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

[SouthFayetteFan]

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[pillow]

Omg I’m having a night. Just bought rockettes tickets for the wrong time. I meant to buy 7:30 pm tickets and somehow I bought tickets for 10:30 am the day after thanksgiving.

Any suggestions for reselling? I would probably hold them until September. I did call Ticketmaster and they can't do anything. Will try calling the box office tomorrow but I'm not hopeful.

What a day you're having!!!

Can't you resell through Ticketmaster?

 

[PolyRob]

I’ve always lived in United’s hubs, so it’s always been my go-to airline and I’d even say I liked it. I really hate what Munoz and Kirby have done to the airline, but I guess a lot of it is just part of broader trends in the industry.

Ahh, makes sense! My airport is a United hub (previously a Continental hub) so the globe has always been the image in my mind.

So sad, but true! All this dynamic pricing and fees here and there. Its not only United. United is just so large that I think we see more examples of it with the brand. We just have to deal with it best we can. Points help lol

 

[PolyRob]

That’s why I had to get on here again and post my news. I told DH that he was approved for this new card and the DVC plan is coming together and I literally saw his eyes glaze over...

Is DH on pain medication? Maybe thats it

 

[wendow]

Barclays is a one card per person place, right? Pretty hard to get 2?

I got the arrival+ in 12/18 and the Aviator biz in 2/19. If you are ok using a 5/24 spot, I’d probably go for the arrival+ first just cause the offer has been increased for longer and it’s more valuable.

 

[alon86]

Welcome to the thread!

Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on things. Any chance you have a side "business" like dog-walking, selling things on FB/CL/eBay, stuff like that which you could call a business in order to apply for business credit cards? The highest sign up bonus on things right now is the 80K URs from CIP, but you need a business and have to have applied for less than 5 (personal) credit cards in the past 24 months. If you can list your cards for us, we can better help you. A lot of us are sole proprietors of our "business" and get business cards, which opens up many more possibilities.

ETA: The Chase Freedom Unlimited 3% on the first 20K isn't going to last you long based on your monthly spend. If you don't want to go the business card route, I'd look into the Alliant Visa 3% card that is uncapped. But really the big money is in the sign up bonuses.

Thank you - this is great to know. DH is a real estate agent, so we can get a business card. So basically the 80K URs = $1000 credit on travel purchases after $5000 of charges. Pretty good return. I still need to purchase Universal tickets, Disney dining plan and 2 WDW tickets. Any chance any of those count as "travel" that I can apply the $1000 against?

 

[mmmears]

Amex shutdown story on today’s episode of As the World Churns: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/bgf1xw/discussion_thread_april_23_2019/elkn2zz/

Looks to be MS-related. Claimed a “low” volume of $30k in 3 months at gas stations, drug stores, and GCM, and cycles his limits.

Accounts closed and 650k MR lost, with another 250k MR in the red.

Yikes. Thanks for sharing. It's a good reminder to go slow (not MSing here anyway) because I'm in this for the long haul.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thank you - this is great to know. DH is a real estate agent, so we can get a business card. So basically the 80K URs = $1000 credit on travel purchases after $5000 of charges. Pretty good return. I still need to purchase Universal tickets, Disney dining plan and 2 WDW tickets. Any chance any of those count as "travel" that I can apply the $1000 against?

This is unfortunately not a travel credit or “travel eraser”. You can use URs to book travel thru the portal and Disney hotels/dining aren’t an option. (You could potentially get tickets thru a backdoor link which we could help you with). Good news: You absolutely could use URs for Universal tickets.

BUT, even without Disney, it’s still a great card given that it’s $850 in cash back for $5k in spend. Even accounting for the $95 AF, that’s a 15% return.

You have to be under 5/24 to apply for this card so you need to verify how many cards you and/or your husband have gotten in the past 24 months before you even think about pursuing Chase unfortunately. If you are at 5/24 or greater you will hit a brick wall denial with Chase.

 

[Haley R]

Thank you for the feedback. We have never done any of the water parks because we have always gone in January. Our next trip will be February, which isn’t much better, but may just be warm enough to try VB. I think our boys would love it, and it sounds like they would love CB too!

We went swimming in January this year.

 

[afan]

United's new livery:

I still miss the tulip.

H/T OMAAT.

Me too. I'm glad United got to keep the name but annoyed that they didn't get to keep anything else. Look at US and American, it's basically still American, ick. I never wanted to fly AA because they were too cheap, in my kid eyes, to even bother painting their planes since they were just silver. I haven't flown UA since I lived in CA, almost 15 years. They used to be our preferred carrier, pretty much all my dad would fly.

