The Capitalist Maven

My wife and I made a quick trip to Connecticut this past weekend.  I had a “Free Category 1-5 night” Marriott certificate that I received for my $65 annual fee for holding the Marriott Rewards credit card.  Turned out to be a pretty good deal this year, as the Mystic Marriott and Spa was going for $249 a night this particular weekend.  It was kind of a last minute plan as the certificate expired March 29.  We had various ideas for using the free night but the expected rain late Saturday into Sunday had us looking for something that could keep us occupied in the rain on Sunday.  We explored the idea of a quick trip to Vegas, where the weather was bound to be good, but would have needed to return on Monday instead of Sunday to get the good airfares.

So we settled on Connecticut.  Saturday was beautiful here in New England, so we wanted to do something outdoors.  We discovered the Mystic Seaport Outdoor Museum was perfect for this.  I wasn’t sure what to expect before we went in.  I left very pleased.  They have recreated a 19th century whaling village on the museum property with actual buildings that were brought in on barges.  The various buildings are intriguing to see.  They also have traditional indoor museum type exhibits (the eskimo and figurehead exhibits were particularly good).  But the highlight of the museum is actually boarding the ships they have on display.  The friendly guides posted on the ships have some great information to pass on about the ships and are so passionate about it that even the details don’t seem boring.  It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

After checking into our hotel and having Mexican food at a particularly crappy local Mexican place we headed up to the Mohegan Sun casino.  My wife wanted to get her nails done at the spa for reasons I assume only a woman can understand.  I settled into a nice $5 craps table.  The table was cold for a good 20 minutes, then the dice were passed to an eccentric drunk woman who had a hard time keeping the dice on the table.  She made about 6 points and hit lots of other numbers in between.  I managed to be up about $125 by the time my wife returned from the nails.  She hung out with me and had a free drink, but I could tell she was getting bored so we left.

The next day I saw a sign on the way in advertising “New $5 Blackjack.”  I asked a casino employee where to find it and eventually worked my way over.  My wife wanted to go shopping so I had some time.   By the time my wife returned I was just about even.  Then I got on a huge run and was up another $100.  My wife knows nothing of Blackjack.  I tried to explain some simple strategy so she could keep the winning going while I went to the bathroom.  So I told her, “the other players will help you, I’ll be back.”  She managed to win 2 hands without me.  When the spot next to me opened up, I convinced her to sit down and play from my stack.  I think she was just enjoying the drink service and talking with people in the peanut gallery, so sitting down involved actually paying some attention to the game.  Sure enough we continued to win, running up yet another $100 and tons more drinks.  5:30 rolled around and I said it was definitely time to get going.

Gambling is seldom a frugal endeavor but with $5 tables and free drinks you aren’t going to lose much.  Worst case it’s a great way to spend a rainy Sunday.

Jon Off topic, Travel

While traveling in Hawaii for my honeymoon, I discovered a new feature that hotels have added to save on energy costs: motion activated air conditioning. Simply put, you must be in the room and moving around for the air conditioning to run. It’s the second part that is a real gotcha, while you’re up and moving around things are fine. Then at 2am you wake up sweating because you weren’t moving in front of the motion detector. Grrr…

The first night this happened I got up a few times to walk over to the thermostat but the A/C clicked on even before I got there (motion detection). Needless to say I didn’t sleep well that night. The next day I took advantage of the hotels free internet to do some research. As it turns out some folks over at FlyerTalk.com have been experiencing this new feature for several months. Fortunately for me, they had some workarounds.

The first workaround suggested was a mylar balloon positioned near the motion detector. While I’m sure this would work great, I didn’t bother to pack one in my luggage???? So, I continue reading. Apparently the trick is to put the thermostat in “bypass” mode. To do this you press the on/off switch and the down arrow at the same time. So I tried it. Sure enough the thermostat displayed “bp” and from that point on ran constantly for 48 hours until I had to repeat the trick.

So it sounds like motion detection A/C is a good idea that is not quite ready for prime time. They need to figure out a way to keep it running while you sleep. Until then, I expect there will be backlash.

