1) ask; 2) receive
I guess it's nice to feel wanted. Last month I wrote a letter to the Science Fiction Book Club asking them to close my account after over a decade, since I was tired of forgetting to decline their monthly selections and paying for the return shipping. They responded by enrolling me in their “Freedom Plan.” The monthly selections will be opt-in instead of opt-out, and certain of their once-in-a-while promotions (free shipping; buy one book get one free) are now available to me every time I order. In the back of my head, I suspect that phrases such as “valued customer” and “select group of eligible customers” are backhanded compliments in the same way that high credit scores may just mean you enjoy paying interest. Even so, I will probably let the club get away with this Freedom Plan business, since it's nice to see what's new. Perhaps I'm just a sentimental fool, but I did grow up reading books from this club. At the very least, it filled the void left by those Scholastic flyers we used to get in school.
A while back I stopped paying interest to my Mastercard, and recently I decided that I should also be getting in on that cash-back deal that all those financially prudent people have with their credit cards. I switched to a card that earns frequent-flyer miles with Continental, finally taking advantage of my recent realization that I should be earning miles with the airline that has hubs in Newark (my family's airport), Cleveland (Sarah's family's airport), and Houston (the closest hub of any airline to where I live now). Probably I should have figured this all out much earlier, but better late than never.
I haven't used the old credit card in over a month. Citibank just sent me a new card with a note that my old account had been compromised. I like to imagine that they just miss me or that they're guessing I lost my card. I checked my account online several times during the changeover, and I never noticed any unauthorized charges. Maybe they just don't show the already-tagged-as-fraudulent charges at skeazy back-alley Hong Kong businesses.
A while back I stopped paying interest to my Mastercard, and recently I decided that I should also be getting in on that cash-back deal that all those financially prudent people have with their credit cards. I switched to a card that earns frequent-flyer miles with Continental, finally taking advantage of my recent realization that I should be earning miles with the airline that has hubs in Newark (my family's airport), Cleveland (Sarah's family's airport), and Houston (the closest hub of any airline to where I live now). Probably I should have figured this all out much earlier, but better late than never.
I haven't used the old credit card in over a month. Citibank just sent me a new card with a note that my old account had been compromised. I like to imagine that they just miss me or that they're guessing I lost my card. I checked my account online several times during the changeover, and I never noticed any unauthorized charges. Maybe they just don't show the already-tagged-as-fraudulent charges at skeazy back-alley Hong Kong businesses.