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

[Judique]

DoC also posted some Amex offers overnight:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targ...chnology-providers-up-to-100-includes-newegg/
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targeted-amex-offer-best-buy-spend-250-receive-25-statement-credit/
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targeted-amex-offer-staples-spend-40-receive-10-statement-credit/

DH and I both had Staples. I also had the $10 on $75 at department stores, which I did not have before. Hoping DH gets the BB offer because he also has an offer for an extra MR at BB (and Staples, woohoo stacking MR deals for the first time!)

I also have the Staples, plus I have a Staples offer of $10 off $50 but it has to be instore. I'm probably going to go buy coffee pods. It will be 96 keurig pods for about $34.

 

[Jax1023]

Applied for DH cip#2 around 9 this am, still at 30 days ugh!

 

[lynzi2004]

Hi everyone! Been awhile since I posted. School got out and being home with a 7, 6 and 1 year old all day doesn’t fair well with being able to sit and scroll disboards!

Anyway, we just returned from a 10 day camping trip to Southern Utah. Flights, rental car, couple nights hotel including the Mirage in Vegas all paid for with points! It was amazing and for any outdoor enthusiasts that haven’t been to southern Utah...GO! We’ve traveled all over the West and this has been one of the most beautiful in my opinion. So thank you all for the tips and help!

Anyway, I’m ready to start meeting another minimum spend and I need your opinions on which card. I’m well under 5/24 so that isn’t an issue. I’m deciding between CSP or CSR. The CSP has the 60,000 signup bonus and my DH could refer me so we would get 70,000 pts with that one. But, I kinda want the CSR for the 1.5 redemption points. But is still just 50,000 sign up points right? I’m assuming the modified double-dip is still an option, BUT I really don’t know if I could meet that kind of a minimum spend. I’m open to suggestions but these are the two main ones I’m looking at!

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

I think you bought your generator at HD? Most of those generators probably won’t run your house’s AC. The best they will do is portable AC plus fridge plus a few lights. As someone mentioned, a whole house generator will keep you going as if nothing happened but you need a large tank of fuel, probably buried and the permitting requirements for those are stringent. I know you are taking it serious (as everyone should!) and I don’t want you to have surprises in the middle of a storm. Also, make sure you buy enough fuel cans that you can fill before a storm.

Yeah we bought one from HD that was almost $500. Dh said it should run out a/c, fridge, and other things like tv and charging our phones which is really all we would need. Our stove is gas so that should still be fun without electricity. People around here said they don’t get whole house generators because they don’t need them that often

We had an electrician connect our medium-ish generator to our circuit box. We had to choose what we would want it to cover, so we chose the fridge, the oven, half the outlets and lights in the kitchen, the big chest freezer in the basement, the washing machine (not when the oven is in use), and a series of lights and outlets on the second floor. So far we haven't needed the generator longer than a couple hours. We once went an entire week without electricity after tropical storm and never, ever want to do that again.

We're going to be getting storage batteries for our solar roof as soon as possible (looooong waiting lists everywhere).

An actual cc success story-"DM" got the CSP in June, I met spend immediately (thank you Viking cruise-CSP and Amex Plat upgrade MSRs very easily met). I was able to set up her World of Hyatt account, transfer some of her URs to Hyatt, make reservations for them and DB's family at the MCO Hyatt (2x12K), then print a form for WoH to transfer her remaining points to me (I had 36k so with her 24k I had 60...) and now I have reservations at the Park Hyatt Sydney for 2 nights (30Kx2). I've read mixed reports about the room/view on points but with regular rooms going for about 1,000 Australian dollars (about $700), saving $1400+ is a good deal to me.

The transfer of points was super easy-fill out a form, email it and within 24 hours the transfer was met. I wish Hyatt had a larger footprint for sure.

When will you be staying there? I'd like us to be able to do 2-3 nights there in Sept/Oct 2020. We'll be able to do so as long as I can #2 in September!

 

[Judique]

Are your offers loading? I can only get DHs Plat to load, none of his other cards nor mine will load. Have tried explorer, private browsing, chrome incognito...

Do you mean offers won't load? I get a spinning circle all the time. I just hit home and it reloads. Not sure this is your problem though.

 

[Lain]

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Hi everyone! Been awhile since I posted. School got out and being home with a 7, 6 and 1 year old all day doesn’t fair well with being able to sit and scroll disboards!

Anyway, we just returned from a 10 day camping trip to Southern Utah. Flights, rental car, couple nights hotel including the Mirage in Vegas all paid for with points! It was amazing and for any outdoor enthusiasts that haven’t been to southern Utah...GO! We’ve traveled all over the West and this has been one of the most beautiful in my opinion. So thank you all for the tips and help!