Jon Travel

This past weekend I traveled to Niagara Falls, Ontario for my bachelor party.  A visit to Niagara Falls has become tradition in my group of friends as we get married off.  Five years ago this destination was a premier spot for east coast gambling but lately it’s definitely not as special in that respect.  Lately I think the only thing keeping the place in business as a bachelor party destination is the local strip club, Sundowner.  I’ll leave it up to reader to find out more about Sundowner but suffice it to say it’s good enough to keep us coming back to this increasingly less desirable location.

The weekend got off to a good start, with my flight departing BOS right on time and landing in Buffalo, NY ahead of schedule.  Since my brother and friends were driving up from Pittsburgh and were running late, I was going to head straight to the airport bar.  Unfortunately due to the rain in BUF, they took my carry-on which was gate checked onto the regional jet straight to the baggage claim, meaning that I had to leave the secure area and lose access to the bar.  Doh…

So I got my luggage and proceeded to the bus stop hoping that I could find some information on where I might take the bus to grab a beer and kill some time.  At the bus stop, some friendly Buffalo residents directed me straight across the parking lot.  I’m not sure if I found the bar they were directing me to but I did find one particularly uncrowded “bar” which was more of a sandwich shop.  I grabbed a beer and watched some TV.  I ended up talking to the old guy cleaning the tables.  He had some great info and economic theories on the problems with the local economy.  Particularly why Niagara Falls, NY is not nearly as successful as Niagara Falls, ON.  The Indian Casino in NY has little interest in developing the region, it wants to take money in and keep it there.  In ON, the state run casinos have an interest in developing the community.  Curiously though, the NY casino does provide a better experience for the gambler, nearly all the Canadians we talked to seemed to like the Seneca casino better.  In other words government excels at building the community while free enterprise excels at building business.

After an uneventful border crossing we arrived at the Embassy Suites.  Never having stayed here before, we left the car with the valet which ended up costing $20 a night, later we learned that we could have just parked at the casino across the street for $10 a night.  Additionally it would have been far more convenient to avoid the 15 minute wait for the valet to fetch the car.

We pounded a few beers that we picked up at the duty free shop and headed to the casino.  $25 was the minimum bet at all the tables.  Our small bankrolls did not allow for realistic play at such high limits so one of my friends had a great idea.  Pool our money and then have one person play, effectively playing $6.75 per hand.  Our friend playing got on a pretty good streak and managed to win $200 in the first chute.  We told him to quit and each took our $50 home.  A good first night.

We played golf the next morning, then hit the casino again in the afternoon.  After taking a cab to the older casino, we managed to locate minimums to our liking.  I won another $100 on the Craps table, after a very dramatic run as some eccentric guy in sun glasses hit 5 numbers on the Fire Bet.  I quit and just hung around playing some video poker here and there while the other guys finished up.  We went to the Wild Mushroom across the street for a $19.95 pizza and pitcher special, which honestly is about the best deal you’ll find in Niagara Falls, ON.  Surprisingly though, the place was dead.  The old casino just isn’t as popular with the younger crowd.

After a quick stop back at the hotel, we grabbed a cab to the Sundowner.  Traveling down Lundy’s Lane is an interesting experience.  For a good stretch it’s pretty much a red light district, with clubs and adult stores.  There is a virtually continuous stream of cabs from the strip to this section of Lundy’s.  Seeing all the cabs streaming down makes you realize that despite it’s seedy nature, this is the place really keeps Niagara Falls in business amongst the young male crowd, not the casino.  The Sundowner really is an experience that is unavailable in the states.  We had a great night…

Sunday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed in time for checkout and attempted to find some food.  We ended up at Al Mac’s $6.99 breakfast buffet.  A great deal right?  Well the food was ok, about what you would get at the $6.99 buffet in the US, but then we get the check.  Drinks were $4 each!  We should have known when the waitress said “We don’t serve tap water.”  Oh well, lesson learned.  Hopefully now you won’t fall for this trap either.

I arrived at the airport a good bit early, so I asked them to move to some earlier.  I moved up to the 3:00PM non-stop to Boston, no charge due to my Silver status with US Airways.  I can’t speak enough for the difference that having preferred status makes in air travel, it’s really worth picking an airline and sticking to it to work towards status.  I then proceeded to the US Airways Club Lounge to use my free day pass they sent me 2 weeks earlier.  It was a great experience.  While I don’t fly enough to justify club membership, I can certainly see the value in it to someone who flies more.  Since it didn’t cost me anything, I was quite pleased.

