Sydboy's savings tips

[sydboy007]

Thought I'd share some of the money saving techniques I've found. Most will probably have a travel bent to them since I've got a chronic case of the travel bug.

My first tip is about the Telstra pre paid plans. We all know Telstra is "expensive" but they do have the best coverage, especially if you're in more remote areas.

Whether it's by design, or just bad web design, Telstra does offer some good value on their prepaid plans if you're willing to fit within their parameters.

I've used http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/telstraprepaid as the base information as it summarises things quite well.

The jargon used by Telstra

Balances, Bonuses and Plus Packs
A pre-paid account can have account balance and multiple bonuses and plus packs active with different expiry dates:

Popular Options
Whirlpool forum members tend to like to make sure they get value for money. The following are some of the options that have been discussed in the Telstra Pre-Paid thread, that may help inspire Wiki readers on what’s best for them:

• Use the Cap Encore recharge credit to tailor your mobile experience – For example do a $30 recharge on the Cap Encore offer and use the account balance to buy Mobile Foxtel for $2 a week and the MOG music service for $11.99 a month.
  
• Recharge with Long Life and then change offers to Simplicity – For example make a $70 recharge on the long life plan to get a 12 month expiry on the account balance and then switch to the Simplicity Offer and you will keep the 12 month expiry but be able to use the $70 at Simplicity rates which are 0 connection fee and 15c / minute of call time and 12c texts within Australia.
  
• Add a Plus Pack for Data to Simplicity – For example a $20 Data Plus pack each month would provide 700MB of data keeping the low call rates of Simplicity.
  
• $40 Social and Entertainment Solution – People wanting to make extensive use of the internet and social network sites as well as listen to streaming music and watch movies can recharge $40 on the Cap Encore offer and then use $20 to buy a 700MB Plus Pack, $11.99 for the MOG Premium music service and $2 a week for Mobile Foxtel – resulting in unlimited calls and SMS between 6pm and 6am, $550 CAP to use for calls and text during the day and a combined 1.3GB of data as well as unlimited music and 16 Foxtel Channels.
  
• $50 to get $950 Calls/SMS + 3.8GB Data – People needing a lot of calls and data can recharge $50 on the Cap Encore offer and then use $49 of the recharge credit to buy a 3GB plus pack, resulting in unlimited calls and SMS between 6pm and 6am, $950 CAP to use for calls and text during the day and a combined 3.8GB of data.
  
• Maintain another account via CreditMe2U – For example on a Cap Encore offer the call and data bonuses can be used and still leave all or most of the recharge credit. This can be transferred $1 to $10 at a time to a second account, which will be extended by up to 14 days from the transfer date. E.g. transferring $9 a week to a Simplicity account will keep the account active, pay for an hour or so calls each month and pay for a $20 700MB Data Plus Pack every 30 days. The same approach can be used to keep a pre-paid broadband account charged and active.
  
• Change Offers to Use Excess Credit – For example change from Cap Encore to Simplicity for a few months.

The ability to maintain 2 accounts for $30 a month should be a real value proposition for most couples, or in my case I'm going to be able to provide my dad free calls and data once he's off contract with Optus.

Another option is when travelling Telstra offer roaming data packs.

http://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/prepaid-mobiles/offers-rates/plus-packs/

$29 = 100MB
$85 = 300MB
$160 = 600MB
$350 = 1.5GB

They ain't cheap, but reasonable when compared to the hassle of buying a sim card in some countries eg Taiwan is a real pain. If you've built up a few months of $30 credit it means you can pretty much have free data while on holiday. It's available in 44 countries so chances are you'll be able to use it most of the destinations Australians like to travel to.

 

[sydboy007]

Even though I love to travel, I really do hate flying. Nothing worse that 14 hours in economy to LA, arriving with your body feeling like you've been in the UFC octagon for a few rounds.

There's a few ways to buy airline miles and use them for flights. A number of airlines have semi regular promotions of 50-100% bonus miles which is the only time this strategy makes sense.

I've been able to fly Bangkok Taipei Sydney for ~1300 one way in business class using this.

Next year I'm flying Sydney London Bangkok Seoul Bangkok Sydney in business class for ~$4000. Economy flights would have set me back around $2700 so for $1300 extra I'm getting treated like a human being and hopefully arrive at my destinations feeling like site seeing rather than wasting a day to recover.

The most rewarding program was US Airways Dividend miles. With the merge to American Airlines and them moving from Star alliance to One World I'm not sure how things will be with them.

Avianca / Taca have life miles and twice a year they have 100% promo offers. They also allow you to do points + pay when doing a booking to further extend the value of your miles. It's possible to do SYD - Europe in first for < $3000 return ie cheaper than Premium Economy.

