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

[miztressuz]

I value your opinion. Can you guys give me feedback on what you would do?
I need to get 4 of us to Italy next April.. I have 120,000 AA miles which would get us to Rome from PHl(most convenient) one way.. the one way fares to Europe are insane..
Coming back I’m looking at $2k pp to fly Rome to Phl..scary..

Or we could fly out of jfk to Milan on Emirates for $2,000 total.. jfk is two hours away from home and Milan is a 3 hour train ride from Rome.

What would you do? Burn the miles and pay the one way fee or do the round trip to/from airports that aren’t convenient paying the same for one way with cash?

The other option is to fly into Rome using miles and fly back using cash from Milan. That wouldn’t be that bad since our final leg is Venice. That would be 2k total for all 4 one way on emirates into jfk.

All flights quoted are direct because of my nervous flyer DH.
Advice?

Not that I have a lot of experience but when I was looking for our flight to Rome, JFK was really the only reasonable option for direct. For the price difference it was worth the travel, even paying for a transfer service. We ended up taking the trains to JFK which I only recommend if you travel light. It was very economical but a little bit of a pain schlepping the bags through Penn Station to the LIRR to the airtrain. On hindsight I should have stuck with the shuttle plan I budgeted for. But I'd still keep JFK as an option for us.
(side note @amalone1013, I think I mentioned hubby's bounce back after we break them but that doesn't mean they don't scar. "Train" is a 4 letter word in this house after that trip. The side eye I got when I said we're taking a train from Seattle to Vancouver....)

 

[afan]

I can only wear them for a short time cause I get a headache as well. I need to try dd's IASW ones and see how they fit. She bought them on the 25% off sale they had recently but yes, the cost is still crazy, imo. She wears them around though lol, not just at Disney, so I *guess* it maybe makes more sense for her

When you do try them can you take a look and see how close/far apart the ends are to each other? I'm curious since they don't hurt if that's why. I could always wear my DLR ears with my name embroidered on the back from my one and only trip in 04. I went to DCA 3 years before but only that park for a few hours. Some lady gave us free tickets when we were checking out to go home. It was the new park and I knew I'd want more than a few hours at DLR. Sadly I don't have a picture in front of the castle so I have to go back just for that at some point

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

What am I doing at 12:30am on a Wednesday you ask...

Well yes, I'm analyzing my tax options for dealing with my 1099s from referrals, LOL. My tax calculation spreadsheet is working overtime this year. I could justifiably back off the number by $1,580 by doing 3 things:

• Adjusting MR valuation to 0.6cpp vs. 1cpp
• Adjusting Delta points to the $270 in value I clearly got out of them (Target GC)
• Adjusting my Hilton Pts to 30k @ 0.5cpp (side note: but I have now called AMEX 3 times about my missing 52,090 Hilton points. They stated I maxed referrals, Hilton has provided me records showing I only received 30k. The 1099 shows $550 but if I only got 30k then it should say $201)
• I'm not looking to adjust Marriott points because all my SPG support pts were earned before the 3x conversion and due to that I actually got a really lenient number on the 1099.
• Everything else I earned was valued at 1cpp and either was fair (URs, Disney) or generous (Southwest)

At any rate, if I make this adjustment, I can save about $540 on my taxes...And as usual I am paralyzed trying to make a decision.

I talk myself in circles: $540 is a lot of money...Yeah, but if you get audited do you want to have to defend your position...but what are the odds of getting audited?...but you were thinking of taking that childcare tax credit that is iffy, do you want that to get caught up in this...it's still a slim chance of being audited...well it's only $540, it's not that much money and you did get a lot of referrals...well maybe I should just take pay the $540 and take the childcare credit for $318 and that offsets a piece of it...well that still stinks because I never got those 52,090 hilton points and why am I paying taxes on something I never got (setting value aside for a moment)...

I need sleep, so I'm done debating this for the night. I'm hoping that AMEX will finally get me an answer in the next week, that would really help resolve my major consternation. I told them I either wanted a revised 1099 (my preference) OR 52,090 Hilton points. The ineptitude of the people on the other end of that phone call though has me worried I'll call again next week and have to start all over again.

EDIT: I know I sound slightly crazy...lol.

