Get $250 for signing up to a credit card

Australia, you have a debt problem. And banks are falling over themselves trying to get you into more debt. But if you are wise and pay off your cards before the due date, you can take advantage of the many offers out there. Commonwealth Bank is offering $250 if you sign up to their low rate credit card. By low rate, they mean 13.49% which is astronomical but like I said, you shouldn't be paying that if you set up your direct debits to pay off your debts before the due date. There is an annual fee of $59 which can be waived after the fact by asking for a change to a no fee card.So if you know how to manage your finances, here's to another $250 cold hard cash.

• How to get $100 cash on a fee free debit card with the best mobile app

Armadale is Perth's most popular Telstra FREE Wifi hotspot

If you have noticed recently, Telstra payphones have been looking a little different. Many of them now have a WIFI symbol on top of them which allows Telstra customers access to free unlimited wifi from now until 30 June 2016! Currently, Armadale is the only location in Perth that is in Telstra'a top ten wifi locations around Australia which is quite interesting. Here are the other locations around Australia. If you are a Telstra customer, get to a phone box nearby and try connecting to the free wifi service.


1. Telstra Discovery Store, 400 George St, Sydney
2.88 McDowall St, Roma, Queensland
3.84 High Street, Southport, Gold Coast
4.134 Jetty Rd, Glenelg, Adelaide
5.276 Railway Pde, Noble Park, Melbourne
6.7 Dawson St, Gladstone, Queensland
7.732 Military Rd, Mosman, Sydney
8.230 Jull St, Armadale, Perth
9.117 North Tce, Bankstown, Western Sydney
10.60 Wembley Rd, Logan Central, Brisbane

Perth's top 10 WIFI locations -

1.230 Jull St, Armadale
2.57 James St, Perth
3.78 Stirling St, Perth
4.108 Pinetree Gully Rd, Willetton
5.208 Spencer Rd, Thornlie
6.300 Murray St, Perth
7.178 St Georges St, Perth
8.464 Hannan St, Kalgoorlie
9.68 Burt St, Boulder
10.13 Mends St, South Perth

AMEX Platinum Edge comes with 10,000 extra points

We mentioned in an earlier post that the AMEX Platinum edge provides a huge saving for those who travel domestically each year. For only $195, users can book a return flight almost anywhere in Australia even from Perth to Sydney. Forgot to mention that you actually get 10,000 points bonus if you sign up through here.

Other AMEX posts

• More about Virgin Velocity Platinum 
• More about Velocity Gold 
• Free flights with Velocity Platinum  
• Platinum Edge Free Travel Insurance but is it Good? 
• Virgin now flying AMEX Platinum cardholders
• Free return flight with Platinum Edge flights

How Much Does Speeding in WA Cost?

So, did you look this up because you just got flashed? As we enter another long weekend tonight, here is your reminder that double demerit points will be enforced all the way through to Tuesday. Many people like myself wonder at times what the going rate is for speeding. Here's what we got from the WA Police website (remembering this is only current as at the time of this post).  Also another important reminder is that sometimes when you are not caught speeding, you could end up killing or severely injuring someone. It's never worth the one minute you save.

This information is a guide only and should not be relied on for legal purposes. Full details of traffic offences and penalties are contained in the Road Traffic Code 2000.
Speeding by light vehicles
(Cars, motorcycles and other vehicles less than 22.5 tonnes Gross Combination Mass)

km/h over the speed limit	Fine	Demerits*
Not more than 9 km/h	$100	0
More than 9 km/h but not more than 19 km/h	$200	2
More than 19 km/h but not more than 29 km/h	$400	3
More than 29 km/h but not more than 40 km/h	$800	6
More than 40 km/h	$1,000	7

Police can impound the vehicles of drivers who exceed the speed limit by more than 45 km/h.
Speeding by heavy vehicles
(Vehicles with a Gross Combination Mass of 22.5 tonnes or more)

km/h over the speed limit	Fine	Demerits*
Not more than 9 km/h	$200	0
More than 9 km/h but not more than 19 km/h	$300	2
More than 19 km/h but not more than 29 km/h	$500	3
More than 29 km/h but not more than 40 km/h	$850	6
More than 40 km/h	$1,000	7

Police can impound the vehicles of drivers who exceed the speed limit by more than 45 km/h.

* Demerit points are doubled on long weekends and other prescribed holiday periods.

UPDATED: 14th September 2015

A warning about Woolworths Gift Cards

If you use your Woolworths / WISH cards on the Woolworths Online website, be warned that if you partially checkout and then change your mind, you could lose the money that you've applied to that shop. Maybe it helps to take you through a scenario. Let's say you order some meat online (eg $36 worth of Macro Chicken Breast Fillets Free Range min. 800g) and you click checkout, then you choose to pay $34 of it using your WISH card and you'll pay $2 more on credit card. You enter the gift card number and the pin, then you press SUBMIT. However, before you checkout and pay the extra $2 on card, you cancel the order. Maybe you change your mind to go to the store and get it.

You've just lost $34 from your gift card balance. Surely in today's world, the system is able to recognise that your purchase didn't go through and $34 will be added back to your gift card? Wrong.

Or maybe the gift card system does not allow credit to be added back to the card, so that $34 will be there when you log back into Woolworths Online for your next purchase? Wrong. 

OK so maybe Woolworths will send you a friendly email telling you about how you've lost $34, so here's a voucher to the value of $34 to apply to your next shop? No, wrong again.

