I love credit cards so much! v2.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[castoral]

I need all your expert advice! I've only purchased one flight in my life, and we just went on southwest, picked our days and paid what they said and even that was years and years ago.

Sooooo, I hear great things about Southwest, that's the only website I really have gone to in the past or am familiar with.

Currently have Bellagio booked for $50/night 11/3-11/6. We're not opposed to staying and extra day before or after and could use Hilton/Marriott/IHG rewards or hopefully I could earn a free night with the My Vegas app games by then.

-Skyscanner is showing Frontier non stop flights leaving the 3rd from CVG to LAS and home on the 7th for $177/person as the very cheapest.
-Alligent is $410 for 2 people with taxes/fees leaving the 3rd and coming back the 7th.
-Southwest is 6,458 points per person to Vegas on the 2nd and 10,376 pts returning on the 6th. I could save about 1,000 pts but one flight leaves 5am and the other doesn't get in till midnight. (These do have 1 stop).

Should I bite the bullet?

 

[Albort]

@Albort we stayed at the Old Faithful Snow Lodge on our winter 2017 trip to Yellowstone with Austin Adventures and really enjoyed our stay. The location certainly can't be beat!! Glad you were able to snag a night there. We entered the park through West Yellowstone but didn't stay there, so no advice to offer there.

haha, with everyone recommendation, that was the first thing i booked for this entire trip LOL. So im working around my trip around it now lol. i dont even have air tickets booked!
@kmc8826 @StephPlum how does this sound? am i missing anything
Day 1: Bear Lake
Day 2: Teton NP
Day 3: Yellowstone Grand Canyon
Day 4: Yellowstone Old Faithful area
Day 5: Yellowstone Old Faithful area + Yellowstone Lake.
Day 6: Salt Lake City
Day 7: Salt Lake City

am i missing anything else in yellowstone? we are mostly a site seer and not much of a hiker(like long hikes). we just like to enjoy pretty views and take it easy approach.
TIA!

 

[WVMomof3]

I just keep getting the almost free kindle unlimited subscriptions.

How do you get it almost free?

 

[Albort]

I need all your expert advice! I've only purchased one flight in my life, and we just went on southwest, picked our days and paid what they said and even that was years and years ago.

Sooooo, I hear great things about Southwest, that's the only website I really have gone to in the past or am familiar with.

Currently have Bellagio booked for $50/night 11/3-11/6. We're not opposed to staying and extra day before or after and could use Hilton/Marriott/IHG rewards or hopefully I could earn a free night with the My Vegas app games by then.

-Skyscanner is showing Frontier non stop flights leaving the 3rd from CVG to LAS and home on the 7th for $177/person as the very cheapest.
-Alligent is $410 for 2 people with taxes/fees leaving the 3rd and coming back the 7th.
-Southwest is 6,458 points per person to Vegas on the 2nd and 10,376 pts returning on the 6th. I could save about 1,000 pts but one flight leaves 5am and the other doesn't get in till midnight. (These do have 1 stop).

Should I bite the bullet?

wow, $50 a night at Bellagio is super awesome! Remember though, they still charge u a resort fee... if you do the status match trick to get Diamond at Ceasars, that might be a way to go to not pay that!
dont forget about bag prices on Alligient... id personally rather spend the extra money on SW instead haha. 16k isnt too bad for an RT flight in the US.
id say, do it!!!

 

[hsmamato2]

You and he can also view his tax account online to check the payment history. https://www.irs.gov/payments/view-your-tax-account
Maybe it was late in being processed which generated the letter and then it should just be a matter of asking how to submit proof you paid on time. If it's really not showing then you'll probably have a longer conversation on your hands while working out how to get the payment credited to the right place.
Fingers crossed for you it's a letter sent in error or just the delay.

I wondered if it was legit too..... thanks for the advice I will have him take a look today at his account. At least he's got his paper trail about payments verified etc.

 

[hsmamato2]

LAX is fairly mild in the day time, it does get pretty intense at night though. LAX also probably will be cheaper to fly into in terms of cost vs SNA.
both have Disneyland express shuttles running every hour.



yeah, i saw a town just around the other side with reasonable prices. might stay there first before going into Teton NP.
im a huge cave lover. i found some are located by Bear Lake. so that will delay my trip into yellowstone more so that i can hit old faithful correctly on monday! lol
The holiday inn u were at, u just drove back and forth from there? yikes, $360 a night, but it seems like the average price for all the hotels there. think ill book the remaining nights there after my Old Faithful inn stay

Bear Lake...it's so beautiful! that was the reason we took the long (wrong choice) route in on our first travel day.....

 

[tink89]

Which card should I/we be using to get the best travel rewards.

We have CIP, AmexHH, Chase freedom, Disney Chase premier,

We do have two CIP which one will be downgraded. Not sure to what yet.

Future travel plans are Disney(always planning a trip), Mexico( cruise maybe), Hawaii, WDW ( cruise maybe)

 

[Mopedmom1]

Thought I had the perfect flights using AA miles, forgot about the close-in booking fee. Argh. Back to the drawing board.

For Disneyland, would you fly out of SNA (closer, smaller airport), or LAX for the lounge access (but further, crazier)?

I actually just switched my flight to the EVEN smaller airport at Long Beach LGB. Their flight time worked better for my schedule, points required similar to SNA, and LYFT pricing comparable.

 

[3 DD love princesses]

just caught up since youngest DD bday party this weekend.

Love all the talk about yellowstone. We were going to drive and camp along the way but decided flying and driving around yellowstone would be better. So now need to start looking at what we want to do.

Do you think SWA will have a higher than 60k sign up bonus for the personal card? Trying to get DH the CP for next year and need as many miles as possible. Can't do the business card since he did that last year.

