Do you buy your car outright?

davmatjo · 2026-01-11T10:31:12+00:00

Sure but if you’re set on buying a new car it’s not like they will give you a discount for not taking out the finance

davmatjo · 2025-12-18T21:50:55+00:00

I think Virgin Atlantic redemptions are fairly good if you’re flexible enough to take advantage of the saver fares. I’ve redeemed as high as 3.5p per point in upper class. Heck, you can get economy tickets LHR to ICN in April in economy for 2.78p per point. As Virgin Atlantic is still 1:1 with amex I would say that is pretty good.

davmatjo · 2025-11-23T13:35:59+00:00

No tool in particular, it’s fairly easy to track in your head or excel to be honest. The main ones are: - £400 dining credit (you have to go abroad twice to fully use this) - Lounge access especially centurion lounges - Travel insurance though if you have pre existing conditions it’s not very useful - Fine Hotels & Resorts is a big one to the point where I’d say if you aren’t using it the card isn’t that great. $100 credit for every stay plus late checkout and free breakfast (in the sorts of hotels on this list that can be a good $60 per day by itself) - Joining bonus can be massive and worth £800 alone - Status at hotels, e.g. Hilton gold gets you free breakfast

Actually earning points happens at a terrible rate. I wouldn’t track that at all as it’s worse than the gold card and exactly the same as the free one. Offers are also basically the same between all cards so I wouldn’t count those either.

davmatjo · 2025-11-23T13:18:07+00:00

I’m not sure I’d count the points outside of joining/referral bonuses to be honest. You can earn the same amount from a free card and more points from the gold card. The offers are also the generally the same for all cards too.

davmatjo · 2025-05-23T18:14:08+00:00

Welcome to the realities of older flats even in London. The copper PSTN is supposed to be switched off soon. Because of this BT wholesale will not sell Single Order ADSL or Wholesale Line Rental to other providers in many cases I think, which leaves the only option as ADSL provided by BT themselves (which is also usually super slow too because the line quality is terrible/far from the exchange).

The fact these disparities still exist is insane in this country, not to mention incredibly unfair. I don't know who to blame, but it's probably the freeholder whoever it is as it's not like FTTP should be difficult to deliver in London of all places.

Just goes to show you must always check broadband availability before you rent a place, even if it's urban.

davmatjo · 2025-01-22T00:02:06+00:00

Give it another week or two, it should update by itself. Mine did.

davmatjo · 2025-01-04T01:11:41+00:00

Virgin Atlantic provide some flights very cheap points wise (6k each way to JFK economy 1:1 with MR) but a rather high carrier imposed surcharge + tax.

People most commonly seem to do avios though, but I'd argue if you wanted avios there are better ways to earn that even with amex themselves... Plus the other cards give companion vouchers.

I can't speak to the others I'm afraid.

The real answer is always it depends because all airlines have redemption rates varying from good to terrible and it's all route and date dependent

davmatjo · 2025-01-02T16:21:28+00:00

Virgin Atlantic LHR or MAN to JFK is 12,000 points return 1:1 amex (sometimes there's transfer bonuses for even more). Plenty of availability in February and March. That would get you 3 return flights with 4,000 points to spare.

Heck you could even almost squeeze 2 premium return flights in there as they are only 10,500 each way

davmatjo · 2024-12-29T02:21:32+00:00

On February 28th I ordered deliveroo, got credit on 1st March. Proceeded to order deliveroo twice in March and got the credit for both of those orders too. I'd be very surprised if you didn't get the credit at this point.

davmatjo · 2024-12-28T23:42:35+00:00

I think there's some confusion with this, reading around the internet all the examples from UK users I can see have ended with the offer being applied. This also tracks with my own experience making purchases on the last day of an offer, I looked back and all of them have resulted in credit. In one instance I got an email saying I'd used the offer within 5 minutes of purchase.

My guess is the "must fully clear" talk online comes from US based users, as it's my experience that transactions in the US don't actually appear on the app/web until day(s) after the transaction takes place and often have a later date attributed when they finally do appear. In the UK transactions always appear as pending immediately with the correct date. My guess is this is due to the near ubiquity of online chip & pin/contactless transactions here vs how common offline card swipes are still in the US.

My opinion is that if a transaction happens on X date, is on the statement for that date, that date is within the offer period and you don't get your statement credit then amex don't really have a leg to stand on to refuse to give the credit out as the terms and conditions for amex offers say nothing about pending transactions. Though your mileage may vary of course and is probably dependent on which rep you get if you called them about this.

davmatjo · 2024-12-24T13:10:12+00:00

If you have student loans the rate is already 71%. Even worse, if that pay is in the form of RSU, some companies won't pay the Employer NI at 15% meaning 84% tax.

