$5 Rides In New York

All uberPOOL rides that begin or end in Manhattan during commuting hours are a flat rate of 5 bucks. That’s 7:00-10:00 AM or 5:00-8:00 PM.

Hard to beat the price. And harder to beat this idea for a reality show – could someone please televise all the shared Ubers at rush hour in New York?

Monday Thoughts

  • Through Saturday, once again, you can pick up discounted Visa gift cards from Office Depot and Office Max. Getting 15 bucks off of $300 takes care of the fees. As always, this is a very good time to pull out your Ink card.
  • We can’t be friends with everyone, right? Like people who hate The Shawshank Redemption. Or the ones who bid on this.

A few of you have asked me about Club1Hotels in the last week. Apparently those who read multiple blogs have seen it promoted pretty aggressively. Some are curious why. Here’s what I know about it…

A little over a week ago, I got an email to post about the Club1Hotels “travel club.” I’m assuming a bunch of other bloggers received the same offer – $4 payment per reader who subscribes to the free “club” and a prize to give away (which, of course, would help make the post more attractive). I don’t know who’s posting what…but I’m sure you can figure out the reason for aggressive, multiple posts about Club1Hotels on a blog. Good chance it has something to do with getting paid for signups. As of last week, at least one of those bloggers was closing in on $10,000 from this. That number is higher now. A new offer includes getting a cut whenever readers pay to renew their memberships.

Not the slimiest thing in the world. Unless they are being dishonest, I don’t see much reason to give bloggers shit about this one. Better to focus on legitimately shady stuff they do…like regularly holding back links for better credit card offers unless they get paid. As far as why I didn’t post about Club1Hotels…I just didn’t feel comfortable with them. I’m not consciously trying to repel money (even though it sometimes seems that way) but the emails felt strange. I asked questions and didn’t think much of the responses. So I chose not to accept the offer. It’s not an exact science…more of my spidey sense going off than anything else. And, hey, I might be wrong. They could be a totally legitimate, professional company choosing to spend their advertising money in this way. All I can say is it wasn’t for me. And if you read a blogger who keeps finding reasons to write new posts about Club1Hotels…the explanation above is probably why. Or maybe they just really believe in the product. I’ll let you decide.

 

Targeted Starwood Offers

Thanks to reader Steve for this one. If you have the Starwood credit card, click here to see if you’re targeted for an extra 5,000 points. Or here if you have the Business version of the card. And if you don’t have either card, you still might be able to pick up 500 points here. Have a greet weekend, nerds!

Thursday Stuff

  • Save some of your points booking today with Southwest and/or JetBlue.
  • More savings for American cardholders with the latest Reduced Mileage Awards.
  • Pretty strong offer worth 12,000 miles if you haven’t booked a stay with PointsHound
  • If you can afford the spend, here’s 100,000 points for the Amex Business Platinum card.
  • Also a 20,000-point offer for people who spend $1,000 with ANA.

Amex Platinum For Flights

Thanks to a bunch of you who reached out with this. The American Express Platinum card will be earning 5 points per dollar on airfare purchases starting Thursday. Is it their way of trying to keep up with the Sapphire Reserve? Of course. And obviously a big deal for all of you who spend a lot on flights. This change should be for all Personal versions of the card. Interesting move, Amex…