I got back to Boston almost 4 hours early.  All in all, a great trip.

Jon Off topic, Travel

I’ve mentioned Priceline in my blog before. I mentioned how they are great for booking airline tickets because there is no booking fee and you have the ability to earn 3% cashback through such sites as Fatwallet. $400 airline ticket = $12 in cashback. I’d also like to comment about their bidding process for hotels.

The way Priceline works is that you don’t know what hotel you are going to get. You might have a pretty good idea, but there are no guarantees about which specific hotel you will get. You bid choosing an area and star level and Priceline will come back and tell you whether your bid was accepted. They encourage you to make your true maximum bid by restricting your ability to rebid. Your reward for going through this process is some very nice hotels at substantial discounts.

I bring up the topic today because I just booked part of my honeymoon using Priceline. While a substantial portion of the honeymoon will be paid for by Marriott points, for our days on Kauai and Oahu I went through Priceline. Kauai is somewhat of a difficult animal for Priceline because #1: it’s a small island and #2 most of the nice properties are timeshares. What’s left is 2 hotels in the resort category and 3 in the 3-star category. Because all the hotels are very nice in the 3* category there, that’s where I bid, getting the ResortQuest Makaiwa for $100 a night, a discount of $20 a night over the AAA rate. I’ll get 3% of the total cost back in cashback + I saved $80 over just booking the hotel straight out. In Oahu, I did somewhat better since nicer hotels are far more numerous, getting the Hyatt Regency Waikiki for $130 a night, a $71 a night discount from the AAA rate.

There are various tricks of the trade to Priceline, which you can learn at betterbedding.com or biddingfortravel.com. At these sites you can learn how to “rebid” and see other posters winning bids to get an idea of your price range. You can also learn what hotels are known to be within a zone, so you can have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

I’ve successfully used Priceline for stays in Orlando as well as many smaller cities, each time receiving a substantial discount over the best available rate. Do some research and I’m sure you’ll be a Priceline addict like myself.

Jon Deals, Travel

This weekend I visited Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, CT. They have been sending me $25 free bet coupons all summer and I have been wanting to take them up on the offer. Unfortunately the casino is 100 miles away from me, so even if I win the bet it doesn’t pay for gas. That’s why I was happy to find a local bus company that offers trips to the casino for $30. For your $30 you get a free buffet coupon ($18) and 3 $10 free bets on Wheel of Fortune or Sic Bo (Boggle as my friends like to call it). Basically you get your $30 returned to you, so it’s a free ride. They have similar deals on so-called “Chinatown” buses for $15 with the same gift at the casino but I’ve heard you get what you pay for with these… I wasn’t about to try the “Chinatown” bus by myself.

So I caught the bus at 8:00am about 1 mile from my house and arrived at the casino 2 hours later. The bus was not crowded, quiet, and the A/C worked great. They handed out the coupons as I got off the bus and off I went to use up the coupons. I looked all over for Wheel of Fortune and couldn’t find it. I asked at the Player’s Club booth where it was. The nice lady pointed me in the right direction but offered “Those coupons are also good for Sic Bo right over there, it’s alot of fun too.” Having never played Sic Bo, I went over to the empty table and asked the dealer for an explanation. “Choose one of these boxes to place your bet and it will light up if you win.” I responded, “OK which box is the even money 1:1 payout?” “The Big or the Small”, he responded. So I put the first coupon on big. “You win.” So I tried again on big. “You lose.” And one more try, “You lose.” 1 out of 3… Grrr… Stuck on the wrong side of my expected return of $14.58. In retrospect I am glad the lady sent me to Sic Bo as the house edge is lower than Wheel of Fortune (”Not even the Rain Man can beat the Wheel of Fortune”) but nonetheless I was a victim of probability and failed to get my expected return. Better luck next time.

So, off to the Blackjack table to use my $25 bet. I find an empty seat and place my bet. First card dealt to me, an ace, awesome. Second card… a f$%^*& five. Dealer’s card, a face. So I draw out to what ends up to be 20. Dealer turns over the hole card, another face. A push. The shoot runs out so I have to wait for a shuffle, grrr. This time I draw out to 19. Dealer ends up with another 20… Damn it.

