TD First Class Visa Infinite Points Value Decrease

TD Devalues Visa Infinite Points

First Published Date: June 22, 2015

If you are a TD First Class Visa Infinite credit card holder, you will see lower rates and lose some value in your points redemption starting August 16, 2015. You may want to consider redeeming your points before August 16 (if your circumstances allow), so you don’t get dinged by TD.

As of now, before August 16, the redemption rate is 200 points for $1, but it will be devalued at 250 points for $1 starting August 16. What it means that if you have 100,000 points, you will get $500 in travel spending, but after August 16 the same 100,000 points will fetch you $400.

TD First Class Visa Infinite provided 1.5 percent return on your purchase spending, excluding TD Expedia spending, until now. This rate will go down to 1.2 percent once the devaluation kicks in. Although TD said you would still get 1.5 percent rate on your regular purchases if you redeem over 300,000 points, but the truth is you will never go back to the old 1.5 percent return level as the first 300,000 points will be counted as 1.2 percent return – making the total return on regular spending above 300,000 points ($1,200) a low 1.33 percent.

This is obvious that TD will lose lots of clients after the devaluation as TD First Class Visa Infinite will lose its ranking among other travel reward cards. And there are so many better cards out there, unless you don’t mind losing your spending’s worth and sticking to TD due to allegiance. As I will be writing on more credit cards to maximize your reward returns, don’t forget to keep an eye on A Dawn Journal. Visit here if you would like to find out more about TD’s recent devaluation announcement.

Breakfast at a Restaurant in Aswan Near the Airport | Aswan

Just Arrived in Aswan | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 3 (Part 24) 02D20

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

Our bus stopped at the Aswan airport to pick up our tour mates who flew overnight from Cairo instead of taking long bus trip. However, they had to leave the Oasis hotel in Giza so early (around 4 AM) that my long bus trip was not all that bad in comparison.

My sun blocker was in my bag, which was in the luggage compartment of the bus. I asked our tour guide if I could take it out from the bag. He mentioned that there are regulations that busses cannot open the luggage compartment (or at least busses that not are commercially licensed to operate at the airport) in the area, so I had to wait for us to leave the airport to get my sunscreen.

Today’s breakfast was included in the tour package. The restaurant was a large separate facility in the airport area, but not connected to the airport. Our bus parked right in front of it in the parking lot.

I went to use the washroom to freshen up. The line was not too long. Once I returned, I saw most of our tour mates sitting together. Our tour guide handed us our pre-made breakfasts one by one.

It was nothing fancy. It looked like a pita bread stuffed with falafel or something like that. It tasted OK, but nothing great and not too spicy.

The free breakfast catch was that it didn’t come with a drink, so everyone was forced to buy an overpriced drink. I already had bottled water, so I only bought a coffee. The coffee was not that great either, but after a long bus ride and no sleep it felt like heaven.

From here we would go to the famous High Dam of Aswan. We were scheduled to go to the hotel first, but due to lack of time we were to finish all our excursions first and then go to our hotel.

Tips On Buying A Second Home Abroad

What You Need To Know Before Buying A Second Home Abroad

First Published Date: Oct 21, 2009

Buying a second home is something that, for a lot of people, means they have truly arrived on the scene. Buying a second home abroad adds that little bit to the mix, giving you a spread in the world, a base from which to travel further. For a Canadian or American, the immediately obvious choice would be a home in the Caribbean, while anyone living in Europe has an enviable range of choices too, as do Australian residents. But before you choose to move to a new country, you need to keep aware of some important principles.

Firstly, it is essential to do some research before you move anywhere, but all the more so when you are moving to another country. However many similarities there may be between your first home country and your second home country, there will be subtle differences that can be quite disruptive if you have to face them every day. They are always surmountable, but only if you do prior research and make sure you are equipped to face the changes.

Secondly, it is necessary to become a part of the community wherever you move to. This does not mean you have to hold a party immediately on moving in and invite everyone to it. What you do need to do, though, is be active. Even if it is just going out for a walk in the morning to buy the newspaper, dining out every so often, or joining some clubs locally, it will vastly aid the settling in process.

