Banking woes

Yesterday DORSCON level was elevated to orange and Singapore suddenly went into a frenzy mode to hoard the groceries. I need to replenish my bananas and dragonfruits every two days so I was worried that I would be run out of food. Luckily my colleagues who are experienced homemakers share their wisdom: perishables cannot be hoarded so do not worry about running out of food. Anyway I still have L-men stock untouched ever since I switched them for dragonfruits so I should be fine.

I wore mask when attending Novena this morning and most people were actually not wearing masks. It is actually quite funny to see that the older people were not wearing while the younger people were wearing. Climbing the stairs and then reciting the rosaries while wearing mask made me breathless. I think I will not wear it for tomorrow Mass.

The panic hoarding still continued. There were already people queuing before FairPrice opened. Luckily I usually shop at Don Don Donki which is still well-stocked. Their shelves for noodles are emptier than usual and their rice shelves are empty but I do not think we will run out of food yet la. Prevention is better than cure so I take this as an opportunity to buy things that I normally will not buy: instant pastas. Lol. I only bought 2 cups of instant noodles and 2 cups of instant pastas hor. I also got my banana and dragonfruit at least until Monday. Usually I will not queue when the queue is crazy but I do not know when this madness will die down. Thanks to the self-checkout kiosks, the queue was not that bad. I think people looked at me like an idiot who only bought 2 fruits while I looked at them like idiots stock up toilet paper for what.

Hmm so what have these got to do with this post's title eh? Sigh.. I want to bitch about my bad experience with airmiles hunting. Firstly I finally cancelled my Bank of China World Elite Master Card in December. This is the most disgustingly dishonest bank that I am happy to end the banking relationship. I could tahan their dishonesty at the start for the sake of 5 miles/foreign currency spending which ended up to be 'transaction processed overseas'. It took me numerous phone calls in early 2019 to get miles as promised. Their T&C was finally updated sometime in March last year to reflect the actual 'transaction processed overseas' definition. The customer service officer helped to rectify my 2018 points in Jan 2019 promised to look into my Jan-Feb 2019 turned out to be a big lying bastard. Now the finality that made me close my card is the lie about annual fee waiver. BOC's definition of annual fee waiver request is a request to redeem the points for the waiver. What the fuck? Using points = waiver? Because of this unforeseen lie and stupidity, I ended up with close to 7000 orphaned points. What could have worth perhaps about 2000 krisflyer miles ended up as $10 Takashimaya voucher and the remaining orphaned points wasted. Damn! After this, never ever I will have anything to do with BOC anymore.

Next is an honest mistake that just happened this morning. I unintentionally used my UNI$ for Donki voucher: something that worth 6000 miles ended up as $30 voucher. WTF. I go Donki every week and this is the first time ever that that UOB rewards can be exchanged to Donki voucher. The thing is I used UOB One Card which usually deals with SMART$. My UNI$ is all from another card. So when I was asked about rewards when using my One card today, I presumed it was the SMART$. I know I am partly guilty for not asking more details but the Donki Staff had a share in the problem too. She did not specify what rewards (in comparison, Cold Storage cashiers always specified 'Would you redeem your SMART$?' instead of 'your rewards') and only AFTER the transaction was completed that she went through with me what I redeemed for how much. By then, there was nothing could be done. UOB also has a share in this. How can my card that has got nothing to do with UNI$ can suddenly be used to redeem UNI$! Haiz.. I called UOB and was informed there was nothing could be done. Bleah.. I am trying my luck and making noise via email and to Donki as well. Hoping for a miracle.

Damn sian la.. 2020 is really looking up to be a shitty year.