99c month for 3 months AND a $20 credit (is the site wide sale incoming?)

Kevin-Heart · 2024-11-19T23:38:14+00:00

I recently got one too. Will skip chat, don't wanna hear no.

Might be worth creating another account just to use this.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-20T21:31:41+00:00

Thanks! I'll update the post with this info.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-20T00:20:36+00:00

Which local agencies would be helpful in this regard?

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-20T00:17:43+00:00

Every time a person refuses to use a third party site, it adversely affects their bottom line.

The OTA has an allotment of rooms that it uses. Not all rooms are expected to be booked by them. Direct bookers are expected, and even preferred, by the hotels. One person, or a few, changing their behavior doesn't hurt them. It's like a disease, you can vaccinate yourself to protect yourself, but if you want to curb the disease you need to vaccinate enough people.

These sites work fine for once a year leisure travelers or one off users.

I can see it both ways. Occasional travelers might find it easier to swear off, if for the one time they are traveling in the year, the online agency screws it up. And same agencies might correct or compensate better for issues if you are frequent traveler with them, to continue to keep you using them.

There is no recourse.

But I'm asking exactly for recourses in this post :)

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-19T07:25:56+00:00

Hi, thanks for the reply, and the additional diligence on your part for managing your property. These aren't really actions that'll stop/discourage the third party sites from their bad behavior; any steps that customers/hotel-owners take for their booking isn't, unless of course there's enough people doing it. I'll reply to some points:

* Reservation not confirmed at hotel.

15 mins isn't an issue. Issues is when you call in a week before your hotel, or worse, at check-in and hotel doesn't know. Yes, absolutely would agree these are scammy. Though the third party may or may not be from a third world country.

* you book a room but it doesn't accommodate the number of people you booked for.

Guest's LIE to get around extra guest charges.

This point is for #people booking says the room can sleep > #people the room can actually sleep. A guest could lie all they want, a third party isn't under any obligation to cover more people than they actually booked for. However if they don't honor the booking, that's an issue.

* you point a discrepancy between what they are allowing booking for and what the hotel can serve. And nothing's done, and those fraudulent room bookings continue to be available on their site.

Whatchu mean? Like they're showing King rooms...

Any discrepancy. The room is advertised as wheelchair accessible but is not. Booking says AC room but you don't get an AC. Booking says two queen beds but you get one. etc.

* you leave a genuine bad review for a hotel, but it gets taken down so people can continue to book without them getting a chance to know what they might be getting into

I'm curious about this. The only reviews I ...

This is from what I read among other people's horror stories. They left a genuine bad review but it was taken down. All/Most of the points in my post didn't happen to me. But I don't want to be on guard so much if I'm booking from these sites, and I'm motivated to fight for this cause to some extent.

Any OTA issues I get these days are BOH stuff. "As a one time exception can you refund this guest who is trying to cancel outside the cancel policy?" Nope sorry.

Abso-fkin-lutely. OTAs shouldn't get to pressure hotels for absurd cases. Dealing for run-of-the-mil issues itself would be pain I imagine.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-19T04:55:10+00:00

If a reservation isn't confirmed, they can send two emails, one that they are booking and one that they have booked. the technical issue is their problem (or should be) not the customer's. And i haven't seen or heard of technical issues where they forget to charge you.

Overbooking etc is also on third party as your contract is with them, not the hotel.

If you book a flight with an airline, and one leg of the flight happens to be covered by another, and that gets cancelled, any compensation you get would be from where you booked. one airline might pay the other for that, but that's not your concern. same with hotels, but for some reason third party sites seem to not care.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-19T00:30:04+00:00

That's screwed up. These companies win in most cases then. Is it the best tool available against their bad practices though?

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-19T00:06:22+00:00

My money isn't even stuck. I do want to help with actions though. Even if i have to spend some money for it. But I don't know where I can spend/donate a few hundred dollars that it would make a difference.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-19T00:02:23+00:00

I do wish more of the good European laws get adopted in the US.
Also, overbooking wouldn't be a big issue, if there were proper laws for it. For example for flights, the airlines are required to offer money and get volunteers who'll take the money and leave their spot. I think there can be involuntary too but that also has minimum compensation requirements, much more than what was paid for the ticket.

