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

[pillow]

Rushing around here, so I haven't had time to go back and read. I suspect this has already been posted, but wanted to hop on and say that there are new Citi AA offers out. The Biz offer is for 70K AA miles with $4K spend and you get an extra month to meet it (I believe the MSR previously was $5k in 3 months). Fee waived first year.

I sure am loving my AA miles (for actual flights!). I so want to apply again . . .

 

[hsmamato2]

Would love to hear about the Valley of Fire after you do it. I am thinking about a trip next spring to Valley of Fire, Death Valley and Joshua tree. We weren't able to get to Valley of Fire when we went to Vegas/Grand Canyon/Zion/Bryce 2 years ago. I loved the Hoover Dam tour, the one where you get to see more of the dam. You get to go back areas and peer out one of the holes in the side of the dam. It was really good.

we stayed at furnace creek in Death Valley for a night.... it was so adorable! I loved the saltwater mineral pool and cute little diner near the cabins..... Wish we had longer in DV but we were just passing thru

 

[rchampagne]

Worst field trip ever.

This cracks me up because my wife is chaperoning our kid's field trip tomorrow to Old Sturbridge Village.

 

[hsmamato2]

Went to trivia night at a local wine bar and you guy's bust out 4 pages. We didn't come in last and enjoyed our time.

I also don't like lion king or nemo. I don't like that you can see the people doing the puppets, it's distracting. I also have issues with parts of little mermaid but love they have people in the dog. I much prefer cop, country bears which is can't miss, tikie birds, philharmagic, american adventure and eventually presidents again. I also like the muppets. Unfortunately tiki and muppets are my most common places to fall asleep which causes a 2nd trip earlier in the day on a different day. AA is a great way to end the night but I want to actually are voices of liberty this time and I'm not planning any evenings in epcot ao hopefully I won't fall asleep. Also need to catch thr canada movie one more time since there's going to be a new one sometime in the next couple of years. I also enjoy it's tough to be a bug, it's cute and I like the 4d effects. Plus they have the best 3d glasses on property.

Love Lion King, Hate Nemo show,Like frozen show,Hoover Dam was voted
'Most Boring Stop' on our family trip a few years back I don't know why except it was a long hot drive,and we were anxious to get out to Yosemite asap before dark..... we got out,all digruntled b/c DH really wanted to see it all....and got back in the car after,still digruntled (except for DH lol)

 

[amalone1013]

DH's Marriott points from Bonvoy Biz posted this morning. We now have 340k between us. Or as DH would say "an insane amount of Marriott points"

My CIP 2 SUB posted today so I just moved it to DHs CSR. 620k URs! I was going to send DH a screenshot about 50k are really part of ILs pool. But we've now got another 105k to come with DHs new CIP

 

[amalone1013]

Hoover Dam was voted
'Most Boring Stop' on our family trip a few years back I don't know why except it was a long hot drive,and we were anxious to get out to Yosemite asap before dark..... we got out,all digruntled b/c DH really wanted to see it all....and got back in the car after,still digruntled (except for DH lol)

I was not... overly thrilled to go when we went a couple years ago, but DH wanted to. We did the longer tour they offered which helped with my enjoyment. Though my eyes probably started to glaze over in the turbine room

 

[schmass]

I've chatted with @MrPTato about first class lie-flat seats from BOS>HNL on Hawaiian previously:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/i...t-page-for-addl-details.3729982/post-60402220
https://www.disboards.com/threads/i...t-page-for-addl-details.3729982/post-60537814
Here are Hawaiian's award charts: http://hawaiianair.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2218/~/hawaiianmiles-award-chart

It seems the going rate for one-way first class seats is 130k HawaiianMiles. I don't think I've ever seen saver award availability for first class on Hawaiian, but it might be worth setting up expertflyer. For 4 people, roundtrip, that's a lot of points! If you had to pick, it's 11 hours to Hawaii, and 9 hours back to BOS. The flight to Hawaii takes off from Boston in the morning and arrives in Hawaii in the afternoon. The return flight is a red-eye that departs in the afternoon and lands around 5 or 6 am ET.

TPG has some flight reviews:

Doing the 6-Time-Zone Shuffle: A Review of Hawaiian Airlines’ A330 in First Class From Boston to Honolulu - TPG

America’s Longest Red-Eye: Hawaiian Airlines’ A330 in Economy From Honolulu to Boston - TPG

The writer of both articles is the same, so you can read his perspective of flying BOS>HNL in first, and returning from HNL>BOS in economy.

There are some pretty good offers not the Barclays Hawaiian credit cards, which could buff up your HawaiianMiles, right now:

Barclays 60,000 Hawaiian Airlines Bonus – Annual Fee Waived First Year - DoC

Barclays 70,000 Mile Hawaiian Business Offer - DoC

But, as we know, Barclays has been randomly verifying people's "businesses," so there's a risk it might be a wasted pull.

I hope this helps get you started.

Unless I'm not comprehending things correctly (entirely possible!), it looks like I could transfer MRs to Virgin Atlantic and then book Hawaiian Air west coast to Hawaii for 80,000 roundtrip in first. Then I'd just have to figure out flights from BOS to the west coast. Thoughts on that?

 

[Alexle2007]

With all these strange deaths lately in Fiji and Dominican Republic I am rethinking my need for "exotic"!

DH keeps asking if we should cancel our upcoming trips to the DR for August and Christmas. We've been 6 times and love it there. Right now we are still going but we'll see if anything further happens and re-assess.