 

[wendow]

When you do try them can you take a look and see how close/far apart the ends are to each other? I'm curious since they don't hurt if that's why. I could always wear my DLR ears with my name embroidered on the back from my one and only trip in 04. I went to DCA 3 years before but only that park for a few hours. Some lady gave us free tickets when we were checking out to go home. It was the new park and I knew I'd want more than a few hours at DLR. Sadly I don't have a picture in front of the castle so I have to go back just for that at some point

Yup, I'll measure and let you know

 

[wendow]

What am I doing at 12:30am on a Wednesday you ask...

Well yes, I'm analyzing my tax options for dealing with my 1099s from referrals, LOL. My tax calculation spreadsheet is working overtime this year. I could justifiably back off the number by $1,580 by doing 3 things:

• Adjusting MR valuation to 0.6cpp vs. 1cpp
• Adjusting Delta points to the $270 in value I clearly got out of them (Target GC)
• Adjusting my Hilton Pts to 30k @ 0.5cpp (side note: but I have now called AMEX 3 times about my missing 52,090 Hilton points. They stated I maxed referrals, Hilton has provided me records showing I only received 30k. The 1099 shows $550 but if I only got 30k then it should say $201)
• I'm not looking to adjust Marriott points because all my SPG support pts were earned before the 3x conversion and due to that I actually got a really lenient number on the 1099.
• Everything else I earned was valued at 1cpp and either was fair (URs, Disney) or generous (Southwest)

At any rate, if I make this adjustment, I can save about $540 on my taxes...And as usual I am paralyzed trying to make a decision.

I talk myself in circles: $540 is a lot of money...Yeah, but if you get audited do you want to have to defend your position...but what are the odds of getting audited?...but you were thinking of taking that childcare tax credit that is iffy, do you want that to get caught up in this...it's still a slim chance of being audited...well it's only $540, it's not that much money and you did get a lot of referrals...well maybe I should just take pay the $540 and take the childcare credit for $318 and that offsets a piece of it...well that still stinks because I never got those 52,090 hilton points and why am I paying taxes on something I never got (setting value aside for a moment)...

I need sleep, so I'm done debating this for the night. I'm hoping that AMEX will finally get me an answer in the next week, that would really help resolve my major consternation. I told them I either wanted a revised 1099 (my preference) OR 52,090 Hilton points. The ineptitude of the people on the other end of that phone call though has me worried I'll call again next week and have to start all over again.

You have way more 1099 stuff to deal with than me but I'm also annoyed at how some of my points were valued (spg, delta) so I've been sitting on my taxes as well while I stew and debate. In the end, I will probably just go with what the 1099 says to avoid any future issues. I have been audited, and while the mistake I made was an honest one, I had to pay almost 3k in back taxes and penalties. No thanks, the IRS gives no grace.

 

[platamama]

I value your opinion. Can you guys give me feedback on what you would do?
I need to get 4 of us to Italy next April.. I have 120,000 AA miles which would get us to Rome from PHl(most convenient) one way.. the one way fares to Europe are insane..
Coming back I’m looking at $2k pp to fly Rome to Phl..scary..

Or we could fly out of jfk to Milan on Emirates for $2,000 total.. jfk is two hours away from home and Milan is a 3 hour train ride from Rome.

What would you do? Burn the miles and pay the one way fee or do the round trip to/from airports that aren’t convenient.
The other option is to fly into Rome using miles and fly back using cash from Milan. That wouldn’t be that bad since our final leg is Venice. That would be 2k total for all 4 one way on emirates into jfk.

All flights quoted are direct because of my nervous flyer DH.
Advice?

Think I should just book two round trip flights with the miles and pay for 2.

Are your dates fixed or flexible? Are you leaning toward the AA flights or Emirates? Limiting the flights to nonstops really makes it more challenging, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Dealing with a 3 hour train ride after getting off an overnight flight in economy would kinda suck for me, especially in a foreign country. My family of 3 went to Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice) last June and found the train stations to be pretty busy, confusing, and stressful since we didn't know what we were doing.

The nonstop PHL-FCO for 30K AA pp is great. Did you look at VCE-PHL on AA? I swear AA had a nonstop back when I was looking into airfare (back in 2017) - does P2 have any AA miles? Right now you can buy AA miles with a bonus; you could buy 100K + 42.5K bonus for $2985 (costing 2cpp, which is not the lowest I've ever seen but pretty standard) so if you could find 30K AA awards back that would bring your one way OOP down to $2985 instead of $8000. I will say availability is always changing, and I checked obsessively when I was planning...ExpertFlyer might be worthwhile for you?

