Magazines coming to our house

This is a sample of the magazines that arrive at our house every month. The postman must think we're crazy, especially considering the variety. But these particular ones all have at least one other thing in common - they're free. Sorta. From time to time Carolyn and I have had the opportunity to fly somewhere and it hasn't been available or convenient to fly on the airline that we usually collect our frequent flier miles from. So we end up with some miles on Alaska Airlines or United and then never fly again on that airline or at least not often enough to earn a "reward" by the time the miles start expiring.

But somebody has discovered a way to get some value out of what would otherwise just be thrown away. We've been offered magazine subscriptions to "use up" these frequent flier miles. The offers rarely include magazines that we already subscribe to but some of the offerings really are good magazines. We get a one-year trial subscription, the magazine gets some exposure, and the airline gets to write off the reward miles. Talk about a win-win-win situation. We've already let several subscriptions lapse but it was fun getting the trial subscriptions.