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

[havaneselover]

This sounds awesome! Do you have to pay with the Costco CC? Did you compare this to using Chase Cruise TA? I wonder if it comes out ahead to book through Costco and cash out UR's to pay the bill if you can use a CSR card instead of the Costco card? Hmmm, may need to look into this a little more for our next cruise. Our last cruise I booked direct and then transferred to Chase and paid with CSR 1.5 redemption. It was really nice to have a TOTALLY free cruise!

No—paid with Disney gift cards. Their 8% back, especially on an obb, beats all other TAs in my experience.

And I’m hoarding my URs to take dd to Europe in 2021 so I’ve never tried chase cruise dept.

 

[NewbieMom]

You guys, I just booked our flights to Hawaii for the Friday after Christmas!!! Well, we're getting there, not sure how we'll get back yet, lol. I've been waiting and waiting for our day to open up on the schedule for Hawaiian Airlines and it finally did today and it was a decent price, $354ea for one-way direct Sacramento to Maui (after I booked it went up to $398 and AK is charging $750). That is pretty good for that time of year I think. The only problem is they wanted 40K points to book (120K for all 3 of us), so I decided to book it with the Biz Plat via AMEXtravel instead. I'll earn 5x MRs on the booking and then cash out 86,064MRs via Schwab to cover it. I know it's not the BEST redemption to Hawaii but considering the time of year, that we wanted to fly direct from SMF, and I need to put more spend on the Biz Plat anyway, it's a win for us. Now just waiting another week to book the return flights! (I did check booking HA via VA for 20K, but that was not available. Also nothing available for AK via BA).

We'll be staying at the Grand Wailea. As soon as we meet the spend on DH's Aspire we'll have enough Hilton points to book the 5 nights, plus I already have a reward night from my Aspire, so we'll do 6 nights in all. I'm so excited!!!

Congratulations! We’ll be just an island over at the same time!

We would’ve preferred to fly Hawaiian, but although their seats open up 330 days in advance, their award availability in the 2 weeks leading up to Christmas and for about 2 weeks after Christmas is so difficult to predict. If you want to use miles to book award seats on Hawaiian during Christmastime, you need to either be on your game and check the website every night when inventory gets loaded at, I believe, midnight Hawaii time; or sign up for alerts via Expert Flyer. For sure though, those cash fares will only go up from release and stay high until maybe a month or so before departure, when I notice a lot of movement on Hopper. Last year, we hadn't settled on dates when cash prices were released, and I saw fares on the 23rd and 24th go up from $380-something to $510 one-way when we finally booked in April. Fortunately, we each had $400 vouchers, but what could've been a free flight worked out to $110 per person. I kept checking for award fares too, and I don't think anything in economy before Christmas ever popped up by the time we booked; first class flights did show up for 80k HA miles, and I think I might've noticed some award availability in economy appear in June long after we had our flights, but they weren't saver awards.

We're flying United to HNL this year. Booked saver award seats at 22.5k UA miles apiece promptly at 334 days out.

You might not think this was the best redemption, but you saved yourself a lot of stress!

Looks like there's quite a few folks in Hawaii at the same time. I just wanted to pop in and report my 1st awards redemption since finding this thread. This morning, I came across 20k mile saver awards to HNL for Christmas, all 4 tickets needed were available, and jumped on it. The flight itinerary isn't the best as there's a layover in LAX, but it only costs me $5.60 per ticket! Now hoping for good return flights, and need to figure out where to stay. I'm a bit late in planning, and don't have many hotel points. Hoping there'll still be something available later in the year.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Flying back from our Disney cruise. Sitting at Skyclub at MCO because there were no good flights from Miami. The drive was 3 hours but not bad. We had lunch at Disney Springs! The cruise was great. I got asked "where are your kids" 978 times. Finally DH was like NO KIDS! Lol. Met some nice couples too. Weather was lovely. Escaped the polar vortex! Bought an overpriced spirit jersey

We did the on board DVC presentation and I won the $200 OBC!

I have a million pages to catch up on... I am seeing something about referrals and taxes?

Glad you had a nice cruise!! I’ve been eyeing one of those spirit jerseys for so long now. We actually saw a girl wearing one at the grocery store today and DH asked me why I still haven’t bought one. I’ve only had my eye on them since August 2017! I guess the good news is I’m not an impulse buyer...

And yes, bad news is 1099s are going out from amex and chase on referral bonuses.

 

[Psychodisney]

Costco is great for travel. I got $680 back on DCL Alaska plus am getting another 2% back from my executive membership.

Years ago, before we had any Costcos nearby, I joined simply for the travel discount on our first Disney Cruise! The discount more that’s covered several years of membership. These days, I don’t shop there much as we are empty nesters but between the gas prices and travel discounts, it is totally worth it!

