Free night on property strategy

[kaytieeldr]

Sorry to sound skeptical but as the OP is new to the boards I am. This sounds like an advertisement for this Am ex credit card if you ask me.

Odds are excellent the very well-known American Express - AmEx or Am Ex for short - charge card predates the OP by a number of years; so no, he's not pushing anyone to get "his" anything.

 

[pgianna]

With all due respect, for my part of the country,1200 is very reasonable for a family of four. And on your second point, i never said i was reinventing the wheel. It was just a strategy i use to get free nights.

 

[kaytieeldr]

And the reminder is appreciated. You shouldnt be put upon simply because you don't post much, or because the charge card you use to earn the free room nights is unfamiliar to one or more posters, or because your typical expenditures on necessities are higher than what some posters consider reasonable.

 

[The Pluto People]

This past May we "paid" for 2 lovely rooms for 5 nights at the Dolphin with points we got from the Starwood Am Ex. Every month we use that card to pay for groceries, gas, co-pays, RXs, cable, homeowners/car insurance and any other expense we can charge! It still surprises us how fast those points add up! The Starwood Am Ex also allows points to be spent on gift cards and airfare!

 

[Judique]

If you're spending $1200/month on gas and groceries, you are way outspending many people in those areas. Do you realize that the median household income in America is around $46K before taxes? Many families don't even have $30K to spend each year, let alone spend half of it on groceries and gasoline!

But you choose to ignore my point which is this: You have not invented the wheel. Using credit card rewards points to pay for your hotel stay or any other part of your vacation is nothing new to this board. It is wonderful that you have found a rewards credit card that suits your needs.

How rude! Was your point to be rude to a new poster? How do you know what the dynamics of the amount being spent are? And what has all this got to do with who has what or how many people only have 30K to live on? These boards are for people going to Disney - that is about spending money.

And since when is it wrong to repeat good tips? People repeat the same things over and over again by SHARING THEIR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCES.

And as for inventing the wheel, people tout the Disney visa card all the time on here, and the rewards are minimal with occasional spending bonuses as Marie pointed out.

There are people on here who just might want to hear of other options that can lead to rooms at Disney or rooms off property near Disney for reduced rates or for free. And I think Swan Dolphin are advertisers here - their rewards programs are part of the way they get customers.

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

I know people have said they have paid for things like roof repair/replacement, A/C replacements, general contracting......but as we have fixed up our home we have gotten more than 25% off by offering CASH, which is far greater than a 1% or 2% return by using our CC. In fact, the A/C guy gave us 40% off by using cash.

This intrigues me! I always pay contractors by check. Is that considered paying cash? If so, what is your strategy for getting the cash discount? Do you just ask them if they give a discount for paying cash? I just assumed that everyone wrote out a check to the AC people, the roofing people, etc. I mean, how to you pay a contractor with a credit card?

 

[LoveBWVVBR]

Since we're posting about Swan/Dolphin on points, I'll add that there is a way to book a room and upgrade to a suite for a flat fee. I think we paid like $50/night to upgrade to a 2-room suite once we booked a room on points?? This was like a year or 18 months ago...anyways, I thought that it was a great deal We had to call the hotel directly to do so.

 

[arthur06]

I use credit cards for everyday purchases just to get the rewards. I think that if you PIF every month, then not doing it is silly.

I have a few different cards that get higher benefits on certain categories that I use accordingly.

I still do not have a Disney Visa, the 1%, doesn't jump out at me. But sometimes I wonder if I should get one just for the picture on the card...

 

[disneyofcourse]

Welcome to the boards! I love using credit cards to get extra money/rewards towards vacations. I've considered the one your talking about but ended up with chase. As long as its paid off monthly like you said, its wonderful! I actually lived in an apartment for a year that let me pay the rent on credit. Along with the cable bill, eating out, cell phone bill, grocery, clothing etc I would get a couple hundred worth of points. Now that I have a mortgage I probably get around $200 in points to spend each year. As long as I don't have to pay a penny of interest I'm in love If only I could ever get those 4x rewards mailers like others get!

Oh yeah, around here some people are quick to snap if they see a number they don't like . Don't worry about it. The budget board is for ALL types of budgets from those who need to use in room irons for Grilled Cheese sandwiches to save money. To those who want to want to ask if $100+/day for Disney gifts is appropriate per person.

 

[moonpie85]

Oh yeah, around here some people are quick to snap if they see a number they don't like . Don't worry about it. The budget board is for ALL types of budgets from those who need to use in room irons for Grilled Cheese sandwiches to save money. To those who want to want to ask if $100+/day for Disney gifts is appropriate per person.

