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

[SouthFayetteFan]

Oh I'm sure we'll put spend on it anyway. We plan to use it this quarter for gas.

Oh cool. Lol - I just assume people are “only MSRing” hahaha.

 

[trstno1]

If you do hotel+car though the option to pay with miles seems to go away unfortunately.

I see. I didn't take it that far. I'll try playing around some more.

ETA: Yeah, unfortunately it's official. You have to book a flight + hotel package to redeem miles.
https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/shop/delta-vacations/miles-to-go.html

 

[gottalovepluto]

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[SouthFayetteFan]

Let it go. You don’t technically qualify for this bonus so don’t call the bank.

Don’t. Call. The. Bank.

The churners mantra!!

 

[amalone1013]

I have it, too!

ETA: Since Dh just PC'd to the CF should we wait until we get the card to pay for Disney+ in case it works for category spend?

Is the card showing as a Freedom when you log in to your account? Then you can start using the CSR for your Freedom purchases, the number is the same so it can be used immediately.

 

[Haley R]

Oh cool. Lol - I just assume people are “only MSRing” hahaha.

Haha nope, not us at least

 

[LynnTH]

Guys - off topic but if you have 2ish hours to kill and you enjoy Disney voice actors you should totally watch this! I am sacrificing sleep tonight for it, LOL! (It’s from D23)

A gal I went to Grade School through High School is the voice of Jasmine. So that makes me kind of famous....

 

[Haley R]

Is the card showing as a Freedom when you log in to your account? Then you can start using the CSR for your Freedom purchases, the number is the same so it can be used immediately.

Wow really?! That’s awesome! I had no idea. It’s showing up as a freedom on dh’s account so I guess we’re good. Thanks!

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

How does that work? Once you see the miles posted you cancel the booking and then work on real spend?

Yes I canceled biz #1 did a different offer and saw my miles for #2 there. I did a throwaway Expedia booking sonif they didn’t post I didn’t waste organic spend. Now I’ll do the 3k to avoid clawbacks and cancel the Expedia booking. It’s very ymmv - 2 people reported they didn’t get them miles

DoC is reporting a short-term offer on Delta Vacation Packages. Miles are worth double through 8/31/19 - 2 cents per mile.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/delt...es-worth-double-2¢-sale-2-night-stay-minimum/
I had free time while working a night shift tonight, so I played around with some dummy bookings, and I am happy to see that all Disney resorts appear to be available. Additionally, if booking a hotel plus car vacation, it lets you separate the duration of your car rental from the duration of your hotel rental. In fact, it let me shorten the car rental duration to only one hour, effectively turning the vacation package into a room-only reservation. (It required me to sign up for Magical Express because I had no car rental.) I checked a few resorts during our spring break week, and the cost was the same from Disney and from Delta.

This looks like an effective way to use AmEx MR to pay for a Disney resort at 2 cents/point, which is a pretty decent valuation. No way to tell if they will pass along discount rates when they are available.

The promotion is only through 8/31/19, but here's one more potential nugget. The terms say this: "If you cancel your reservation, miles will not be redeposited into your SkyMiles account. The SkyMiles account holder will receive a Delta Vacations voucher for the value of the miles at the time of they were applied to the booking as payment." If I'm reading this correctly, you could book a vacation now, cancel, then use the 2 cents/point value on a future reservation.

I don't have a trip planned until 2021, otherwise I'd be tempted to give this a shot.


ETA: I ran some fall dates, and it looks like Delta is offering the 20% Fall/Holiday discounted rooms.

Saw this too. Totally interesting about booking and canceling too

My Citi AA Biz#2 statement closed yesterday and the bonus points didn't post. My first AA Biz was with the $250 statement credit and this one was the public link 60,000 points after $3000 spend. most of the $3000 was a refundable southwest flight which I will cancel so at least it isn't wasted spend. Do you think it is worth chatting with them or just let it go?

Did you cancel 1?

