I use to evangelize FF programs, Hotel stay programs and Reward CCs to family, friends and co-workers and the occasional stranger (next seat over on flight, standing around waiting for a bump, etc).
That was in my pre-FT and early FT days.

Now, I stick to sharing information with family.
I will only share information with friends/co-workers/strangers if they bring it up AND if they ask a specific question. I still won't mention it if they say something like, "Yeah, how about all those FF miles you have."
I just smile and nod my head absently and then ask them if they got the latest TPS report.

I've had co-workers (who travel 2 and 3 times as much as me on business - company pays for all travel) tell me it is too much trouble to remember their FF#(s) or try to schedule their travel to stay in a certain hotel chain.
Yet, they act offended when I tell them where I am planning on going on vacation. I only share after they ask.
They also complain about not having enough money to take a vacation when the times comes.

Time when I do share:
Just the other night Mrs. infinityplusone and I were out at a resturant and our waiter returned with our check. He said, "Those Reward Credit Cards are really incredible." I had paid with my HHonors Amex.
I assumed he was talking about the actual Rewards and not that it was incredible to look at (yes, I've had people mention that they would like "that" card because it was cool looking).
I asked him if he had one. He didn't but he said that his wife did, she got it because of her job, she had only been in her job a few years yet they had earned enough points through her business spending and her staying at Hiltons that they had been able to stay at the Hilton San Diego Mission Valley for a week. He said that it was only the second vacation he has ever been on and it was the nicest time he has ever had.
It was sort of funny, in a neat way, because he was truly excited and a bit breathless in his short telling of the vacation story and that it was FREE.

Mrs. infinityplusone nudged my arm and said, "You should tell him about FT."
(I was going to, she is just a nudging type person like that)

From his behavior I thought he was a perfect candidate for joining the FT community and even thought that maybe he already was a member.
I asked him if he had ever heard of a message board where like minded people who enjoy travelling, who enjoy upgrades in hotels and on flights gathered to share their wisdom.

He said that he had never heard of such a place.

I told him that there was a wonderful place, a place where he would feel safe and welcomed, where he would not be made fun of or teased because of his desire to obtain upgrades and free breakfasts and week long vacations at hotels that you you don't have to pay to stay at.
I told him about, yes you guessed correctly, this place. FlyerTalk.

I ended up writing www.flyertalk.com on the back of a business card and putting it with the signed check and said something to the effect. If you want to take vacations like the one you took to the Mission Valley more often, visit that website. You'll learn hot to double and sometimes triple the points your wife earns for both hotels and airlines.

So all that to say... I only share when someone is truly interested in learning about the game.


CharterOne was bought by Royal Bank of Scotland, but it is still CharterOne, FYI.

No I'm not kidding you can easily negotiate that $10,000 bill down to $5,000 and as long as that doesn't happen several times a year you'll have the money in retirement accounts to pull out and pay it or you can work out low payment plans.

Anyone who is facing a choice between health insurance and retirement savings needs to put pencil to it. For some insurance is better but it isn't an automatic no brainer as some have stated.

I have always had health insurance mostly paid for by me individually but if my circumstances were different I would drop it.

Yes negotiating is a needed skill in this country for health care and not everybody knows it can be done. The poor certainly do not. And while the ER might not let an uninsured person die they will certainly not get the same level of care. My wife would not have gotten the MRI which saved her life.

Even tho I have insurance through my employer which runs about 12,000 a year for family coverage some of it pretax (we are a small company) it has cost me another 14,000 in addition this year. This is for deductibles, medication that the insurance company would rather I not have (co-pay is 20, 30 or 50 depending on if it is generic, regular or formulary which is a way to say the insurance company does not get a kick back (I'm sorry rebate)from the drug company ), doctors who are not in the network (hard to know in the ER) over reasonable or customary etc or other reasons they decided they will not pay.

My wifes recent hospitalization was over 175,000 which included surgeons and other care. Much of it was negotiated down by the insurance company so they paid out a little over 100,000. One doctor was not in the network and his bill was 6,000. The insurance company paid him 1,500 and we were expected to pick up the rest. We were able to get him to knock off 50% more.

And all this is with insurance. I make a tidy living. All of this would have wiped out a low income person. Being without health insurance is not a good financial option for you or your fellow citizens.

