mamalovesdis
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2011
- Messages
- 71
I also bought a house in 2017. Don't know if that matters. I definitely want to pay for my resort balance with whatever new card. I'm leaning towards CIP or CSP.
The waiting freaks me out a little. I might have to go ahead and book flights and just pay the balance of the resort with the new card. I'm happy to support someone!
I guess with the CP only being good this year it's maybe not my best bet. I would like to consider the long term and really be diligent with maximizing earning potential. I am planning to book our May 2019 trip through Disney for the CBR. If there are better options, let me know!
Oh yes, basically anything you do on the side for money or even revenue generating hobbies can qualify as a "business" and be good enough to get a business credit card.There's a good mix of us on here with "businesses" and with actual businesses to get business credit cards. When applying as a "business" for your eBay you'd select a Sole Proprietorship on the application and just use your name and SSN for the business info. Just make sure your business name and your name are exactly the same (don't add anything to it like "Consulting" or "Antiques" or anything descriptive) and it'll go through without further documentation needed for most card issuers - Chase is one of those, AmEx is another. Definitely something to think about as there are good business card offers out there.
For Chase's 5/24 rule any credit card that appears on your credit report counts towards that number. You'd want to look at card open dates, they count what you opened in the last 24 months regardless of if you closed it already. So if you can see the store card on the report that will count and it looks like you're starting off at 2/24, which isn't bad, there's a good amount of Chase cards you can still get if you are strategic about it.
ETA: Along this same thought, not all card issuers report business cards to your personal credit report. Since Chase is only looking at what's on your CR when calculating that number, any Chase business card you pick up doesn't add to your 5/24 count since they don't report to your CR. (neither does AmEx, Citibank, Barclays and a few others I can't think of offhand) It's another advantage to opening biz cards.
Yeah, with it being so close to departure I'm not sure I'd wait on the tickets either. At least you'd be able to use that purchase towards a minimum spend requirement (MSR) so it wouldn't be all bad. But it's a touch choice to spend the cash now for a potential reward later.
With the SW vs CSP probably have to look at the value you'd get from the rewards offered, since they both have the same required spend, and then work out how either would effect your CC plans going forward.
The SW card with the CP would get you at least 30k points and if you use it to buy your cash flights you'd get 2x the points on those + the other spend points. Estimating the flights with a round number, $1,000, that'd be 35,000 points (30 bonus, 2 from SW purchase, 3 from the rest of the MSR) and be worth about $450-550 in SW flights. Add in that one ticket would be practically free once you apply your CP to it and I can see at least $600 in value there minus the $69 AF (I assume you'd go for the Plus since all the bonuses are the same right now). If you bought the WGA fare for the CP ticket originally then you'd get a travel credit good for a year, and if you plan to take another trip later that can still be useful.
For the CSP, a perk of that card (and the CSR and CIP) is that you can transfer your UR points to travel partners - SW is a travel partner. So you could also take the 50k+ on that card and transfer it to SW to get $600-800 worth of flights. Sometimes cash is good but using the points on travel can get you a better value. The CSP and CIP also get a higher cpp value when redeemed through the Chase travel portal, 1.25 cpp, but that wouldn't help with SW since you can't buy those tickets on the portal - but just something else to keep in mind. (If you go for the CSR that gets 1.5 cpp on the portal) Plus I think the AF is still waived for the first year.
If you decide to go for a business card, the CIP has a slightly higher MSR but you get a higher bonus too. If you can manage 5,000 in 3 months, then you'd get an 80k bonus. The CIP also has a higher earn rate on travel, 3x, so if you used your flights and other trip spend to meet the MSR you'd get even more points.
As an alternative to the one card SW CP, you could try the longer game and get the full CP which would be good for the rest of this year until the end of 2020. That also requires 5k in MSR but it's over two cards so you can space it out. You'd open one of the SW personal cards for a 50k inflight offer (2k MSR) and also the SW Biz card (3k MSR) for the 60k bonus. That gets you 110k in points just from the bonus which is needed for the full CP.
Yes, that's a good idea. Most of these cards get increased earnings on travel related expenses. All SW cards it's only 2x on SW purchases and select partners. CSP gets 2x UR points on travel and dining charges, the CSR gets 3x for the same; the CIP gets 3x on just the travel but also shipping, internet, cable and phone services. If you go UR at least you can get the higher earning even if you only cash out at 1cpp to reimburse the expense.
If you buy the park tix from Disney separately it won't code as travel. Disney resorts count as travel since it's a hotel charge, and if you were doing tix as a package then I think it may count as that comes through as a travel agent. But don't quote me on that, I haven't done a package in many years so I have no first hand experience
You guys are pretty much all for the CIP or CSP. I think I will skip SW for now. If I buy my resort and tix as a package deal, do you think it will all count for travel when I pay the balance to Disney?
You’ve gotten some great advice so I’ll just add...
When you’re ready to apply, if it’s a Disney Visa, CSP or CIP, consider supporting another DISer by using their link on DISchurners when you apply.
It sounds like you have trip goals beyond this May trip so I’d continue to hang out here and develop a strategy for that.
I guess my one thought: A CIP now and CSP in a few months could net you over $1,300 cash back that you could mentally apply against your trip costs (or apply to a future trip and make them worth more like $1,700!)
I can definitely do that when I apply. I do like the idea of building for a future trip.
So as far as buying Disney gift cards at a discount - how do I do that? And it's just a 1 point per dollar earning, right?
I believe there's even a whole movie series Disney bought about rebels... something about taking down an evil empire... so I think it's fitting 
