I’ve just booked a 1500 dollar flight for 70 bucks, so I suppose it’s time for the “make free money and fly for free by managing your credit” post. Let me put it this way: If you spend like an average person, you can easily fly to somewhere like Bucharest, Beijing or Delhi for free every year. With a little extra work, you could do it twice every year. Everything here is assuming that you have decent credit have a decent job, and have no real need to micromanage your credit rating (i.e., you’re not about to buy a house). If your credit is above 750 or so, you’re in good shape. None of my suggestions will ding your credit more than maybe 5-10 points, so it’s not that big a deal in any case.

First, the preliminaries: United and its partners (Star Alliance) and American (oneworld) are the best airlines for mileage redemption. I wouldn’t bother with the smaller airlines, but depending where you want to go, it might be worthwhile. I’m going to use the rule of thumb that an airline mile is worth 1.5 cents (though 1.7 is the more standard number). In general, US flights are 25000 miles, Europe is 50000, and elsewhere is 60-80000. There are occasional offers (i.e., Beijing for 45000 until June on United). Here are some easy ways to get those miles:

1) If you’re in college, go into your United MileagePlus account, and sign up for collegeplus. After you graduate, send your transcript to United, and you get 10000 miles right away. Doesn’t get easier than that.

2) Get the following credit cards: Chase United, Starwood American Express, Citi Aadvantage. Google the following offers, and sign up from there: 20000 miles after $250 in spending with Citi Aadvantage, 20000 United miles with Chase United after $250 spending, 10000 Starwood points after first purchase with Starwood Amex. All of these cards are no annual fee for the first year; just cancel them before the next year begins. With Citi Aadvantage, you can (who knows for how much longer?) get another card a couple months later and get the bonus again (and again and again…). The Starwood points can be used at Starwood hotels, or you can exchange 20000 SW points for 25000 miles on a bunch of airlines. For all of these, you get at least 1 mile/point per dollar spent, and there are specials (i.e., 2 miles on United for each dollar of Spring tuition charged. I got 11000 miles this way).

3) Now go real crazy, and get the following cards: Amex Gold Business, Chase Freedom. You’ll need your own “consulting business” (ahem) for Amex Gold, but you get 25000 Amex Rewards points for signing up. You can use those to just get $250 off any flight you book, or you can convert them to 25000 miles. The Chase Freedom gives you a $250 cash check 8 weeks after you sign up and make a purchase; go to Chase.com and look for the “Get $250″ icon. That’s a pretty damn good deal.

4) Watch sites like View from the Wing for mileage offers. For instance, I just signed up for a month of Netflix for 9.99, and will get 4000 miles for doing so since I paid with my United card. You can get, say, 1000 miles for signing up for online statements with Chase, 10000 miles for signing up for some online checking accounts, etc. It’s very easy.

That’s the basics for now; it’s no problem getting these cards. I have no assets, but I do have a clean credit history and have had cards for 7 years, so I get approved automatically for all of these. If you’re still a student, it will be easier to do this once you graduate. In any case, if you do the things above, then spend $10000 on your Amex, you’ll have: 55000 miles on American, 50000 on United, and $250. That’s a free flight to Beijing, a free flight to Europe, $250 in your pocket, and some miles left over for later. Everything I put up there costs you about $10, and all you have to do is spend an hour online signing up for these offers and remember to cancel before an annual fee comes up (and even so, it’s like $30 for Starwood Amex, so who cares?). Not a bad set of deals, huh?

As for my trip? I’m flying via Kuwait to Dubai on May 22, and then back here from Muscat via Zurich on June 5. Should be one wild (and hot as balls, given it’ll be June in the desert) time. And, for real, you can’t beat the price.

I FINALLY GAVE IN and watched “Fever Pitch”, the notorious Drew Barrymore/Jimmy Fallon romantic comedy about the Red Sox. I say notorious because I’ve never heard of a Sox fan who thought the movie was worth a dime. Let’s go with the good bits bits first:

1) In general, they included most of the Red Sox lore: “Tessie”, “Dirty Water”, the Yaz song, Boston Dirt Dogs, the Cask n’ Flagon, the Reverse Curve/Reverse the Curse roadsign.

2) There was footage of the greatest postseason in the history of sports. There’s a scene where the Sox win a midseason game with an 8 run ninth, and bedlam ensues. I think they mentioned a dozen topless chicks, a nun dancing on a car, and cops drinking with kids. Let me hit you with some knowledge: after some actual big wins (Game 7 against the 8s in 03, the Game 4 in 04, the Game 7 in 04), there were dozens of topless girls, firecrackers and bonfires in the street, people burning Yankees shit from the tops of buildings, cops throwing high-fives, and a South Asian taxi driver screaming out the window because he’d broken his horn from honking in celebration. People were hugging everyone, whether they knew each other or not, and literally hundreds of thousands of people were chanting Sox slogans.

OK, that’s about it. Here are the problems:

1) Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore were on the field after Game 4 when the Sox won the World Series. This is unforgivable.

2) Let’s talk about Jimmy Fallon for a second. He was asked in an interview whether he was a Sox or a Yanks fan. He said, “I like them both.” What? I bet that Tom Hanks didn’t say, when asked by the press after filming Saving Private Ryan whether he was a fan of the Nazis or the Allies, that he “liked them both.” Would it have been that hard to find someone actually from New England for this movie? Incidentally, the Boston accents were wholly awful throughout most of the movie.

3) The absolutely ridiculous scene where Barrymore runs across the field, and gets a standing O for making her man fall back in love while the crowd cheers. This scene, in theory, is happening before the top of the ninth in the Game 4. Let’s just say the entire city of Boston was absolutely distraught at that moment. St. Patrick himself could have appeared and beat the ish out of an animatronic King George III while it rained Sam Adams Lager, and the crowd still wouldn’t have clapped then.

4) Barrymore is the devil girlfriend. She supposedly makes a big sacrifice by going to a few games now and again. With seats right behind the dugout, she’s constantly on her cell or using her laptop. Any decent Sox fans would drop her like a bad habit the first time she pulled that shit.

5) Aside from the front doors of their apartments, and some sweeping shots from the air, you wouldn’t have known the movie was set in Boston. There was not a peep of “non-tourist Boston”: JP, Southie, East Boston, the Dot, Ruggles, Rozzie and all the rest. This isn’t a major flaw, but you can’t be a great Hub flick without these things.

6) There was not a single instance of what Bill Simmons calls a “chill scene.” I’m not gonna lie: I get the full-body chills at least once in any good sports movie. This Nike Sox ad definitely gives me a little chill. Nothing, however, can compare with the greatest Youtube clip ever: Game 5, 2004. Shot from the stands, everyone goes crazy as Ortiz homers to walkoff after 5 hours and 49 minutes, only one night after beating the Yanks in the game 4, also in extra innings. How can you make a movie about the 2004 Sox and NOT have a chill scene. It’s impossible.

This movie was painful.