I have an expensive booking on Singapore for 2 people, so I'm cleaning out my points from my Citi and Amex accounts and topping off with my Chase points. Will be good to see how long it takes for the 3 major points programs to transfer to Singapore. Will be updated as we go along...
From Citi: request submitted 9/28/18 Fri 10AM, points in Singapore on 9/28/18 overnight. It's dated 9/28 but I last checked around 10PM on 9/28/18 Pacific Time and it's there as of Saturday 9/29/18 afternoon. (I didn't check on 9/29/18 until now)
From Amex: submitted 9/28/18 Fri 2PM, points in Singapore on 9/30 Sun 7:50PM
From Chase: submitted 9/28/19 Fri 10:19AM, points in Singapore on 10/3 Wed 7:45PM (5 days 9 hours, including the weekend, 3 days 9 hours excluding weekend)
Friday, September 28, 2018
Thursday, September 27, 2018
Warning about Uber. Drivers who ask you to cancel.
Cliff Notes Summary: Don't cancel if the Uber driver asks you to cancel, you'll get hit with a fee. Also, don't tell them where you're going if they call and ask.
I was in Panama for an overnight mileage/status run a few years ago and was staying at a hotel by the airport. I was up at some ridiculous hour like 4AM or 430AM and since the hotel shuttle didn't run that early, I fired up Uber and requested a ride. The driver was a few minutes away.
A few minutes later, his car hadn't moved an inch.
I figure, OK, maybe he accepted the ride first and he's waking up and getting ready to drive. Then another few minutes pass with no movement. I sent him text messages since T-mobile gives free international texts with no response. I even busted out my high school Espanol for the text message. (I suppose it's possible he had no idea what I said and thus no response?)
After 10 minutes, I start to fear missing my flight and cancel the ride and request another ride, which shows up quickly and I make my flight.
However, when I cancel a ride after a few minutes, Uber charges me. I was like what kind of Panamanian bullcrap is this and got the fee waived after complaining. (In English)
Then one day, at SFO after a long flight, my then-fiancee or girlfriend called an Uber on her phone. The driver again, didn't move for about 5 minutes, then he calls and asks where we are going, we tell him where and he says I don't want to go that direction, I'm trying to get home, can you cancel the ride?
What he was doing was waiting until the grace period passes where I can cancel for free, then he asks me to cancel so he can get the cancellation fee for not doing anything. This is apparently a thing from when I searched online. And some desperate, lazy people make money this way while sitting on their butts.
She passes the phone to me and I'm shouting at the guy:
"I'm not cancelling, I know how Uber works, why don't you cancel?"
That's when he starts to get sassy with me and says: "I can wait here all day, if you need to go home, you'll need to cancel"
Clearly, not the brightest tool in the shed, even on her phone, she could have easily fired up Lyft and gotten home but Lyft was a bit pricier so we used my phone to Uber home. We kept checking on the ride and after about 30 minutes he eventually cancelled. And got penalized, I hope.
I hear if the driver cancels too often, they get booted from Uber. I thought of reporting him to Uber but my now-wife told me to not spend my precious time chasing that. Wow, she's so wise! It may come across as sarcastic but I'm not, honestly. (Hi wifey!)
So if an Uber driver asks you to cancel don't do it. If you need to cancel, make sure you report it to Uber and try to get the fee waived.
P.S. Writing about Uber reminded of the time in Taiwan when the driver parked someplace about 2 blocks away from where we were (and yes, my location market in the Uber app was correct absolutely) across pretty much a highway like road where I cannot just cross and keeps calling me asking where I am. At first I reject the calls, since international calls still cost money on T-mobile and I don't want to pay for an incompetent driver's retardedness. But finally I pick up and my wife talks to him in Chinese and he wants us to get to where his car is now or he will cancel. He did end up cancelling as it was going to take about 10 minutes to walk to where he was waiting. I hope he got booted from Uber.
I was in Panama for an overnight mileage/status run a few years ago and was staying at a hotel by the airport. I was up at some ridiculous hour like 4AM or 430AM and since the hotel shuttle didn't run that early, I fired up Uber and requested a ride. The driver was a few minutes away.
A few minutes later, his car hadn't moved an inch.
I figure, OK, maybe he accepted the ride first and he's waking up and getting ready to drive. Then another few minutes pass with no movement. I sent him text messages since T-mobile gives free international texts with no response. I even busted out my high school Espanol for the text message. (I suppose it's possible he had no idea what I said and thus no response?)
After 10 minutes, I start to fear missing my flight and cancel the ride and request another ride, which shows up quickly and I make my flight.