So, off to the craps table to actually gamble some money instead of coupons. After an initial bad start, I’m up $150, and 3 hours (and many beers) later I cash out for a $175 gain. By this point I’m starved so, off to the buffet. I’m glad I didn’t pay $18 for it. The only really good things were the roast beef and creole seafood stew. So I ate lots of those and lots of dessert which was also good.

Then I’m off to 25cent video poker to kill some time. Desiring a bit more excitement than Jacks or Better(it’s no coincidence that the abbreviation is JoB), I opted for Double Double Bonus (DDB). It sucked $20 right out of me. I reluctantly put in another $20. Shortly thereafter hit a 4 of a kind, which brought me back to even for the second twenty. 2o or 30 hands later another four bagger. Alright now I’m back to even. I continue as I’ve still got half an hour before the bus is to leave. Sure enough another four bagger. I’m up a solid $20. I then go through another dry spell before cashing out for $42.50, up $2.50. Oh well. At least I recorded some decent cheapskate play to my comp card which should hopefully keep the coupons coming.

After all expenses I was up $155 and a free lunch, not a bad day.

Jon Deals, Travel

I just checked my Fatwallet cashback account balance.  My lifetime cashback has crossed the $100 mark!  This means I have earned $100 for doing nothing more than clicking on a Fatwallet link before buying something online.

Some background for those who don’t know about Fatwallet.  Fatwallet is an online deals site.  They have several forums where people post various deals that they have gotten or are currently available to purchase.   They also have a section called cashback, where many online merchants are listed.  When you click on the link to go to the merchant site and make your purchase, a percentage is rebated back to your Fatwallet cashback account.  When you accumulate a minimum of $10, you can request payment via check (or for any amount via Paypal).

Recently the cashback goldmine I’ve discovered is travel.  Since I do tend to do alot of travelling, it provides a nice way to get some money back.  Most of the hotel group websites are represented along with many of the big travel sites:  Orbitz, Priceline, Hotwire, Hotels.com, Expedia, etc.   Particularly interesting is Priceline, which allows you to book most flights with no booking fee.  Since none of the airlines offer cashback and US Airways even charges you an extra booking fee right now on their own website, Priceline makes a killer deal for air travel.  As an example if you were to book a $200 flight on US Airways, you would save the $5 booking fee by using Priceline as well as receive $6 in cashback.  Not bad for simply clicking a link.

Jon Deals, Travel

Things just seem to be getting worse for American Airlines travelers as the cancellations continue to mount. I’m sure there are people that will be delayed for several days because of the cancellations. I’ve done a fair amount of air travel in my life but only recently have I discovered just how great it is to have preferred status on an airline. I finally managed to get just enough “segments” to qualify for Silver status on US Airways.  If a disaster like this struck US Airways or United, preferred status would be just the ticket to making things go more smoothly.

The most obvious benefit to preferred status is eligibility for upgrades to first class. While often hard to come by for low tier preferreds, it’s nice when it happens. Nothing like paying super low fare coach and sitting up front drinking free beer. It’s a very nice benefit.

While upgrades are the most obvious benefit, the most valuable benefit is priority standby. In short, you are automatically ahead of 80% of the masses when the standby list is cleared. Numerous times now, I’ve received the last seat on a plane even though the standby list was quite long. There are two situations where this comes in handy: 1. You can book the last flight of the day, which is frequently the cheapest, and then standby for an empty seat on an earlier flight. 2. When weather/mechanical/airline delays cause trouble, you’re first in line for the next flight that goes. Sure there are people that have been in the airport for hours waiting for a seat but you get first crack at the seats.

Because US Airways is a member of Star Alliance, the preferred standby benefits also extend to United and the other Star carriers. There are other benefits that also save time, like preferred check-in and preferred security lines. The security lines are hit or miss as some airports have them, some don’t.

In order to get preferred status you need to keep all your travel on one airline or alliance. Sometimes this will mean paying slightly more but in the end I think you will save money because you now have the flexibility to book the cheapest option and have a good chance at standing by for the flights you really want. You can get preferred status in relatively few flights a year. Most airlines offer segment credit, so just make sure you always take a connection and you’ll make it in 8 roundtrips per year. For those that travel between the coasts you can probably do it based on miles in 5-6 roundtrips per year. There’s a great website for learning about attaining status: www.flyertalk.com.

