The Great Magazine Fiasco of '08

My US Airways statement looked exactly the same as it had for the last 15 or so years: just over 10,000 frequent flyer miles and no recent activity. I stopped flying US Air when I moved from the East coast out to California. Northwest, United, Alaska... pretty much every other airline had better flight options for me.

So I'm about ready to put it through the shredder when I notice the offer to convert those miles into magazine subscriptions. Perfect! I can zero out my account and get some reading material at the same time. They had a reasonable selection, and I wasted no time in signing up for The Economist, The Atlantic, and BusinessWeek. I still had a bunch of miles left, so I got Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Inc. And to finish things off, Conde Nast Traveler and (I'm sorry to admit) Details.

Not long after, the magazines started to show up. And then more came. And then they came pouring in. Three of the magazines are weekly, and the others are monthly. So after about 3 months, I had stockpiled a small library's worth of reading material. I got through some of them on various trips out of town. But I have to face facts: I'm a wired guy. I end up spending most of my free time on the computer.

There is now a 20 magazine limit in the house. I'm pretty much tossing the Details, Forbes and Travelers as they come in. I skim BusinessWeek and try to read The Economist and The Atlantic for the most part. Entrepreneur and Inc are now taken into work and not read there.

It was a good idea, but I took it too far. I should have gotten only a couple of subscriptions, and left the remaining miles to renew next year. But on the upside, I don't have a US Air balance to worry about anymore.