$850 Million Saved By A Typo, Chase Freedom Unlimited Is Available Now, & More News

Here are some of the stories from the week that I found to be interesting and informative.

• $850 Million Saved By A Typo – This is a story I read the other day that I found to be just amazing. A group of thieves hacked their way into the banking system of the Bangladesh Central bank and attempted to steal $950 million by transferring the money to various accounts. The part that kept them from getting away with their target was that they spelled the word “foundation” wrong – they spelled it “fandation” when they tried to spell out the name of an account. That typo caused the bank to check for verification and that stopped the transfer of $850 million in funds.
• Chase Freedom Unlimited Is Available Now – The newest product from Chase is now available over the phone or in branch. According to Doctor of Credit, it should be available online next month. The bonus is not that exciting – the usual $150 that the regular Freedom has – but it may be worth converting a regular Chase Freedom to the Unlimited, especially if you are not taking advantage of the rotating 5X bonus categories.
• AA Launching LAX – Hong Kong – American Airlines announced another new route this week for Los Angeles to Hong Kong. It will be bookable online starting March 20 and the route will begin flying September 3. Yes, AA partner Cathay Pacific flies this route and, yes, it is far superior to AA (just like many international carriers are to the US airlines) but there are some good reasons to fly this route with AA. For some great reasons, check out this post.
• Qatar Announces Longest Flight In The World – Qatar always likes to one-up their rivals in the Gulf region and they have made an announcement to do just that following Emirates announcement of their longest route. Starting December 3, Qatar will fly from Doha to Auckland, New Zealand – a route that is 9,032 miles long, or a short 213 miles longer than the previously longest route announced by Emirates. Until March 22, you can book this flight for only 45,000 miles on that particular route in business class – quite a bargain for the distance! There is a part of me that wants to fly one leg of it in economy just to feel the “agony” of such a long flight. 🙂 Edit: They have blocked the time as 16:20 from DOH-AKL and 17:30 from AKL-DOH
• NYC Marathon Entrants Picked – This past week, the lottery for the NYC Marathon was held and 19,083 happy runners found a large charge on their credit cards to find out that they were selected in the entry process for this year’s race. As one person said on Twitter, “What kind of crazy person HOPES their credit card gets charged $255 so they can run 26.2 miles? A runner, that’s who. C’mon,#TCSNYCMarathon“