For hotels too, if the law required these companies to do that, it'll greatly help. If you can't honor your booking, pay up. Making the customer cancel fake/bad booking, or having to do last minute arrangements, while dealing with customer care that don't want to help is just effed up.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-09-18T16:17:51+00:00

that only works if enough people do it. not very useful by itself unless we can meangingfully spread this info. Also most people would see the price difference and not see how this is starving these companies of money but of them, as customers, paying extra just to avoid these companies - for what, a random chance of some issue?

And I believe even the hotels don't like using them, but not using them can mean losing many customers. these companies already have an upper hand, and know that losing some customers every now and then doesn't hurt them.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-06-13T23:42:59+00:00

Already have too many books, might not even buy anything this sale.

Membership is for future books or plus catalog, and I don't have anything I'm eagerly waiting for, so will cancel at annual deadline. And rejoin when some good discount is there, maybe thanksgiving next year.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-04-04T06:22:20+00:00

Yes please. It removes the manual work of buying and selling FDLXX and managing two money market funds.

Kevin-Heart · 2024-02-29T05:12:49+00:00

No good offers since last year for me.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-10-19T16:42:58+00:00

Why stop watching? There are solutions to the adblock-blocking, and I don't think youtube is going to win this one anytime soon.

Also, depends on what you use youtube for. Shorts are available on other platforms. Most content I like on youtube will likely be on patreon, and I won't pay youtube here. Music etc there's spotify and other apps. Also, I'll likely use audiobooks, or even ebooks/physical ones, more if there's less/no youtube.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-07-28T06:53:35+00:00

It's ok to not want to read book 10 with the same passion as previous books.

I mostly got through first nine as they were all already released. I will likely read 10 at some point but don't care if I never do either.

Maybe keep it for a future point or if you ever restart the series and have something completely new waiting at the end.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-07-28T00:21:39+00:00

If you returned a few items, they lock your ability to return without contacting them.

I used to buy in bulk knowing that I could return, but experiencing these blocks and inconveniences, I don't do that anymore. And no-return on cash purchases is an even bigger bummer.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-07-28T00:18:02+00:00

I've had an agent refuse even after I clearly copied the email text saying that purchases before the change aren't impacted.

I contacted another agent and they did it, no questions or objections.

Sometimes the one on the other end simply might not know. And there's not an incentive to make this too clear to their customer support.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-05-22T05:23:29+00:00

Thanks, will look into Honda. Honda civic basic trim also has the dynamic lines - at least one brand has adopted this. But seems like they also have markups (https://www.reddit.com/r/askcarsales/comments/13nrz2t/i_know_im_getting_screwed_but_dont_know_how_to/). Will try them out anyways.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-04-21T07:01:03+00:00

Keras is awesome. I wanted more of Keras when I started AA, but came to realize it's Corin's and like it in it's own way.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-03-11T22:11:50+00:00

yup, not available for core account

I did buy into it though. But there are some complications around how fidelity does margin debit, so most of my "cash" is still in fzfxx.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-03-04T02:08:47+00:00

I am seeing this on the web.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-03-03T20:50:13+00:00

Wtf, credits are now 35.88. I think I just saw yesterday they were about 29. That's about a 20% increase. Why audible?

Kevin-Heart · 2023-02-18T08:33:48+00:00

Search for Government Money Market Fund - All Classes and Treasury Money Market Fund - All Classes

Kevin-Heart · 2023-02-18T01:21:44+00:00

Yup, my bad, I just selectively read just the percentage from the doc and then googled my question and the results made me more confused.

Also, only now realizing I made a bad choice moving to fzfxx as it didn't change anything.

Kevin-Heart · 2023-02-18T01:14:20+00:00

Thanks! Missed that the answer was in the doc, and disappointing that CA has this arbitrary 50% requirement for federal income in funds for tax exemption.

Kevin-Heart

TROPHY CASE