 

[Lain]

Looks like there's quite a few folks in Hawaii at the same time. I just wanted to pop in and report my 1st awards redemption since finding this thread. This morning, I came across 20k mile saver awards to HNL for Christmas, all 4 tickets needed were available, and jumped on it. The flight itinerary isn't the best as there's a layover in LAX, but it only costs me $5.60 per ticket! Now hoping for good return flights, and need to figure out where to stay. I'm a bit late in planning, and don't have many hotel points. Hoping there'll still be something available later in the year.

Have you looked at the Marriott hotels? They have a points advance option that lets you book an award reservation now even if you don’t have all the points needed in your account; you just need to have them in place two weeks before check-in. There are some 100k Marriott points signup bonuses coming up with the Bonvoy rebranding, and you can transfer Chase UR or Amex MR points to Marriott to top off whatever you still need.

 

[NewbieMom]

Have you looked at the Marriott hotels? They have a points advance option that lets you book an award reservation now even if you don’t have all the points needed in your account; you just need to have them in place two weeks before check-in. There are some 100k Marriott points signup bonuses coming up with the Bonvoy rebranding, and you can transfer Chase UR or Amex MR points to Marriott to top off whatever you still need.

Thanks for the tip! I think I'll go ahead and reserve the Courtyard while I figure things out. It's the only 35k/night hotel, and I'm practically starting from 0. Even if I get 2 SUBs, it'll cover us for the week.

ETA: I have practically no URs or MRs. I only got the Rose Gold in early Jan, and my CF doesn't earn a lot.

 

[Lain]

Thanks for the tip! I think I'll go ahead and reserve the Courtyard while I figure things out. It's the only 35k/night hotel, and I'm practically starting from 0. Even if I get 2 SUBs, it'll cover us for the week.

ETA: I have practically no URs or MRs. I only got the Rose Gold in early Jan, and my CF doesn't earn a lot.

Remember, when you book with points you get the 5th night free at Marriott.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

My annual fee just posted for my CSP. Do I need to transfer all my points to my CIP before I downgrade to a CF? Or does it not matter?

 

[Mopedmom1]

That’s interesting, I haven’t had to have them fix a tire or pro rate them in a long time (knock on wood). But when I have, I’ve never had them say anything to me. And, uh, I’m not exactly great about rotating my tires... as in I almost never do

We have used them a few times in the past too, but this last time they denied the claim because I hadn't followed the rotation schedule. However, my DD had better luck when she had a flat. She's a lot younger and cuter than DH, and her local Costco is in a small town where it is way less busy than ours. Perhaps one or all of these factors played into her positive results. Lol

 

[Haley R]

Well our bags our nowhere to be found so that’s nice...

 

[mmmears]

With the costco talk, has any bought tires from there? So the tires I had ordered were back ordered, so I still need tires on my vehicle. Then I'm thinking if I buy tires there I might as well get a membership now to take advantage of the rental cars in a couple weeks and then in May.

DH uses Costco for tires for both our cars. They don't sell everything, and tend to not have what we want in stock, but they can order it. He says it's cheaper than the tire stores around here.

 

[Lain]

My annual fee just posted for my CSP. Do I need to transfer all my points to my CIP before I downgrade to a CF? Or does it not matter?

Doesn’t matter. When you PC the CSP to CF, you’ll lose the ability to transfer your points from the CF to Chase’s travel partners, but not the ability to transfer UR points between UR-earning cards in your household.

It’s good practice to always combine the URs from all your household’s UR-earning cards when they each post every month onto the UR card with the highest redemption bonus (CSP or CIP at 1.25x or CSR at 1.5x) so you have all your household’s URs on the card that gives you the best redemption value.

That’s because in the past two years, there’s been buzz since some survey questions were leaked that Chase has been considering restricting the ability to transfer UR cards between cards or household, or limiting the value of UR points to the card they were originally earned on. Nothing’s come of this (yet), but you don’t want to be caught with your URs on the wrong card.

 

[speedyfishy]

Got to MCO three hours before our flight. I don’t feel like going to the Club though.

Overall our Disney trip was good. Two problems the guy checking us in at the magical express gave us an attitude regarding the fact that I didn’t make a reservation. I was like you don’t need to make a reservation for arriving flights and when I gave him my bag claim number he rolled his eyes. Then when we get to All Star Movies they said we were in the mighty ducks section. I paid for a preferred room!! The lady is like where does it say you paid for a preferred room? So I had to pull up my email and screen shots and then she goes away for a bit and tries to move us to the Dalmatian section. But at this point I was pissed it was on the far end and we would have been better off at Mighty ducks and just using All Star Music’s bus. So they then moved us to Toy Story. I just got a scammy vibe tho that they were hoping that I wouldn’t notice being in Mighty Ducks wasn’t a preferred room.

