Less Suck, More Awesome

As promised, the most fun AT&T rewards adventure deserves its own story.  For other fun experiences leading up to this, see the earlier post. The mystery of the expiration date One of the cards had the expiration date of 12/2022.  Fast-forward to the end of the year - Christmas, New Years, the whole thing.  Admittedly, I was somewhat negligent in letting a balance linger on the card up to the very end.  But then on Dec 31st I remembered that I had some money burning my pocket.  Still time left, right?  This is where things got interesting.  I tried multiple different sites - Paypal, Amazon, Walmart - and in each case I was summarily rejected, informed that the expiration date was no good.  For a moment there, my semi-intoxicated New Year's Eve mind briefly wondered whether I was a victim of computer servers which were 3 hours ahead, and therefore thought we'd entered 2023.  But then I remembered: I was on the East Coast, and most servers ...

Who doesn't like a discount?   All things being equal, nobody in their right mind will say "no" to paying less.  True, some discounts require more work than others - like the ATT fiber broadband (FIOS) cashback that comes in the form of a debit VISA card.  Fiber is the most expensive residential broadband choice, but is worth it if you want any chance of being able to watch Netflix while both of your kids are streaming Youtube and Twitch. So, when the time came to sign up for fiber, between Xfinity and ATT I picked ATT because I fell for its tempting cashback offer.  I figured the process would be quick and straightforward, and the math checked out.  Done and done. Less suck, Chapter 1 The fun started soon after.  The first hiccup was when one of the three cashback rewards didn't automatically register - I received email notifications only for two.  That's when I learned that there exists a whole AT&T Reward Center created solely to support c...