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

[wendow]

i 2nd this. Do the status match, do 20 nights in 3 months, get globalist.

You will have to help me with this cause I have no idea what all this means lol

 

[wendow]

Plastiq HELOC towards my AA MSR was a success! Here's my complete process:

• 6/8 - $500 Payment Initiated to HELOC (paid $12.50 fee @ 2.5%) - Payment to arrive by 6/18
• 6/8 - Setup auto-transfer of HELOC to checking for 6/13 (extra cushion in case payment arrived early)
• 6/13 - $500 transfer occurs
• 6/14 - Plastiq email says payment was sent
• 6/18 - Plastiq email says bank cashed my check
• 6/19 - Payment posts with my bank
• 6/19 - I made payment of $0.32 for the interest ($0.08 per day for 4 days)
• So in total I paid $12.82 to meet $500 of my MSR. Not a bad deal at all!
• AND I'll save money on the next payment since I did the 2 player Plastiq referral and my wife now has $500 FFDs and I have $1,000 FFDs
• To cap it all off, I'll pay the credit card bill from the account where the money was deposited.

Since my bank is my employer and is a fairly large regional bank I will not be cutting it too close with my transfer and payment. I know @bernina actually had a check show up before making the advance. My concern is that if this occurred it could be flagged as something odd and I don't want to get my HELOC shutdown or have my employer ask questions on what I'm doing. Even if I did the full $5,000 and it sat there for a week I'd only pay $5 in interest

I think I may do this for the whole 5k. Do you think Citi would think anything weird about that?

 

[Albort]

You will have to help me with this cause I have no idea what all this means lol

Globalist is the top tier for hyatt. Resort fee waived, Parking is waived. It comes with a benefit called Guest of Honor where you can book your friends and family and give them your status.
Also free breakfast!

a friend of mine did that, had a friend book a guest of honor for Hyatt in Cabo, his room was a 2bedroom suite that was around 1800 sq ft.
currently close to gettin globalist here...

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I think I may do this for the whole 5k. Do you think Citi would think anything weird about that?

It wouldn't be that hard to split it up into 2-3 transactions to be safe. And it doesn't cost you any more money to do it that way either. I'd guess they have no issue either way though!

 

[kmc8826]

We are spending our last night at the Hyatt before catching a 7:30am flight home Tues morning. This is a super short trip. Touch down at 4pm Sat and head out at 7:3am Tues.

Sat/Sun night are at Hard Rock.

I've stayed there a few times before a 7am flight out and in that particular circumstance I think it's a really good place to stay. Leaving the hotel before 5am is just brutal and not so much fun.

I try to avoid it if possible but Delta always has an early morning flight out (around 7). Being able to stay inside the airport is why I even got the Hyatt card in the first place 2.5 years ago when I was a baby churner.

MCO is surprisingly busy first thing in the morning. Many times it is busier than later in the day.

Thanks I think we will do that. We have a lot of time to go back to mk and ride things and we could just wait until we do the dah.

I think that’s a good plan! It should be less crazy.

On my most recent trip at the beginning of this month, I rented a car and put down my CSR for the credit card payment and waived CDW. On earlier trips this year, I "gambled" and paid for rental cars with DH's Arrival+, and luckily nothing happened and I was able to erase those rental charges and get them for free. But even though I was working on a couple of other MSRs, I decided to use my CSR for this car rental. Well, it got hit while it was in the hotel registration parking area when we left it with the valet - another hotel guest pulled into the area and scraped the left rear of my rental car. Clearly that driver is at fault, the hotel has a recording of what happened, and I was already in the hotel lobby checking in when it happened. I'm still waiting to hear from the car rental company how it's all going to shake out, but count myself so fortunate that I used my CSR for the rental as added coverage and peace of mind. I hope it doesn't come down to me filing a claim with my CSR, but since it has primary coverage on rental cars and is a keeper card for me I will use it for all future rentals.

