- djwtwo / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA
Yesterday morning I woke up with a very strange feeling. When it happens, I know it usually means I need to remember the dream. So having grabbed the end of that dream that had been trying to slip further and further away from me with every second, I shut my eyes and saw a picture of an airline first-class suite.
Only it wasn’t just a first class fancy suite from Etihad, Asiana, or Emirates, or even Singapore Airlines that I’ve seen dozens of times on the net, but never had a chance to experience, yet. No, sir, this suite was huge! it was a hotel-like suite with an enormous elevated Jacuzzi (I kid you not), an entertainment center with a flat screen, two recliner chairs and a coffee table. I don’t remember the bed, but I’m sure it was there, somewhere; hell maybe in a separate bedroom, I don’t know. And yet, I knew it was an airliner and not a hotel. There was a huge front-view window and we were flying, but for some reason, beneath the clouds, so I could see the ground below.
Flying, I tell ya! Could it be an airship?
Anyway, here I am, in this giant “airliner” suite, and what I’m doing is, I’m going through my suitcases, two or three of them — have I mentioned I do not like to check in my luggage? And what I am looking for is a bottle of something, I don’t know what, but I know it’s alcohol. But why? I ain’t really a big drinker, and I wouldn’t normally drink alone. So, in my attempt to untangle the knots of my memory, I keep trying to remember why I needed to find something to drink in the first place. And bingo!
There was a guest in my suite. We were sitting there in these recliners, watching TV, having a drink and a conversation about something and that something was somehow about frequent flyer miles. And then he excused himself and went out for a moment, but before he did, he said something. Something like check that Award Wallet?
Award Wallet? What? Why?
It was almost the time to get up anyway, so I do what people do in the morning, and then coffee in hand, I fire up the laptop, go to Award Wallet and check my accounts. Chase Ultimate Rewards displays a sign-in error, so I go to Chase and sign in. By that time, I had already dismissed my dream. It was beautiful, intensely weird, but it was just a stupid dream. There was no reason to read into it. On my Chase page, I see one unread Secure Message so I go there and read it. It was nothing significant, but then I saw this, from several months ago:
“Re: Rewards Inquiry”
I click and read in bewilderment. How on earth could I forget this!
I am pleased to inform you that we will honor your request
to add the additional 10,000 bonus points. In order for us
to do so, we request you to send us a reply once your
account has met the spend threshold of $5,000.00 and we
will be happy to add the bonus points on your account.
See, at the end of May, I applied for a 50,000-point Chase Ink Bold card, and a couple of weeks later, I guess, they came up with a better 60,000-point offer. So, I had messaged them with a matching request and, as the result, received the letter cited above. True to my lazy nature, I promptly forgot that I was supposed to remind them about the extra bonus after I’d meet the spend. However, my subconscious did not. Man, this hobby is playing tricks with my mind. Why can I not dream up the Yesterday like Paul McCartney or come up with the Periodic Table like Mendeleev, or, in the very least, find the solution to the World Peace! Instead, my subconscious placed me in a huge suite on board of a giant plane only to fix the results of my own sloppiness. Bummer.
Just kidding. I did get my 10,000 extra-points in the afternoon. Chase is really good at this stuff. I’m a happy camper.
Do yourself a favor, though, and write or type down these things. Don’t forget to set a reminder, too. Do not count on having a revelation. You might not be this lucky.
Oh, and finally a disclaimer, of course. Award Wallet paid me $5,000 to write this post. I thought I’d mention that just in case if you’re curious.
No they didn’t :). They didn’t order, ask or beg me to write it either. It could’ve been an Excel Spreadsheet instead of them that jumpstarted my memory. But it wasn’t. It was Award Wallet. I simply can’t lie.
Hope to host you in a giant suite on board of a giant plane one day. Sweet dreams!
