• 50,000 miles after the first purchase
• Additional 50,000 miles after spending $2,000 within 3 months

There’s a $75 annual fee but that’s chump change in comparison to the sign-up bonus (even if you only get the 50,000).

See all the different ways you can spend 100,000 miles on British Airways. I believe they are good for two round trip economy tickets to various destinations in Europe. I already applied for the card and will get a decision within 15 days.

application link (note that a lot of articles are citing that this is not open to non-members of British Airway’s frequent flyer program until Nov 16th. so apply at your own risk before then)

This is a regionally thing in the south and being from the NYC tri-state area I’ve never encountered anything like this. Apparently the New York Times found kool-aid pickles so interesting they already did a scoop on them back in May 2007. Check out “A Sweet So Sour: Kool-Aid Dills” over at the NY Times website.

There’s a bunch of different recipes for kool-aid pickles and I found one video on YouTube although the author doesn’t seem to enjoy his own batch all that much.

Here are some of my favorites:

• You Don’t Like Sushi
• You’re A Bad Drunk
• You Talk Like The Internet
• You’re a Philosophy Major

A month or so ago I’ve been planning a group trip with a bunch of my friends the weekend before Christmas. When everyone was okay with the itinerary I started looking for the cheapest tickets out of the three NYC airports (EWR, LGA and JFK). Generally it’s easy to get the cheapest airfare on any given day but the flight was 2 months away. The tricky part is trying to time when you’ll be able to book the lowest fare between now and the flight.

The first tool I used was SideStep which aggregrates airfare from numerous sources and gives me a pretty good picture at what the lowest fares are at the time. The cheapest flight I found was $325.

The second tool I use is Bing’s travel search engine which acquired FareCast. There you can learn what the chances are if the lowest fares are going higher or lower based on past historical data and other factors. Since the greater NYC airports are in their prediction markets the search gave me an indiction to wait since fares have a good chance of dropping within the next 7 days.

The third tool I use is the website of the airline who was offering the lowest fare. In this case it was Continental. I plugged in the itinerary which I found earlier on SideStep and before you even get deep into the booking process you can see the seat map which told me that over 60% of the seats on the planes were not even assigned! Although people are ticketed but not assigned seats this told me that a good portion of the seats on the plane was unsold. Therefore I could afford to wait.

Over the next couple days the lowest airfares I could find actually rose and continued to rise! Over the course of a week it went from $325 to $380. A lot of my friends started saying that they should just book already before prices rise even higher. I told them to hold off since I firmly believe that those prices are way too high. Over the next couple days prices fluctuated up and down but nowhere near what I was comfortable paying.

Then finally it went down to $269 after two weeks and I booked the flight thinking it was a short term drop so I better lock in the price. It continued to stay at that price for 4-5 more days and then dropped another $15! I’m not gonna cry over $15 since I have the peace of mind that my itinerary is booked already. I’m glad I paid 30% less than originally planned. In the end all it took was patience whichs mean you should plans your vacations and trips as far in advance as possible to watch airfares (but not book them) and it helps if you are flexible with the dates a little bit (I wasn’t).

Offer void in CT, GA, IA, ME, MA, MO, NV, NJ, NM, NY and UT.

Unfortunately I’m ineligible for this because I live in NJ but hopefully you guys take advantage of it.

link

• Mediterranean Avenue (Rare) and Baltic Avenue. 2,000 people will win $50.
• Short Line (Rare), Reading Railroad, Pennsylvania Railroad, B&O Railroad. 750 people will win $500.
• Vermont Avenue (Rare), Oriental Avenue, and Connecticut Avenue. 125 people will win $1,000.
• Virginia Avenue (Rare), St. Charles Place, and States Avenue. 75 people will win $2,000.
• Tennessee Avenue (Rare), St. James Place, and New York Avenue. 10 people will win $5,000.
• Kentucky Avenue (Rare), Indiana Avenue, and Illinois Avenue. Six people will win $10,000.
• Ventnor Avenue (Rare), Atlantic Avenue, and Marvin Gardens. Eight people will win $25,000.
• Pennsylvania Avenue (Rare), Pacific Avenue, and North Carolina Avenue. Four people will each win $50,000.
• Boardwalk (Rare) and Park Place. One person will win $1,000,000.

- Courtesy of About.com

The in-store game ends 11/02/09. While I don’t recommend eating at McDonald’s just for the game pieces I’m sure a lot of people stop by there already. I do stop 2-3 by for a McChicken sandwich and a sweet tea on my commute.

Get 100 bonus miles for simply learning about Continental’s PetSafe® and PetPass® programs, when you register for this offer before November 30, 2009.

link

Videogames are an incredible waste of time. I’ve always realized this but never bothered to do anything about this. Add to the fact that I was really good at them didn’t help. So I’ll leave my xbox unrepaired to hopefully find more productive things to do with my time.

uonlyricher – From Facebook
I6L6V4N4T09 – Seen on the side of the paper bags.
ONLYPLYRSWN – A free code that’s displayed when you haven’t been to the website in awhile.

I found the first code by actually joining the Facebook group. The other codes I found on retailmenot.com which is normally used for discount coupons and etc.

Good luck.