That is why I am so attached to at least myself or DH having a CSR. Car rental insurance is huge and not having to worry about extra coverage means a lot to me.

 

[platamama]

Plastiq HELOC towards my AA MSR was a success! Here's my complete process:

• 6/8 - $500 Payment Initiated to HELOC (paid $12.50 fee @ 2.5%) - Payment to arrive by 6/18
• 6/8 - Setup auto-transfer of HELOC to checking for 6/13 (extra cushion in case payment arrived early)
• 6/13 - $500 transfer occurs
• 6/14 - Plastiq email says payment was sent
• 6/18 - Plastiq email says bank cashed my check
• 6/19 - Payment posts with my bank
• 6/19 - I made payment of $0.32 for the interest ($0.08 per day for 4 days)
• So in total I paid $12.82 to meet $500 of my MSR. Not a bad deal at all!
• AND I'll save money on the next payment since I did the 2 player Plastiq referral and my wife now has $500 FFDs and I have $1,000 FFDs
• To cap it all off, I'll pay the credit card bill from the account where the money was deposited.

Since my bank is my employer and is a fairly large regional bank I will not be cutting it too close with my transfer and payment. I know @bernina actually had a check show up before making the advance. My concern is that if this occurred it could be flagged as something odd and I don't want to get my HELOC shutdown or have my employer ask questions on what I'm doing. Even if I did the full $5,000 and it sat there for a week I'd only pay $5 in interest

EDIT: If you're trying to figure out your potential interest exposure do this:
1) Take your interest rate (let's say 6%)
2) Divide that by 365 (so 0.06 / 365 = 0.000164)
3) Multiply that number by the amount you're processing (let's say $1,000)
4) Multiply that number by the number of days you think the balance will sit there (let's say 5)
5) So in summary = 0.000164 x $1,000 = $0.16 per day x 5 days = $0.80
With a 6% Interest Rate it costs you $0.16 per day in interest for $1,000 and so 5 days would cost $0.80
Basically what I'm saying is the interest cost is inconsequential here so don't cut it too close!

Serve and Bluebird are easier and cheaper. But thanks for all the data!

 

[brownhaired_girl]

Kind of a poll for you all as my dh is filling out travel stuff for his job. If you could choose any hotel chain to earn points from (where work was paying), which would you choose?

Hyatt

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

.

 

[platamama]

But I can't do Serve and Bluebird from the comfort of my basement at 1am. I'm a couch MS only kind of guy. I don't enjoy "traditional" MS and if I don't enjoy something in this hobby I don't do it, lol.

I would imagine there's a number of folks here who are not interested in MS. BUT the Heloc strategy for the grAAvy train is much more palatable

Couch MSing is the best kind of MSing, that’s true.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Couch MSing is the best kind of MSing, that’s true.

And the laziest...LOL! (And I love it!)

 

[wendow]

And the laziest...LOL! (And I love it!)

Me too. I don't have time in my day for anything that takes any effort. Only lazy MS'ing for this girl

 

[Mopedmom1]

With the CSR rental car insurance, if the rental is under dh's name but I pay for it with my card, will we still have coverage?

 

[Lain]

I'm fairly certain that "me now" would describe "me then" as a little jerk (edit: at times). I definitely had an abundance of energy that I certainly let out in an annoying fashion. And there was a lot of property destruction due to dumb ideas (which I see a lot out of boys these days too).

Resemble you any?

 

[amalone1013]

Can I just reiterate something...

The MCO hyatt at $426 for a random Mon night in Nov!! That’s crazy! I swear I saw it at $230 yesterday though so maybe they play with prices a lot???

I noticed this too. The day I booked, $350. A week later, $220 or something.

 

[ten6mom]

Sooo I've gone back to the first time I posted on this thread and am going back to try to compile all of your helpful notes and tips into one place. I cannot thank you all enough for all the advice so far.

