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

[SouthFayetteFan]

About to apply for a CIP but ran into a snag... we’re currently renting about a mile from our current residence since we’re remodeling and we have our mail forwarded. I’m hesitant to put our primary address since we’re not there and I’m not sure if there would be an issue with the forwarding (DH’s W2 was actually returned to HR because the house was determined to be “vacant”). We’ve also been having mail/package theft issues in our neighborhood lately. Then again, I’m hesitant to put our rental address since we’ll only be here until mid-late summer. I guess it should be ok to do that as long as I remember to go in and change it when we move back. Thoughts?

Also...obligatory comment...

When you apply don’t forget about DISchurners and consider supporting a fellow DISer

 

[Judique]

Ha, I wish. We are lucky to get our calendar before summer starts. I think the last few years it may have been august before it was released. They would tell us first day of school, but that was it. No matter, we don't get a spring break anymore anyway so really no planning around school holidays. We get the Thursday/Friday and Monday/Tuesday around Easter, but only if no snow days to make up. I think this year will be like years past and we will only get Friday/Monday because we have had 2 snow days already. It is my last year of caring about the public school calendar coming out! Yay! Only date I care to see on it is graduation.

Ours came out for discussion dec/jan and now the 'draft' is up. It will be solid in a couple of weeks but the draft indicates the week prior to Easter as spring break. We always have it by March.

Our governor - Larry Hogan - messed with our whole state's school calendar. No school until after Labor Day. Someone is trying to reverse that and I'm sure if next election comes, it will be reversed or at least relaxed. The biggest impact was that everything had to be squeezed in between Labor Day and early June, so all the planning days got shorted and became early dismissal instead of full days off. Before retirement, I hated this change, as the 'no school' days were my catch up days at work. And the early dismissal days were still full days for me with more work added in. I ended up doing much more overtime because of it, which was great for cashflow but I preferred time off.

At one time we had a whole week at Thanksgiving which was phenomenal! Loved it! Now it's just 3 days. It gets hot here and school going later impacts a few schools that are still not completely ac'd. Some school buses are also not ac'ed - about half the fleet - but each year that number gets smaller. School not only gets canceled for snow here, it has also gotten canceled for heat. But as the buildings and vehicles get upgraded, that is becoming fairly rare.

 

[kmc8826]

@Judique I am sorry your two cats don’t get along. It does make me grateful that our two ended up being good together. We had a rough month at first but after that it has been fine. And Petco refillable litter is the best! The one that is not dusty and clumps the best.

I upgraded our SPG personal to Lux’s this fall for the 100k. I have used my $300 credit but DH still has not used his. I have tried a couple Mariott’s around here and not had any luck with them selling gift cards. His card will have the original year anniversary next month. Am I right that I need to get the $300 credit spent before the original card issue date? Anyone know? We have a couple nights scheduled for end of March but I am a little worried that might be too late. If I am looking at losing the credit I am thinking maybe I will just book a prepaid trip somewhere so at least the credit gets used.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Ha, I wish. We are lucky to get our calendar before summer starts. I think the last few years it may have been august before it was released. They would tell us first day of school, but that was it. No matter, we don't get a spring break anymore anyway so really no planning around school holidays. We get the Thursday/Friday and Monday/Tuesday around Easter, but only if no snow days to make up. I think this year will be like years past and we will only get Friday/Monday because we have had 2 snow days already. It is my last year of caring about the public school calendar coming out! Yay! Only date I care to see on it is graduation.

Ours was super late last year BC teachers were negotiating new contract. Next year not out yet either. No spring break is crazy. Our district has Spring Break in March, plus Good Friday/Monday. We’ve had 4 snow days so far which adds a week to the end of the year (essentially the rest of the week after Memorial Day)

 

[Judique]

@Judique I am sorry your two cats don’t get along. It does make me grateful that our two ended up being good together. We had a rough month at first but after that it has been fine. And Petco refillable litter is the best! The one that is not dusty and clumps the best.

I upgraded our SPG personal to Lux’s this fall for the 100k. I have used my $300 credit but DH still has not used his. I have tried a couple Mariott’s around here and not had any luck with them selling gift cards. His card will have the original year anniversary next month. Am I right that I need to get the $300 credit spent before the original card issue date? Anyone know? We have a couple nights scheduled for end of March but I am a little worried that might be too late. If I am looking at losing the credit I am thinking maybe I will just book a prepaid trip somewhere so at least the credit gets used.

