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

[alryan]

DW got approved for the CIC! When “she” applied on Saturday I got the “we need more time to review your application” message, but when I called the status line this morning it said she was approved.

I read some chat up thread about people not being able to fund a bank account with a biz card, but it wasn’t a Chase card. Does anyone know if you can bank account fund with Chase biz cards? Or is it not worth the risk? I need to close my PNC account so was thinking of doing one for DW now. It would be nice to also wipe out most of the MSR on her new CIC at the same time.

I think the general concessus was that is was a problem with the bank and not the business credit card. I know that I funded DH and mine with the Chase SW Biz. I was just reading through the comments for pnc bonus on doc and it looks like you can only get the bonus once a year. But maybe that's not a problem for you if it is your DW first one.

 

[platamama]

@mhartman09 Sorry for your loss and your recent rough time, I hope that things get much better for you soon.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I know a not too sketchy but by a prison Quality Inn if you're ever in NE


I couldn't resist.

Hahahaha!! It might be nicer than this Quality Inn... we used to stay at the Howard Johnson's next to it, but it got shut down last year for running a meth lab out of the back...

 

[DaveL]

That is a GREAT point that we haven't necessarily advised recently...

If you have Ultimate Rewards scattered across multiple cards and spouses...it is ALWAYS recommended to consolidate them to your most valuable card: (i.e. CSR would be first priority, otherwise either CSP or CIP). This is recommended because IF Chase ever ended points pooling across spouses OR points pooling between cards, you'd at least have your points where you wanted them. We'd expect Chase to give notice if this change were to occur but it takes 2 minutes to pool points when they post so better safe than sorry.

Thanks for this reminder! I ALWAYS move my points to my CSR the instant I get them but when I downgraded the CSR to CF it didn't yet cross my mind to move them to the CIP. Done and done!

 

[miztressuz]

Hahahaha!! It might be nicer than this Quality Inn... we used to stay at the Howard Johnson's next to it, but it got shut down last year for running a meth lab out of the back...

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that @DisneyMandC needs to churn more for better hotels for the horse shows??? Perhaps maybe you do need that 4th CIP...

 

[Alexle2007]

I’m so sorry for your loss. My grandfather passed unexpectedly a couple years ago. It is so hard for the survivors when an otherwise healthy person is suddenly gone. Hugs.

Unexpected is the worst

I was always on the fence about this when my father passed away suddenly of a heart attack when I was 21 and didn't get to say goodbye but after watching my father-in-law suffer from brain cancer and my stepfather from bladder cancer for some period before passing, I think I prefer not watching those I love suffer. I like to think my wonderful FIL held on until the 14th so he wouldn't pass away on DS's birthday.

 

[amalone1013]

SW kept giving me an error as I tried to add myself as DHs companion, but when I went back to his account page 10 mins later there I am!

 

[amalone1013]

I was always on the fence about this when my father passed away suddenly of a heart attack when I was 21 and didn't get to say goodbye but after watching my father-in-law suffer from brain cancer and my stepfather from bladder cancer for some period before passing, I think I prefer not watching those I love suffer. I like to think my wonderful FIL held on until the 14th so he wouldn't pass away on DS's birthday.

This is terrible too. Both are awful. I guess for me I just have stuck in my head the last words I said to the unexpected person. My unexpected person and one of my expected people were tied together though, so it was a bad 6 months.

 

[elgerber]

SW kept giving me an error as I tried to add myself as DHs companion, but when I went back to his account page 10 mins later there I am!

I had that same issue yesterday. So I tried another browser and found dh was already listed LOL.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that @DisneyMandC needs to churn more for better hotels for the horse shows??? Perhaps maybe you do need that 4th CIP...

The problem is so many of our horse shows are in the middle of nowhere with NO good options! Williamston NC, Camden SC, and Centre Hall PA aren't at the top of most people's travel destinations. Add in the fact that we're only in the room to sleep (usually for about a grand total of 6 hours) and shower, and it's hard to justify spending more than the bare minimum.

Although I did book the more expensive Comfort Inn for this weekend since last year I stayed at the Econo Lodge by myself and looking back, I really probably shouldn't have...

 

[castoral]

Has anyone done any of the SPG/Westin time share offers? I got one yesterday for The Westin Lagunamar in Cancun. Looks like its actually a great place. They do offer rooms for 6 people (although the offer stated 2 adults, 2 kids). Reviews say its low pressure but a lot said they didn't even have to go to the presentation (this clearly states we do though or they'll charge the seasonal rate). It goes through Mar 19, 2020. I asked for availability for Mar 14-22nd, 2020 (my kids Spring Break) so we'll see. If it happens, it happens, if they can't accommodate us, I'll go back to the cruise idea.

 

[platamama]

Asking @calypso726 and anyone else who might be able to help - can you tell me what you find valuable about the Club Carlson (I think that's the name) credit cards? I'm looking at hotels in Oslo and not finding anything Hyatt or Hilton, but finding lots of Radisson Blu (which is typical for Scandinavia I think). Curious to know if it's worth getting one of these.

It's a sock drawer card for me. I used the points for stays in Europe a few years ago, and nowadays it's handy for the odd night near an airport when I'm looking for a place to stay with free airport shuttles (due to early/late flights), usually at a Country Inn and Suites.

It does charge a 3% foreign transaction fee, so you don't actually want to put spend on it when staying at a Radisson internationally!

