• clarkhoward.com - would you like to work from home?
• helio.com - all-in-one devices

Do you have a lot of frequent flier miles that you haven’t used? You may want to dedicate some time to using them. That’s because airlines are changing the expiration deadlines and they are not in your favor. United and USAir now require that you use your miles within a year and a half, and with Delta it’s now two years. It’s getting harder to use miles and the time limits are decreasing, so it may be time to switch rewards cards. About 12 years ago, the idea of earning miles other ways came about. You choose a certain lender, you earn miles. You buy a certain car, you earn miles. So, these miles are piling up and it’s important to burn them. Clark recommends using them on overseas trips. It’s the best way to avoid losing all those miles you’ve earned. Also, Visa is coming out with a new product that will offer fancy rewards and higher amounts of cash back. The cards will be out by summer and people who spend a lot of money will benefit. Visa will target people who use American Express. Merchants won’t like this deal because they will be charged a heft price per transaction. But airline card refugees who are looking for a new deal may want to consider this one.

We have seen a lot of inquiries about “working from home” on Clark’s Web site. Over the years, this has been a tough topic for Clark to bring up because there are so many work-at-home scams. He doesn’t want you to get taken. The good news is that there are now legitimate potential opportunities for working at home. We have them list on our work-at-home page. The area with the most activity seems to be “virtual call centers.” It’s being referred to as “insourcing,” which allows people in the States to act as customer service agents and technical support agents from the comfort of their homes. It is the opposite of “outsourcing,” whereby people in India and other countries overseas were being hired for the jobs. Check it out if you’ve always wanted to work from home. Just make sure that you thoroughly check out the company.

The federal government has a list of “specially designated nationals” that is used to identify criminals and potential terrorists. It comes from the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), and the Feds began compiling the list after the September 11 attacks. The problem is that innocent, law-abiding citizens are receiving alerts on their credit reports if their names are similar to someone on the terrorist list. The “OFAC” alert that appears on reports tells banks and lenders that you are a potential terrorist. When a car dealership or mortgage company sees this alert, they don’t want to do business with you. It’s not just the stigma that may come along with the alert. Business owners could be arrested for aiding and abetting a terrorist if they sell to someone on the list. So, they are scared, too. In addition, once the OFAC is on the report it’s not very easy to get rid of it. So, just know that this could happen. The person across from you could be completely harmless and you need to be aware of that.

It’s the time of year when cell phone companies get together and introduce their new ideas and gadgets. The one clear pattern is that it’s no longer about the phone or how many minutes one gets with it. It’s about all of the “extras” that the phone can do. Think back to the early ‘80s when cell phones were so rare and so large that they had to be part of a “bag” in the trunk of your car. Typically, plans cost $35 a month with no minutes included. You couldn’t roam with your phone and if you made a long distance call, it might cost you an extra $1.50. It was so expensive because there were only two phone companies in each city. Nowadays, people have way too many minutes and phones are a dime a dozen. The latest craze is what accessories come with the phone. Helio, for example, has a device that centralizes your text messages, your e-mails and your instant messages. Verizon and Cingular are into television on cell phones and GPS location capability. In addition, Sprint has reduced prices on loading songs onto its new phone, the “Upstage.” It has a keyboard for texting and on the other side is a music player. Songs are now 99 cents.