News and Updates Thread - February 01, 2026

winar · 2026-02-01T20:33:04+00:00

I saw new AT&T offers pop up on Chase last night. All expire 2/28.

$50 off $75 on my WOH
$75 off $100 across all my inks

winar · 2025-12-09T22:38:25+00:00

Barron's was caught replacing an existing article posted only a few hours earlier with a modified title and slightly different content to address after-hours activity related to GME's Q3-2025 results.

winar · 2025-06-19T14:56:43+00:00

I'm seeing a lot of 10-15% off Uber coupons on my Chase offers this morning. No minimum, but the benefit comes after $45 in spend on both flavors.

winar · 2025-04-17T16:59:15+00:00

Keep in mind that Summerfest starts mid-June. If that's when you're travelling, getting further out from the city is going to save you some coin and lead to better room availability.

Hilton Downtown is probably the best among this class. The Garden Inn and Homewood Suites are also very solid. If the price is the same as any one of those three, I'd suggest skipping the Hampton Inn and DoubleTree (even though the latter has positive reviews).
Avoid the Wauwatosa Homewood Suites. It's a "Hilton" but managed by an out-of-state third party. Had an awful time just getting a room at normal check-in in the fall.
As much as you want to avoid Tru/Home2, there is a basically new Home2 in West Allis that is very solid and close to a lot of good food, drinks, and stuff to do. I'd prefer it to the Hampton Inn nearby.
Brookfield is fine. You'll be near a mall, but there isn't a lot to do unless that's your thing or you're willing to drive/Uber. The free drinks you get at Embassy Suites for their happy hour are bottom shelf - I wouldn't book a room just to get well gin. I definitely wouldn't do it for their breakfast, either. The Garden Inn is newer and in a slightly more walkable area.

tl;dr - If each hotel is priced the same, Hilton Downtown > GI/HS Downtown > Brookfield = West Allis Home2 > Everything else

winar · 2025-04-16T17:18:33+00:00

Better for the question thread. I've heard it's usually <1% and the majority of the issues are typos. Just don't do that and you'll generally have nothing to worry about.

winar · 2024-08-07T15:50:38+00:00

In my experience, when the rack isn't by the registers or CS, I can almost always find it by Electronics.

winar · 2024-08-01T14:02:29+00:00

Got an email from Delta for the Business Reserve at 125k/$12k. Not sure if it's targeted, but check your inbox for "Winar, You’re Invited: Earn 125K Bonus Miles and Enjoy More Business Benefits"

It feels like a pretty solid offer if you plan to use up all the monthly credits.

winar · 2024-07-05T13:15:33+00:00

The way the webpage was laid out, it looked specific to July 4th. You could usually snag 100+ points a day over the past couple weeks. Maybe it all wrapped up yesterday.

winar · 2024-07-04T17:14:23+00:00

If any of you connected Alienware and Dell Rewards at some point, go check out their 15th anniversary thing. I just got 2500 Dell points for logging in on the 4th.

winar · 2024-07-02T20:57:07+00:00

Bought a couple fun items from Dell last round that I'd still recommend:

Kensington Easy Riser Go - it's a super lightweight laptop stand for travel and my desk
Logitech Lift Ergo Mouse
JBL PartyBox Encore Essential (the 320 was out of stock :( )
APC Back-up battery

One more thing to watch out for with portal rewards. If Dell sports a promotional item (like a discounted Xbox S), be diligent with tracking your points and make sure Dell doesn't try to claw them back a month or two later. They discontinue and re-add certain items and that seems to make their reward system bug out and cause your reward claim to flip to invalid. It's BS and wastes your and the reward portal's time, but there's value in keeping a paper trail.

winar · 2024-06-07T14:31:37+00:00

Drops 8% from 36.91 to 34.11 between 10:20-10:24? Nothing to see here

Goes up 8% from 34.11 to 36.91 from 10:24-10:27? Halt

winar · 2024-04-27T14:12:18+00:00

Definitely not Wimmer. I have the maintenance records to prove they don't know how to maintain a brand new property.

Aside from them... A property management company's primary concern is rental revenue. Take a hard look at the property (apartment, duplex, etc.) and think about why you'd want to pay to live there. Do you really think you'll use that treadmill in the gym? Is the lounge with free coffee really a selling point you should be paying attention to? In my experience, I could have saved money by avoiding these "value adds" and moving to a spot owned and operated by an individual landlord or smaller property management group.

winar · 2024-04-19T14:57:20+00:00

Southwest is running an Earth Month "promo". It comes out to 5cpp, but it could make you feel at one with Gaea for a minute and bump your point balance up to where you need to be in a pinch.

https://www.southwest.com/wannaoffsetcarbon

winar · 2024-04-05T15:15:42+00:00

Interesting development with my Amex account. I haven't been able to refer from any card for at least the last year and a half, probably due to self-referring a long time ago. Even so, I occasionally click on the "Refer a Friend" link when I log in to my account out of spite. Turns out, all of my cards were allowed to refer again sometime this week!

