How To Avoid Wait Times With Airline CSRs, Fifth Freedom Routes, 1.3¢ Per Avios & More

I’m trying something new, this week rather than doing a weekly round up of posts I like from other sites every couple of days I’ll share a few stories that I enjoyed reading (thanks to View From The Wing for the style). I’d appreciate your feedback on what you guys prefer.

• How to Never Wait on Hold with Airline Customer Service Again by Wendy Perrin. I’ve used GetHuman before, but the other tip is an interesting angle.
• What are Fifth Freedom Routes? by Tagging Miles. I always like learning about something new/different and this is no exception.
• Avios for 1.285-1.3¢ per point by Miles To The Wild. Look at how much Avios cost when you use miles + cash options.
• Bill & Melinda gates on mobile banking by CNN Money. I’d strongly recommend you read their full annual letter if you found this article interesting.
• The Forward Cabin makes a triumphant return to BoardingArea after a plagiarism suspension! by Pfdigest. It’s not hard to admit when you’re wrong. PFdigest is one of my favorite blogs to read, so make sure you support him with your traffic.
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch Launches Next Generation in Travel Payments by BofAML press releases. A lot of hype and not much substance, looks like the unique feature is that it uses “a unique 16 digit virtual card account number for each transaction”. I presume this helps with fraud prevention and tracking. But the whole thing is light on details.
• Manufactured Spend Return On Investment by Miles to Memories. I’d also recommend reading the original Freequent Flyer post that started this discussion and then our own Chuck Sithe’s thoughts here.
• The greatest Staples coupon of all time? 50% off Clearance Computers by Big Habitat. If you’re into reselling, there are some good deals to be had here.

In the future I’ll try to keep these a little shorter, but since it’s a Monday there were a number of interesting things that I thought were worth a read.