Anyway, I’m ready to start meeting another minimum spend and I need your opinions on which card. I’m well under 5/24 so that isn’t an issue. I’m deciding between CSP or CSR. The CSP has the 60,000 signup bonus and my DH could refer me so we would get 70,000 pts with that one. But, I kinda want the CSR for the 1.5 redemption points. But is still just 50,000 sign up points right? I’m assuming the modified double-dip is still an option, BUT I really don’t know if I could meet that kind of a minimum spend. I’m open to suggestions but these are the two main ones I’m looking at!

If your DH has had his CSP over a year...he could refer you.....then PC it to a CSR

 

[striker1064]

Do you mean offers won't load? I get a spinning circle all the time. I just hit home and it reloads. Not sure this is your problem though.

This is happening to me as well.

 

[elgerber]

This is happening to me as well.

Its been happening to me all morning too. I can see one card, then if I try to switch to a different card on the same log-in, it just spins.

 

[hsmamato2]

Some people are more prone to teeth staining. Unfortunately it’s genetic and
I think I got that gene. Drinking coffee by straw is one of the top recs for preventing staining.

ok I have to ask this....doesn't sucking up hot liquids thru a straw deliver burning hot liquids to the back of your throat? Like sipping from a cup, sort of cools it while sipping.... I have never been able to drink hot liquids with a straw!

 

[miztressuz]

Good morning everyone! This is my first post ever on DisBoards. I do listen to the podcasts and watch the Dis YouTube Channel regularly though. I ran across this thread and found it very interesting and I'm slowly making my way through each page. I'm very interested in Credit Cards and their rewards / points system and am very eager to learn about it. I wanted to see if anyone could recommend a website or a blog that I could read through to learn the basics of it all. I've heard of The Points Guy (seen a few sponsored adds on FB) and a few other blogs out there but I didn't know if there was one that you all recommended to someone who is very new to all of this. Thank you all in advance for any advice you may be able to give me or website you might be able to recommend to me as to where to start.

It's hard to just pick one. Honestly, that's why there are hundreds out there. Usually the authors are looking at it from a particular perspective or topic and so you may get a different take from each. If you had a particular goal in mind then you could search for that and see which comes up with the most topics on that. If not, then TPG isn't as horrible to start with as we make it seem to just get the hang of the idea. You are actually their target audience so there should be some easy reads to introduce the idea. What you have to keep in mind with everyone, and probably the TPG family of blogs in particular, is when they make CC recommendations they are being paid by the CC companies to do so. They may make a horrible card seem awesome because the CC company asked them to. That's not to say their travel or redemption information is inaccurate, you just have to take it all with a grain of salt. I'd use them to get the concept and then using that knowledge work out on your own the best way for you to make that happen.

And that's what we do on the thread here - bounce ideas off each other and ask for advice on how things would work in the real world. We're happy to help you design your roadmap and when you're ready, just post the info suggested in post #2 and folks will critique and advise. And don't forget to ask questions along the way.

An impartial resource is Doctor of Credit because he/his team don't do affiliate links for CC's so they aren't paid by CC companies. They make their money from ads and affiliate links for shopping sites like Amazon and eBay and they tell you when they are using an affiliate link within a post so you have the option to click or not click. When they present an offer they put their honest take on whether it's a good offer or not. I like them but I was also pretty familiar with the whole CC game before I found them so I don't know what they look like to fresh eyes. They have a lot of good content about credit in general so it's worth a read, but I don't think there's a post that focuses on specific redemption options like some of the travel/points bloggers do to give you an idea of what you can accomplish. I think that's a key point because without a goal to work towards you can get into some random card programs that may not be useful when it comes time to redeem. Here is DoC's CC reference page that lists their major CC topics for when you're interested: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/credit-card-reference-pages/

 

[jaysraptor]

Good morning everyone! This is my first post ever on DisBoards. I do listen to the podcasts and watch the Dis YouTube Channel regularly though. I ran across this thread and found it very interesting and I'm slowly making my way through each page. I'm very interested in Credit Cards and their rewards / points system and am very eager to learn about it. I wanted to see if anyone could recommend a website or a blog that I could read through to learn the basics of it all. I've heard of The Points Guy (seen a few sponsored adds on FB) and a few other blogs out there but I didn't know if there was one that you all recommended to someone who is very new to all of this. Thank you all in advance for any advice you may be able to give me or website you might be able to recommend to me as to where to start.

I was very new to this about a month ago. I read through the first few pages, then jumped to somewhere around the last 100 at the time and read through those. I then posted my P1 and P2 stats and the rest is history. SouthFayettFan provided me with a ton of useful info and we are already working on our 3rd MSR. If you haven't already done so, request to be added to the DISchurners reddit board. There is a bunch of helpful info to be had in there.