I was messing with this yesterday and it doesn’t seem like you can use points to pay unless you are booking a flight. Is there a way around that? I’m a little more concerned about booking a “throwaway” flight vs rental car.

So there is an option to click “use miles” and then 3 spots to pick - go with hotel and car rental - looks like per @trstno1 you can lower the car rental time for less money

Does anyone else get hung up on by Marriott like... every time they call? I'm trying to get my free night cert extended and have been hung up on twice now when they transfer me. I have someone else on the phone now so hopefully she doesn't need to put me on hold or transfer me.

Every. Single. Time
#bonvoyed

 

[afan]

I can't believe I forgot about race weeken ugh. This easy quick weekend just became way more difficult. I want to be able to split the payment, which leaves expedia out I'm guessing. I emailed @wendow s magical rate person. She also just suggested seeing if I could book two rez ay swan and them have them link them. I need at/under 200 a nighy.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

I see. I didn't take it that far. I'll try playing around some more.

Oh yeah I only played around with miles with flights. Said you can call too so I wonder if you can use miles calling in?

 

[DisneyMandC]

So I got my free night redemption moved around with Marriott with no problems. As a DP, when I asked to extend my free night cert for just a couple weeks to cover moving our stay to February, the rep let me know that she could not move the certificate in increments but that she could extend it a year from today's date, which I think is consistent with what others have experienced recently too.

So now our stay is Feb. 18-19, Fenway Hotel at Clearwater, Feb. 19-23 Sheraton Vistana Villages!

 

[PolyRob]

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[Haley R]

@amalone1013 will the CF keep the same expiration date as the CSR?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

So there is an option to click “use miles” and then 3 spots to pick - go with hotel and car rental - looks like per @trstno1 you can lower the car rental time for less money

I cannot see a way to pay with miles for hotel/car. Can you post a screenshot of where you’re able to pay with miles? It’s clear with flight/hotel but that option disappears on my screen with hotel/car.

 

[GlamMistress]

I'm back home - exhausted! Been doing laundry since 7:30 a.m. but that's okay because I've been awake since 2:30 a.m. #jetlag

We had such a good trip - so many amazing sights and experiences. I loved Barcelona way more than I expected - I can't wait to go back to Spain and see more like Madrid, Seville, Bibao, etc.

Seeing the Vatican was very cool! The line was crazy long and our guide was like "hey this is great, hardly anyone today" and we all stared at him. He reminded us 3hour+ waits to get inside are normal. It was blazing hot that day - about 100 degrees, direct sun. There was a big group of 50 of us. People were really dragging as the day wore on. We also saw the Coliseum, Forum and Trevi Fountain that day, so it was a packed itinerary.

I wasn't expecting Rome to be as a dirty as it is, but with so many residents I am not surprised.

After being on the Oasis of the Seas for the entire cruise, I decided I would do another with RCCL. I did feel nickeled and dimed and we spent way more on the boat than I expected. The pay restaurants had way better food than the included ones and half the time, nothing included was either open or the lines were bonkers. Sabor is a great upcharge restaurant we enjoyed and ate at twice. Unfortunately this restaurant is going away during the Oasis drydock in December.

We got the drink package included in the boardwalk balcony - this was fine except the Coke freestyle machines were broke half the time or empty the other half. Of course, you could go to any bar and get a drink, so that helped.

Expensive but I would recommend using RCCL's shore excursions. They have it down to a science and moving so many people so far (Rome is 90 minutes from the port, etc) it just made things easier. We did Palma City Sights, Marseille City Sights, Pisa/Leaning Tower, Imperial Rome (Vatican), and Pompeii. Visiting Pompeii in August was like landing on the sun. HOT!

