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

[chattadisser]

They say be the DP you want...so I got the Citi AA Biz last month, made the MSR and I just chatted online for a match and the agent approved me for the 70k offer! I was approved under the 50K and those points are already in my account. We'll see when/if the points make it to my account, the rep didn't have the best handle on the English language but when I confirmed the match she said it was matched. So I saved a screen shot of the conversation.

Sixty more days and I can do this again!!

 

[kandb]

My dh got a CIP around a month ago. I want to get one but am wondering, is the 80K bonus points just good for travel (airfare, hotel and rental cars)??? I have a lot of Barclay jetblue points, so don't need for airfare and have the bonvoy, so don't want to be left with bonus points that I won't need. Can we take the cash on the cc's? Sorry, I get confused with the lingo on here and not sure what I can really use all these bonus points for. Lol!

 

[platamama]

Is using Plastiq considered a “MS”? I would have asked this question on Reddit but I still can’t figure out how to post on there.

MS is more often understood as the purchase of prepaid VI or MC gift cards and in some fashion or another converting those into a cash equivalent. Probably better that you didn't ask that question on reddit, it's not a warm fuzzy place.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

My dh got a CIP around a month ago. I want to get one but am wondering, is the 80K bonus points just good for travel (airfare, hotel and rental cars)??? I have a lot of Barclay jetblue points, so don't need for airfare and have the bonvoy, so don't want to be left with bonus points that I won't need. Can we take the cash on the cc's? Sorry, I get confused with the lingo on here and not sure what I can really use all these bonus points for. Lol!

Ultimate Rewards can be redeemed in numerous ways. The best 3 options:

• Use travel portal at 1.25x w/ CIP or CSP or at 1.50x w/ CSR
• Transfer 1:1 to partners including Southwest, Hyatt, United, Marriott (and others)
• Cash out to a bank account at 1cpp

None of these options are a bad idea as long as you’ve evaluated the options and decided that it’s the best one for you.

 

[disneybirds]

Any thoughts on Plastiq payments? Sent Federal and State payments on 4/11 with delivery on 4/15. As of today, they still aren't showing as paid through eftps or the state portal. Trying to decide if I wait another day or two to see if they post or just cancel the payments/try to get Plastiq to pay the late fees/send new payment. Does anyone know how long it takes Plastiq to credit the payment on your credit card? I would like to put the new payment on my CIP again. It looks like I have until May 1st before more late fees/interest accrue.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Any thoughts on Plastiq payments? Sent Federal and State payments on 4/11 with delivery on 4/15. As of today, they still aren't showing as paid through eftps or the state portal. Trying to decide if I wait another day or two to see if they post or just cancel the payments/try to get Plastiq to pay the late fees/send new payment. Does anyone know how long it takes Plastiq to credit the payment on your credit card? I would like to put the new payment on my CIP again. It looks like I have until May 1st before more late fees/interest accrue.

My last student loan payment through Plastiq was not credited to my account until 3 days after it was delivered. I’m not sure if it was my loan provider’s fault or Plastiq’s, but in the past my loan provider has registered my payment sometimes even the day before the check was supposed to be delivered, which makes me suspect a Plastiq issue. Someone else here was waiting on a Plastiq payment to arrive too I think. I can’t answer your questions about a credit from Plastiq though, sorry!

 

[Psychodisney]

For any Starbucks fans, I got an email tonight saying add $20 via chase pay and get 150 stars (enough for one drink). Starts tomorrow...which I saw AFTER I added money via chase pay. FAIL. When will I learn not to do things too quickly?!
Check your chase offers too. Hopefully the 5% or 10% will work via Chase pay.

 

[kandb]

Ultimate Rewards can be redeemed in numerous ways. The best 3 options:

• Use travel portal at 1.25x w/ CIP or CSP or at 1.50x w/ CSR
• Transfer 1:1 to partners including Southwest, Hyatt, United, Marriott (and others)
• Cash out to a bank account at 1cpp

None of these options are a bad idea as long as you’ve evaluated the options and decided that it’s the best one for you.

Great, if we take the cash out, I won't have to claim at tax time, correct???

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Great, if we take the cash out, I won't have to claim at tax time, correct???

