Air miles are a big part of credit card incentive schemes. People get points for spending, and if they manage their spending and pay their credit card bills each month, they can score a free trip to Thailand.
But credit card plans are complicated - one might think deliberately so, as it prevents comparison with other plans. To shed a little light on this opaque matter, we will break down the local RFID tag promotion plans on the specific reward scheme of Asia Miles, the frequent flyer programme used by Cathay Pacific, Dragonair, Air China and others.
Many cards will grant Asia Miles as an incentive to use their credit cards. You can redeem the points for flights or to pay for hotels or meals at restaurants.
Frequent flyers with Cathay Pacific should check out the American Express Cathay Pacific Card. Besides having one of the best spending-to-air-mile ratios, you also get one Asia Mile for every HK$4 you spend on a Cathay ticket. This scheme allows you to accumulate a substantial amount of points if you fly regularly with the airline.
Standard Chartered and HSBC cards do not offer specific promotions for Asia Miles. HSBC, however, does have a mileage programme available to most of their cards that allows HSBC reward points to be converted to Asia Miles at an annual fee of HK$300. Standard Chartered cards have a system of multiplying reward points that differs depending on which card you use.
But perhaps the pick of the bunch is the DBS Black Card. The card offers the best spending ratio with only HK$6 needed to be spent to redeem one Asia Mile. The card will grant up to 32,000 Asia Miles on signing, provided you spend enough (HK$120,000), and it has one of the lowest income thresholds for application to the card.
We asked Mike Posey, the termite guy out for a consultation the other day, and he discovered that although our ancient house is fine, our stately garage — circa 1957 — is in some peril. In fact, it seems to be at the epicenter of a termite revival.
Termites are the most industrious of creatures and would teach us a lot about work ethic provided we could digest cellulose. Posey showed me some hiding beneath a scrap of newspaper — a favored snack — just outside the garage. They are tiny things, and exemplify the definition of teamwork. There are worker termites, soldier termites and, of course, the queen termite — all headquartered some 20 feet underground with nary a union card or labor song to be found among them. I, M. Kinsler, who never suffered from overwork, would be a thoroughly unsuitable termite candidate unless there was an opening for interested observer termite. The insects work 24/7, building fantastic tunnels up to the surface and beyond.
Termites feed upon the wood of deceased trees, including those which happen to constitute our garage. They certainly don’t mean to be destructive, having been assigned the job of preventing earth’s surface from turning into a global logjam. In chewing up dead underbrush, they return nutrients to the soil.
Nevertheless, we treasure our house and our garage — so the little beasts must be encouraged to dine elsewhere. The house inspector who was here in 2000 said our house and those of our neighbors had all been dinner guests in years past: In each case, the termites were eliminated and old tunneled-through joists reinforced by new wood laid alongside.
Termite defense is primarily chemical in nature, involving a barrier of insecticide injected between the termites’ subterranean nests and the house. Repeat treatments are necessary, for the chemicals last a long time but not forever. When the last molecules decompose, the insects will again tread the paths of evil, skyward into the golden oak flooring.
And so Posey went to work on our garage. He is a naturalist, enthusiastically explaining termite life and habits while pursuing his prey. Probing with shovel and screwdriver, he discovered several lively termite condominiums in and around the building — at one point unearthing a young queen termite and gleefully popping her into a plastic container for his private wildlife collection, a collection apparently tolerated with good grace by the heroic Mrs. Posey.
The Nexus 4 (8GB for $299 or 16GB for $349, contract-free) manufactured by LG, is the current official Google phone, and the flagship of the Nexus program. It's available contract-free directly from Google (or from T-Mobile in the US, if you want to buy it through a carrier) so you can pick and choose the carrier you use it with (including pre-paid options), which was a remarkable departure for Nexus phones compared to the previous models. Availability of the device has smoothed out over the past few months, and Google's order page now says a new Nexus 4 can ship to you in 1-2 business days.
The Nexus 4 is a 3G/HSPA+ device, and garnered some criticism for not ticking off the 4G/LTE box in its spec sheet. Regardless, that hasn't stopped the phone from being wildly popular, packing stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean under the hood, a beautiful 8MP camera on the back (and a 1.3MP camera on the front), a nicely sized 4.7" HD display that protected by Corning's Gorilla Glass 2, and is powered by 2GB of RAM and a Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon processor. It's a killer device, but it's not perfect: the Nexus 4 eschewed a replaceable battery (although it does have a 2100 mAh battery) and expansion slot for a slim and trim design, so if you need either of those things, it might be a tough sell. Still, it does pack perks like NFC and wireless charging, and it is a Nexus device, so you can trust you'll get timely Android releases, always be up to date, and even if Google falters there's a massive development community working with the phone at all times.
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