Have you checked Costco Travel? AA Vacations? Amex Travel? Chase UR portal?

Marriott people -- so Gold status no longer gets breakfast or lounge access? That's a bummer. Also makes the Fairfield Inn (at 25,000 pts) a lot more enticing than the Sheraton (at 35,000 pts).

The new Gold status is pfttt. Platinum is the new Gold, where you start getting a free breakfast. Yes, the free breakfast with your room places (Fairfield, Springhill, Residence Inn) get to be better values for redemptions.

 

[MarBee]

Since your husband is 4/24...what about applying for the other Chase business cards CIC or CIU..both have the same bonus 50k URs and a $3k MSR
Just make sure to reduce credit limits on his other chase cards if close to 50% of household income

Is 50k URs the best sign up bonus they’ll be? It just seems a little low

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Is 50k URs the best sign up bonus they’ll be? It just seems a little low

I’ve only been doing this since last May, but the sign up bonus has been the same since then...to me it’s a good bonus since both are no annual fee cards....get them both a few months apart ....an easy 106k URs
Another way to go would be have your DH get an EIN...then refer him for another CIP....105K URs .....But I’d still recommend getting the other business cards prior to him going over 5/24

if you compare the CIC and CIU to the Personal CF and CFU..which only have a 15K sign up bonus and use a 5/24 slot they look like a great deal....

 

[GZanta77]

Is 50k URs the best sign up bonus they’ll be? It just seems a little low

These are no annual fee cards - 50k URs is a valuable offer. I can't recall the bonus being higher on either of these cards.

 

[striker1064]

...but what are the odds of getting audited?...

Indeed! This is a fun question to unpack. As an accountant interested in statistics, I've read a couple studies suggesting your risk of being audited in any year is less than 0.5%. The IRS simply doesn't have the manpower to catch even a fraction of a percent of the returns that come through their office. One study even posed the question of why anyone pays taxes and files returns at all when your individual audit risk is so small that it might as well be zero, and if you DO get audited, you're not going to jail - that's a very last resort for the IRS.

I would never advocate this of course. I just find it very interesting, especially during this time of adjusting valuations for referrals and annual fees. When I did our taxes, I just entered all the 1099s as they were and didn't bother with AFs or anything like that, but I had that thought - logically I know it's extremely unlikely we'd be caught.

 

[wendow]

Is 50k URs the best sign up bonus they’ll be? It just seems a little low

The CIU bonus has always been 50k URs since the card debuted. The CIC was 30k URs but bumped up to 50k maybe a year ago(?) and has stayed there. For cards with no AF, that’s a pretty nice bonus.

 

[punkin]

So it's February 28th and I have not 7sed my Amex dining credit for the month. I guess I'm going to shake shack for lunch.

 

[GlamMistress]

The IHG card has a new (tiered) bonus today. Up to 120,000 points. There's a $50 statement credit. You get 80k points for $2k spend/3mos then the rest after spending another $5k in six months.

1) I hate tiered bonuses
2) AF not waived


This seems like a really poor offer. I can't imagine burning a 5/24 slot on this one.

 

[speedyfishy]

Ugh, GCM doesn’t code as 3x on the CIP anymore. I hope Ebates will at least give me 4% cashback or preferably 4xMR. Any idea if I downgrade to a CIC if my annual fee will be prorated?

 

[Ngwira]

Not that I have a lot of experience but when I was looking for our flight to Rome, JFK was really the only reasonable option for direct. For the price difference it was worth the travel, even paying for a transfer service. We ended up taking the trains to JFK which I only recommend if you travel light. It was very economical but a little bit of a pain schlepping the bags through Penn Station to the LIRR to the airtrain. On hindsight I should have stuck with the shuttle plan I budgeted for. But I'd still keep JFK as an option for us.
(side note @amalone1013, I think I mentioned hubby's bounce back after we break them but that doesn't mean they don't scar. "Train" is a 4 letter word in this house after that trip. The side eye I got when I said we're taking a train from Seattle to Vancouver....)