However, when I cancel a ride after a few minutes, Uber charges me. I was like what kind of Panamanian bullcrap is this and got the fee waived after complaining. (In English)
Then one day, at SFO after a long flight, my then-fiancee or girlfriend called an Uber on her phone. The driver again, didn't move for about 5 minutes, then he calls and asks where we are going, we tell him where and he says I don't want to go that direction, I'm trying to get home, can you cancel the ride?
What he was doing was waiting until the grace period passes where I can cancel for free, then he asks me to cancel so he can get the cancellation fee for not doing anything. This is apparently a thing from when I searched online. And some desperate, lazy people make money this way while sitting on their butts.
She passes the phone to me and I'm shouting at the guy:
"I'm not cancelling, I know how Uber works, why don't you cancel?"
That's when he starts to get sassy with me and says: "I can wait here all day, if you need to go home, you'll need to cancel"
Clearly, not the brightest tool in the shed, even on her phone, she could have easily fired up Lyft and gotten home but Lyft was a bit pricier so we used my phone to Uber home. We kept checking on the ride and after about 30 minutes he eventually cancelled. And got penalized, I hope.
 |
| Uber's old toilet seat logo |
I hear if the driver cancels too often, they get booted from Uber. I thought of reporting him to Uber but my now-wife told me to not spend my precious time chasing that. Wow, she's so wise! It may come across as sarcastic but I'm not, honestly. (Hi wifey!)
So if an Uber driver asks you to cancel don't do it. If you need to cancel, make sure you report it to Uber and try to get the fee waived.
P.S. Writing about Uber reminded of the time in Taiwan when the driver parked someplace about 2 blocks away from where we were (and yes, my location market in the Uber app was correct absolutely) across pretty much a highway like road where I cannot just cross and keeps calling me asking where I am. At first I reject the calls, since international calls still cost money on T-mobile and I don't want to pay for an incompetent driver's retardedness. But finally I pick up and my wife talks to him in Chinese and he wants us to get to where his car is now or he will cancel. He did end up cancelling as it was going to take about 10 minutes to walk to where he was waiting. I hope he got booted from Uber.
Change in how I travel
I used to travel quite a bit and loved it.
I loved being asked for directions from people speaking the native language. (A Greek-speaking lady asking me in Greek where so and so is and me responding in English that I don't know where that is. I find it refreshing that a Greek or someone who speaks Greek would ask an Asian looking person where something is in Greek.)
I loved the kindness of an UberX driver in Thailand who bought a snack from vendors walking in between cars stuck in traffic to give to me and a lady in Meteora, Greece who gave me her piece of cake for me to eat as I was walking by just because.
In retrospect, I even think it was fun when I was trying to figure out how to return a rental car when the rental car store is taking a 2.5 hour lunch break and I was counting on them to take me to the train station and there is no Uber in the small French city and no taxis in sight on the streets (quite unbelievably), I was so desperate I was about to start just flagging down random cars and offering them money to take me to the train station.
Or the time I chartered the entire boat for myself to make it to 1 of the Koh Yao islands in Thailand because the last public boat had already left for the day and I had a nonrefundable hotel reservation.
Now I hate it.
Well, hate is a strong word but after my trip to Italy over the Christmas holidays in 2017, I thought if I never travel again I'd be perfectly happy. Perhaps I can talk about why the Italy trip soured me on traveling so much later.
But the point is my outlook on traveling has changed drastically.
Also, I used to value going to new countries as a way to add another tickmark to my tally of how many countries I had been to. Not only that, but for the newness factor of a new place. But now as I wonder where to go at Christmas this year, I find myself wishing I was in Japan now, even though I've been to Japan several times and frankly the last time I was in Tokyo, I was getting bored. Outside Tokyo I still found it interesting, even cities I had been to before like Kyoto, Miyajima were still interesting but Tokyo I found so dull.
Sorry, I digress, I now find myself drawn to places I've been to where I feel comfortable and at home. To me, those places include: Japan, France, Norway, Taiwan.
Places where I'd be happy to never return to: Germany, Ireland, Greece. I supposed Italy should be on there as well.
Sorry, I digressed again, the point is I no longer value going to new places that much anymore. I think that is part of growing older.
My wife is not happy now that I suddenly despise traveling because while we were dating, she saw how much I traveled and she was hoping to do that together. To be fair, we have been on overseas trips (from the US) at least 5 times in the 2 years or so we've been together so she has seen more than her share so far.
And despite declaring to my wife that I hope to never travel again after the Italy trip, we went to Paris only 4 months later, mostly for her, not for me. But still we went on another trip only 4 months later.
However it's been 5 months since the aforementioned Paris trip, and now I think I'm getting itchy to travel again. I tell people it's been so long since my last trip and when they found it's been 5 months they make fun of me. 😏
This time I actually get to choose where we go and my thought is Japan and Korea and she wants to add on Hong Kong, so I think that'll be our trip, but I think putting 3 countries in 2 weeks means I will not be relaxed and might turn out like the Italy trip again and sour me on travel again. For another 4 months probably...