No you don’t have to claim it since you earned it by meeting the MSR

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Great, if we take the cash out, I won't have to claim at tax time, correct???

Credit card rewards are a rebate on purchases and thus considered non-taxable regardless of how you choose to redeem them. Referral bonuses are not tied to a specific purchase and that’s why they can be taxable.

 

[kandb]

oh man, just watched my friend trainwreak her trip.
Context: One of my other group member, this girl has like the worse luck and makes the worse decision when it comes to travel. she spent 6 hours on the phone trying to get Alaska to book a flight with a travel credit that expires in 2 weeks. She somehow managed to accomplish this task, only to sprain her ankle really badly 2 days later. she cancels her trip an hour before her flight, she thought she found a way to extend her travel credit, paid money to find out, it still expired 2 weeks later.

Now: because of the previous event, we were making fun of her as she heads north, she has a stopover but will continue to final destination on the same plane. We were like, she probably miss her connector flight cuz shes all bad luck. Turns out she did miss her flight. For some reason, she thought it was okay to hop to the next concourse to a lounge on a 32 min layover. Not only did she miss her flight, the lounge was closed when she got there. She was trying to get onto the next flight(1 hour later) but the agent had no idea what was going on and by the time they figured out, it was too late to put her on that flight. she had to wait for the one 2 hours after her original flight. Now that makes her fly into her destination LATE... there goes her rental car since they are closed.

anyone have friends like that? haha.

No, I try to stay away from people like this

 

[wendow]

I've been watching this today also. It will be interesting to see if/when the AA site starts offering the Disney promo rates. If the AA rates remain high, then I don't think I will be using AA miles for Disney. Unless I have oodles of AA miles, which I might.

We need two rooms plus doing a split stay. So four rooms total. Our first stay is Pop which I rebooked on the new offer today and it was ever so slightly better than the fun and sun i originally booked under. We will use discounted GCs for those two rooms. We were hoping for YC for the second part of our stay. I will have enough points for one room so I may go with that and then use points plus cash for the other room (which was better under the sun and fun offer so I kept that). Overall I think I can make it all work but I’m bummed that the promos aren’t reflected yet sun and fun was but I didn’t have the points to book yet

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I’m having a hard time deciding on a hotel post cruise. Originally our flight left YVR at 9 am, so I booked a hotel near the airport so we could just take a quick shuttle and be at the airport. Our flight time was changed to 12:45, so now I’m thinking we should just stay in downtown Vancouver, do a few more things there and take a taxi in the morning to the airport. I have both hotels booked right now, but need to decide. DH is no help. Opinions welcome.

 

[kandb]

Do cc come off your 5/24 on the exact day that you opened them. Example, I opened my capitol one venture on 4/26/17, so should come off in a few days. I am currently 4/24 with this card and after it comes off, I will be 3/24. If I apply for a cc on 4/27/19 or after, will the capitol one be off my 5/24??? Hope I am making sense.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Do cc come off your 5/24 on the exact day that you opened them. Example, I opened my capitol one venture on 4/26/17, so should come off in a few days. I am currently 4/24 with this card and after it comes off, I will be 3/24. If I apply for a cc on 4/27/19 or after, will the capitol one be off my 5/24??? Hope I am making sense.

So this truly only matters if you're 5/24 waiting for that "5" to fall off. To be safe, I typically just wait until the first day of the following month. In your situation it really doesn't matter at all though since you're going from 4/24 to 3/24 which doesn't really mean anything

 

[afan]

I don't have @Lain spreadsheet so I forget who was asking about the Seattle courtyard in pioneer square. Just visited a friend there who's in town on business and I would suggest the sheraton dt or a different marriott. It's right on the border of the sketchy area and it's spreading towards the back side of the hotel by the lightrail station. If you planned to go to/from on foot only in daylight hours and didn't have young kids that would be more apt to notice/sensitive to things it would be ok but you'll have to take lightrail to get to anything. I didn't see the room but the lobby and bar/restaurant were nice. She likes it and it's convient to where she's working so she can walk but she's aware of how sketch it is but since she's walking during the day she's fine with it. And I felt fine going to/from the lightrail station at dusk alone but there was a definite shift to the people out on the streets. We have a real issue here but the city is struggling a lot with it.