I would call each of the Marriott properties that you have not tried during business hours during the regular work week. I think almost all the actual Marriott properties have them - ie Courtyard, Fairfield, Residence Inn, TownePlace. But I also think that they are not well known to a lot of the employees.

Not sure about the 'year' issue and would try to get the gift card prior. But booking a trip sounds good!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I actually buy the youth Toms regularly and my women's size 7 foot is a youth size 5.5. Other brands I've been able to buy a youth size 5 but Tom's are different for me. My dd18 wears a women's 7.5 and she gets a youth 6.

I don't know why it never occurred to me to do that with toms. I sure could've saved a bunch on all those disney toms I paid full price for.

 

[Judique]

@elgerber - I just read an old post about losing all your miles - it reminded me of your problem!

https://milestogo.boardingarea.com/...142.237770563.1549675814-970645369.1517514025

(Maybe someone linked this already and I missed it!)

 

[WVMomof3]

Ours came out for discussion dec/jan and now the 'draft' is up. It will be solid in a couple of weeks but the draft indicates the week prior to Easter as spring break. We always have it by March.

Our governor - Larry Hogan - messed with our whole state's school calendar. No school until after Labor Day. Someone is trying to reverse that and I'm sure if next election comes, it will be reversed or at least relaxed. The biggest impact was that everything had to be squeezed in between Labor Day and early June, so all the planning days got shorted and became early dismissal instead of full days off. Before retirement, I hated this change, as the 'no school' days were my catch up days at work. And the early dismissal days were still full days for me with more work added in. I ended up doing much more overtime because of it, which was great for cashflow but I preferred time off.

At one time we had a whole week at Thanksgiving which was phenomenal! Loved it! Now it's just 3 days. It gets hot here and school going later impacts a few schools that are still not completely ac'd. Some school buses are also not ac'ed - about half the fleet - but each year that number gets smaller. School not only gets canceled for snow here, it has also gotten canceled for heat. But as the buildings and vehicles get upgraded, that is becoming fairly rare.

We do get the whole Thanksgiving week off. Which is silly to me, between Election day, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving they are hardly in school November. Then half of December off. They got Martin Luther King day off in January but not another day off until Easter. Seems like they should spread the days off more. We start mid August and then don't end until we get 180 days, so will add on every snow day to the end. We have never got off on the stated end day so our calendars are pretty useless I feel. Last year we had a lot of snow days plus the teacher strike. I think we ended up making up about 9 days, which was not as many as we had out, but the Governor forgave some for the strike. Already talk of another strike this year, so we shall see what happens.

 

[amalone1013]

Last night DH gave me his wish list of European themeparks. 2 in the UK, 1 in the Netherlands, and 1 in Germany. He goes, so that would be an additional 4 days on top of your plans. Good husband, not shorting the trip when trying to add themeparks My bigger concern now is... uh... I am familiar-ish with London... the end. I know zero about Germany or the Netherlands!

 

[miztressuz]

Thank you so much! I have the spg amex business card and was going to send my husband a link for him to apply for the card so that I can get an additional 20,000 points. Would I still be able to do this on/after the 13th?

Possibly, the support offer doesn't always change to the public offer but sometimes it does. Since this offer is supposed to be around for a couple months if you wait a bit you might see it change.

 

[havaneselover]

Ours came out for discussion dec/jan and now the 'draft' is up. It will be solid in a couple of weeks but the draft indicates the week prior to Easter as spring break. We always have it by March.

Our governor - Larry Hogan - messed with our whole state's school calendar. No school until after Labor Day. Someone is trying to reverse that and I'm sure if next election comes, it will be reversed or at least relaxed. The biggest impact was that everything had to be squeezed in between Labor Day and early June, so all the planning days got shorted and became early dismissal instead of full days off. Before retirement, I hated this change, as the 'no school' days were my catch up days at work. And the early dismissal days were still full days for me with more work added in. I ended up doing much more overtime because of it, which was great for cashflow but I preferred time off.

At one time we had a whole week at Thanksgiving which was phenomenal! Loved it! Now it's just 3 days. It gets hot here and school going later impacts a few schools that are still not completely ac'd. Some school buses are also not ac'ed - about half the fleet - but each year that number gets smaller. School not only gets canceled for snow here, it has also gotten canceled for heat. But as the buildings and vehicles get upgraded, that is becoming fairly rare.