Alaska Airlines have offers of up to 40% bonus miles. They are not part of any alliance, but do have a broad range of airlines to use points with eg QF, Delta. You can get a SYD - USA business class flight with stopover for < $2500 with taxes once again cheaper than premium economy.

American Airlines have 30-50% mile offers as well. They also tend to charge a lot less in miles for a flight compared to QF, and can be worthwhile if you are planning a trip to the USA with travel on to Europe or South America.

For those with Amex cards earning points I'd suggest signing up to Thai Airways and Malaysian Airlines reward programmes as they sometimes have 50% off mile promotions, so can work out quite good to transfer points to them and get business class flights for less than what an economy flight would usually cost you in miles. A friend of mine recently used it to fly to Europe in TG first for a bargain rate of miles.

 

[sydboy007]

Insurance policy rebates. I never realised just how much commission is built into most insurance policies. It can quite easily be 20% of the premium you pay. A lot of insurance brokers pocket this money, and if you keep signed up for a few years they pocket the trailing commissions too.

You wont escape this if you buy direct from a lot of the providers, they just get to pocket the commission savings themselves.

There's quite a few services out there that offer commission rebates.

Some of the better known ones are:

www.irefund.com.au
commissionrefunders.com.au

I used xlife.com.au for my income protection and trauma policy last year. They provided a 20% rebate and good service. Guided me through the application as well as some of the extra disclosure I had to go through.

For home insurance I've been using Coles the last couple of years. They've been generally at least $100 cheaper, and quite often $250+ cheaper than than the competition. If you've got a family and decent sized shopping with Coles then the extra Fly Buys points could be an added bonus.

 

[sydboy007]

For those looking for a easy way to build up some QFF points Bankwest has just released an interesting savings product.

http://www.bankwest.com.au/personal...em1155&gclid=CMKLy-HW070CFUchpQodXVkA9Q&pdv=c

You can earn 12 QFF points each month for every $100 you have in the account - 0.4 points / $100 / day

So if you put $50K into the account you could have enough points for a Business class flight to Asia one way in 10 months - needing around $330 in taxes on top of the points, or nearly enough for a return premium economy flight in around 12-13 months + taxes.

Considering a return business class flight to Bangkok or Singapore will set you back anywhere from $3500+ it's not too bad a tax free return on your money.

There's a 10K points bonus if you apply by May 31st and credit $2K / month for 3 months.

 

[Joe Blow]

Some great tips here sydboy. Thanks for sharing!

 

[sydboy007]

I find holiday accommodation to be the largest expense for when I'm travelling.

I've been able to save quite a few $$ over the years by using a combination of:

Orbitz - sign up with them and they often have 20% off coupons

ratestogo - they also have various promos up to 20%

Hotwire - secret hotel deals where you know the general area and facilities but not the exact hotel till you complete the booking - note no changes or cancellations so make sure you have insurance.

Airbnb - people rent you from literally a couch to a private island or castle, and everything in between. Great for renting an apartment and can work out great value. I've used it to book apartments in bangkok for $30 a night next to the sky train, or $80 in West Hollywood to a 3 BR apartment in Seoul for a group of friends heading there with me.

 

[sydboy007]

I wont actually post the specifics of this travel deal, but feel free to PM me if you want the ins and outs of how it works.

Basically it's possible to fly on Malaysian Airlines from Australia to Europe (AMS / LHR / CDG / FRA) for around $2100-2200 return in business class and possibly less if you're in the top marginal tax rate. You also have the opportunity to do what they call an open JAW in the industry ie fly to Amsterdam and come back from Paris, with the option of not returning to the same city in Australia so you could do Sydney Amsterdam then Paris Melbourne.

You'll need to set up a Malaysian Airlines Enrich account, and will also need to have an American Express card that's earning Membership rewards.

Note that to get the cheapest pricing unfortunately no stopover is allowed in Kuala Lumpur.

 

[sydboy007]

Life miles, the frequent flyer program of Avianca/Taca, have made some changes to their rewards tables,

Generally they have not been good for long haul travel, but have been rather kind to Australians wishing to travel to Asia, especially North Asia.

It's now possible to do return journeys to Asia in Business class for around the $1600 return. Since LM allow one way awards it can moving around in Asia far easier with no need to back track to you original destination.

Even better is the option to fly in First class to Thailand or Japan for around $1850 return.

I was able to get LA to Seoul in First then onto Syd in Business class for just $2600 one way. If I'd been willing to do the first leg just in business class the cost would have dropped to $1750. The re-jig of the award chart also means the cost of breaking up the trip into 2 segments in business class is no different to going with just a brief stop over. A few days in Seoul for the food and shopping is well worth it