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

[Haley R]

Dang, my Staples must be really strict. They keep all of them behind the checkout counter and limit you to 1. The rack with gcs is right next to the registers, too

 

[EACarlson]

We have a flight out at 6:30 am Tuesday morning to Disney. 5-8 inches of snow expected tomorrow night at home. Airport is 2 hours 15 minutes away in good weather. Hubby doesn’t like to drive in bad weather so we decided to book a hotel tomorrow night right next to the airport and not deal with the stress of driving in bad weather. It’s a IHG hotel so I figured I might as well sign up for an account and earn some points from staying there. Plus used my CIP for 3X points and it’s a park and fly package so I don’t have to pay for airport parking. Going to leave car at the hotel and take shuttle to the airport. Will only end up costing $45 more to stay for the night at the hotel vs. parking fee at airport. Trying to look on the bright side. Hope weather doesn’t end up being too bad. Look like more snow by us 2 hours north of the airport and mostly rain further south. Sigh, thought traveling in November meant I didn’t have to worry about snow. That is one of the reasons we stopped going down during February.

Had almost this exact thing happen this time last year, but we are only an hour north of the airport. Worked out really well for us, we will do the park n fly thing again when we leave out of MKE or ORD. The thought of getting up at 0300 to drive in bad weather to the airport made the price very palatable to me. Also the first time I'd ever eaten at a Cheesecake Factory since we had just started getting the AMEX Gold credit.

 

[Judique]

Thanks for the review! We have a stay booked there on a FN cert for February.

So glad you got it before they 'upped' the points!

On another note, I booked an 'on the road' Marriott for my ride home, and in checking things this morning noticed that the points had dropped, so I cancelled and rebooked, saving 2500 points. Hopefully the nights I want in Feb, midweek, will drop as well. I think I'll book one night at 40K and wing it. I can always cancel. I'm noticing some radical swings in points and prices, so gotta watch Marriott and their shenanigans. For my trip down, I tried for the Westin Hilton Head. They wanted almost a thousand bucks a night and claimed only to have suites open for 90-120k. After I committed to a brand new Holiday Inn right by Tanger Outlets in Savannah on points, rooms became available at 35K. By that point, I was going with the convenience of right off the highway and the HI was beautiful - very nice new design and concept - Marriott better get it together.
Back at Disney now! Think I'll go try the beef in Belgium and then have the waffle for dessert!

 

[disfanforlife]

Had almost this exact thing happen this time last year, but we are only an hour north of the airport. Worked out really well for us, we will do the park n fly thing again when we leave out of MKE or ORD. The thought of getting up at 0300 to drive in bad weather to the airport made the price very palatable to me. Also the first time I'd ever eaten at a Cheesecake Factory since we had just started getting the AMEX Gold credit.

Glad it worked out well for you. I agree it is a super long day when we have to get up so early to make the flight. Sometimes doesn’t even feel worthwhile going to bed. At least this way we should get a solid 6 or 7 hours of sleep at the hotel ( hopefully) and have plenty of energy for EPCOT and food and wine!

 

[disfanforlife]

Heading to Orlando on JetBlue. World’s best baby is in my row. Five nights at Wyndham grand bonnet creek for work. Looking forward to a sunny/warm week!

Have a great trip, we are a couple days behind you, but no work for us!

 

[Alexle2007]

For the free night that came with the Surpass, was that a weekend only night like with the Aspire? Trying to use DH and my free night at WA in Orlando at Christmastime.

 

[tink1970]

I never took a pill for it, but I've also had lots of anxiety around flying. Like you, the ability to de-stress and relax a bit has really helped keep me calm. That may be why I value these lounges at a higher level than the just the cost of a meal.

DD gets anxious as well so although she doesn't like lounge food (except for sweets) she really does appreciate the relative quiet and a place to literally and figuratively recharge. I think that's why the PHL CL was such a disappointment to us-it was so so chaotic and crowded it was like being at the gate. ☹
Fortunately we were flying J on AA and could relocate. Timing is so important with lounges, definitely!

I have her Plat here in FL so hopefully I can get it to her in MA so she can use the SkyClub lounge on her way home. Adding it to the packing list...