ETA are there any on dischurners higher than 40K

 

[3 DD love princesses]

Bonus my SWA vouchers arrived Friday and just had the time to check flights for Dec. cancelled my flights I booked Thursday and booked new ones using the vouchers out of DCA instead of BWI. anyone ever use way dot com to book their parking for DCA? looks like I can get parking for $8 a day which puts it at the same cost as BWI. Didn't do DCA to start with bc of parking. Got 5 flights to MCO for $156 out of pocket and 5710 points.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We were in Hawaii building. I got a great deal so we opted for club level. It was awesome. Didn't realize you were there at the same time. We stayed Friday to Saturday. Which building were you in? Dang, I should have paid more attention. Then I could have come here and said "I got to meet THE disneymagicgirl!!"

We were in Aotearoa thurs to thurs. Wonder if we passed and didn’t even know it...

 

[palhockeymomof2]

I need all your expert advice! I've only purchased one flight in my life, and we just went on southwest, picked our days and paid what they said and even that was years and years ago.

Sooooo, I hear great things about Southwest, that's the only website I really have gone to in the past or am familiar with.

Currently have Bellagio booked for $50/night 11/3-11/6. We're not opposed to staying and extra day before or after and could use Hilton/Marriott/IHG rewards or hopefully I could earn a free night with the My Vegas app games by then.

-Skyscanner is showing Frontier non stop flights leaving the 3rd from CVG to LAS and home on the 7th for $177/person as the very cheapest.
-Alligent is $410 for 2 people with taxes/fees leaving the 3rd and coming back the 7th.
-Southwest is 6,458 points per person to Vegas on the 2nd and 10,376 pts returning on the 6th. I could save about 1,000 pts but one flight leaves 5am and the other doesn't get in till midnight. (These do have 1 stop).

Should I bite the bullet?

I would book the SW flights on RR points....if the number of points goes down...you can change the flight online or call to get the points back in your account

 

[elgerber]

Did anyone see the Theme Parks board post saying RnR and ToT are going to Tier One fast pass, as HS, beginning 8/29??

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Okay SW experts, so my fares dropped about 5,000 points total since Thursday. Do I simply cancel and rebook?

Never mind. I called and got about 7,000 points back.

And that is why we LUV southwest!

 

[miztressuz]

wow, $50 a night at Bellagio is super awesome! Remember though, they still charge u a resort fee... if you do the status match trick to get Diamond at Ceasars, that might be a way to go to not pay that!
dont forget about bag prices on Alligient... id personally rather spend the extra money on SW instead haha. 16k isnt too bad for an RT flight in the US.
id say, do it!!!

Bellagio is part of MGM and not Caesar's so that status won't help with the resort fees. I haven't seen a way yet to waive those at MGM, I don't see any status level in mLife that does it like Caesar's does.

@castoral did you get your Caesar's Diamond status alright from the matching? Did you get the MGM offer on any of your AmEx cards? I don't know if it actually works because we've been lucky to get the offers on the cards we want them so far, but DoC posted about a trick to try to add an offer to a AmEx card it's not showing.
AMEX Connect offer trick
The MGM offer is listed there so could be worth a try?

If you haven't signed up for an mLife account you may be able to match your Diamond status to mLife Gold when opening a new account at certain mLife properties. Reports from April of MGM Grand in Vegas doing it for new members only (don't know how long it'll stick around). Sometimes you hear of some of other properties outside of Vegas and Atlantic City matching but I'm not sure of any right now. You can always do Diamond to Gold in AC at the Borgata but it's not something I'd really make a special trip for if you're not from the area. It waives parking fees, and opens up room upgrades, but not really much else. Pearl status, one down from Gold, will get you complimentary self-parking if that's would be useful and looks like you can more easily get matched to that.

 

[castoral]

Which card should I/we be using to get the best travel rewards.

We have CIP, AmexHH, Chase freedom, Disney Chase premier,

We do have two CIP which one will be downgraded. Not sure to what yet.

Future travel plans are Disney(always planning a trip), Mexico( cruise maybe), Hawaii, WDW ( cruise maybe)

With those goals in mind, here would be my suggestions:

*Assuming you've opened all those cards in the last 24 months, you are 4/24.*

If you can get business cards in any way, I'd HIGHLY suggest doing those before you make any other move. Those will get you UR points that can be used towards Disney hotels and I believe still the cruises. I used them to buy park tickets but I don't believe that's an option any longer.

If you are doing business.....plan for SW companion pass with personal/biz at the end of this year/early Jan.

If no business, my next best suggestion would be Capital One Venture or Barlcay Arrival Plus to "erase" travel costs.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Did anyone see the Theme Parks board post saying RnR and ToT are going to Tier One fast pass, as HS, beginning 8/29??

Yes. Saw that yesterday. So ridiculous.

 

[Calfan]

Well, I can come back from beyond the shun corner, lol. I just placed my first Grubhub order for pickup using my Amex Gold! Super easy and straightforward, and I am loving what I got for lunch There was a churning fail involved in that I totally forgot to go through Ebates, but next month....

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Bonus my SWA vouchers arrived Friday and just had the time to check flights for Dec. cancelled my flights I booked Thursday and booked new ones using the vouchers out of DCA instead of BWI. anyone ever use way dot com to book their parking for DCA? looks like I can get parking for $8 a day which puts it at the same cost as BWI. Didn't do DCA to start with bc of parking. Got 5 flights to MCO for $156 out of pocket and 5710 points.

About how long did it take for you to receive the vouchers.....waiting...not so patiently for mine

 

[mhartman09]

We were in Aotearoa thurs to thurs. Wonder if we passed and didn’t even know it...

We probably did and had no idea!