You know when you go to a store and you drop a $2 coin in a crevice that even the store owner can't get to it. You've just dropped $34 down that online crevice and Woolworths will retrieve it later as an unspent gift card balance. So be sure you are ready to part with your gift card value when you click confirm because there is no going back, even though you haven't checked out.

So... what should you do if this happened to you?
Of course, there is one solution. Don't just take the hit. Call Woolworths Online and tell them what happened and they should issue you a voucher code to the value of the money lost (I would hope). Their helpline is 1800 000 610. 

What You've Missed with Coles/Woolworths Click and Collect

Whether you are on Centrelink or you are corporate high flyer, everyone has to do their groceries. The question nowadays is, how do you do your groceries? Of course there is the traditional way of shopping in person at your local supermarket. However, the supermarket giants have been offering two new ways to shop which are an answer to the internet shopping revolution upon us.

There is the delivery which is pretty self explanatory. You have your groceries delivered to your door around the time that you request them to be delivered from their website. Then there is the usual $100 minimum order if you want your shopping delivered which is a bit more than the usual weekly grocery bill for most households. 

However, many people have not taken up "click and collect". This is the service where you order your groceries online and the store will collate your order so that you can pick it up in store. Click and collect is free but there is a minimum order required. For Coles, the minimum order is $50 and for Woolworths it is $30. 

We have been using this service for quite a while with mixed results. Each time, it would take about 5-10 minutes of waiting around for the staff to get your order from the back of the supermarket. The advantage of this approach is that it even factoring in the wait, you do save some time and you don't buy a lot of the impulse purchases you normally end up with when you're cruising the aisles. Also, if they get the order wrong (which they do!) you can rectify it straight away. The other advantage is that we often receive more than what we ordered because when you order vegetables, fruit, meat or poultry, you pay for a minimum weight so the store has to supply at least that weight of the product. Often they would have to go significantly over when stocking the goods. For example, we ordered a 400gm steak and got a 600g steak for the price of 400gm. There is also no need to wait around for the delivery driver. 

The disadvantages? You can't order online some of those markdown specials that happen when items are closer to expiry. Also, the terms and conditions for click and collect suggest that if you forgot to pick up your order, you could end up being fined! From the Woolworths website, we see this 

If you do not collect your grocery order within the booked collection window then we may charge you a fee of up to $25 and and the cost of any perishable items (e.g. fresh fruits and vegetables) will apply. In this instance, we will endeavour to contact you or you may contact us to arrange for collection at a different time, and we may charge you an additional fee for that replacement order.

So having said all that, how will you do your next grocery run? Are you going to click and collect? Or are you sticking with the traditional pick and pay? 

Google Drive Flooded With Synced Photos

Recently, Google made all your auto backed up photos and videos available to Google Drive. This has meant that whenever you take a photo or film a video, the file is uploaded to your drive.google.com list. 

This can be quite annoying if you actually use Google Drive as it was initially intended as the Google Documents suite. Now, when you sort your Google Drive by "Recent" your Google documents and spreadsheets are interspersed by images and video files. This can be somewhat annoying. If you know a solution to this, please leave a comment. If you found this post because you are looking for a solution, leave a comment so that I know I am not alone!

Telstra $30 Sims for $1 at Coles

This week at Coles, you can get a $30 Telstra sim for only $1 when you spend $30 or more. Why would you want to get a sim card when you already have a phone? The sim card enables you to get $30 of Google Play or iTunes credit which you can use to buy apps, music or hire movies through those stores. Read more here to find out how you can maximise your $1 sim card from Telstra just by thinking outside the box.

Other posts

• How to Maximise Your Telstra $30 starter sim

Hotelclub - Best Times to Book a Hotel in Australia

Hotels and airlines have their revenue managers whose job is to optimize their revenue throughout the year and depending on where you are looking, there are good times and bad times to book a hotel. Thanks to Hotelclub, here are the good times according to their analysis, to book a hotel around Australia and how far ahead you should book.

Location	Cheapest month	How far ahead
Wellington	January	2-7 days
Auckland	July	1 day
Christchurch	October	61-90 days
Adelaide	July	1 day
Hobart	July	1 day
Canberra	August	2-7 days
Queenstown	May	1 day
Gold Coast	March	1 day
Brisbane	January	15-30 days
Melbourne	April	91+ days
Darwin	November	8-14 days
Perth	January	31-60 days
Sydney	July	1 day

Tips When Renewing Your Home & Contents or Car Insurance

I've just gone through the annual ritual of sorting out my car and home insurance and there were some interesting observations and tricks that I saw the insurance companies playing.

First of all, when you receive the renewal notice, if you want to stay with the same insurance company, you can still save about $20 on your car insurance or $70 on your home insurance by getting a new quote from the same insurance company online. This worked for me with RAC.

With home and contents insurance, I noticed that the amount insured for both the home and contents had increased by 5%. Standard practice but if you think you don't need to index your house to the 5% inflation assumption, you can manually adjust your amount insured down to what you want which will save you on your premium.

Also, it pays to shop around. Take some time to go through at least two other insurance company websites to get different quotes before committing yourself to another year with your existing company. Don't be deceived - their loyalty reward is often much less than what you can get from a rival insurance company - I'm particularly looking at SGIO who quoted my car insurance at $1,017 compared to RAC which was $557.

When entering your details in getting a new quote, watch out for changes to your selected variables. For example, when I changed the date to start my insurance on the RAC website, my excess figures changed as well from $500 to $650.

Of course everyone's experiences will vary but the above should save you a few hundred dollars. To those who can't be bothered shopping around and happy to pay the lazy tax, sorry I wasted your time reading this :)