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Just applied and was approved for the AmEx personal gold in Canada! This will give me 30,000 MRs for $1,500.00 in spend with a $150.00 AF. Next up is the business platinum, which will net 75,000 MRs (but requires a $7,000.00 spend, which I just can't pull off currently). Excited to get my MR stash started (you can combine US and Cdn MRs)! Best of all the personal card can be churned -- DPs indicate you keep the card for 6 months, cancel, they re-apply after a year and you'll get another 30,000 MRs. AmEx doesn't have any rules in Canada about repeat bonuses for the same card....yet.

Now I just have to get the 100,000 MR platicorn offer (I still try incognito every day). Failing this I asked dh to send me a support link for 75,000 MRs between us, but I'm still waiting (I asked 5 days ago).

 

[georgina]

We have a flight out at 6:30 am Tuesday morning to Disney. 5-8 inches of snow expected tomorrow night at home. Airport is 2 hours 15 minutes away in good weather. Hubby doesn’t like to drive in bad weather so we decided to book a hotel tomorrow night right next to the airport and not deal with the stress of driving in bad weather. It’s a IHG hotel so I figured I might as well sign up for an account and earn some points from staying there. Plus used my CIP for 3X points and it’s a park and fly package so I don’t have to pay for airport parking. Going to leave car at the hotel and take shuttle to the airport. Will only end up costing $45 more to stay for the night at the hotel vs. parking fee at airport. Trying to look on the bright side. Hope weather doesn’t end up being too bad. Look like more snow by us 2 hours north of the airport and mostly rain further south. Sigh, thought traveling in November meant I didn’t have to worry about snow. That is one of the reasons we stopped going down during February.

Hope it goes well! We're flying Tuesday morning also, out of PIT, and are 45 minutes from the airport when it is not rush hour and not snowing. It's hard to predict, the weather people here always stress the worst. (We're flying in February also.)

 

[disfanforlife]

Hope it goes well! We're flying Tuesday morning also, out of PIT, and are 45 minutes from the airport when it is not rush hour and not snowing. It's hard to predict, the weather people here always stress the worst. (We're flying in February also.)

Thank you! Will you be at Disney too or just universal? I hope that you have a great trip and that your travel goes well too.
We have been down a couple times in February but was really cold. The months that have worked best for us are November and March .

 

[wendow]

OT question: I finally got my mom and stepdad’s tix to show up in MDE. We’re onsite but they aren’t so I’ve been waiting to 30 days to book their FPs. That two days away. Anyways I went on today just to check that everything looks good for booking them. Since they don’t have a resort linked, I guess I thought 30 days would show up as bookable. But no days are able to be booked. I couldn’t get book tomorrow for them. What am I missing?? I’ve never had to deal with this situation before and I’m getting stressed out

 

[wendow]

We have a flight out at 6:30 am Tuesday morning to Disney. 5-8 inches of snow expected tomorrow night at home. Airport is 2 hours 15 minutes away in good weather. Hubby doesn’t like to drive in bad weather so we decided to book a hotel tomorrow night right next to the airport and not deal with the stress of driving in bad weather. It’s a IHG hotel so I figured I might as well sign up for an account and earn some points from staying there. Plus used my CIP for 3X points and it’s a park and fly package so I don’t have to pay for airport parking. Going to leave car at the hotel and take shuttle to the airport. Will only end up costing $45 more to stay for the night at the hotel vs. parking fee at airport. Trying to look on the bright side. Hope weather doesn’t end up being too bad. Look like more snow by us 2 hours north of the airport and mostly rain further south. Sigh, thought traveling in November meant I didn’t have to worry about snow. That is one of the reasons we stopped going down during February.

This is always my fear with winter flights. But you’re right! It’s not winter and you shouldn’t be having to worry about that. Hope everything goes well and there are no issues!

 

[speedyfishy]

have her Plat here in FL so hopefully I can get it to her in MA so she can use the SkyClub lounge on her way home. Adding it to the packing list...

you can add the plat to her delta wallet online and she shouldn’t need the physical card.