I have the United theme on vinyl and have played it. It was in my grandparent's stuff since he worked at United. I have his pins for years of service or something, they don't say what they're for. Even the fancy (looks like a diamond but I'm sure it isn't) tie tack pin that would get him awesome service when he flew, little did they know he was a mechanic not that it should matter. I used to have a couple of spoons but I think they've been lost in moves since it seems there's always one or two things that just seem to disappear during a move.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thank you for the feedback. We have never done any of the water parks because we have always gone in January. Our next trip will be February, which isn’t much better, but may just be warm enough to try VB. I think our boys would love it, and it sounds like they would love CB too!

We went swimming in January this year.

The important thing with January/February trips is to not count on being able to swim or visit water parks. If you're thinking of it as "a bonus" or it "might be nice" then you won't be disappointed. As you can see from my signature, I have extensive Jan/Feb visit experience. I can tell you that your highs could be as high as mid 80's or the high could not even hit 50. Even when it is at its warmest, temperatures start low in the morning and then fall quickly at night due to the limited sun (sunsets coming at around 6pm that time of year). The other thing is you can't trust the forecast when packing for a week-long trip. That time of year, the temperatures and outlook 6-10 days out can change rapidly. When you leave, you might see a forecast of all 70s and by the end of your week it's in the low 50s. A rainy day can also kill all warmth. So like I said...don't count on swimming between Jan 1 and Feb 28, and if you can, count it as a blessing!

Wow this sounds super negative...HAHA! All that said, I LOVE January and February trips! Escaping the cold of the north = AWESOME! Touring Epcot in a hooded sweatshirt = pretty cool if you compare it to July and sweating your butt off! We've only had 1 truly frigid trip in all our years (and it was a little tough to enjoy if I'm being honest) but every other trip has been GREAT.

 

[smallsy]

My thoughts:

1) Are you considering pursuing multiple CIPs? You could do CIP2 and mid-May should be safe (although I don’t know your stats from before that Feb card)
2) CSP and its 60k offer is definitely superior to CSR IMO these days Unless you need a CSR to gain access to the 1.5x travel portal. You can always upgrade a card to CSR in the future (if you already have a freedom you could do that at anytime)
3) any interest in MDD (modified double dip)
4) you could jump on the biz grAAvy train if you’re looking for a short term distraction. $2k MSR

1) I’m a bit hesitant to try for a second CIP but I’ve seen lots of success here which is reassuring. I should be 0/24 since my only 2 personal cards are 10+ years old.
2) I do have a Chase Freedom so that’s good to know.
3) I’m also hesitant to do a MDD so early in the game. Has it been working lately? Also that’s 8K/3mo right? Might be just a hair too much for us.
4)grAAvy train has been tempting me for a while so maybe I could do that while I think about Chase

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

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[alon86]

This is unfortunately not a travel credit or “travel eraser”. You can use URs to book travel thru the portal and Disney hotels/dining aren’t an option. (You could potentially get tickets thru a backdoor link which we could help you with). Good news: You absolutely could use URs for Universal tickets.

BUT, even without Disney, it’s still a great card given that it’s $850 in cash back for $5k in spend. Even accounting for the $95 AF, that’s a 15% return.

You have to be under 5/24 to apply for this card so you need to verify how many cards you and/or your husband have gotten in the past 24 months before you even think about pursuing Chase unfortunately. If you are at 5/24 or greater you will hit a brick wall denial with Chase.

Ah, got it. How long after hitting the $5000 do the URs appear? Want to make sure we have time to purchase the Universal tickets for Sept. This would be great - we have to buy 1 day P2P tickets for 8 people, which is over $1400 (I priced this on undercovertourist - and this was before the recent price increase).

So I just pulled our free experian report, and this is what shows on both mine and DH's report (I can't remember who actually applied, but we both have cards on each of these account, so does it matter?)

Mar-19 Chase Marriott Bonvoy
Oct-18 AmEx Gold
Feb-18 AmEx Platinum

That's it for the past 24m. We did opt for $30k of pay over time credit on the AmEx Platinum which appears as a separate account opened in Aug 2018, so if that counts separately it's 4. I'm annoyed now that I did that because we won't even use it, ever.

 

[PolyRob]

Has anyone noticed a lot of the recent Chase fraud alerts posted here have been on CIP #2, or maybe I am paranoid?

OR maybe we are all just aggressive at meeting the MSR and people are throwing lots of charges on a brand new line of credit in hopes the loophole of CIP #2 doesn't go away before getting the SUB...

 

[MrPTato]

I was very sorry to see this and was coming here to post. Seems like a trend for airlines to move towards more dynamic pricing.