You should also learn the language, if you are moving somewhere that has another language. There are many ex-pat communities in countries all over the world. Without a doubt, there are varying levels of welcome extended to them by the host communities, and by far the greatest level of welcome is that which is extended to those who can be bothered to learn the local language. It is simply common sense. If someone makes the effort to speak a second language, it demonstrates a level of courtesy which will be appreciated and reciprocated.

You should not expect to fit in immediately in your new country. No matter how prepared you are, how prepared you feel you are for the change of moving to a new country, there is always a settling in period. It is something which always makes demands of a person, because there is a total change. Things you have taken for granted are no longer there, little things that you didn’t realize you appreciated about your home country will suddenly become big things. Does it slightly irritate you when you are treated in a certain way in your home country? When the locals of your new home country fail to treat you in that way, you will resent it slightly. A lot of little changes go together to make a big change. Does this mean you shouldn’t go for it? No, it certainly doesn’t. The challenges we face in life make it what it is. Go for it.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the realestateexpedition.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Oct 12, 2009.

Global Millionaires Number Hits Record High

New Stats About Millionaires

First Published Date: June 24, 2015

How many people became millionaires last year? About a million, at a record pace for the sixth consecutive year. A recent report published by the consultant Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management.

India may be a poor country, but millionaires seem to be shining in India more than anywhere else. Millionaires rose at a record pace at 26 percent, which is the biggest percentage increase among all other countries.

Here are some other highlights from the report:

– World millionaires rose by 920,000 to a record high of 14.6 million.
– One third or more of the new millionaires live in the US (345,000).

– Global assets held by the millionaires reached a record high $56 trillion.

– The richest millionaires, those have $30 million or more, held 35 percent of the wealth, but only 1 percent of the total millionaires.

– The U.S. is where the most millionaires live followed by Japan, Germany, and China.

Financial Speculation & Reading the Signs

Financial Speculation Is Generally Not To Be Encouraged

First Published Date: May 17, 2009

As a child, a lot of your early reading practice comes from signs. There is only so long you can get away with walking on the grass in direct defiance of a sign before the groundskeeper asks you, often quite forcefully “Can’t you read?” and points to the sign in question. The meaning of the “Wet Paint” sign is often learned in a manner more practical than academic, and results in the need for one’s parents to buy a new pair of trousers. But we learn from these signs and we learn to look out for them. As we get older, the signs change in a practical sense – sticking to speed limits, age restrictions at clubs and so forth – and also in a figurative sense.

We are in a global recession as things stand. As much as some of us will have seen it coming, there will be many more who did not. It is hard to blame them, as there were very few messages coming from a high level saying “Look out – there’s a recession afoot”. Lots of us were busy doing something else and didn’t see the sign until it was too late. In order to avoid compounding our mistakes, the most important thing we can do is be more careful about looking for signs and ensuring we understand them. The problem with economic signs is that they are not plastered everywhere that we might spend money, quite unlike the road signs that adorn every intersection. We need to be actively seeking them out.

Being aware of the financial situation at home and abroad takes work. Some of it may be outright boring. There are, many of you will agree, only so many stories about x industry in y country that you can read before the only letters you see are clusters of zzz – it does not help that economic news is treated by so many in one of two ways. Either it is delivered in a solemn baritone with countless abbreviations that make sense only to investment bankers, or it is dumbed down to insulting levels on news broadcasts and in newspaper articles that may as well be entitled “Finance for Cretins”. The average citizen is not, contrary to popular myth, a cretin. Nor are they a financial whiz kid. Hence the unsurprising lack of information that you feel you can use.

It is clear enough that now is a time when speculation is generally not to be encouraged. If you have a “can’t miss” prospect lined up then it would be positively rude not to investigate it further, but vagueness on how it will pay out, when it will pay out and why this is a certainty – or at least a probability – are the least you should be looking out for. Anything less and you need to proceed with extreme caution. At some point, the signs will change, and when they do there will be scope to take advantage of the new, encouraging signs. These will be things like employment levels rising, a boost in the travel industry or fresh investment coming to the local area. These are the kind of signs anybody should be happy to see.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Canadapersonalfinancewebsite.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on May 17, 2009.