 

[platamama]

Just applied and was approved for the AmEx personal gold in Canada! This will give me 30,000 MRs for $1,500.00 in spend with a $150.00 AF. Next up is the business platinum, which will net 75,000 MRs (but requires a $7,000.00 spend, which I just can't pull off currently). Excited to get my MR stash started (you can combine US and Cdn MRs)! Best of all the personal card can be churned -- DPs indicate you keep the card for 6 months, cancel, they re-apply after a year and you'll get another 30,000 MRs. AmEx doesn't have any rules in Canada about repeat bonuses for the same card....yet.

Now I just have to get the 100,000 MR platicorn offer (I still try incognito every day). Failing this I asked dh to send me a support link for 75,000 MRs between us, but I'm still waiting (I asked 5 days ago).

Oh, that's interesting about how Amex treats a Canadian Amex card differently. Congrats!

Just have your DH take a photo of his support link url and send it to you, and you can type it in directly into your browser. Just start with the "http" part all the way to the end of the url, and that should do it. Or, if you know his login info, you can find it yourself.

 

[GlamMistress]

Just noticed something interesting in the Skymiles Shopping portal... the ability to stack extra miles when booking an IHG property.

Perhaps this has always been available. I've never seen hotels in these sorts of miles portal before.

 

[Mswiza]

OT question: I finally got my mom and stepdad’s tix to show up in MDE. We’re onsite but they aren’t so I’ve been waiting to 30 days to book their FPs. That two days away. Anyways I went on today just to check that everything looks good for booking them. Since they don’t have a resort linked, I guess I thought 30 days would show up as bookable. But no days are able to be booked. I couldn’t get book tomorrow for them. What am I missing?? I’ve never had to deal with this situation before and I’m getting stressed out

If their tickets are for specific dates, you won’t be able to book until the 30 days before the first date. This happened to me for my daughters ticket, we were on site so it was 60 days and I was trying to make sure it would work ahead of time as well. All was good when we got to 60 days.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Oh, that's interesting about how Amex treats a Canadian Amex card differently. Congrats!

Just have your DH take a photo of his support link url and send it to you, and you can type it in directly into your browser. Just start with the "http" part all the way to the end of the url, and that should do it. Or, if you know his login info, you can find it yourself.

In Canada I apply using my SIN and in the US using my SSN. I found an amazing blogger for Cdn points that I follow and he's helped me a few times via e-mail exchanges. There is also a reddit page that's fairly helpful.

The other great thing is AmEx transfers points based on the exchange rate. So it's beneficial to transfer points from AmEx US to AmEx Canada, then to Aeroplan as you'll end up with 30% more points (thanks to the exchange rate). With Bonvoy, since AmEx Canada has a generous transfer ratio, it can be 42% more points. So I need dh to open a Cdn card that earns MRs (he only has the Aeroplan platinum in Canada, which earns Aeroplan miles), so he can transfer his US MRs to a Cdn MR account, then on to Bonvoy or Aeroplan. If only he would sit still long enough to listen about the benefits of doing this .

Also there is no limit to the number of AmEx cards you can hold, nor are there any bank restrictions on cards (a la Chase 5/24) in Canada, yet....Plus as I stated above, AmEx cards are supposedly easily churn-able for multiple bonuses. I do plan on testing this out over the next few years! Apparently MS is much harder though. People don't post about it all (except for all the ways that have been shut down).

 

[georgina]

Thank you! Will you be at Disney too or just universal? I hope that you have a great trip and that your travel goes well too.
We have been down a couple times in February but was really cold. The months that have worked best for us are November and March .

Staying mostly at Universal this trip, but I'm going to MVMCP solo on Thursday. I have been in Florida the last 2 Februaries as I have some family to visit a few hours away from Orlando and have been lucky with beautiful weather. I'm doing a side trip to visit family this week also, will be at the Sarasota Opera as my nephew is playing in the orchestra for Rigoletto.

 

[wendow]

If their tickets are for specific dates, you won’t be able to book until the 30 days before the first date. This happened to me for my daughters ticket, we were on site so it was 60 days and I was trying to make sure it would work ahead of time as well. All was good when we got to 60 days.

Thank you! This occurred to me as I was making dinner. They are date based tix. So that makes sense! Just never had to deal with this before

 

[disfanforlife]

This is always my fear with winter flights. But you’re right! It’s not winter and you shouldn’t be having to worry about that. Hope everything goes well and there are no issues!

Thank you!