u/AlfredRWallace

Starting this year I'm having issues getting United Mileage credits from Air Canada. I ONLY collect miles on United, with Silver status there. I do have an Aeroplan number, but never use it outside of the app. In March, I had flights to Vancouver. I didn't get the United credit. I filled out the form on United, and got the credit. In May I had flights through Montreal to Germany (Lufthansa). Lufthansa gave the credit for the long legs, AC didn't, I filled out the United form and they said the credit for Ottawa to Montreal was applied to Aeroplan. I assume this was because I checked in using the app. I was willing to ignore those, since they're tiny. Then a few weeks ago I flew to Lisbon, and back from Porto. I made sure not to check in using my AC account, or use in flight messaging tied to Aeroplan. One short leg back was on TAP (Portugal). They gave the credit for it on United within 2 days. I still have no credit from AC anywhere. My bookings show the United number.

I filled out an online form on AC asking for help but have no response. I'm trying to understand how to deal with this. I've flown on AC getting United miles for about 20 years always only using my United number, this seems to be a new problem, but it's happened on 3 straight trips. At this point I may miss out on keeping Silver status because of this.

I collect miles on United, not on Air Canada, mainly for historical reasons/status. On a recent trip to Germany I had 2 legs on Air Canada and 2 on Lufthansa/code share. Lufthansa worked fine, but for some reason Air Canada credited the miles to Aeroplan, not United. These were short hops (Ottawa to Montreal), so not a huge deal, but I'm wondering why this happened. Could it be from connecting to their wifi to message? I never entered anything but my United FF #, and I don't want this to happen again - I'm preparing for 2 longer trips this year.

We got scammed by a fake Contractor (Ontario). He seemed 100% legit, we checked his references, and gave a deposit of $6000 which would have covered about half of the materials. There's more involved, but he absolutely seemed legitimate. I am pretty sure he's part of a crime ring, a colleague of his gave us a bid for doing some additional work at the same time, and became silent once it was clear we were onto the scammer. Anyways, Things were delayed, for reasonable sounding reasons (backorder of specific color, weather, then a personal issue at home). When he started he immediately said we needed some more materials, he would go look into it. He left about $1000 worth of tools in my garage. He messaged me saying he needed more for the new materials, and then I started digging. Figured out his references were fake. Other details didn't add up. We decided to stop answering his messages, since he was continuing to lie about materials - I had contacted the place he said he was ordering and they confirmed he has ordered nothing for us. For a week we ignored his messages, mostly about fictional reasons for delay.

We have opened a case, approved, with the financial crimes unit. However they have said they can't give me specific advice on what I should do while they investigate, and it will be a few months before they can get to this (best case). Contractor reached out yesterday, and when told we had opened a case said he would refund money. Also asked if we could return tools, in a public case. I think there is no chance he actually refunds money, although he DID send me a couple hundred $ yesterday as a show of good faith for the hassle of replacing the material he tore out.

This is my question. Legally, can we withhold his tools until he pays us back? If not, is there a process where we could demand to meet at police station to see his licence? From what I can tell we have to return the tools, but I'm not certain. In reality, I have to assume we don't even know his real name, we don't have his car's license plate, and have no way to contact him. I feel like the tool return may be our only chance to find out who he really is.

I just found out I'll be travelling to Lisbon Sept 13-17 for work. My wife is going to come over & we will have Sept 18 on to travel, returning home Sept 26.

I'm normally a "planner" and would have everything booked months ago. So I'm starting off and trying to plan where to go. I'm debating between:

Option 1: staying in Lisbon for a few days after work is done, day trip to Sintra, then train to Porto with day trips from there.

Option 2: I see an itinerary in Fodors, Lisbon, rent car, 1 day each in some smaller towns (Sintra, others), Porto remaining days.

I'm leaning towards Option 1, since it requires a lot less planning, but I'm interested in opinions. I'm a much bigger fan of seeing fewer places and getting to know them than trying to see "everything".

I moved to canada 27 years ago from the US, I had a Roth at the time with Vanguard - it is still there. I'm old enough to sell it now, but doing some reading it seems like there was an election I could have made in 2010 about its status. I had no idea, when I moved I got some info about cross border finances but this didn't exist. I'm not sure what to do now, I'd like to avoid paying Canadian taxes but have no idea what my options are.

I was given an Echelon EX-4S+ last week. It seemed to be working but the resistance doesn't change for any setting. After disassembling I can see the motor doesn't change at all whatever I set the resistance to. I'm wondering how easy it is to replace the resistance motor on these, and if anyone has done it?

I was given an Echelon EX-4S+ last week. It seemed to be working but the resistance doesn't change for any setting. After disassembling I can see the motor doesn't change at all whatever I set the resistance to. I'm wondering how easy it is to replace the resistance motor on these, and if anyone has done it?

I switched from Beats Studio Pro headphones that broke (thanks Costco for refund) to Bose QC SC last week. I'm struggling switching devices, wondering if there's a fix/workaround before I return these. The Beats switched devices flawlessly, just select connect on any device and it would switch.

I use a Google Pixel, Ipad, and Macbook. When I turn my headphones on they connect to the last device. If they connect to the pixel and I want to connect to the ipad I try through the app. I get a notice to disconnect from the Pixel, this seems to work, but then I get the message "Mobile Device Not Found" and can't connect to the ipad. If I try to connect through ipad bluetooth directly it fails. So far I seem to need to turn off Bluetooth on the pixel to change. Once yesterday it connected to my Macbook that was in my backpack - awkward.

Is there some process to change devices with these headhones that is robust and easy?

I didn't get around to filing 2023 or 2024 taxes, I knew that I'd owe nothing and procrastinated. I did fill them out and mail hardcopies about 10 days ago.

But for 2025 I actually owe quite a bit (almost 10k), based on selling stocks in a US account, this is the first time I've owed in 25 years as an expat. I'm wondering how I should file my 2025 return, mail it or electronic? My concern is that my 23 & 24 won't be processed for months and if I submit 2025 electronically maybe it will trigger something. Wondering if I'm better off just mailing the 2025, or if I should file electronically thru OLT. I've only ever mailed them before.

Also I guess since I expect to owe a bit more in 2026 I need to make quarterly payments & might already be late?