Jon Travel

Here in New England we have many toll roads, bridges, tunnels, etc. While I find tolls extremely wasteful (tolls are a decidedly inefficient means of collecting revenue), it doesn’t seem they will be going away anytime soon. One particularly annoying toll is the toll to leave East Boston, the location of Boston-Logan International Airport.

I’m fortunate because I live north of Boston and areas to the north have several non-tolled options, while a viable southern/western toll bypass is much less obvious to me. For those northeast of the airport, Route 1A is an obvious solution. For those to the north and northwest, taking several backroads up to Route 16 is the preferred alternative. I’ve found that this route adds about 10 minutes to the trip but saves a $3 toll.

Earning $3 in 10 minutes is equivalent to earning $18($3 x 6) an hour after tax. As I am in the 25% tax bracket and not yet over the payroll tax cap, my total tax rate is 25% fed + 5.3% state + 7.65% SS/Medicare = 37.95%. $18 / (1 - .3795) = $29 an hour pretax earnings.

Considering I only earn the salaried equivalent of $36 an hour pretax at my day job which requires skill far greater than simply driving on local roads, this is a pretty darn good pay rate. If I could get paid for working 10 extra minutes at work, that would be the better value but unfortunately since I am an exempt salaried employee, 10 extra minutes earns me $0.  It’s also worth noting that the bypass route I devised is shorter in total mileage, though you will be getting city fuel economy instead of highway, so it’s likely fuel usage is equivalent in either route.

I should note that I didn’t do the above calculation first before trying this route, I simply made an observation. Taxi cabs drivers without passengers almost always seemed to leave the airport using the route I devised that bypasses the toll. Taxi’s carrying passengers universally used the toll road since the passenger was paying the toll. Taxi drivers know the roads better than anyone, clearly they would choose the route in their economic interest.

Jon Budget, Travel

I currently reside in suburban Boston, so New York City is a relatively easy weekend trip. Since coming to Boston, I only visited New York City once, this weekend I made my second visit. I had a free night certificate for a category 1-4 Marriott that was expiring at the end of March, so I decided on New York as a reasonable place to use it without significant planning. The problem here is that all the Marriott’s near or in the city itself were cat 5 or better, so I found myself in Tarrytown, NY 20 miles from Grand Central.

My fiancee and I arrived at the Marriott around 1 and relaxed in our room for an hour and then headed out for lunch and eventually catching the 5:16 Metro North train into Grand Central. It ended up costing $26 for 2 round-trips, so I am left wondering if we could have found 6 hours of parking on a Saturday night in NYC for less. Nonetheless the train ride was very comfortable.

On the advise of a friend we headed over to the TKTS booth in Times Square to try and get some 50% tickets to a show. We wanted to see Lion King but the only tickets were available from scalpers (no thanks). So we settled on Chicago and got 2 center mezzanine seats for $121 total. We went to the Applebee’s nearby for some quick (it was already 7pm) food and drinks before our show. If you are limited on time, think common American junk food to avoid crowds. Naturally there was significant Manhattan markup on the appetizers we ordered at $12 apiece. My fiancee’s fruity frozen beverage was a pricely $11, but my “Brewtus” of Sam Adams was a very reasonable $6.95 probably only a dollar or two higher than we’d pay at the local suburban Boston Applebee’s. Total with tip: $57.

The show was OK but we both agreed it was lacking in the props/set department. The last show we went to see was Wicked in Boston so perhaps we were spoiled by that incredible show.

We met up with my friend from New York at  House of Brews. I wish we had known about this place before the show, it was great. Great selection of beers from all over the planet and the menu did an excellent  job of describing each one, something frequently lacking at other bars with large specialty beer menus. The prices(most beers were $5-$7) were very similar to what you would pay at a similar place in Boston, so either this place was a bargain or places elsewhere are a ripoff. Having paid $7 in the past for Yuengling at LGA, I’d say it was a really good deal.

It was a good, quick weekend trip. Nonetheless, even with the free accommodations we still managed to spend almost $300 on the trip. Perhaps this is the reason I visit NYC so infrequently?

Jon Travel