 

[Lain]

I don't have @Lain spreadsheet so I forget who was asking about the Seattle courtyard in pioneer square. Just visited a friend there who's in town on business and I would suggest the sheraton dt or a different marriott. It's right on the border of the sketchy area and it's spreading towards the back side of the hotel by the lightrail station. If you planned to go to/from on foot only in daylight hours and didn't have young kids that would be more apt to notice/sensitive to things it would be ok but you'll have to take lightrail to get to anything. I didn't see the room but the lobby and bar/restaurant were nice. She likes it and it's convient to where she's working so she can walk but she's aware of how sketch it is but since she's walking during the day she's fine with it. And I felt fine going to/from the lightrail station at dusk alone but there was a definite shift to the people out on the streets. We have a real issue here but the city is struggling a lot with it.

@nickle831 ?

 

[mmmears]

I’m having a hard time deciding on a hotel post cruise. Originally our flight left YVR at 9 am, so I booked a hotel near the airport so we could just take a quick shuttle and be at the airport. Our flight time was changed to 12:45, so now I’m thinking we should just stay in downtown Vancouver, do a few more things there and take a taxi in the morning to the airport. I have both hotels booked right now, but need to decide. DH is no help. Opinions welcome.

I can't help much since we flew out the same day we got off the ship, but if it was me I'd pick a place close to the port and explore the city. Vancouver is really nice and we enjoyed walking around the day we arrived (the day before the cruise). I would have done more touring except we brought my DM with us and she has mobility issues and can't really tour around.

 

[HeightRequirement]

For any Starbucks fans, I got an email tonight saying add $20 via chase pay and get 150 stars (enough for one drink). Starts tomorrow...which I saw AFTER I added money via chase pay. FAIL. When will I learn not to do things too quickly?!
Check your chase offers too. Hopefully the 5% or 10% will work via Chase pay.

Thanks. Just checked my email and got that too.

 

[calypso726]

Paying the AF every year, esp. when moving on to other cards with biggger rewards, seems like it will get expensive over time (I already have a bunch of card where we pay the AF every year, never use the card, because I'm afraid of my credit score dropping)

You NEVER need to pay a 2nd year AF in this game unless the benefits make sense. I've gotten 68 cards in the last 4ish years and I have only paid a 2nd year AF 3-4 times.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the churning strategy spectrum ...

Sometimes it makes sense to pay the AF if the benefits are valuable to you. I don't keep all of the cards I open but I do keep a lot of AF cards because the benefits outweigh the fee and are easily redeemed for us. I also have a bunch of AF cards that sit in a drawer and will continue to sit in a drawer because they offer me no value with spending. Examples of those would be:

Club Carlson - 40k Radisson Rewards points each year. DH and I each have the card and we let the points pile up until we need them for a stay in Europe. The value of those points for each stay has been far more than both of our AFs year after year.

Chase Marriott/Bonvoy personal and Amex business Bonvoy and AMex Brilliant Bonvoy - DH and I have one one of each and easily use the 4 free night certs for weekend getaways and can do the same with the credit on the Brilliant card. We've always redeemed the free nights for tays that would cost more than the AFs with no problems.

IHG - free annual night at any property which for us ends this year. We have one more each to use. Then it will be capped at 40K properties. I still think this will be an easy free night to redeem moving forward so I'll keep it.

Amex Hilton Aspire - I love the benefits of this high AF card so much that we are each working towards getting a second one. A free weekend night at any Hilton property is worth way more than the AF especially when combined with the $200 resort credit and $250 airline credit.

CSR and Ink+ - These are the foundation of our UR earning and without them I would not be able to earn as many UR ongoing as I do.

Amex Gold - the dining credit and airline credit make this card's AF negligible and the 4x categories on dining and groceries really help beef up the MR stash which we use quite a bit

Amex Plat personal and business - Dh may or may not be keeping the business card and I'll be keeping the personal card when the AF is due. I will be cancelling my business plat card. We do use the benefits offered by each enough that we might be keeping one of each but both of us don't need to have each. So, they will be re-evaluated in a few months.