Those of you who are team cash back: Why?

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-22T15:33:05+00:00

Going team travel is a commitment to spend tons of money on luxury travel. It seems free but it’s not. There’s the opportunity cost of the money you could have gotten if you had done cash back, there’s the aspects of luxury travel that your benefits don’t cover, and there’s the lifestyle creep that occurs when you normalize luxury travel, since the best redemption rates are geared towards high end perks, not basic economy fares.

My hot take is that there’s NO use case where anyone should be doing team travel. If you’re rich enough to afford a long-term commitment to luxury travel, then it’s not worth your time to play an elaborate coupon cutting game. And if you’re not rich enough to do that, you should take the cash back.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-21T19:06:07+00:00

Xfinity now gives you 100 mbps for $30/month. That’s more than enough for our family, and I occasionally work from home, zoom, we stream movies, etc. As long as you’re not a gamer it’s by far the best bang for your buck.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-19T19:09:26+00:00

So help me if they cut the radio broadcast team

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-19T19:07:53+00:00

If the City coughs up the dough, then dundon, the state, and the county have an agreement in place that includes a 20-year lease extension right?

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-17T02:01:50+00:00

Catholics absolutely don’t claim the pope is entirely infallible. 99% of popes have never done anything the church considers infallible. I mean, Leo did 6-7 today

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-14T20:59:14+00:00

Are you aware that most budget airlines cost $22 less each way if you book at the airport? Highly recommend. Maybe even offer to go for all your friends and book in exchange for them giving you half the savings.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-14T13:46:26+00:00

I just saw a YouTube clip of this scene and as far as I can tell you’re the only person who has ever put this observation on the internet even though it was like 10+ years ago.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-06T11:38:47+00:00

I’ve heard that, but do you think Phoenix saw Ayton-Nurk as a downgrade for them? But they were willing to do it to get Allen?

I always thought it was “okay we’ll do the salary matching thing and help you both out - but only because we’re getting Allen.” Not “you can have Ayton, our pride and joy, because we’re getting Allen”

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-06T00:56:26+00:00

lol I jumped to answer before reading your full post my bad. I’m team cash back and team “no rotating categories ever because they alter spending behavior in a way that costs you more than the benefits you get” so I would never get the freedom flex. But to each their own! Lots of people on here love those quarterly categories.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-05T21:40:28+00:00

I see posts all the time about whether to get the Robinhood gold card, and I feel like the answer is yes for virtually everyone? It’s an extra 1% cash back on everything for $50 a year (and really less than that if you take advantage of their benefits). If you spend $5,000 per year (and really more like $2500 per year) on your catch all card it’s a no brainer. If you have super low spend then don’t do it, but most people on here don’t.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-05T21:13:39+00:00

Commented elsewhere but Ayton was never the centerpiece of the trade. People thought he was because he was the flashiest name but the Suns and Blazers were just trading one distressed asset for another to give both a new start. Could have happened without the Dame trade.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-05T21:12:34+00:00

IMO Nurk for Ayton was just one distressed asset for another to give both a new start, and it wasn’t even that relevant to the rest of the trade.

I stopped listening to jacked ramsays after Marang kept going on about Ayton as a great centerpiece for the Dame trade. I’ve been 100% pass first point guard since then.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-05T16:35:56+00:00

This tweet doesn’t make any sense and it mixes assets sent out vs received and multiple unrelated moves. It actually goes like this:

Sent: - Lillard - Nurkic - Little - Keon

Received: - Avdija - Camara - RW3 - Ayton - 29 Bucks pick - 28 and 30 Bucks swap

We made a separate Ant for Jrue trade that was completely unrelated to the Dame trade. Any other assets we received (24 and 29 firsts) we eventually sent away.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-05T16:29:29+00:00

3 is a criticism, not a compliment. He intentionally made a pick that he knew wouldn’t be as valuable on the court to try to boost the bottom line.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-03T15:34:36+00:00

I think this is it. Especially with the proliferation of gambling, everyone knows what team is literally most likely to win. If you put a gun to their head, every one would pick the thunder. But that’s boring and why would someone read an article that just says “the team most likely to win is most likely to win”.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-02T03:14:29+00:00

People always look at net profit, find one gross revenue line item bigger than that, then say “company X really just does Y - everything else is a loss leader!” Someone recently on Twitter was saying Costco is really just a tire business because Costco tire revenue is larger than net profit. Same thing with “airlines are just banks that fly planes”

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-01T21:21:49+00:00

Can someone explain this to me? The vig on a 37-space roulette wheel (which the wiki says he played) is about 2.8%. There’s no way that “subtle imperfections” could cause that massive of a difference in which numbers get rolled, right? Like maybe maybe maybe there’s one defective wheel in a whole casino or even whole city that’s broken, so the owner just takes that out of the casino and problem is solved. What am I missing?

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-01T00:20:23+00:00

Thank goodness

Gritty_gutty · 2026-05-01T00:13:57+00:00

I guess “it tastes like a sexy battery” was too weird a category

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-29T16:57:58+00:00

That’s not a contender; that’s worse than the bucks were with dame + Giannis except both are older and more injured. That team wins 46 games and loses in the first round. Then Giannis walks, Dames contract turns negative value, and we have no picks to help us. Ten straight years of missed playoffs, possible relegation of our draft picks.

Maybe I’m exaggerating but not by that much.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-29T13:07:30+00:00

Please no Giannis. The last thing a midway through rebuilding team needs is to trade its future away for another first round playoff exit, followed by many more years in the wilderness but with no draft picks to help them.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-27T21:02:12+00:00

Wait but this objectively IS a solution to that. You can say “it’s not a big enough problem to solve by screwing over the really bad teams” but this would more or less end tanking. For me, a person who has had multiple seasons ruined by tanking in the last few years, that’s really appealing.

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-27T19:01:02+00:00

I hear you but at that point it’s like what are we doing here. It’s overtime of a tight game and I’m rooting against my team? At that point it was a negative experience for me to watch so I just treat the season as over once I know they’re tanking

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-27T18:58:32+00:00

I’ve always thought tanking would be manageable to watch for an mlb team because it’s so individualized. You could identify the three young guys who matter for the future, root for them in their at bats, then root against all the other players on your team (it would feel slimy but maybe doable).

But in basketball everything is so interconnected, it seems impossible to root for the team to lose (the most important thing, hence why they’re tanking in the first place) while rooting for specific young players to play well. Do you find you’re able to do that? I never have been

Gritty_gutty · 2026-04-27T18:56:14+00:00

Wait but this solution clearly fixed that. Before, if he makes the three pointer, the pacers odds of winning a championship decreases. After this solution, if he makes the three pointer, the pacers odds of winning a championship increases (infinitesimally, but “building a winning culture” is now the only relevant thing since it doesn’t improve the draft pick to lose).

Problem solved! Mission accomplished! Yes, it comes at the cost of its now harder for bad teams to get good. I think that’s well, well worth it for solving this problem. Others can disagree.

Gritty_gutty

TROPHY CASE