I had problems finding award space for 1 room with 3 people (us and DD) with the Radisson line, so if it's just 2 of you there probably won't be any issue. Definitely look at the cash price vs points to make sure you're getting a good value. I peeked at a random Radisson on a random date in Oslo and the cash price was just $88 and it cost 44K points.

Also, USBank is not an easy bank to get cards from these days (no rhyme or reason AFAIK), so don't take it personally if you get denied.

 

[alryan]

The problem is so many of our horse shows are in the middle of nowhere with NO good options! Williamston NC, Camden SC, and Centre Hall PA aren't at the top of most people's travel destinations. Add in the fact that we're only in the room to sleep (usually for about a grand total of 6 hours) and shower, and it's hard to justify spending more than the bare minimum.

Although I did book the more expensive Comfort Inn for this weekend since last year I stayed at the Econo Lodge by myself and looking back, I really probably shouldn't have...

I had to book one night for our trip next month and booked Comfort Suites, but in my head I was thinking Country Inn and Suites. Oh, well, I figure if we survived the total dump Ramada that we had last month when we got stuck in Atlanta we'll be okay. But sometimes I'm with you, when you are only there to sleep it's hard to pay more...even if it is points!

 

[Tikitoi]

Well I ended up scrapping all of this and booking directly with Choice Hotels for the next two horse shows and went through Ebates. Ebates was offering 10% back on Choice stays, and we're staying at a Comfort Inn this weekend and a Quality Inn next weekend. Choice is also currently running a promotion to stay two separate nights from Feb 26-April 26 and earn enough points for a free night's stay. That will work perfectly for us since we will most likely be staying at that same Comfort Inn at the end of April.

Did the same booking through Ebates and just got email confirming my cashback

 

[WVMomof3]

@mhartman09 So sorry about your rough month. Hoping things will look up for you soon.

 

[miztressuz]

Ah, dilemmas. Our departure flight at the end of the month has not dropped in points like I hoped, actually, all flights that day keep moving up, so I guess it was a good thing I got it with only a 3k pp increase when I booked it. It's not a bad redemption at ~11k RR each but now there's a flight the previous night for ~5k each. We have the day scheduled off from work anyway so we could go the previous night, but that adds another hotel night on to the ever expanding "quick weekend trip" that started out as a way to use my last 2 IHG unrestricted nights and has morphed into a 5 night full blown vacation, so with another night we'd be up to 6 nights

So WWYD? Is it worth saving 11,320 RR points to spend either 12,500 Marriott points or $125 cash on the extra night?

I think I'm trying to talk myself into just keeping the original flight since I'll have SW points coming soon once I finish the MSR on the SW Biz. But I fear I'm missing something in the equation and maybe you fine folk will notice

 

[snugglebug]

SW kept giving me an error as I tried to add myself as DHs companion, but when I went back to his account page 10 mins later there I am!

I had that same issue yesterday. So I tried another browser and found dh was already listed LOL.

I had that same issue last night. I added DD 3 times, decided to try a different browser and saw she was actually added.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Did the same booking through Ebates and just got email confirming my cashback

Well shoot, I didn't get that...

ETA: It looks like when I booked a Marriott stay through Ebates last month, I got my confirmation email the day afterwards from Ebates. I'll give it until tomorrow. My account does show under Shopping Trips that I went through Ebates to the Choice Hotels portal for both of my bookings.

 

[alryan]

Ah, dilemmas. Our departure flight at the end of the month has not dropped in points like I hoped, actually, all flights that day keep moving up, so I guess it was a good thing I got it with only a 3k pp increase when I booked it. It's not a bad redemption at ~11k RR each but now there's a flight the previous night for ~5k each. We have the day scheduled off from work anyway so we could go the previous night, but that adds another hotel night on to the ever expanding "quick weekend trip" that started out as a way to use my last 2 IHG unrestricted nights and has morphed into a 5 night full blown vacation, so with another night we'd be up to 6 nights

So WWYD? Is it worth saving 11,320 RR points to spend either 12,500 Marriott points or $125 cash on the extra night?

I think I'm trying to talk myself into just keeping the original flight since I'll have SW points coming soon once I finish the MSR on the SW Biz. But I fear I'm missing something in the equation and maybe you fine folk will notice

Sometimes we drive ourselves crazy looking at all the options and changing plans, but maybe since this was suppose to be a quick weekend trip it's better to just keep the original flight.

 

[miztressuz]

The problem is so many of our horse shows are in the middle of nowhere with NO good options! Williamston NC, Camden SC, and Centre Hall PA aren't at the top of most people's travel destinations. Add in the fact that we're only in the room to sleep (usually for about a grand total of 6 hours) and shower, and it's hard to justify spending more than the bare minimum.

Although I did book the more expensive Comfort Inn for this weekend since last year I stayed at the Econo Lodge by myself and looking back, I really probably shouldn't have...

Yeah, I get it if that's your only options, but sometimes even if you're only in the room for 6 hours it's better to pay a little more to not stay in the meth lab wing

I've stayed in my fair share of doozies all in the name of "lesser or the two evils" (would you like the room with bed being held together with duct tape? or would you like the room with the wall of windows containing the entry door that moves when a car drives by the place (with a questionable lock)? Psych, fooled you, it's the same room! Now, would you like the drug dealing wing or the money laundering wing?...) and given a choice now I'll find a way to pay points or something, anything, to not have to make the hard calls if I can

(some people check hotel reviews, I check the 6 o'clock news for my motel choices )