Cheap Trick – "ELO Kiddies" (1977)

 

So you missed some school?

You know school’s for fools

Today money rules

My obsession with rewards-offering credit cards started out innocently enough.  I signed up for a few airline-branded cards that offered 50,000 free miles to new cardholders – good enough for a free roundtrip.

Then I got a credit card that offered a 1% rebate on all my non-airline-related purchases.  Life was good!

But eventually I was seduced by the appeal of a dizzying array of niche credit cards, each of which offered a unique discount – money for nothing.

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Did you know that Amazon has a credit card that gives Amazon Prime members 5% back on Amazon purchases.  Walmart offers a card that does the same when you buy from Walmart.

I don’t do the majority of my shopping at Amazon or Walmart, but I obtained cards from those two companies and set up my online accounts with them so that my purchases were billed to those credit cards instead of to my regular 2% card.

I also picked up an REI card, which gives you 5% back on REI purchases.  I do relatively little shopping at REI.  But if I use my REI card to pay my cell phone bill each month, I get free insurance on my cell phone – no more paying the cell phone company $10 or $15 a month to protect me if I break or lose that b*tch.

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About a year ago, I was filling up at my local Exxon station when I saw a brochure offering an Exxon/Mobil Mastercard.  That card gives you 10 cents off a gallon when you use it to charge Exxon/Mobil gas – which usually works out to be a bigger discount than the 2% rebate I get by using my regular credit card.

But for the first 60 days after you activate your Exxon/Mobil card, you get an additional 30 cents off per gallon.  If my math is right, that’s a total of 40 cents a gallon . . . which is about 10% off the current inflated price of Democrat gasoline.

Shortly after I got my Exxon/Mobil, I learned that BP offered a similar card – so I got one of in case I needed to buy gas at a BP station.

By the way, there two grocery store chains I shop at regularly have programs where your grocery purchases can earn you discounts of up to $1.00 per gallon on gas at Exxon/Mobil and BP stations, respectively.  That’s why I buy gas from those stations whenever possible.

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So far, so good.  But one day I got an e-mail from Amazon offering me a 10% discount on gasoline purchases for a 90-day period.

That’s few cents a gallon more in savings than my Exxon/Mobil and BP credit cards offered.  So I quickly switched to using my Amazon card to fill up.

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The Amazon card also promised me a 3% discount on restaurant and grocery store purchases.  That trumped my Harris Teeter credit card, even on purchases at Harris Teeter grocery stores – which is my go-to for the wild-caught salmon I eat three or four nights a week.  

But I also have a Citibank-issued Mastercard that gives me a 5% discount on whatever is my biggest purchase category each month – which is almost always groceries.  

The only catch on that card is that if you spend more than $500 on groceries in a billing cycle, the discount reverts to 1%.  (That’s chump change, bro!)

I try to keep a running mental tally of my monthly grocery purchases so I can switch credit cards at the appropriate moment.

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Every time you make a hotel reservation these days, you’re offered the opportunity to get a Hilton or Marriott or Wyndham or Holiday Inn credit card.  

If you take the company up on the offer, you’re given a sizable number of points good for free hotel stays.  Since I was thinking I might be staying at a Hilton-branded hotel for some time while the 2 or 3 lines organization was moving into its new digs, I jumped at the chance to get a Hilton card.

Later, I found out that I could save some jack by staying at a nearby Marriott property instead of the Hilton I had originally made a reservation at.  Naturally, I applied for a Marriott card.  

But much to my dismay, the bank that issued the Marriott-branded card turned me down!

My credit score was a few points higher than my SAT number – so what the f*ck was that all about?

“We have denied your application for a Marriott Bonvoy credit card because you have recently applied for an excessive number of new credit cards,” I was told.

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I bought Cheap Trick’s third studio album, Heavn Tonight, shortly after it was released in 1978.  The first track on that album was the brilliant “Surrender” – “Mommy’s alright/Daddy’s alright/They just seem a little weird” – and I just had to have it.

