Many of the American Express cards, including the Platinum, Gold, and SPG cards [these are referral links], offer the Buyer’s Assurance program. This program will double the original terms of your manufacturer warranty, up to an additional year, if the full purchase price of the item was charged to your American Express card that has coverage.
With my award booking service, I get to deal with Aeroplan a lot. And when I mean a lot, I mean, I make hundreds of calls a month to Aeroplan. Most of their agents are competent (their supervisors, surprisingly, less so). However, sometimes you get an absolute delight, who is wildly special. I mean absolutely, terrifyingly, wildly, special. For this story, let’s call her Olga (a pseudonym).
Lately, I’ve been very involved in the US credit card market. Why? Simply put, US credit cards offer better sign-up bonuses, and generally greater returns. However, as a Canadian, it’s substantially harder to get US credit cards, as I don’t have a Social Security Number (SSN). Although an SSN is outside the reach of most people, an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) is not. With an ITIN, you can build a US credit report, and easily apply to many, but not all, US credit cards. This article will explore my experience so far.
Under the Privacy Act, if the government holds personal information on you, you have the right to receive that information (with some security exclusions) free of charge. This information includes those records held by the Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA). I recently requested records held by the CBSA. It’s a simple and free process, and the results can be absolutely fascinating!
The American Express Global Transfer program allows you to use the relationship history that you've built with AMEX in a foreign country as a basis to apply for a card in a new country, where you presumably have little to no prior credit history. I recently went through this process, applying for an AMEX card in the United States using my Canadian AMEX history as a basis for the application.
Travelisfree wrote an article a week or so ago regarding Trampolinn, a French-based home sharing network, similar to AirBnB. Unlike AirBnB, the active currency is points rather than money. You can easily earn points just by signing up, and could buy a set of 3500 points for as low as $99 euros (for reference, you could get a nice apartment in an ideal city location for around 400 points). It looked like an incredible opportunity for us travel hackers. I tried it out, and my experience shows that it sucks.