Thanks for your feedback. So philly to Rome is reasonable if you book round trip.. jfk is reasonable one way. We plan to use free Amtrak points to get to ny penn station then Carmel shuttle to JFK if we pick that route. I’m thinking of booking me and hubby round trip using points and paying cash for the kids round trip from philly to Rome. It seems it’s about two grand to do that and it’s way more convenient to fly out of philly.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Indeed! This is a fun question to unpack. As an accountant interested in statistics, I've read a couple studies suggesting your risk of being audited in any year is less than 0.5%. The IRS simply doesn't have the manpower to catch even a fraction of a percent of the returns that come through their office. One study even posed the question of why anyone pays taxes and files returns at all when your individual audit risk is so small that it might as well be zero, and if you DO get audited, you're not going to jail - that's a very last resort for the IRS.

I would never advocate this of course. I just find it very interesting, especially during this time of adjusting valuations for referrals and annual fees. When I did our taxes, I just entered all the 1099s as they were and didn't bother with AFs or anything like that, but I had that thought - logically I know it's extremely unlikely we'd be caught.

A very interesting and thoughtful response friend! “Caught” is such a great word to use too - because I can’t even define what they can “catch” me doing. I would have clear backup for why Hilton points are worth 0.5cpp (I actually used those Hilton points on a redemption in 2018 at less value than that and can produce proof); you can also clearly show how MRs are worth 0.6cpp. I’m worried about getting “caught” doing something legal...but more so I guess it would be the hassle of proving that and the concern that even given reasonable proof that they’d argue otherwise.

 

[Andysol]

Picked DH up at the airport last night. He talked my ear off the whole way home about how great the mother lode weekender junior was Thanks @Andysol Now he wants to order the other two professional bags to compare, since he is looking at a lot of work travel in the next few months (vs me ordering another weekender, I tried to convince him to do this originally, but... hmmm have I ever told you guys the story of his wedding ring?)

Glad you liked it! Also loved the ring story. I lost mine during our honeymoon.

I use the professional slim laptop bag myself for work. It doesn’t hold nearly as much as the weekender, but we manage.

Headed today to universal for the weekend. Wish me luck (thanks companion passes).

 

[miztressuz]

Is 50k URs the best sign up bonus they’ll be? It just seems a little low

Probably? You never know in this game, but I think it's unlikely. They are both no fee cards and only require 3k in spend. That's better than the Sapphires which both have a AF (granted, one is waived the first year, but it still exists) and require 4k in spend for the same points.

If anything it's probably more likely to decrease at some point. The CIU is new, it only came out last May and 50k was the big intro offer that just seemed to stay. The CIC had been 30k points until they did a special offer of 50k right before the CIU release. That was advertised like a limited time offer but then it too just seemed to stay.
If the points offered go up I expect either a higher MSR too or at least a tiered MSR like we've seen on some other cards like the CSP. It's hard to predict that though, as Chase just throws something new out randomly sometimes.

 

[Ngwira]

Are your dates fixed or flexible? Are you leaning toward the AA flights or Emirates? Limiting the flights to nonstops really makes it more challenging, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Dealing with a 3 hour train ride after getting off an overnight flight in economy would kinda suck for me, especially in a foreign country. My family of 3 went to Italy (Rome, Florence, Venice) last June and found the train stations to be pretty busy, confusing, and stressful since we didn't know what we were doing.

The nonstop PHL-FCO for 30K AA pp is great. Did you look at VCE-PHL on AA? I swear AA had a nonstop back when I was looking into airfare (back in 2017) - does P2 have any AA miles? Right now you can buy AA miles with a bonus; you could buy 100K + 42.5K bonus for $2985 (costing 2cpp, which is not the lowest I've ever seen but pretty standard) so if you could find 30K AA awards back that would bring your one way OOP down to $2985 instead of $8000. I will say availability is always changing, and I checked obsessively when I was planning...ExpertFlyer might be worthwhile for you?

Have you checked Costco Travel? AA Vacations? Amex Travel? Chase UR portal?



The new Gold status is pfttt. Platinum is the new Gold, where you start getting a free breakfast. Yes, the free breakfast with your room places (Fairfield, Springhill, Residence Inn) get to be better values for redemptions.

Thanks for all your feedback and I agree. I’m probably going to use miles to book me and hubby round trip Phl to fco. Then pay cash for the kids. Looks like it’s about 2k which is the same as the Emirates flights and most convenient! I looked at buying miles but cash fares around $2200 are way better than $2900 when buying points.

 

[Lain]

Ugh, GCM doesn’t code as 3x on the CIP anymore. I hope Ebates will at least give me 4% cashback or preferably 4xMR. Any idea if I downgrade to a CIC if my annual fee will be prorated?