But I was not at all familiar with the rest of the band’s oeuvre until I started listening to the “Underground Garage” channel on Sirius/XM – you hear quite a few Cheap Trick songs there.

“ELO Kiddies” is the very first track on Cheap Trick’s eponymous debut album.  It’s a little bit m-o-n-e-y!

Click here to listen to “ELO Kiddies.”

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Bee Gees – "Lonely Days" (1970)

I see you every morning

Outside the restaurants

The music plays so nonchalant

Twenty-five years ago, I was a busy lawyer and had four kids living at home.  My life was busy and somewhat complicated.

But now that I’m retired and my kids are grown up and living on their own, things should be a lot simpler.  But I’ve worked hard to keep my life busy and complicated!

One way I’ve accomplished that is by applying for a lot of credit cards in an effort to take advantage of the dizzying array of discounts and other benefits that different credit cards offer these days.

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Twenty-five years ago, I was good with a couple of Visas or Mastercards.  I didn’t have to pay attention to how much interest the different cards charged because I paid my balances in full every month – which meant the interest rate was irrelevant.

Then the airlines began to push their branded credit cards by offering you a ridiculous number of miles to sign up.  I remember when Southwest Airlines used to have a couple of people manning a kiosk at BWI airport. “Would you like 60,000 free miles and a T-shirt?” they would say as you walked by on your way to your departure gate.  “All you have to do is apply for our no-fee credit card.”

At one point, I had credit cards from Southwest, American, United and US Air.  I did a lot of flying in those days, and you got miles not only for flying, but also if you used the card to pay for your hotel and rental car.  But the key was the free miles you got just for signing up – usually enough miles for a round trip on that airline.

Eventually you had to start paying a fee to have the card.  The first year would be free, but after that the card might cost $99 a year.  I usually cancelled the card at that point.

I figured out that you could cancel, wait a couple of years, and then reapply for airline-branded credit cards – you’d get the free miles again, and the cards were free for the first year.

It turns out that I never had to truly cancel my American Airlines card.  That’s because when you called up to cancel at the end of the year – when they were about to hit you with the $99 fee – they would bend over backwards to talk you out of cancelling.  “Sir, would you keep the card if we offered you a $100 statement credit next month?” the rep would ask me.

“Let me get this straight,” I would answer.  “I pay the $99 fee now, and you’ll credit me $100 against my balance next month?”

This seemed unnecessarily complicated.  Why didn’t they just waive the fee?   

In any event, I went through this little dance with whatever bank issued the American Airlines credit card every year, just like clockwork.

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Eventually banks started to offer credit cards that rebated 1% of the amount you charged on the card.

In other words, if you charged $2500 in a given month, the card issuer would reduce your balance due by $25 – or even mail you a check for $25.

I picked up a couple of those cards – 1% isn’t a lot, but every little bit helps, especially when you use your credit card for just about all your purchases.  (“Cash”?  What’s that?)

Then several years ago, a large bank started offering a “double cash” Mastercard that rebated 2% of your purchase amount back to you.

You best believe that got my attention.  I applied for that card toot sweet, and started using it almost exclusively.

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I say “almost exclusively” because I also had several niche credit cards that offered me more than a 2% discount on certain purchases.

I’ll tell you about them in the next 2 or 3 lines.

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Here’s how one critic described the Bee Gees’ 1970 hit, “Lonely Days”:

The song incorporated the innovative structure and knack for changing tempos exemplified by the second side of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album, released the previous year and a clear influence on this single. 

The Bee Gees circa 1970

I don’t know about that.  But I do know that “Lonely Days” consists of two brief verses plus a chorus that consists of the following two-line catchphrase (which is repeated mucho times):

Lonely days, lonely nights

Where would I be without my woman?

The Gibbs boys obviously learned a lot from Sir Paul McCartney, who was the master of bolting together verses and choruses that sound like they belonged in two different songs and then using repetition in order to make a three-minute hit single from a ninety-second songlet.

Click here to listen to “Lonely Days.”

Click here to order the record from Amazon.