Where Have I Been?/A Little Rant/Football

Facebook Overload

I was a bad blogger last week. But I had a good excuse. I was hosting the Sizzle and Sass page on Facebook which kind of takes over my brain (and time). Although, that doesn’t usually stop me from blogging. But hey, what can I say? I got lazy.

But… Even when I’m lazy I blog on Wednesday because READING. But I hadn’t finished reading the book yet (also due to FB).

I only host the page once every quarter, so it’s not a hardship otherwise. I know where my time will be spent and I do enjoy trying to figure out how to get people to comment. I don’t spend near that amount of time on my own page, and for good reason. It takes too much time!

But FB is over (for now) and life is almost back to normal. Of course, what is normal nowadays?

Loyalty vs. Rewards

Being on FB most of the week (doing other FB stuff besides S&S, of course), I ended up reading a lot of posts. One post in particular kind of irked me and it had to do with the loyalty program with Carnival Cruise Lines, pretty much hinting that things might change (perk-wise). Because why mention it at all, right?

Hubby and I belong with a lot of reward programs: Marriott, Buffalo Wild Wings, TGI Fridays, Fazzolis, Kroger, and Visa (to name the ones off the top of my head). We are rewarded for spending money at these places and receive goodies in return. That’s what I see as a rewards program. I’m not rewarded for my visit, but the amount of money I spend.

Loyalty programs are different, though. At least we think so. Carnival Cruise Lines calls their program a loyalty program (not a reward program). Each level (Gold, Platinum, Diamond) has perks (i.e. separate line for boarding, free laundry, free or reduced upgrades) and your level is based on number of days sailed (FYI – we’re Platinum). The levels used to be based on number of cruises, but those people who cruised a 3-day cruise got the same credit as someone who cruised a 7-day cruise. I guess CCL realized that wasn’t treating their customers fairly (or maybe they were getting too many Platinum and Diamond members that way) and they changed it. And while it hurt us in the beginning, we now see it as being the best and fairest way to reward loyalty.

So no matter what type of room we book, or how many excursions we go on, or how much money we spend, we get credit for 1 day sailed for each day of the cruise.

This one guy on FB, though, thinks these levels are classes (because Platinum and Diamond are treated differently). Then went on to say that CCL should award more points if more money is spent on a room (balcony vs inside cabin sort of thing). What? How is THAT not a class system? How is that fair to everyone? How is that rewarding LOYALTY? CCL does not have a REWARD program. They have a LOYALTY program. And there’s NOTHING stopping that guy from reaching those levels but him. But there was no getting through to him (some people are just plain pig-headed).

Anyway, I just wanted to rant about that. Do you see a difference between a reward program and a loyalty program?

So…Football (and baseball)

Remember when I said that Wayne didn’t have any chance for the playoffs? Yeah, I was wrong. Last Friday’s game was a wet, freezing mess (don’t ask me why we went to this rain-fest when we don’t have kids playing—the last one graduated in 2003) and went into overtime no less, but we came out the winners (yes, it was an exciting game and I might have enjoyed it more if I weren’t so wet and cold). And that win, combined with a couple of losses by other schools, put us in at seed 8 of 8. I’m hoping this Friday is not raining. It has rained during the last three games. We could use some dry games! I also hope Wayne plays better than they have or they aren’t getting past round 1.

Ohio State was on a bye week (meant we could work in our garage—haha!), but USC Trojans lost. L

The Steelers won handily against Cleveland (finally!). Although, what was with that free kick fiasco? Are they high school students? Yikes! At least it seems they don’t need Le’veon Bell. I hope he never returns.

And the Rams are now 8-0! Whoo hoo!! They scared me there at first, but so glad the team decided to show up toward the end of the 2^nd quarter.  Whew!

As for baseball…  Since I write and post this the night before, I hope I haven’t watched my last World Series game this year. And yes, I probably stayed up late watching it. I have for most of the others (could only make it through the 15^th inning (of an 18 inning game) on Friday’s game—it was after 2:30am!). So if the game didn’t go the way I wanted, please don’t blame me for being grumpy.

So… How’d your week go?

Happy Monday!

Stacy