How to Lifehack BU

Read Alex's blog, The Which-Way Time Machine

Hacks

Increase Your Dining Points (Without Paying Extra Money)
Get Refunded on Money Lost in Vending/Laundry Machines

Increase Your Dining Points (Without Paying Extra Money)

If you choose the 330 Plan at the beginning of the fall semester, you will receive 165 meals and $250 in dining points for the academic term from September to December (aka. first semester). You will also receive 10 guest meals. Normally, all of your unused meals, dining points, and guest meals will carry over to the spring semester.

If you switch to the 250 Plan before the start of the spring semester, instead of carrying over your unused meals to the new semester, Dining Services will convert all your unused regular meals (ie. dining points and guest meals not inclusive) from the previous semester into extra dining points. Each meal converts to the amount a student would pay to enter the dining hall (ie. the price of one "meal"), which I believe is $9.00.

Switching from the 330 Plan to the 250 Plan costs nothing extra, because both meal plans cost the same for the academic year.

For this hack to work, you must of course have unused meals. If you feel like you will use all of your meals during the semester, you can always use your guest meals on yourself. If you use all ten guest meals for yourself, in place of regular meals, that saves you ten meals to convert into dining points (simple enough). Other obvious ways to conserve meals are to eat out or to use your fall allotment of dining points.

At the start of the spring semester, you will receive 125 meals and $495 in dining points, plus any extra dining points you have accrued from this hack. The most successful I've been with this hack was $1300 in dining points during the Spring 2008 semester.

If you do not wish to use these dining points toward food, you can always receive a check from BU for half of the extra dining points you accrued by the end of the academic year. If you do not submit a written letter asking for a check, the amount will be debited from your student account.

Get Refunded on Money Lost in Vending/Laundry Machines

If you lose money in a BU vending/laundry machine, because your food jammed, or because the dryer didn't dry your clothes, you can request a refund on the amount lost.

Simply visit the BU Vending Services website, click on the corresponding form, and fill out your information. If you're nice, you'll also fill out the "Service" portion so that others don't fall into your situation. As of now, I do not know how BU tracks these machine errors, but I would not suggest bidding for free money if you haven't lost any.