Air Miles and Aeroplan points. The two biggest travel rewards programs. There is always the decision on which one to go with.

This will provide a bit of an analysis on them and which one I think is better. Personally, I think you should sign up for both, since the programs are free. There are credit cards that allow you to collect more miles and that is what I am going to focus on. For the record, I am going to assume points were obtained from a credit card alone and that the individual put $10,000 on their credit card in one year. I will also assume they are using their rewards for travel.

Basically, both programs are good. They are free to sign up and free to collect for most situations. Using the credit cards and paying fees change things though. Air Miles is the only one with a "no fee" credit card (Bank of Montreal's Mosaik Mastercard and the American Express Air Miles card) and whether paying the fees is worth it to you or not, you need to read my other articles to figure that out.

The basic air miles Mosaik Mastcard is free, but the American Express is free as well and pays out more AirMiles so that is a no brainer if you want it. I figure you need to put at least $3600/year on the basic CIBC AeroClassic Visa card (the Aeroplan credit card) to make it worth your while there. For most people, that isn't a problem.

I wrote three articles that show how much an air mile is worth, how much an aeroplan point is worth, and a review of a cash back card. They are in these articles...

• Collecting Air Miles and Their Value
• Collecting Aeroplan Points and Their Value
• Scotia Bank No Fee Money Back Visa Card Review
• TD Travel Visas

In my other articles, I value an Air Mile at 23 cents/mile for flights and I value an Aeroplan point at 1.6 cents/mile for flights. You can read them to see how I figure that out (links above). Using the $10,000/year situation, it would be in my best interest to pay the fee for the best credit cards. That would be the $120/year CIBC AeroGold Visa and the $80/year BMO Gold Mosaik Mastercard.

The Visa card would give me 15,000 aeroplan miles. These are valued at 15,000 times 1.6 cents or $240. Since I had to pay $120 for the yearly fee I would get $120 back from my spending.

The Mastercard would give me 666 Air Miles. These are valued at 666 times 23 cents or $153.18. Since I had to pay $80 for the yearly fee I would get $73.18 back from my spending.

I'm getting better value out of my Aeroplan Visa card? Yes, in this situation you are. I used the "travel rewards" scenario where an Air Mile is worth around 23 cents.

However, Air Miles has a variety of rewards and entertainment rewards are worth up to 45 cents/mile. You can only get these with an Air Miles card (this isn't totally true, but there are so many more rewards with Air Miles you can't really compare them). In that scenario the Air Miles card actually would give you $220 back from your spending (after deducting the $80 fee).

Here is a brief look at the pros and cons of these credit card programs and the reward systems in general.

Aeroplan Points Pros and Cons

Pros: This is a better "travel" rewards program.

• Collecting Aeroplan points with a credit card for the purpose of travel will give you better return on your credit card purchases.
• You can collect them at a variety of stores.
• Aeroplan has a good website for booking travel online
• More international destinations available.

• There isn't a "no fee" credit card option.
• There aren't as many rewards options.
• Aeroplan points have an expiry on them (its several years though).
• You can't use them for WestJet flights (airline in Canada).

Air Miles Pros and Cons

Pros: This is better for rewards flexibility and better returns for the entertainment options.

• There is a "no fee" credit card option. If you don't put a lot on credit cards, then this card is for you.
• There are a lot more rewards possibilities.
• Entertainment rewards make the return on credit card purchases worth more than the return on Aeroplan credit card purchases.
• You can collect them at a variety of stores.
• They don't expire.
• They are good for travel with Air Canada and WestJet.
• Excellent automated phone system for booking non-travel rewards.

• If used strictly for travel rewards (flights), the return value from the credit card isn't as good as Aeroplan.
• The Air Miles website is terrible and there is no ability to book flights online, only other rewards.
• Fewer international destinations than Aeroplan.

Update June 15, 2007: A reader commented that you can Collect Airmiles by just flying, which I said you could not. If you use your card in conjunction with booking you can receive more Airmiles.

Summary

My summary would be that you should sign up for both programs. You should always carry a blue Air Miles card and the orange Aeroplan card. Choosing a credit card depends on your rewards preferences and how much you expect to spend on your card. If you rarely use a card and don't want the fee then just get the basic American Express Air Miles Card.

If you do spend more and will use the miles for traveling, then go with CIBC's Aeroplan Visa cards. Read my article on Aeroplan to determine whether a credit card upgrade is worth it or not.