I loved being asked for directions from people speaking the native language. (A Greek-speaking lady asking me in Greek where so and so is and me responding in English that I don't know where that is. I find it refreshing that a Greek or someone who speaks Greek would ask an Asian looking person where something is in Greek.)
I loved the kindness of an UberX driver in Thailand who bought a snack from vendors walking in between cars stuck in traffic to give to me and a lady in Meteora, Greece who gave me her piece of cake for me to eat as I was walking by just because.
In retrospect, I even think it was fun when I was trying to figure out how to return a rental car when the rental car store is taking a 2.5 hour lunch break and I was counting on them to take me to the train station and there is no Uber in the small French city and no taxis in sight on the streets (quite unbelievably), I was so desperate I was about to start just flagging down random cars and offering them money to take me to the train station.
Or the time I chartered the entire boat for myself to make it to 1 of the Koh Yao islands in Thailand because the last public boat had already left for the day and I had a nonrefundable hotel reservation.
Now I hate it.
Well, hate is a strong word but after my trip to Italy over the Christmas holidays in 2017, I thought if I never travel again I'd be perfectly happy. Perhaps I can talk about why the Italy trip soured me on traveling so much later.
But the point is my outlook on traveling has changed drastically.
Also, I used to value going to new countries as a way to add another tickmark to my tally of how many countries I had been to. Not only that, but for the newness factor of a new place. But now as I wonder where to go at Christmas this year, I find myself wishing I was in Japan now, even though I've been to Japan several times and frankly the last time I was in Tokyo, I was getting bored. Outside Tokyo I still found it interesting, even cities I had been to before like Kyoto, Miyajima were still interesting but Tokyo I found so dull.
 |
| Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island, near Hiroshima |
Sorry, I digress, I now find myself drawn to places I've been to where I feel comfortable and at home. To me, those places include: Japan, France, Norway, Taiwan.
Places where I'd be happy to never return to: Germany, Ireland, Greece. I supposed Italy should be on there as well.
Sorry, I digressed again, the point is I no longer value going to new places that much anymore. I think that is part of growing older.
My wife is not happy now that I suddenly despise traveling because while we were dating, she saw how much I traveled and she was hoping to do that together. To be fair, we have been on overseas trips (from the US) at least 5 times in the 2 years or so we've been together so she has seen more than her share so far.
And despite declaring to my wife that I hope to never travel again after the Italy trip, we went to Paris only 4 months later, mostly for her, not for me. But still we went on another trip only 4 months later.
However it's been 5 months since the aforementioned Paris trip, and now I think I'm getting itchy to travel again. I tell people it's been so long since my last trip and when they found it's been 5 months they make fun of me. 😏
This time I actually get to choose where we go and my thought is Japan and Korea and she wants to add on Hong Kong, so I think that'll be our trip, but I think putting 3 countries in 2 weeks means I will not be relaxed and might turn out like the Italy trip again and sour me on travel again. For another 4 months probably...
A $250 lesson in Paris subway usage...
Cliff Notes Summary: You cannot exit the subway and reuse the same ticket in Paris, no matter how little time has passed, even if the turnstile lets you in, you may get fined heavily if you run into a ticket checking station.
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My wife and I were in Paris back in April. I've been to Paris my fair share of times and had used the metro for most of my getting around.
Rather than buy day tickets we bought a pack of 10 single use tickets.
I always thought you had 90 minutes from the first time you use the ticket to transfer between the subway and the bus. But it turns out you do have 90 minutes from when you first use the ticket for the subway to transfer onto a bus but you can't exit the subway then enter the subway with the same ticket no matter how soon.
So we went to the Arc de Triomph via the subway/Metro.
Then since we were only there for maybe 45 minutes or so, we entered the subway again and tried using the same ticket. The thing is those plastic shields opened for us.
Another thing is we saw at least 3 younger folks force their way through the plastic shields with brute force and we were shaking our heads at them but it would turn out that we were being just as guilty of breaking the law as they were.
Once we got off the subway, there were uniformed workers checking people's tickets, I didn't give it a second thought and handed our tickets over, then the lady worker said in English, "Oh no, we have a problem here."
We would find out you cannot exit and reenter the subway on the same ticket, however at the time this was happening, without this knowledge I thought they were scamming us and argued why would the turnstile/gate open for us when the ticket is not valid? They honestly didn't care and said we'd have to pay the fine. And since there were 2 of us, the fine ended up being around US$250. Since we had a restaurant reservation at a fancy place I had been looking forward to as the highlight of the whole trip, I figured, just pay it then dispute it with Chase later. Then later I saw that they were not scamming us. I still thought about disputing it but I could not in good conscience do so knowing I broke the rules.