BUT

I have just now been researching JAL vs ANA and I think I'd rather go with JAL! I think they offer more nonstops between LAX>NRT and KIX>LAX (which is what we did last time) and based on the very tentative itinerary I have put together, I think that's what I'd prefer to do for the upcoming trip.

So now, while I am still definitely doing the CIP for the 80,000 UR points, I have another goal of acquiring enough AAdvantage miles for JAL business class. According to some recent (2019) articles I am reading, this will require 240,000 AAdvantage miles. Is this possible to do in a little over a year, do you think? Without going way over my normal spending habits? I've seen posts about the grAAvy train but I don't know whether that's a reasonable, achievable goal.

Thoughts? (I am running to check the reddit thread right now)

ETA: As far as I can tell, the reddit thread indicates that the best signup offers are via mailers. But there is a 70,000 AAdvantage miles Citi card application link on a website that I shall not name here because I know you all hate it.... I have learned that much! That's 10,000 more Miles than the email offer I got (I do have an AAdvantage account, although like the others it's empty). Is the 70,000 offer about the best I can hope to get? It's for the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select®World Mastercard® .

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Aaaaand APPROVED for CIP 2!!! I think that might be one of my fastest approvals yet

ETA: I’m not sure how to expedite it because it isn’t showing up in my account

Congrats on the new home and CIP

 

[speedyfishy]

Kind of a poll for you all as my dh is filling out travel stuff for his job. If you could choose any hotel chain to earn points from (where work was paying), which would you choose?

Another Hyatt vote. What airline are you picking though? lol I feel like I’d like delta for my 40 min flights back to NY or for flights to LAX in comfort. AA I can use for Disney. But Southwest is my baby and how I get to MCO lol

 

[disfanforlife]

Yes- no car insurance OR trip delay.
I love Universal talk. They are *much* easier to book with points than WDW and I have all sorts of tips.

The first one being, buy the biggest ticket they offer on chase UR and upgrade to an annual pass and get at least two trips out of it.

I am enjoying everyone’s input so much. That is a great idea! I will look at that for sure. My oldest DD did the DCP a few years ago and got an AP to universal while she was there and really enjoyed it. She is the only one in the family who has been.
I don’t have a CSR yet, going to start with CIP first to drink from the cup if I can. But I want to get a CSR later. Good point about the trip insurance - that could help for sure.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Man I have trying to catch up here for over a week and I am consistently about 40 pages behind! I even was only a day behind yesterday and still had 30 pages to go!

I wanted to pop in with advice on AP activation from someone who many moons ago activated them. You can go to any ticket window, it's not a Guest Relations specific thing unless you have some strange situation that needs to be worked out. I never recommend going to Disney Springs. That's why someone here had a 2 hour wait. There's only a handful of GR CMs at Springs vs a whoooole bank of Vacation Planners (ticket selling CMs) at the Parks (or TTC, one of those Ts is for ticketing afterall) I know Springs has a new ticket center, but it's still small in comparison to the Parks, especially the TTC.

In churning related news, my 20k support points from CIP2 are pending! And my 40k AA miles posted! Still putting spend on AA to make up for the $250 gift card credit. Also still need to find out what my AA number is and how to get into my account. No info on that anywhere on the Citi site and no emails received about a number being created.

 

[wendow]

Another Hyatt vote. What airline are you picking though? lol I feel like I’d like delta for my 40 min flights back to NY or for flights to LAX in comfort. AA I can use for Disney. But Southwest is my baby and how I get to MCO lol

Southwest for the airline! It’s how we get to MCO and all TX airports.

For hotel, I was thinking Hilton or ihg. When we go on road trips or visit places other than Disney, we end up at HIE or Hampton inn or embassy suites. But y’all are all suggesting Hyatt so hmm...

I think he’s just prioritizing in this travel website which chains he’d like the system to try to book first. Then there’s rules around how much he can flex on the costs.