 

[elgerber]

DH's Marriott points from Bonvoy Biz posted this morning. We now have 340k between us. Or as DH would say "an insane amount of Marriott points"

I have 345k on my own (dh has 20k, that I want in my account but they make you call). I have had them for awhile. I am locked out for another year or so I think before I can get more. I like having them though, and would happily take more

 

[hsmamato2]

Originally my husband wanted to rent an RV from Ohio, go through SD/ND/Badlands/Mount Rushmore into Yellowstone and back. I planned it all out an even in 2 weeks, (which honestly I'm not even sure how we'd get 2 weeks as he cuts grass and even in Aug you cant just skip 2 weeks) it would have been like......drive, drive, drive......get out, see it, okay back in the car, drive, drive, drive. And I thought.....would anyone even care? Here's Mt Rushmore kids.....okay, now back in the car. Then I looked into flying into places like Salt Lake City or Vegas, renting an RV and kind of going from there, but even then, unless I'm adding a ton of stuff like mule rides and white water rafting, I really don't think my family would enjoy things like Horse Shoe or Grand Canyon. That being said, I *think* I may try to make it into a 2 week trip, flying into Vegas, making it a small loop in an RV, returning the RV and then doing Cali for a week including DL. I think if we ended with more "fun" they wouldn't say the NP stuff was so boring.

When I planned our two 'long' trips, I planned basically a 10-14 day loop to travel...we flew to starting spot,drove our intended loop,and flew home to save the time needed. rented a car,I planned a stop every 2-3 hours to sightsee something along the way.
----Example 1-Flew into PHX, drove up thru Sedona(bit of walking/sightseeing) and up thru Oak creek Canyon-Flagstaff for one night- next morning stopped at Walnut Canyon(?) to walk and see the cool caves etc.... then headed up to the GC for 3 nights- hiking/sightseeing- headed out thru Painted Desert across to Death Valley-stayed one night Furnace Creek- Our longest drive day was Death Valley- Yosemite- stayed Yosemite 3 nights, headed down to DL to stay 6-7 nights and go to parks. Then flew home from LAX.
-----Example 2- Flew into SLC, drove up to sightsee thru Bear Lake area into Tetons for 2 nights.(and get raspberry milkshakes lol) Then drove up to Yellowstone and stayed around the main loop road for the next week sightseeing.(see other post details) then drove out to West Yellowstone,stayed overnight,and drove back to SLC next day to catch flight home.
-----Example 3- Flew into Las Vegas, drove out to Zion,stayed 2 nights,drove to Grand Canyon North rim,stayed 2 nights- drove to Bryce Canyon,stayed 1 night- drove to Capitol Reef.stayed 1 night,then on to Arches NP,stayed 3 nights- then to SLC to fly home.
Yes we drove quite a bit to get to each stop, but none of it was too difficult b/c I had planned things to see along the entire route.
We couldn't have added driving to destination in, its just too much extra time we didn;t have.

 

[hsmamato2]

This cracks me up because my wife is chaperoning our kid's field trip tomorrow to Old Sturbridge Village.

I love Sturbridge...so many fun memories of field trips there.....

 

[hsmamato2]

DH keeps asking if we should cancel our upcoming trips to the DR for August and Christmas. We've been 6 times and love it there. Right now we are still going but we'll see if anything further happens and re-assess.

it's kind of freaky what's going on....

 

[miztressuz]

DH's Marriott points from Bonvoy Biz posted this morning. We now have 340k between us. Or as DH would say "an insane amount of Marriott points"

Yay, AmEx points posting party!

 

[elgerber]

Yay, AmEx points posting party!

Can someone invite me to that party? Another week, another day without my 80k Delta miles :-(

 

[amalone1013]

Poking around for fun on the Orlando area activities on the UR portal. Did you know you can snorkel with manatees?????

 

[DisneyMandC]

My CIP 2 SUB posted today so I just moved it to DHs CSR. 620k URs! I was going to send DH a screenshot about 50k are really part of ILs pool. But we've now got another 105k to come with DHs new CIP

Ugh, I only have 52k URs right now haha. I've cashed out around 450,000 to pay for Disney though. But I'm also looking forward to another 105k+ from new CIP! I need to pay off the rest of my Disney trip with that card, so I'm looking forward to getting 3x on travel during MSR.

I have 345k on my own (dh has 20k, that I want in my account but they make you call). I have had them for awhile. I am locked out for another year or so I think before I can get more. I like having them though, and would happily take more

I would like to get some more this year too, but need to figure out which cards I can qualify for. I will probably go for that later this year since I have the next couple months lined up for MSR.

 

[castoral]

With all these strange deaths lately in Fiji and Dominican Republic I am rethinking my need for "exotic"!

“Exotic” for us is Harbor Club in St Lucia or Hilton Curaçao or likely Grand Cayman. Soooo not exotic exotic.

 

[Haley R]

I just watched Patrick dougall’s video of the Harry Potter tour in London and I feel like I have to go. Dh did say he wanted to go to the UK next. I don’t really have any interest except for the tour lol. What do you guys think? Should we go to the UK next?

 

[DisneyMandC]

Poking around for fun on the Orlando area activities on the UR portal. Did you know you can snorkel with manatees?????

WHAT. I NEED MORE INFORMATION ON THIS IMMEDIATELY.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I just watched Patrick dougall’s video of the Harry Potter tour in London and I feel like I have to go. Dh did say he wanted to go to the UK next. I don’t really have any interest except for the tour lol. What do you guys think? Should we go to the UK next?

I've heard from multiple people that the tour is incredible. The UK isn't really on my short list, but I do really love Harry Potter so I'll probably try to make it happen sooner than later.