If you would like other types of rewards (like entertainment) or just more variety in your rewards, then go with Air Miles. Read my article on Air Miles to determine wheter a credit card upgarde is worth it or not.

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Well, I finally did it. I have hit the $100 it takes for Google to actually send you a cheque. I accumulated it just today.

Now will be the interesting part to see how soon it gets here. According to their website, the month after the billing cutoff they will see your account balance get over $100 and then they will cut you a cheque sometime after that. You are not supposed to call in if you have not received your cheque for almost the month after the billing cutoff. So, my expectations will be that I will receive it in a couple months.

This is $100 U.S. too (not that it will be much more in Canadian anyways with the recent currency changes). Now I just need to work on speeding up the frequency of my payments.

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This is one of my favourite restaurants here in Calgary. Why? Well it is close to my work, resonably priced, the food is great, and it has a nice atmosphere.

It is located on the other side of 61st Ave from the Chinook C-Train station in the strip mall. They don't take reservations, unfortunately, and it is quite popular so you can end up waiting for awhile if you don't show up at a good time.

Parking can be full in the little strip mall parking lot too, but if you look west across the street, there is a huge lot there is never full. Just park there and walk over.

Not much else to say. If you are in Calgary and by Chinook mall. Got to Bagolac's for lunch or dinner. Vermicelli with Pork and Spring Rolls is my favourite. They can also pick up your take out if you call ahead.

They have a few televisions mounted in the corners that play Sportsnet or TSN if you don't want to miss any replays from the game too.

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I purchased a Gorillapod SLR Zoom the other day. It is a pretty neat little device. Basically it is a small tripod that has legs made up of pods that allow it to be bent and molded to hold onto objects to support your camera.

I had been looking for awhile, but they didn't have a model that was strong enough in my opinion. The original Gorillapod was geared more towards compact digital cameras and the Gorillpod SLR has a maximum weight rating of 1.75 pounds. This is not enough to hold an SLR with a heavier zoom lens. The SLR-Zoom version is rated at 6 pounds. Quite a huge difference really.

I included a product photo from the Joby website for the Gorillapod. Notice that each of the pods has a ring of rubber around it and the end pods have a the bottom half covered in a rubber. This is to help grasp objects and providing some holding friction.

Check out the Gorillpod SLR Zoom product page.

Why Did I Buy It?

I am a minimalist when it comes to traveling and tripods just could not come small enough. My other argument is that if it works out well, I might end up getting a normal tripod in the future anyways. I will almost always have the Gorillapod on-hand because of its size, but the tripod will be occasional.

How It Works

Pretty good, but I have only had it for a week. In the store, I loaded it up with my same camera and heaviest lens. We had it hanging off some narrow display racks and it held the weight pretty good. You have to think a little different when setting it up though. I think it will take practice and some creativity to learn all the possible applications for it.

I did a search for Gorillpod on Flickr that turned up some examples of people using it in action. One application I did not even think of was for setting up a flash.

Concerns

I don't know how long the stiffness in the pod joints will last. It has great holding power now, but after a couple trips, a lot of bending, and a bit of grit getting in there, who knows.

The height of it sucks. A tripod will give you eye level height regardless of the situation (unless you are on water or a weird surface). The Gorillapod can only give you a foot or the height of whatever object you are using.

What Did I Pay

I paid $60 Canadian plus taxes. Literally a week and a half later, I saw it in Black's Photography at Chinook Mall in Calgary for $50. So if you are looking for one as of this posting (June 20, 2007), go check it out for one.

The Joby website lists it at $54.95 US with free ground shipping (US only??).

eBay had a few on there, but surprisingly few and not for cheaper than the store once I factored in shipping. This will probably change as the product ages a bit though.

What Accessories Are There

You probably don't want many, but I am considering a compact ball head with a quick release. This will let me attach my camera quickly and quickly adjust the angle of the shot. Plus I can use the ball head on a real tripod whenever I purchase one.

Conclusion

I know it seems like the cheap way out (though it isn't that cheap), but I think I will use this a lot more and take it with me a lot more as well. I will post some updates on it after my trip this summer.

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In case you have not been reading my blog that long, I will be on holidays for most of July and a bit of August. My wife and I are traveling from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing, China via the Trans Siberian railway.

While I am away I was contemplating a few different options for postings. Have a guest writer, don't write at all, or do advance postings. I eventually decided on the latter. I have prewritten a number of articles that are all travel related. Specific accounts of areas or regions I have gone to and how it went. They will include info like where I stayed, what I saw, how to get there, and other interesting tidbits.