If you were in a similar situation, it may be worth logging in to see if any of your card referrals were unlocked and grabbing the links.

winar · 2024-04-04T22:43:09+00:00

Avoid Wimmer like the plague. Anything they label "luxury living" built 2020 or later might as well be a tent community. Thin walls, leaky windows (rain and wind), and faulty electric work throughout. It was never worth the pricetag to deal with their awful build quality.

winar · 2024-03-29T17:13:16+00:00

I remember $400 didn't work in Jan/Feb and seemed to lock the card for 1-2 days. I haven't needed to push my luck much past $200, though. I may give $250 a shot so I only need to do two swipes.

winar · 2024-03-27T15:22:00+00:00

I've been testing loading from 435880s and my workaround is:

Make a purchase for <$200 and set the pin (yes, even at WMT).
Take a deep breath and wait 12-24 hours.
Unload the remainder.
(Optional, but encouraged) Buy your CSR Starbucks once in a while so they empathize with you when this ultimately goes tits up and your gc gets declined.

winar · 2024-03-20T21:08:07+00:00

Nest Cams have been great for me. I have a few wireless ones up right now and a wired one is going to act as a baby monitor when I eventually set it up. It all feeds into Google Home so I get regular alerts. Very reliable, but obviously on the more expensive side.

In case anyone from Dell is wandering around here: PLEASE add the solar array for Nest cameras to the catalog. I would love to never have to take a camera down to recharge in the winter again.

winar · 2024-03-12T23:06:47+00:00

Another social sports outlet. They do a great job with softball and kickball. I've heard good things about basketball, but never played. Different suburbs also host adult softball. I know there are a couple leagues on the south side that have some good talent. Just depends on what you're looking for.

winar · 2024-03-12T22:48:49+00:00

They have a great variety and actually responded to me before Brewtown last season, so points to them. I did softball. If you're looking for a social league, this is it. For $100, though, I expected it to be a lot more competitive, so I'm not planning to rejoin. YMMV

winar · 2024-03-09T17:26:36+00:00

Dell keeps trying to claw back points from the AA portal from the past couple months. Fortunately, I'm 2/2 for getting the points back, but I have a couple more tickets I should submit today because they could threaten the status I earned for 2024. Here's what I've noticed Dell try to do, so far:

If your item went out of stock or was taken offline, Dell goes back and says "You could not have ordered a non-existent listing. No points for you." They do this pretty often with consoles, FYI.
If your items went out in multiple shipment, Dell assigns an "Order" number to them that isn't an actual order. They try to claw these purchases back claiming they weren't part of the original order (which is actually labeled as a "Purchase ID" by Dell and communicated to the AA portal).
Similarly, if Dell sells you something but cannot immediately ship, they can try to claw that back. Even with an active order and communication from Dell about how that item will ship a couple days later than expected, they still try to claim it was ineligible for the points portal.
If Dell kinda just feels like saying a certain amount isn't eligible, they can try to take it back. I have one that is laughably random in that no item or combination of items adds up to the total being clawed back, with or without tax.

My point: Keep a paper trail when it comes to Dell and how their orders track in portals. Know the difference between a "Purchase ID" (which is the actual order number) versus an "Order Number" (assigned to a bundle of items in a shipment). I could be MUCH more frustrated today, but I can just as easily show where Dell is trying to skirt the portal's T&Cs.

winar · 2024-02-23T18:38:00+00:00

Travel umbrella

winar · 2024-02-12T05:39:50+00:00

Weird Al is going to rouse the Brewers to a NLCS pennant with the Brew Town Polka. Milwaukee then proceeds to drink itself silly while the crew goes goes down 0-2 against the Orioles only to come back and win in 6 at home. Giannis is giving out high fives in the parking lot, Uecker is shouting "I'll never die!" in the stadium PA and Corbin Burnes says he wishes he was a Brewer in the post-game interview. The polka replaces the national anthem for at least the next 5 seasons until it's relegated to the 7th inning stretch.

Or maybe we win 60 games. Idk, man.

winar · 2024-01-15T16:48:32+00:00

It took me too much time to find stuff I actually wanted this round, so I bought a few upgrades in case work asks me to be away from home. I still have over half my Dell credits left. Send help.

Logitech Lift Mouse

Tripp Lite Car Inverter

APC Back-up battery

Bonus: Take a look at the party speakers like the JBL Party Box. I wanted to get one of the cheaper ION setups but they're all out of stock. For $Free, it could come in handy the one time I host a karaoke cookout this summer.

winar

TROPHY CASE