QUOTE]
...One lady who works for $35/hr 40hrs a week at a major boston financial firm had to go get surgery that will cost her $15,000. The fact she is out of work will mean she gets no pay for the 2 weeks she misses as this job we placed her at. they will not oust her and grab some new long-term freelancer to take her place (although this has and can happen, sadly enough) but she has to pay to get most of her hospitaliziation needs taken care of. Our plan she is signed on to will only cover about $3k of it, meaning this gal has to pay the other $12k on her own!

And that's working full time--at least in terms of your being there 40hrs a week!

She had no opportunity for the real "full time benefits" because said company does not hire "full time" employees anymore due to budgetary and overhead concerns.
Now she makes some decent money and can save some of it, but even so, 12k is 12k.

how can SHE get by with something the rest of us are clueless about--and how much work would a working mother of 2 who needs surgery and devotes herself to her career and family have to do in order to get as savvy about these alternative health plans?

How much work will it take for someone like her or me to be as savvy as we all may be about cool mile tricks and tips that most clueless people have no idea about nor trust? ...

MM[/QUOTE]

Is she clueless or is her healthcare approach beyond your mental capacity? She had one expensive surgery over how many years of savings by not buying health insurance? It sounds like this is not the first year she was without an insurance plan. She is many thousands of dollars in the pocket than many of us. Why is the focus on the year she has to pay?

Well if she is fairly young she could have gotten health insurance for under 200 per month. She would have come out way ahead. If she got a high deductible plan she could save even more. Once you get to the age you can expect to meet the deductible consistently the high deductible plan is a bad idea.

Using this logic would you also say to preachers, railroad workers and government workers that have opted out of the social security ponzi scheme that they need to get back in to social security?

The Railroad Retirement Board is funded quite well and it is not likely the government pension plan will go under. I was not aware that preachers did not have to pay SS. That is a new one on me. All of the churches I have done payrolls for actually did pay.

And yes we all need to be insured. I don't care where it comes from as long as it is effective.

she is in her late 40s, has been in a field that involves freelance work most of her corporate life, and has to support the insurance needs of her husband as well. She has thyroid cancer which, like some other cancers, sort of pops up as a big awful surprise.

She has needed to visit doctors most of her adult life for related problems but the cancer was not something she expected.

I happen to know that generally, when you are single and you have no job in MA, you can get an ok health plan for maybe $400/mo. Things also depend on where you live, but when you have no job or money, that's a huge chunk of change. When you have a partner, that's more like $800-900 from most things I have seen of any quality, and so if you do regular check ups, have any medical needs, or want some sense of added security, you would have to chose this sort of expense in order to survive. If you had a COBRA plan from some former full time job, then yeah, you could pay just under $300 for yourself, but hey, if you are NOT working, you have no money so it is just plain hard!

If you are in or come from the graphic arts, web, print, Macintosh, design and production world of work, your life normally IS all about "freelance" and short term jobs. There's often little you can do about this unless you get lucky or start your own business, and so whether you like it or not, your resume sort of "pigeon holes" you in such a way that you are forced to get more jobs of this same nature! Clients see "freelanced here and there" for the past 5 years, and they make you do the exact same thing in your next job!

And then, even if a client does hire you as a production manager or something higher up than just some Mac guru who can build marketing materials on the fly who can make the money this gal is currently making, you still went from nothing to something, and so you are still paying last year's expenses. She was only there for 4 months when she had to go to hospital...

Plus, many companies are not even hiring their own managers in this feild as "full timer" personnel who receive the std. benefits and health plans because of budgetary and overhead concerns in corporate.

All this makes for a rather volitile situation for most working people of the lower middle classes. The creative and marketing fields are like this. Costs are high, and so you have to pay.

So what am I missing?

oh, and try telling someone in the above scenario to try to "save" $1000 to use for something later. Not easy to do man.

Similarly, if you freelance, good luck trying to buy a house! Mortgage companies would rather you make $30k a year full time than 70k a year as a freelancer! It's alllllllllllllllll perception on the ends of the people who offer the products and services we need. Insurance and homes.

the rest is just luck & timing. I sympathize with this person.
MM


and oh, does THIS above person have ANY time to think about miles?
Hardly.
If she has any, she has no time to figure out how to deal with them. Would you?

United Airlines pension was considered safe a few years back.