 

[amalone1013]

Do you mean offers won't load? I get a spinning circle all the time. I just hit home and it reloads. Not sure this is your problem though.

This is happening to me as well.

Its been happening to me all morning too. I can see one card, then if I try to switch to a different card on the same log-in, it just spins.

Yes! Just spins and spins, trying to go home or anything doesn't give me my offers. I can do the 'home' page for each card, but the offers never load.

 

[hsmamato2]

Communication I believe (?).

@Haley R -those lists are great and good for you (since you're unfamiliar with these storms) for doing your homework. I have to admit, our batteries probably need refreshing!

A couple of BTDT tips- I try to always keep my gas tank at 3/4 or more during Jul-Nov (people get violent at gas stations after a storm when there are shortages), and if you drink milk/eat bread remember those can freeze and for whatever reason (no idea tbh) bread, milk and bottled water fly off the shelves whenever the weather channel starts drumming up terror. So you can just throw some in the freezer for the season, hopefully never need it, and thaw in December

Make sure you have a paper copy of your cats' vaccinations since I've been in the unenviable situation of having to board my dog in another state when I had to return to devastation and couldn't have him here. Also, lots of kitty litter and food/water/drugs for them regardless of whether you stay or evacuate.

I was alone for 2 weeks after Ivan and lived off of canned pineapple, saltines and diet sprite. Not surprisingly, I rarely eat pineapple now, lol.

Ok folks PSA soapbox for moment... @Haley R is so smart,reading and getting her kits together. check out the red cross website on recommendations for your area...EVERYONE should have kits,and a plan b/c we all get hit with weird weather stuff sometimes,or weird other stuff. We have a household stash for emergencies,and go bags for each person. Updated yearly for use by dates on food etc. I just had to have my mom moment there....I'll stop now...

 

[havaneselover]

Yes! Just spins and spins, trying to go home or anything doesn't give me my offers. I can do the 'home' page for each card, but the offers never load.

Mine seem to be working now but before I went to Menu then to card accounts, account home and picked the card to see the offers. It still spun for a few seconds but then loaded.

And I got the staples offers on my cards so loaded them onto three rose gold cards (mine plus the kids).

 

[Judique]

Yeah... we refuse to have smart speakers in our home. We don't trust Amazon or Google listening in on our private conversations.

Have an Iphone? Siri is like the same thing. You can't escape it lol

We've disabled Siri on our iPhones and iPads. lol

I picked up a Google mini when they first came out and the tech savvy ones (DS and DD) said you really want them listening, stalking you? Shortly after that I read that something was trying to be done to restore privacy, but I haven't heard much.

So Google mini is collecting dust somewhere and Alexa never got a shot. Plus I've always been an Android user with my Samsungs, mostly, although I did have the LG, HTC, and the original Motorola Flip Phone back in the 90ties. Couldn't get interested in Apple, although I paid for IPods, but that was about it. I have a huge problem with the privacy aspect of technology, but not so huge that I don't want to be connected. So I turn on my own lights, start my vacuum, and look up the weather on weather.com.

 

[Judique]

Davina Porter is great. I listened to her narrate all 55 hours of The Mists of Avalon lol.

Also: Robot Dinosaur Hotel



Fact. And if you have a cell phone with signal, Big Brother can find you.

Onstar too. Even if you think you don't have Onstar service, they're still watching lol.

Yes, after I let my Onstar (on a previous vehicle) lapse, I called it and got an answer. They just wouldn't serve me since I had no subscription. (I wanted an address.)

 

[DisneyMandC]

Applied for DH cip#2 around 9 this am, still at 30 days ugh!

Applied yesterday morning. Still at 30 days!

Applied yesterday afternoon and still at 30 days here too.

Its been happening to me all morning too. I can see one card, then if I try to switch to a different card on the same log-in, it just spins.

Mine seem to be working now but before I went to Menu then to card accounts, account home and picked the card to see the offers. It still spun for a few seconds but then loaded.

And I got the staples offers on my cards so loaded them onto three rose gold cards (mine plus the kids).

I find that if I try to jump from offers on one card to offers on another, it will never load. I have to go back to the home screen, move to a different card, and then I can go to offers and they show up fine.

 

[calypso726]

ok I have to ask this....doesn't sucking up hot liquids thru a straw deliver burning hot liquids to the back of your throat? Like sipping from a cup, sort of cools it while sipping.... I have never been able to drink hot liquids with a straw!

It allows me to just get a drop or so on my tongue to test the temperature. Whereas doing it with no straw has left me with burned lips and tongue.

 

[amalone1013]

Mine seem to be working now but before I went to Menu then to card accounts, account home and picked the card to see the offers. It still spun for a few seconds but then loaded.

And I got the staples offers on my cards so loaded them onto three rose gold cards (mine plus the kids).

Thanks, this is working!