That is the beauty of advance posting, I will set a date in the future and will continue to post for all business days in July and August. The RSS feed will be updated properly as well, so you can just use that if you want.

We are quite looking forward to our trip. A lot of the main pieces are done (just waiting for the Russian visa to come back now). I have written a few articles about it or very closely related if you want to check them out.

• Our Trip For 2007 Is Booked
• My Russian Tour Was Cancelled
  
• Checklist For Traveling - The Ultimate Guide
  
• Finding the Cheapest Flights Online
• FlightCentre is Awesome for Their Price Matching
  
• Getting a Chinese Travel Visa in Canada
  
• Travel Accident Insurance and More - A Guide
• Cheap Travel Insurance From CAncellation to Baggage to Medical

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I have had it with the spam on this site. This site, up until today, was free from any thought to post to. All you needed to do was fill in the comment form at the bottom of each posting and hit submit. I would receive an email and the comment would sit in limbo until I logged in an approved it. I am getting around 50 spam comments a day however.

Starting now, I have added an image verification. Very, very basic I will let you know. It is actually only one image, so the same password will work on every posting. This is the beginning of my experiment to reduce spam on this site, so this will be step one. I will let you know how much spam I get after this.

This is the image I will be using.

So all you will need to think about is writing the contents of hte image into the text box beside it. Not one of those complex ones that are supposed to fool optical character recognition software. I will move to that for phase 2 of my spam reduction experiment. I am thinking phase 3 will be multiple images and some sort of database back end to randomize them.

But, first things first.

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BlueFur.com has a contest going to win a 22 inch widescreen LCD Monitor. Pretty sweet deal, even though they are manipulating the vote.

All you need to do is sign up to the Blogger's Choice Awards website, vote for BlueFur, and then post a comment on the article I linked to above stating what you login name is on the website.

To triple vote and really sell yourself, post an entry like this one with a link to the contest.

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I have been very impressed so far. Absolutely no spam comments have made it through so far. I am a bit worried about it rejecting other people, but I am sure I would know since I have tested it a million times already.

The page redirects bad verification entries to the comments page again and retains all the form information for the person. If my comments section does stop working, please send me a message using my contact page.

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Wow! I am really impressed with how shallow I have become. Dangle a 24 inch monitor in front of my face and I will do anything. John Chow has another contest going on to manipulate the Google rankings.

A 24 inch widescreen LCD. That is a pretty good deal. I haven't seen them for less than $600 yet.

Basically, all you have to do is link to the contest posting, which I have already done above (so smoothly) and then provide some keyword links. When you are done, send him an email.

The keywords links are make money for Chow's site and hosting Canada for BlueFur.com's site.

Pretty choice keywords. Chow got himself in the top 3 for make money online a few months back and he is trying for bigger fish now. Make money is definitely a more generic search term that probably gets entered a ridiculous amount of times each day. If he can pull more hits and ad revenue off this little ploy, then this 24 inch monitor will be peanuts.

The draw isn't until August 1, 2007, so you have some time. I'm sure the odds will be similar to the lottery with how much influence Chow has now.

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Have you ever wanted to turn your old negatives into a digital format? It has crossed my mind a few times. More for backup purposes, but it would also be really convenient.

Why Would I Want To Convert Negatives?

There are a number of reasons:

1. Backup - You now have a digital representation of the photo. You can burn it onto a CD or an external hard drive.
2. Portability - Now you can share it easily with everyone, put it on your website, and more.
3. Cheap reprints - If you want to print it off you can just send it via the to Walmart or anything other discount developer for as low as 15 cents.
4. Photo editing - You can play with the photo now. Touch it up, restore colour, crop it, and the list goes on.

Where To Do It

Any photo finishing place should be able to do it. The thing I found is that the cost really, really varied (and I mean REALLY). I found Black's Photography in Calgary and they were charging $1.95 per picture. This is ridiculous and they sounded annoyed with me on the phone for not doing it at the time I developed my photos (it was only around $5/roll). The thing is, my negatives are older than that.

Where is the cheapest? So far, it is Walmart. Good old discount photo finisher comes through for me. They charge $9.97 flat rate for the first 40 and then an addition $0.97 for every 10 negatives after that. For 240 pictures that comes out to around $30. Now that is a reasonable price to backup photos for. At Black's that would have been $480.

I have recently took in a few hundred 35mm film negatives from my wedding and had them done. They said it will take a day. I will follow up with the results after that.

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