Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping Bonus – 750 Miles

The Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping program is like other cashback shopping portals (eBates $10 bonus, TopCashBack, etc), except that they give you Alaska Airlines miles per dollar spent as a reward.

They just sent me a new promotion where if you just sign up to receive marketing e-mails, you can get 250 bonus miles. (Stay signed-up until the miles post, and then unsubscribe if you wish.) For an additional 500 bonus miles, make a cumulative spend of $25 or more before taxes and shipping fees with any participating online retailer. Overstock.com, Kohl’s, LivingSocial, and Staples are some examples.

Earning miles this way will also reset your miles expiration date, which for Alaska Air is 24 months from most recent activity. Offer expires 10/31/13. Bonus miles will post 8-10 weeks after that.

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Straight Talk SIM Card + Any iPhone 4 or 5 = $45 Unlimited Prepaid Plan

October 2013 Update: “Unlimited” has been clarified to mean 3G/4G data speeds for 2.5 GB per month, throttled to 2G data speed after that. Both AT&T and T-Mobile SIM cards are now available, with the newer ones allowing 4G / LTE speeds if you bring your own 4G HSPA+ / LTE-compatible phone. Price dropped to $6.99 with free shipping. See screenshot below.

You can also now buy the iPhone 4 ($200 refurb) and iPhone 5 ($400 refurb) directly from StraightTalk now at reasonable prices. iPhones sold by Straight Talk are CDMA and work on Verizon networks and their wider coverage. Note that the CDMA iPhone 5 comes factory GSM unlocked as well, so you can even switch to AT&T with the SIM cards above. Remember these come with no contract and also go with the $45 unlimited plan. Details below.

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$10 off $50 at Lowes with American Express

Get $10 off any $50+ purchase at Lowes home improvement stores in-store or online. Expires 11/15/2013. Sign up for AmEx Sync first if you haven’t already. Then tweet anything with #AmexLowes. You should get a confirmation reply quickly. Details here.

You may also be able to access these discounts via Facebook, the AmEx smartphone app, or by simply logging into your account online. Twitter has worked reliably for me. I post a lot of smaller and time-sensitive deals like this on my Twitter feed @mymoneyblog, which are echoed on my Facebook page.

FreedomPop FREE Cell Phone Plan Review

Cell phone service seems to get cheaper each year. I still remember when a great deal was $40 a month for 1,000 minutes with no text and no data. So what about FREE cellular service? Well, it’s here, but with a few important catches…

FreedomPop just rolled out a new cell phone service on a freemium model. That means they have a free option, in the hopes that enough people will pay up for various upgrades to make a profit. You may know the name from their 4G data hotspots that offered 500mb a month of data for free. I bought one, but ended up returning it as it didn’t fit my needs (and like other folks was charged about $15 in unexplained fees). Here are the details of this new venture:

  • Phone. The only phone currently available is an HTC EVO Design 4G for $99. Pretty basic Android phone. Older model, came out in late 2011/early 2012. Online reviews state that it’s pretty thick in size, 4″ screen is pretty good, battery life is below average.
  • Service. Everything works using cellular data only using VoIP software. Primary is Sprint/Clearwire WiMax 4G data coverage, backup is Sprint 3G data coverage. Your coverage may be very limited. See coverage maps here and here. Voice quality over 3G may be spotty.
  • Free Plan Details. For $0 a month, you’ll get 200 minutes, 500 texts, and 500 mb of 3G/4G data. Additional use past that is charged as data, at 2.5 cents per MB ($25 per GB). Voicemail is $2.50 per month extra.
  • “Unlimited Plan” Details. For $10.99 a month, you’ll get unlimited voice minutes, unlimited texts, and 500 mb of 3G/4G data. Additional data costs 2.5 cents per MB ($25 per GB). Voicemail is $2.50 per month extra.

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Money Magazine – Best Credit Cards List 2013

The October 2013 issue of Money Magazine featured an article “Best Credit Cards” that (unsurprisingly) caught my eye. Here’s a quick list of their top picks for various categories. I’ve written about most of them, and in those cases I’m linking to that post which provides more details. Otherwise, I’m linking directly to the card page and including a few highlights about the card.

Best for Balance Transfers (Low, long introductory APR)

  • Chase Slate Card. 0% on purchases and balance transfers for 15 months. No balance transfer fee if you transfer within the first 2 months.

Best for Regular Balance Carriers (Low ongoing APR)

  • Lake Michigan Credit Union Prime Platinum Card. 6.25% APR on balance transfers (Prime + 3%) for applicants with 760+ FICO scores.

Best Tiered Rewards Cards (Tie)

Best Flat and Simple Rewards Cards (Tie)

 

Best Travel Rewards Credit Card

Best Card for Using Overseas

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United MileagePlus Dining: 3,000 Bonus Miles

Many of the major airlines partner with Rewards Network (formerly iDine). You give them your credit card, and when you pay with that card at participating restaurants (which I believe have to pay for inclusion) then you get a certain number of miles per dollar spent. The good news is that you don’t have to use any coupons, show an app, or do anything that indicates you’re getting a discount. I don’t let this determine where I eat, but a few places I already eat at do participate so it is basically free miles.

Earning a few miles this way will also reset your United miles expiration date, which is 18 months from most recent activity. So it’s good to have it set up ahead of time, even with a seldom-used card.