My private IRA and other retirement accounts are quite effective but I'm still required to pay for the social security experiment which is not effective for the younger generation.

It is interesting how we have people on opposite sides of some issues feeling the people on both other sides are clueless.

You are a great and respectful debater but I seem like a lot more personal responsibility and less big government and insurance control of our lives. (I wish gun ownership required a liability policy though, HERE COMES ANOTHER OFF TOPIC DEBATE!)

i still gotta call ya... and I will.
anyway, the only prob with less big governement is that this libertarian slant supposes that all people can eventually learn to take care of themselves cooperatively and responsibly.

This will never happen. Ideally, it could be nice, but I doubt it.

As well, it does not answer how the mentally challenged or sick should help themselves.

On the other side, I actually think taxes can be done right and do not mind paying them when I know they are going to be used for services that benefit the entire community. This is also rare but can and does happen. In much of Europe, where they are often too high, there are services that we just dont have. Example: I could and would take a series of very clean, well run, friendly and convenient busses and trains all over Holland and feel perfectly safe and normal when doing this, whereas here in Boston, it is hell on wheels to consider taking "public transit" over driving in one's car on the very conjested highways. I actually have a choice in my town and yet the schedules stink and so i choose to spend money on gas instead of taking the train, because the service is awful! Besides, my job allows for driving to off site interviews and meetings where trains do not go or the times are no good. Again, in Europe, I could have pulled it off--or better yet, had the taxes been used the way they could have should have over here, I would get to use bike paths and ride to places that over in Holland would also give me an easy form of convenient excercise! Instead, I get in my cah, eat tons of junk food and get there late anyway, fat and ready to take up more of the big piece of pie and do it all over again tomorrow.

taxes may be high in Holland but they have a better command, I think, over things like public transit, health insurance and community benefits and services. We have a dimishing amount of these over here and yet the president has asked us all to use less fuel???

Ok, let's start with sending less planes and tanks over to places like Iraq...

or better yet, how's about getting past the whole oil standard and going onto something new and better. Our technology allows for it but stupidity gets in the way.


now THAT will start some debates!
All I can say is that my use of travel and miles is treated as if it will be ended any day now by the same sort of people who slash services and conveniences that taxes often pay for. I use my miles with a vengance because I know that the day will come when I can no longer do this. I am merely waiting for it but will have at least reaped what I could in the meantime.

Sounds mean, and possibly counter to anything I have proposed elsewhere, but hey, if you know your gig is gonna die, you get what you can.

MM

I'll just let you talk for a while!

This is a little off-topic, but not entirely. I have been a FTer for several years and have learned a lot. I don't fly a lot and earn rewards primarily from credit cards. I have been involved in purchasing savings bonds, gift cards, CD's, etc. using credit cards. However, I have never understood why many people use miles cards rather than cashback cards. I have the 5% Citi cards for gas & groceries, 5% Discover card for restaurants, 5% Discover card for home improvements, but my primary card for other purchases is the MBNA Fidelity 529 card which pays a straight 2% for purchases up to $75,000. I actually have three of these cards - in my name, wife's name, and son's name. The reward money is transferred quarterly to a Fidelity 529 account which I then withdraw immediately. There is no federal income tax or penalty since there are no earnings. Are there any airline cards or hotel cards where if you spent $75,000 per year, you will receive $1,500 worth of airline tickets or hotel stays? If there are, please let me know.

I just redeamed 3 tickets that would cost a total of $7500 for more than 30 day stays to europe with a stopover for next summer in large part using amex skymiles. People who cash in business and first class awards recieve a lot more value than that. Also the 10,000 qualifying miles Amex skymiles platinum gives for spending 25k has a lot of value to some. Double miles for gas and groceries is worth about 10% the way we used it this time. If we factor in bump compensation it gets even better. If you used 80k miles for a $6,000 j or f international award the double miles portions would be worth around 15% per dollar spent.

Use 50,000 for a ticket you could have purchased for $200 and you are better off with cash back cards.

Hiton AMEX, for example.

$75K gets you at least 225,000 Honors points, and as many as 375,000 points.

This could easily translate into, say, 8 nights at the Rome Cavalieri which is worth upwards of $4000. Or 4 nights in Rome and 4 nights in Paris, or whatever. You do the math.