I would not book at Boardwalk balcony again - it was noisy to me. I am an exceptionally light sleeper and we had an excursion at every port, so we were up and moving EARLY everyday. When there were parties or kids running around screaming or shows, it was loud. I actually don't think I'd book anything more than an inside room for another port heavy European cruise but we'll see. I had been thinking we'd trying Disney for Norway but that seems like a waste of money - we were not on the boat much in the grand scheme of things. I spent $3500 on a Boardwalk balcony. We could have done an inside for probably $1200. I guess this makes me land on RCCL or similar for port intensive cruises and Disney for the more relaxed, beach ones. The main dining room food on Disney is better. The service is better too, but we did have a couple of great folks help us on RCCL including our room steward and a server at Sabor and Vintages (upcharge tapas). The kid free areas are better on Disney. The pool sizes and numbers of hot tubs are way better on RCCL. I prefer the tube showers on RCCL - I don't like the curtain on DCL (germs!). The running track on the Oasis was awesome. The spa seemed nice. We did a couples massage (the most painful massage either of us had ever had but we sure were loosened up!) but then didn't have time to use the rainforest room like I would have enjoyed.

I used Barcelona Day Tours for a private tour of Barcelona when we landed and again for a private tour of Montserrat when we disembarked the cruise. This was very expensive but I wrote down the cost (mostly) with Arrival+ points. These two tours combined were $800 euros. I highly recommend this company and we you go private you can tour whatever you want - so that is very cool. If you use them, ask for Christian - he's a great guide.

We had a tour of LaSagrada Familia on Saturday before we started our cruise and that was amazing. We spent the remainder of that day using the hop on/hop off bus and exploring. We walked so much! DH loved seeing and visiting FC Barcelona - he got a Barca shirt but of course.

The best gelato we had was in La Spezia (dark chocolate flavor) but a close second was from the famous Gay-Odin in Naples (on Toledo, in the shopping district - also dark chocolate). We had authentic Naples pizza in Naples of course - with wine for just 12 euros.

We stayed at the Hilton on Diagonal in Barcelona - used points for the total 3 nights we were there. This is the "city" Hilton and it was just fine - there is no pool but we didn't have time for that because we were touring. We got the full buffet breakfast gratis because I'm a Hilton gold.

The flights on American were fine both ways (60,000 AA miles RT per person). We had economy plus and the bulkhead to boot so tons of leg room. The meals left something to be desired but it is airline food, so whatever. I could not sleep on the redeye going over. Coming home was daytime and the flight was longer too. It just felt never ending.

The Centurion lounge was great en route through PHL - way too crowded tho. People were jockeying and begging for seats. I didn't make it to the Priority Pass lounge in Barcelona. The airport there is chaotic with so many separate lines and checkpoints. By the time we got past passport control and our gate area I was pooped and did not care about looking for the lounge.

I was worried I gained weight (DH too) but I stepped on the scale and I dropped 2.5 pounds and so did he! All that fresh food and walking helped offset the crazy carbs and wine.

We are keen to get back to Europe, but we'll skip August (heat) and the high season. Will probably do October if possible.

 

[bernina]

Did he have a member account or a paid account?

I’m super behind so apologize if this has already been covered.

I signed up for the free D23 membership last night and the Redeem Now button just showed up online in my account.

At top menu hit My Account, then View Account.

 

[trstno1]

I cannot see a way to pay with miles for hotel/car. Can you post a screenshot of where you’re able to pay with miles? It’s clear with flight/hotel but that option disappears on my screen with hotel/car.

I edited my original post. You need to book a flight+hotel package to pay with miles. However, booking then cancelling to transfer your points to a vacation voucher looks like it might be a viable option based on the terms. Who wants to be the first to test it?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I edited my original post. It looks like you need to book a flight+hotel package to pay with miles. However, booking then cancelling to transfer your points to a vacation voucher looks like it is a viable option based on the terms. Who wants to be the first to test it?

Hmmm. I wonder if you’d need to book a refundable flight to do that... lots of question marks on this one - I can’t say I’m jumping up to take the risk there.

 

[gottalovepluto]

That's what I mean haha. I just didn't know if there would be any off chance that there would be a back door to get access if you already have Hulu for free. But I'll probably just end up paying for yet another streaming service lol.

Not going to get Disney+ for free because you have a Hulu sub. Sorry Maybe they’ll give a free trial but I wouldn’t expect anything beyond that.