Right now, the United MileagePlus Dining program is running a special promotion where can you can get 1,500 United miles if you join by 10/31 and spend $40+ at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 40 days of joining, plus write a quick review. If you do this twice, you’ll get the max possible 3,000 bonus United miles. Again thanks for reader Jessica for the tip.

AAdvantage eShopping: 2,000 Bonus American Airlines Miles

AAdvantage eShopping Mall is like other cashback shopping portals (eBates, TopCashBack, etc), except that they give you American miles as a reward. If you visit this promo link, it shows an offer that will get you 2,000 miles after you spend at least $35 at any store.

Now through 9/30/13 11:59 PM EST receive an additional one-time bonus of 2,000 miles when you shop through this email and spend a cumulative amount of $35 or more online in the AAdvantage eShoppingSM mall. […] Please allow 8-10 weeks from end of promotional period for bonus miles to post to your account.

Earning miles this way will also reset your miles expiration date, which is 18 months from most recent activity. Via reader Jessica, who also points out that Peapod is an eligible store, so if you get grocery delivery from there that’s an easy way to get 2,000 points.

OptionsHouse Raising Commission Rate From $3.95

Online stock broker OptionsHouse sent me the following e-mail today:

On October 1, 2013, OptionsHouse is changing our stock commissions rate. However, we wanted to notify you that this change will not affect any of your current accounts with us. In addition, if you choose to open and fund any additional accounts in the future, you will continue to receive your current stock commission rate. For full details related to changes to our stock commissions, please visit our rules page.

Basically, their commission on stock trades is going up from $3.95 to $4.75 for new customers only. Existing customers will stay at $3.95. They’ve done this before, as I’m actually grandfathered in at $2.95 a trade (opened back in 2010), which I think is a good way to treat existing customers. Options pricing remains the same, starting at $5 for up to 5 contracts. Under $5 a trade with no minimum balance requirements is still very competitive.

There is still a small window if you want to get yourself grandfathered in at $3.95 a trade. You must complete your application prior to 10/1/2013 and fund your account prior to 1/1/2014. There are a variety of promotions available for new customers. You can only get one of these, so pick carefully:

Cheapest iPhone Plan with Unlimited Data? Virgin Mobile $30 a Month

Price drop! You can now buy an 8GB iPhone 4 for only $199.99 from Virgin Mobile. Even after learning about the new iPhone 5S, in my opinion the iPhone 4 is still not that outdated and still works fine with nearly every app out there.

Their Beyond Talk plans at just $30 a month will get you 300 voice minutes, unlimited text messages, and unlimited data (throttled after 2.5 GB each month). To get the $5 discount, you must sign up for automatic monthly payment with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account. No contract.

Virgin Mobile is a Sprint MVNO which means your coverage is coming from Sprint towers. Compared to a regular Sprint plan, paying $200 + $30 a month can save you more than $500 dollars over a 2-year contract when compared with paying even $0 for the phone and $60+ a month for service.

For $50 a month, you can get unlimited minutes. Here are all the plans:

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Free Subscription To Businessweek Magazine

Here’s a free 2-year subscription to Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. Not a trial, no credit card required. My suspicion is that magazines allow these free deals to boost their circulation numbers, which in turn increases the amount they can charge for advertising.

I’ve been a regular reader of this magazine since getting it for free in 2010, and I think their new format is a good mix of short articles and a few in-depth features. You can also read it on your iPad/iPhone with a subscription, although most of the articles are free online. It is a weekly, so if you don’t read it as it arrives the issues do stack up and will waste a lot of paper.

Book a Los Angeles to Honolulu Award Ticket for only 25,000 British Airways Avios Points

I got introduced to British Airways through their generous credit card bonuses. Even if you didn’t, British Airways Avios points are good to understand because Starwood Preferred Guest points, American Express Membership Rewards points, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points can all be transferred to British Airways Avios points on a 1:1 basis or better. This makes it quite easy to gather enough BA miles when you need them to reach an award tier.

Redeeming British Airways Avios points for free award flights is now distance-based, which made some awards more expensive and some cheaper. One important change was that you could now book an American or Alaska Airlines flight from a West Coast city to Hawaii for only 25,000 points roundtrip plus $5 or $10 depending on number of stops with no other fees and taxes. Most other airlines charge at least 35,000.

Now, I’ve gotten comments that British Airways Avios points are “impossible” to use on American or Alaska. If you only want to fly on major holidays and don’t have any flexibility, yes it is very hard because you need to find a “saver” and not an “anytime” ticket. But if you are either willing to book last-minute (less than 2 months) or plan ahead (6+ months) your odds will improve greatly. For example, let’s run a quick search for LA to Honolulu (LAX-HNL) for next month October. To find availability, I’m doing this on American Airlines’ website AA.com. This also works for finding Alaska Airlines flights. Here’s the availability for LAX to HNL:


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Citibank Checking Account Promotion: 20,000 ThankYou Points

Update: Citibank has a new checking account promotion for new customers. You can get up 40,000 ThankYou points if you can maintain a $50,000 balance, but the more accessible option can still get you a nice 20,000 ThankYou points. I’ll only focus on how to get the 20k offer below. This would combine well with the 30,000 ThankYou point bonus from the Citi ThankYou Preferred card. Don’t forget to maximize the value of your Thank You points.

First, you must open a Basic Banking package either through the link above or by calling 1-866-583-6706 and using promo code CZC2. As long as you make 1 direct deposit and 1 bill payment each monthly statement period, you’ll pay no monthly service fee. Alternatively, keeping $1,500 in the account by itself will waive the $10 monthly service fee.

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