Tag Archives: Amazon

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Work from Home Diary 5: Quarantine Buddy, Work Space & Daily Routine

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Good afternoon everyone.  I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.  For today’s update, I wanted to talk about my quarantine buddy (Laura), our combined work space, and our daily routine.

I’m on week 4 of working from home, so I seem to have a good system in place.  For the last few weeks, Laura has also been working from home.  When I was home by myself, I preferred working upstairs in our guest room / home office.  But now that Laura is home too, I decided to move down to the dining room table to work next to her.  It is nice to work face to face with someone (even though we are working on completely different things) and I think it keeps us both accountable.  I make sure she doesn’t spend all day on Facebook, Instagram or online shopping; she makes sure I don’t spend all day watching CNN (aka Coronavirus News Network) and reading travel blogs.

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Redeem IHG, Hawaiian & Frontier Miles for Gift Cards with Points.com (Including Amazon, Walmart & More)

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  A few days ago, I read that Best Western suspends use of points toward gift cards or merchandise and that Southwest Rapid Rewards Can Not Be Redeemed For Gift Cards Due To Covid-19.  I did some digging and found out that it is possible to redeem IHG Rewards Club Points, Hawaiian Airlines Miles, and Frontier Airlines Miles for gift cards (both physical and electronic) with Points.com.  In this post, I will show you how to redeem points from those 3 programs into gift cards and calculate the value from these redemptions (spoiler: the redemptions are not very good).  Here is the complete list of gift card options available as of today (I combined the list into 1 big image).

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Work from Home Diary 4: Weekend Yard Work & Hallmark Movies

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a good weekend.  I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.  For today’s update, I wanted to share my weekend activities.  Before I continue, what does yard work and Hallmark movies have to do with miles and points?  That’s a great question, read on to find out.

On Saturday morning, Laura and I went to Lowe’s to get some cleaning supplies, trash bags, and Amazon GCs.  When we arrived, we saw a deal on colored bark (4 bags for $10) and purchased 8 bags.  We had ambitious plans to clean up our front and back yard and to put out a new layer of bark.  After several hours of work, our front and back yard looked great.  Even though our muscles were sore, using the Lowe’s AMEX Offer on my American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card to get 10% cash back on the Lowe’s purchases was a nice relief.  The Lowe’s AMEX Offer is cumulative and pays 10% cash back, up to $100 cash back (so spending $1,000 will max out this offer).  This AMEX Offer expires on June 30, 2020, but I expect another Lowe’s AMEX Offer will show up after July 1.

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New Chase Offers: Kimpton Hotels (20%), Audible (10%) & Kindle (20%)

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Good morning everyone.  I just checked my Chase app and spotted a few new Chase Offers.  Check your Chase account to see if you had these offers or other new Chase Offers.  I found all these offers on my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card (this is the Chase credit card that I use the most, so I tend to get the most offers on this credit card).

  • Kimpton Hotels: 20% cash back (minimum $100, max out with $600 purchase)
  • Audible: 10% cash back (max out with $20 purchase)
  • Kindle: 20% cash back (max out with $10 purchase) – same offer as Bank of America’s BankAmeriDeal

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Why Do We Keep 16 No Annual Fee Credit Cards?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a great start.  A few days ago, I wrote a post titled I Paid $4,588 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2019 – Was it Worth it?  In that post, I shared the 21 credit cards that I plan on keeping and how I justify paying the annual fees on those credit cards.  I felt bad for the 16 no annual fee cards that Laura and I have and decided to write a post about them too.  Roughly half of the no annual fee credit cards were downgraded / converted from a credit card with an annual fee.  Besides the rewards that some of the no annual fee credit cards provide, keeping no annual fee credit cards open long term is good for your credit score.  It improves the length of credit history (average age of accounts), which represents 15% of your total credit score.  It also helps with the amounts owed (your credit utilization ratio), which represents 30% of your total credit score.  Lastly, it helps with payment history (paying your credit card bills on time), which represents 35% of your total credit score.  For more info, check out this Doctor of Credit page.

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Image source: https://www.kiplinger.com/article/credit/T017-C000-S002-how-your-credit-score-is-calculated.html

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