VA has the same dumb law which only applies to the large school districts. But SOLs have to be taken in May as do high school IB exams (not sure about AP). Puts our students at a major disadvantage and the last several weeks are wasted. As a parent, though, I like it because I generally like to vacation the week before Labor Day.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

@Judique
I upgraded our SPG personal to Lux’s this fall for the 100k. I have used my $300 credit but DH still has not used his. I have tried a couple Mariott’s around here and not had any luck with them selling gift cards. His card will have the original year anniversary next month. Am I right that I need to get the $300 credit spent before the original card issue date? Anyone know? We have a couple nights scheduled for end of March but I am a little worried that might be too late. If I am looking at losing the credit I am thinking maybe I will just book a prepaid trip somewhere so at least the credit gets used.

I think someone posted on TPG that a gift card from Marriott.com worked but I’d look for more DP before trusting that.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Where did you attach your cert?

ETA: NVM read back far enough

I'm still going to attempt to "convert" (upgrade) when I call, but I am not expecting it to happen. So I made the speculative reservation in chs at a cat 4.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I know but then I still have to make a trip to the post office to return them. I am tempted and put them in my cart.

oh goodness, no. I never go to the post office. You can print the labels at home and put it in your mailbox.

 

[kmc8826]

Mild good news for the Delta hostages.

I don’t know if anyone recalls but our WDW trip last month started really rough. I talked about what happened when we got to Disney, but before that our Delta flight was delayed and we had been separated into 3 and 2 instead of all together on one row. When I tried to talk to them before we even left they said there was nothing they could do but they would make a note. When we got there of course the flight was full and nothing they could do. It was especially frustrating because the only way to book 5 tickets and use the companion certificate is to have it as two separate reservations...and if they are going to treat us like basic economy and seat us wherever without a picked seat I would just assume pay for the basic instead of main. At any rate we were separated for both flights there and home, and then when we arrived in MCO we had a baggage issue (special item we had to retrieve that Delta was pretty rude about). So I usually would not bother but my husband was annoyed enough by the whole thing “put this in your complaint too” I thought I had better. I was also encouraged by I think @tink1970 and @Calfan saying they had complained about Delta and eventually heard back. At any rate yesterday I got an email from them (or at least DH did because I did the complaint in his name since it was his baggage issue). 10,000 miles deposited in his account and then a choice with their Delta Choice gift code for a value of $100 for each one of us. We will probably do Amazon so $500 with Amazon is pretty good. Good enough that I told the girls they could pick something out from there (up to $20). They did not buy the tickets but I figured they could get something for their pain and suffering. Plus you know mom guilt.

Maybe it was the part where I said that maybe I should just book Southwest in the future so at least I know my family will be somewhat close to each other. That was mostly an empty threat as Southwest is so bad for direct flights but I figured throwing it in would not hurt.

 

[tink1970]

@kmc8826 that's great to hear! Sorry you had to go through all of that but I think of the US3, Delta sorta kind of cares. Glad they responded in a positive way

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I thought Swolphin was cat 5?

They are cat 6. My cert is new cat 1-4/old cat 6.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I wish! Category 6 - 50K plus the resort fees and parking fees. I will not grace them with my presence.

yeah, it is ridiculous, I totally agree. However, with multiple trips this year, if I could get a week there with my cert I'd take it, because it is still cheaper than booking a wdw resort of similar quality. I doubt I will stay there otherwise, unless they were on PL super cheap.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Those of us without kids want to know also so that we can book the quieter weeks! Although after next fall my first grand will be in preschool, so there goes my freedom to travel with them in slow times.

nah, all my kids have missed 5-7 days each year for disney...and oldest DD was accepted to her #1 college pick with some scholarship money and is now doing DCP. (you can see I take school attendance very seriously)

 

[tink1970]

Last night DH gave me his wish list of European themeparks. 2 in the UK, 1 in the Netherlands, and 1 in Germany. He goes, so that would be an additional 4 days on top of your plans. Good husband, not shorting the trip when trying to add themeparks My bigger concern now is... uh... I am familiar-ish with London... the end. I know zero about Germany or the Netherlands!

When we were on the Rhine River Cruise ABD we spent Christmas night at Phantasmialand. It's near Cologne and was pretty quirky and cute. I don't think it's open year round though. That's my extent of German themepark knowledge.