Captain Congeniality

My airline of choice or perhaps necessity lately has been Delta.  Our family owns a small business and we live in a United hub, which is an automatic extra $300.00 per trip if I choose to fly the dominant carrier, besides who doesn't love stopping in ATL, on the way from IAH to DEN or  MSP on the way from IAH to SFO, or SLC just for kicks?

About a year ago I researched frequent traveler programs and decided that I needed to find some that worked for me instead of the reverse.  I chose Alaska Mileage Plan to credit my American and Delta flights to.  I chose Agean to Credit United flights to.

Everything was working great until two things happened.

1. Delta and Alaska escalated the war to the point where elite benefits were cut.

2. Agean changed their whole earning structure and did away with lifetime status.

Now my question is which program should I credit my flights to?  Miles and smiles looks better each day.

I am what many would call a wireless tinkerer.  I am never truly satisfied it seems for long with any wireless company or service.  My recent wireless history is as follows

2011 - 2012 - Sprint - Only one major issue, there was some sort of programming issue where my phone did not work in the great state of West Virginia.  Do I live there? No.  Do I go there?  A few times a year for work.

2012 -2013 - T-Mobile - Worked great at old house, however when we bought our new house and moved service went to nill.  Odd being in the 4th largest city in the country and having to stand on one leg balancing to use cell service

2013-2014 - AT&T - Expensive and for some reason every "network upgrade" that they did seemed to make my service a little worse.

Current - Last month I decided to give Republic Wireless a try, I have thus far been fairly impressed.  The biggest problem that I have found is the lack of Sprint signal, which republic uses when not on wifi.  I have used the wifi calling feature in some heavy traffic areas and have not had any distortion or signal issues.  I took it on a trip to rural Ohio for work, and my service through roaming agreements with Verizon was better than some people with actual Verizon handsets.  The wifi calling feature makes Republic a great service for international travelers as well, as they can stay in touch with the business of life while abroad.  I am happy that I made the switch and am saving approx $100.00 per month.

I would recommend Republic to people with a couple of caveats.

First, make sure that you have decent Sprint service in your area, otherwise it will not be a pleasant exerience.

Second, if you are a heavy data user go with the $40.00 4G LTE plan.  Sprint 3G crawls.

Third, the number of handsets is severely limited, currently there are only 2 available (Moto G, and Moto X) and Republic does not support BYOD.

So, if you have a $150.00 lying around try them out, if you don't like them within the first 30 days they will give you a full refund upon return of phone.  If you like the service, keep it.

Service in office? No.
Service in house? No.
Service in neighborhood? No.
Service at T-Mobile Store? No.

Service at AT&T Store? Yes

..... But I know I bought it.  If it is still in the car I am seriously fucked.  I mean I can't not drink it but 104 degrees and milk products surely aren't healthy....

Its not called the ice cream shits for no reason...

Lebron: What's the big deal?

Rich Paul: Really King?  You told the fucking cupcake dude. Nor even the cupcake lady.

Lebron: Have you ever had the Inside Out Peanut Butter Cup?  If you had, I think that you would understand why?

Rich Paul: This is bad, really bad.  These folks have broken more stories than Woodward and Bernstein.

Lebron: Those guys were super cool in All the President's Men.

Rich Paul: So, seriously King where are we going?

Lebron: Just for fun I was thinking of signing with Nuggets.

Twizzlers -  Mmmmmmmmmm.