That ended up being 1 expensive subway ride!
About the restaurant we were headed to, it was Pavillon Ledoyen; http://www.yannick-alleno.com/en/ so I can probably figure out which subway station we were fined at, it was possibly this station: https://goo.gl/maps/4PummxWswps
Champs-Élysées - Clemenceau station
Now that I think about it, it doesn't really make sense to have that kind of a checkpoint in a "nice" part of town. Yes, the people who go there might be more able to pay. Maybe it's a French way of taxing the rich. Not that we're rich obviously.The restaurant was a slight disappointment, the food was good but not very memorable or remarkable and certainly not worth a special trip just to try it. That was the restaurant that put me off going to Michelin restaurants for good.
Don't make this mistake while buying Southwest Gift Cards!
Cliff Notes Summary: If you see the error message below while buying Southwest gift cards, it went through! Don't buy another one! Also, the error may be from your browser, for me using Firefox even with uBlock (an ad-blocker) disabled still gave me the error, using Microsoft Edge worked fine.
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Part of American Express's Personal Platinum Card's benefits is that you get a credit for $200 credit for airline incidental fees, technically I hear it's not supposed to work for gift cards but it's worked for years.
So every year I buy gift cards, then the credit hits a few days later, but while I'm buying the gift cards on Southwest.com I got this error message after putting in my credit card info.
So I figure the payment failed for some reason. So I try again, I get the same message again. Then I remember this exact thing happened last year. Which was that I ended up buying $400 worth of gift cards when I only want to buy $200.
And lo and behold, when I log onto amex's website, I see 2 pending charges for $200. 😠😣😫
Last time, Southwest told me there are no refunds on gift cards and I had to spend lots of time to get it refunded. I think this is going to happen again this year.
I just called now 9PM Pacific Time and the person answering the phone can only book reservations and can't help with gift cards and refunds, I'll have to call HQ tomorrow at the number she gave me. Good thing I saved the screenshot.
Summary and lesson learned: when you see that error message above, do not assume the order didn't go through, wait until the next day or so to see if you get a gift card. Or maybe it'll be easier to just buy them over the phone.
Update: I called Southwest this morning (after calling last night) and they said they don't see the orders in the system so they think the pending charges will just drop off but they don't know for sure. She said there was a customer yesterday who ran into something similar where his charges were getting declined and the pending charges eventually fell off. I don't think my case is the same. I'll just give it another day and attempt to buy another one tomorrow.
2nd Update: After waiting 3 days with the pending charges still showing but no gift cards in my email, I felt safe enough to try buying it again, but I kept getting the same messages, so now I probably have about $1000 in pending charges from Southwest. Then I tried disabling the uBlock adblocker on Firefox with the same result. Then I thought to use a different browser and surely, using Microsoft Edge made the purchase go through without issue. So if you see the error message above, try using Microsoft Edge.
------
Part of American Express's Personal Platinum Card's benefits is that you get a credit for $200 credit for airline incidental fees, technically I hear it's not supposed to work for gift cards but it's worked for years.
So every year I buy gift cards, then the credit hits a few days later, but while I'm buying the gift cards on Southwest.com I got this error message after putting in my credit card info.
So I figure the payment failed for some reason. So I try again, I get the same message again. Then I remember this exact thing happened last year. Which was that I ended up buying $400 worth of gift cards when I only want to buy $200.
And lo and behold, when I log onto amex's website, I see 2 pending charges for $200. 😠😣😫
Last time, Southwest told me there are no refunds on gift cards and I had to spend lots of time to get it refunded. I think this is going to happen again this year.
I just called now 9PM Pacific Time and the person answering the phone can only book reservations and can't help with gift cards and refunds, I'll have to call HQ tomorrow at the number she gave me. Good thing I saved the screenshot.
Summary and lesson learned: when you see that error message above, do not assume the order didn't go through, wait until the next day or so to see if you get a gift card. Or maybe it'll be easier to just buy them over the phone.
Update: I called Southwest this morning (after calling last night) and they said they don't see the orders in the system so they think the pending charges will just drop off but they don't know for sure. She said there was a customer yesterday who ran into something similar where his charges were getting declined and the pending charges eventually fell off. I don't think my case is the same. I'll just give it another day and attempt to buy another one tomorrow.
2nd Update: After waiting 3 days with the pending charges still showing but no gift cards in my email, I felt safe enough to try buying it again, but I kept getting the same messages, so now I probably have about $1000 in pending charges from Southwest. Then I tried disabling the uBlock adblocker on Firefox with the same result. Then I thought to use a different browser and surely, using Microsoft Edge made the purchase go through without issue. So if you see the error message above, try using Microsoft Edge.
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