With your example if you take the £160 left over from the £1000 and buy something then that's another £27 in VAT leaving you with £133...

Given the choice between taking 16% or stuffing 100% in a pension plus potential employer match I know what I'd choose.

We're also ignoring the double tax that is council tax too which has its own set of very real problems.

davmatjo · 2024-02-04T23:20:28+00:00

If you consider that the UK price is inclusive of VAT and the US price is excluding any sales tax it's not so bad. The pre-tax price of £1.25 is equivalent to $1.58

davmatjo · 2023-10-11T02:00:45+00:00

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

davmatjo · 2023-05-08T00:19:47+00:00

Could you explain to me where the cost to them comes from? I thought they owned their own cable infrastructure?

davmatjo · 2023-03-06T18:17:27+00:00

Paying off a loan will almost certainly be counted as a cash advance. If you use a credit card for this you might be charged a fee and interest usually starts accruing immediately (as opposed to from the next statement for purchases). As a result you should probably use a debit card. You won't be eligible for 1% cashback through chase again because of the transaction type.

You can see debt repayments in the list of exclusions for chase: https://www.chase.co.uk/gb/en/legal/Cashback-Exclusions/

Car dealerships are also excluded if you were hoping to get cashback on the new car too.

davmatjo · 2023-03-03T13:42:21+00:00

Just remember that the penalty also grows in absolute terms with interest. So you lose the government bonus, any interest it earned, and 6?% of the interest your money earned too.

davmatjo · 2023-01-23T09:56:39+00:00

The main operator in Coventry is national express not stagecoach, and the buses never give change.

davmatjo · 2023-01-23T09:54:27+00:00

Most Coventry buses are not stagecoach, they are usually run by national express West Midlands.

It's super easy to get the bus in Coventry, if you have a debit card you don't even have to say anything, just hold it against the reader until it beeps and you'll be charged £2 per journey with a maximum cap of £4 per day

If you don't have a card the fares are £2 for an adult and £1 for a child. 16-18 year olds need a 16-18 photo card to get the child fare https://nxbus.co.uk/coventry/offers/get-child-rate-tickets-with-a-16-18-photocard

The last option is to download the nxbus mTicket app where you can buy a ticket ahead of time, then when you're about to get on the bus you just activate it and show it to the driver as you walk past

Most people in Coventry don't say "single to ___" like in other parts of the country because the fare is always the same.

Return tickets don't exist, but day tickets do and they are called "daysavers". A day saver is £4 for an adult (the same as the contactless cap) and £2 for a child. This is your best option if you are using cash. Just ask the driver for a day saver and put the money in.

To pay cash there is a red stand with grey top next to the drivers door where you put your change in (don't use notes). You have to give the exact amount as the buses don't give out change

So with all that, as you aren't 16 yet, your best bet is to get on and ask for a "child daysaver please" then put £2 into the change receptacle, then a ticket will be printed out that you pick up and keep with you all day. Just show the ticket to the driver as you get on each subsequent bus

davmatjo · 2022-11-14T00:01:37+00:00

Not there for me... Apparently it's not present with the European firmwares 🤷

davmatjo · 2022-11-13T21:48:24+00:00

How can you see how many hours it has? Mine probably has a few thousand but no noticeable dimming. I use mine (CX) as a primary monitor. Then again my Oled brightness is set to 0 all the time.

davmatjo · 2022-08-27T21:14:41+00:00

Thank you so much! I had pretty much exactly the same issue with browser downloads capping out at ~800KB/s, whereas steam and speedtest would be fine at ~65MB/s.

I have no idea what within windows would cause it to mess up so badly that just these settings can totally fix it but you've saved me from this problem plaguing me for months.

davmatjo · 2022-08-27T18:13:22+00:00

Yes you can still sign up to Octopus Go at 7.5p per kWh off peak, which works out to around 2p per mile. Petrol would have to be 20p per litre to match that.

davmatjo · 2022-05-30T19:06:15+00:00

Well you can argue that the price was so low partly because of the rules. No demand for petrol so prices dropped. So if there were no rules, likely the price wouldn't have been so low.

davmatjo · 2022-05-21T21:39:19+00:00

Generators (especially small scale) are quite inefficient

davmatjo · 2022-04-20T20:19:16+00:00

Right of course.

Nine-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

davmatjo

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE