Airline Credit Cards: Is there really any point?

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Having traveled thousands of miles on flights between Asia and Europe, I was stupid not to realize the virtue of air miles. Over the years, I have foregone so many thousands of miles, it’s enough to make me cry all over my credit card statements! Such frequent flyer programs provide regular and long distance flyers with ample bonuses.

Even better, nowadays flyers can get airmiles credit cards like, for example, the Discover card that offers a number of benefits:

  • No Annual Fee
  • Earn 12,000 Bonus Miles
  • 0% APR on Balance Transfers and Purchases for up to 12 Months
  • Earn 1 Mile for Each Dollar You Spend
  • Air Travel Rewards have No Blackout Dates
  • Flexible Rewards to Fit Your Plans

In other words, you get bonus miles, plus 1 mile per dollar. You can get Travel Rewards without worrying about so-called Blackout Dates (ie. you don’t have to avoid flying on certain dates when you are using your miles). However this card allows you to purchase tickets on most airlines AND use your airmiles. Now that’s quite neat.

Naturally, there are a wealth of other cards available for the ambitious investorblogger-on-the-go. So, before you sign the application form, you need to consider your pattern of use carefully. And, since they are credit cards, you need to be aware of the FULL costs of using a particular credit card, including fees (annual, penalties, transfers, etc..), interest rates (you don’t want to be paying 30% pa interest!), and the billing cycle period. You DO want to read the small print!

This is a sponsored post by CreditCardAssist.

Getting Started Blogging: Inspiration Hits You!

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When the day arrives that you realise that you need your own blog, it can come like a bolt from the blue! “I need a blog!” you cry but how do you get started blogging? Well, this article will look at three free options that you can explore to get you started blogging.

1. Blogger is a great way to get started. Blogger 2.0 is just out of the
2. Wordpress.com
3. Yahoo! 360

There are many other blogging tools, as well…
myspace.com, typepad.com, xanga.com, blogspot.com, livejournal.com

I do have experience of the first three tools, esp. Blogger is perhaps the easiest to get started if you already have a Google Account. Just login to Blogger, and create your blog in 3 simple steps. There is even a way to create a blog NOT on Blogger, but on your own space. I’m going to try this myself, just to see how it works.
I didn’t much care for Yahoo! 360 yet. It’s too much social network style website with blogging features added, so it has privacy features, ‘friends’ tabs, interacts with Messenger and Groups, etc.. So, for blogging purposes, it’s way overkill. However, it might make a good website to draw traffic to your real blog, because of its social nature.
My favorite, is Wordpress.com. Again, I have a demo site there that can highlight some of the features, you would want to try. You can find it here, though there’s not much there. Wordpress is probably the most advanced of the free blogs because it is a highly tweaked version of Wordpress 2.1, with a lot of additional features aimed at blog builders.

I think it probably has the most potential for the beginner, and its easy interface may make this the most attractive of the three options outlined here.

Blogging makes good dosh, but dosh doesn’t make good blogs!

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As I outlined here about Payperpost, it is possible to make quite a bit of money doing Payperpost. But as the title suggests, Payperpost needs to be carefully balanced with excellent content, to make the blog attractive to readers. I have made about $492 so far because I have been paid to blog. It has a lot of benefits for bloggers and their readers, too.

Naturally, I have accumulated the money. I didn’t want to spend it on frivolous things. I originally published a journal in paper that cost me about $750 to print. I have been less than successful in selling the printed copies, either in bookshops, or online. In addition, my approaches to agents/distributors hasn’t produced much in the way of anything other mild interest. So I was out about $750.

In addition, the journal faced a funding crisis because its primary sponsor faced a cash shortfall of its own, meaning no further money was available to print issue #2. So suddenly I needed to find a way to make money to cover the costs of the first issue, plus provide a little more cash to cover out of pocket expenses for the second issue.

I’ve been able to raise most of the money from a variety of sources, too. So I’m well covered now, but then my own job faced a slowdown in salary that has affected both my wife and family. I’m now finding that that income produced online is now supplementing my salary.

I must say, I’m enjoying the freedom that having a blog produces, and I’m enjoying the fruits of working for Payperpost. I do realize, though, that while earning money encourages me to blog far more than I used to, I wouldn’t blog if it were ONLY for the money.

Writing is something very personal for me, and this blog, and my other blogs are expressions of my own personal interests. As such, I hope that it is my writing, my ideas and my enthusiasm that readers come back for, again and again.