United's
Now, if it were 500 miles up front, or even if there were some tangible indication that it makes a difference...

We interrupt this discussion...
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM

"...Half-humor, whole-serious."

To tell the truth.. these contests for hypothetical miles, is a just a big waste of time to me..

The time I spend winning a few miles, could be used to earn many more miles that will result in tangible FF redemption travel..

As does Delta for charging for fuel on partner awards..

Rereading the thread topic.. The most invested for the least return..

I guess a loss wouldn't be a return at all..

As does, or did, DL for charging extra for all partner awards. As I recall, when they showed CO itineraries during award searches, there was a surcharge for them when you reached the end, everytime. Don't know if this is still the case with other partners.

Maybe the fuel charges have to do with AC.. as AC's fuel charges a surcharge more than other *A airlines..

How much were these surcharges usually.. was it for fuel? or convenience of booking?

This was when CO was in the SkyMiles network, before they decided to merge with UA and shifted over to *A.

It was for convenience of booking, though in my book, all these partner arrangements are for the convenience of the airlines. I think it was about $50, but can stand to be corrected.

I'm not too impressed with DL for doing that..

Hopefully they stop this practice..

I had a good experience with DL, having signed up onto their program this last Christmas Break. as a result of super low fare to MCO..

But the point system, the availability of flights for FF redemption, and surcharges to book on partner airlines (now that its mentioned here), does not impress me at all..

The nice thing is for foreign accounts, the miles don't expire.. so I still may give them another try, but I'm definitely not going out of my way to use DL..

+2 lol