 

[RitaE]

Well hey, I get lots of bonus items myself via credit card reward incentives. Sometimes I don't even use them in the biggest bang for your buck fashion, I instead select something that we really want.

I'm already running nearly every expense I can through credit cards and between my husband's business travel and my kid's college tuition we've made out like bandits this past year.

Enjoy your trip.

 

[NotUrsula]

I've been around a long time as well, and we also use AMEX points for stays at WDW, though in our case we take it a step further and always use them to stay at Xmas. WDW's own rates are sky high at Xmas and we find value resorts to be too noisy for our tastes in any case, so the SPG no-blackout policy suits us very well.

(And yes, we also like to use the Cash+points strategy wherever possible for maximum bang for the buck, but I haven't seen one of those at S/D for years now. They are much more common for major cities; we do them quite often in DC, NYC and Chicago.)

When we are gunning for points we channel everything through the Amex, including utility and fuel payments and all of our urban travel. I do have a Chase Disney Visa for the discount opportunities, but I don't consider their point system to be worth bothering with for the most part. We'll use it to pay down an onsite hotel bill, but those points are a major PITA to redeem, IME, so I don't make an effort to collect them. SPG points are much easier to accumulate AND to redeem, IME.

 

[DisneyCowgirl]

I don't understand the skepticism showing up in this thread. We put everything possible on our Amex, and DH uses it for his reimbursable expenses for work. I think the only recurring bills that don't accept amex are the water bill and the mortgage. We even make our charitable donations on the Amex where possible (more and more organizations take cards, including our church). We get bonus reward points for gas and groceries and travel expenses. We kept saving up our points and now we are going on a vacation to Europe just on points (well, flights and hotels are on points, I'm sure I'll be able to spend plenty of additional cash). Took a while to save up that much, but it did happen.

 

[Princess Disney Mom]

This is great advice. Thank you.

 

[lizabu]

I think its a great tip. I've been thinking about getting one myself. I know right now they give you 10000 points as a sign up bonus and theres no annual fee for the 1st year. If I don't want to use the Starpoints at Disney Starwood has hotels all over the world and as someone else mentioned you can use them for airfare. I think it's pretty smart to use any kind of rewards credit card to pay for everyday expenses and then pay it off but still benefit from getting the points or rewards etc

 

[elf]

I've had the Starwood Amex for years. I've had many wonderful vacations getting Dolphin/Swan rooms for points. I've also used Starwood Points all over the Country.

My dd really loved it when I had night in Manhatten for my dd's 13 yr. birthday with a few friends overnight it was great. Also if I didn't have enough points in Orlando I'd go to Safari for 3000 points a night. I find it flexible.

 

[ValpoCory]

Right now we have over $600 dollars to use in our next trip, and we used all our points in March.

Wow, you've charged $60,000 on your Disney Visa in 8 months?

 

[scbelleatheart]

The AMX Plat points are great. We run everything we can through it and have to pay it off every month. We also are enrolled in Hilton Honors so you can double dip, airline points and hotel points. I think we have about 600,000 HH points and 200,000 Delta mile each.
We also look at the price of a flight/room to see if it's cheaper to pay or use points to get the best bang for our buck.
For example, Choice Privilege points would need 30,000 pts for a one night stay that costs only $87 or you can get a one day/ any day car rental from Hertz for 7,500 points that would cost you $60 a day. I go with the car rental

 

[GoofItUp]

I normally wouldn't read all the way to page 3 on a post like this since I'm familiar with the cc bonus game. However, I was intrigued by some posters hostility to the OP. Glad to see some others have come to support the original post. There may be people on here - especially new folks - that don't realize there's another on-site option much less a way to stay there for points. While it's not a cc I'm going to get anytime too soon, I appreciate the OP's willingness to share his/her story and possibly help others.

 

[leebee]

I like using my Disney VISA. I know, I know, there are other cards that are a better deal, but having points to use exclusively at Disney guarantees that DH can't argue against another trip; it's really the only way to use the points! BEsides, there's no annual fee, which is also nice. Every, every, everything goes on the VISA and is paid at the end of the month. I rack up about $500 worth of points a year; fortunately, we frequently are able to earn 2X, 3X, or 5X points. $1000 "free" Disney dollars makes a huge dent in the cost of a value resort room and 7 day base tickets for two adults (especially if we go during free dining and use DME!)... although it's usually DD and me traveling; DH (as you might have guessed) has a limited tolerance for trips to Disney!