After, that tho we had a great time and I had three cast member experiences that were fantastic that I’ll include in my email to Disney lol

Oh, also the parks are still crowded lol

 

[Disneyonmymind]

I have to spend several hundred dollars at Best Buy very soon. Other than buying B.B. gift cards at Staples using my CIC for the 5x bonus, is there any other obvious strategy I am missing? We also have CSR, CSP, CIP, and SPG biz. I have never used any of the rebate apps but I am willing if it’s worth it.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Just called Marriott 1-800 number to get my name added to the reservation for our ski week (starting Feb. 9) at the Westin Whistler (all on points). That was NOT fun -- the agent kept saying "because you made the reservation before Starwood and Marriott merged" -- I made the reservation in March of last year -- he apparently had to call the hotel and have my name added (the Marriott number is only in dh's name). I don't have too much hope that my name will be on the reservation.

I then called the Westin Whistler directly (we've been staying here for the past 10 or so years) to ask about an upgrade from our studio suite with 1 queen bed and pull out sofa (all nights on points before the merger). The amazing agent that answered the phone upgraded my dd and I to a 1 bedroom suite in the east tower (the closest to the mountain and my favorite -- we've never stayed in the west tower) for NO CHARGE!! Yippee! I am getting excited for our trip now!

The ouch is I had to buy lift tickets for myself today (bought dd's in September and saved 30%) and they cost Cdn $152.00 + tax / day. I nearly fell off my chair. Wonder if I could've scored them on the Chase portal?

So flights and hotel on points. Wish we could get food and my lift tickets on points!

 

[Haley R]

I’m not impressed with southwest customer service at all. When frontier had our bags delayed once (not even lost, just delayed) they gave each of us a $100 voucher to use. Southwest told me if I pick up my own bag THAT THEY LOST they will give me a $50 credit. Cool. Too bad we live 2 1/2 hours from the airport. I’m not coming back tomorrow to get my bag but I don’t get any compensation for them losing my luggage? What a bunch of crap....

 

[Judique]

So hypothetically, could someone with a Marriott Premier/Premier Plus go 1 year, 10 months paying the $95 AF, then in the 11th month PC to the R-C card, pay only a one- (or two-) month prorated AF on the $450, and get the 50k FN cert after year 2?

I'm hung up on this idea. The R-C card had a $300 airline credit, as well as a 50K night and I believe it also gave Platinum status? Or did I make this up??? The Plat status I mean? Daughter has the card and she says it is gold status....already have that.

And is it really possible to try and upgrade to this product? \\

Its gold status. You have to spend 75K to get to Plat

 

[speedyfishy]

I’m not impressed with southwest customer service at all. When frontier had our bags delayed once (not even lost, just delayed) they gave each of us a $100 voucher to use. Southwest told me if I pick up my own bag THAT THEY LOST they will give me a $50 credit. Cool. Too bad we live 2 1/2 hours from the airport. I’m not coming back tomorrow to get my bag but I don’t get any compensation for them losing my luggage? What a bunch of crap....

Yikes, what credit card did you pay for the flight fees with? Idk if there is typically protection when flying to your home airport though.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Doesn’t matter. When you PC the CSP to CF, you’ll lose the ability to transfer your points from the CF to Chase’s travel partners, but not the ability to transfer UR points between UR-earning cards in your household.

It’s good practice to always combine the URs from all your household’s UR-earning cards when they each post every month onto the UR card with the highest redemption bonus (CSP or CIP at 1.25x or CSR at 1.5x) so you have all your household’s URs on the card that gives you the best redemption value.

That’s because in the past two years, there’s been buzz since some survey questions were leaked that Chase has been considering restricting the ability to transfer UR cards between cards or household, or limiting the value of UR points to the card they were originally earned on. Nothing’s come of this (yet), but you don’t want to be caught with your URs on the wrong card.

Great, thanks!
Yes, I've been pooling them all on the CSP so once I PC it I will switch to pooling them on the CIP until I can convince DH to go for a CSR.

 

[Judique]

Just called Marriott 1-800 number to get my name added to the reservation for our ski week (starting Feb. 9) at the Westin Whistler (all on points). That was NOT fun -- the agent kept saying "because you made the reservation before Starwood and Marriott merged" -- I made the reservation in March of last year -- he apparently had to call the hotel and have my name added (the Marriott number is only in dh's name). I don't have too much hope that my name will be on the reservation.

I then called the Westin Whistler directly (we've been staying here for the past 10 or so years) to ask about an upgrade from our studio suite with 1 queen bed and pull out sofa (all nights on points before the merger). The amazing agent that answered the phone upgraded my dd and I to a 1 bedroom suite in the east tower (the closest to the mountain and my favorite -- we've never stayed in the west tower) for NO CHARGE!! Yippee! I am getting excited for our trip now!

The ouch is I had to buy lift tickets for myself today (bought dd's in September and saved 30%) and they cost Cdn $152.00 + tax / day. I nearly fell off my chair. Wonder if I could've scored them on the Chase portal?

So flights and hotel on points. Wish we could get food and my lift tickets on points!

Yeah but the exchange rate is 1.31 for cdn dollar to us dollar, so really $1.16us, or are you in Canada? That said when I was skiing years ago....haven't gone in 20 years....that would buy a week.