I don't yet know what the practical effect of this change is. Hawaiian has always kind of had a range of award availability as you can see from the old award chart. I logged in to check some of the holiday pricing because that's what I was searching last, and there was no change; still requires lots of points. We always have my wife book award travel on Hawaiian because she holds the credit card, so we can pool all our points to her for free, and she has access to the (slightly) discounted awards that's mentioned as available to Hawaiian credit card holders.

ETA: I know @MrPTato was looking at flying to Hawaii in lie-flat first class, and Hawaiian was an option now that they've started up BOS<>HNL flights. I replied with some suggestions and a look at award pricing here: https://www.disboards.com/threads/i...r-addl-details.3729982/page-748#post-60402220

I just did a similar search and see economy award seats are now 26,250 HawaiianMiles each way (vs. 17.5k previously). It could be that the SuperSaver fares are gone, and these are the Saver fares available; or it could be the new pricing. [I’m probably seeing the discounted SuperSaver fares to the East Coast, which appears to have been added under the new chart.] I'm still seeing lie-flat first class one-way from BOS>HNL available at 130k HawaiianMiles (which is the ceiling for this class of fare anyway).

I'll need to look closer at this when I have more than a moment.

I'll dig deeper into this as the trip won't be until May 2021. Things, I assume, could/will change again with their pricing. I'm really not even sure how far out you can book with them as I am so used to flying Southwest.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Ah, got it. How long after hitting the $5000 do the URs appear? Want to make sure we have time to purchase the Universal tickets for Sept. This would be great - we have to buy 1 day P2P tickets for 8 people, which is over $1400 (I priced this on undercovertourist - and this was before the recent price increase).

So I just pulled our free experian report, and this is what shows on both mine and DH's report (I can't remember who actually applied, but we both have cards on each of these account, so does it matter?)

Mar-19 Chase Marriott Bonvoy
Oct-18 AmEx Gold
Feb-18 AmEx Platinum

That's it for the past 24m. We did opt for $30k of pay over time credit on the AmEx Platinum which appears as a separate account opened in Aug 2018, so if that counts separately it's 4. I'm annoyed now that I did that because we won't even use it, ever.

You're both in good shape at 3/24 Check your PM for the DISchurners info where I also shared some additional info that you'll find pertinent.

You're ultimately going to want to figure out who the AUs here and potentially try to get those removed to give you more runway for Chase cards. Business cards are going to be a great strategy for you though since they fly under the radar of your personal reports!!

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Knocked out my CIP#2 spend in just under a month. Unfortunately, not likely quick enough for the bonus to post at statement close, but no big deal.

So onto the next card...
Looking at Barclays AA biz or arrival+. It isn’t quite time yet for another citi AA biz, but that will probably be next.
My TU report has zero inquiries, so that’s good.

Travel goals: Disney of course, and 4 weeks in Charleston this summer. Next big trip likely Hawai’i or possibly Med cruise...probably Hawai’i and probably not until next May unless I get courage to do it during the holidays.

Barclays is a one card per person place, right? Pretty hard to get 2?

DH got Jet blue biz 9/18 (auto approved) and arrival + 12/18, but he had to personally speak to them to lower the JBB CL to get arrival +. No biggie and glad we did. Used it to erase cruise and Universal trip charges.
I got JBB 9/18 and Barclay AA biz 3/19. Auto approved for JBB and AA biz went pending a painful 10 days but was approved. So 2 cards spaced out is doable. I think a few people have had success with 3 Barclays but not the norm. My plan on to keep DH’s JBB for the free bags and close mine. I’ll also close the arrival + and Aa biz and next year attempt Barclay again. Oddly DPs have shown more success with closing and reapplying than sockdrawing current cards.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

...Oddly DPs have shown more success with closing and reapplying than sockdrawing current cards.

This is definitely a goofy quirk of Barclays. You'd figure they'd be more upset at the person who cancelled the card...but NO, cancelling the card is your best bet at getting more, LOL!

 

[mmmears]

I'm kind of surprised at all the love for United here. Back when we had a toddler and they were the only option for nonstop flights to MCO and Maui and we traveled to both at least once a year they treated us so badly every time that we just hate the airline and go out of our way (including taking flights with stops now that we don't have a little one) to avoid flying with them. They wouldn't even let DH preboard (and this is with assigned seats) so he could belt in the carseat early so we didn't hold up the boarding line. So we would get on the plane and everyone would have to wait. It was awful. I can't even begin to describe how disloyal I am to that airline. We were spending tons of money to fly on these flights, 4 seats every time, and we treated like dirt. DD can fly on either United or AA to college, nonstop, and we have put her on AA every break for 4 solid years. Sorry for the rant but I really hate flying with them.