I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[Alexle2007]

It's likely a non-issue, but I wouldn't like it. Where do the graduates go?

I'd also say standardized test scores will normalize, but honestly who knows what will happen with standardized testing in four years.

All over. A lot of small out-of-state liberal art colleges, local universities Like Towson and UMD, the HS’s head’s son is going to the Army Academy, one boy going to Georgia Tech.

I am really hoping that this is the beginning of the end to of SAT and ACT. I think it is just a big money grab and a horrible weigh to assess people On how they do on a one day test.

I am going to inquire with their college counselor. I just didn’t know it was a thing.

 

[WinterAloe]

Welcome! It is great to have someone from Tennessee join in! I grew up in Tennessee, but live in Georgia now. You did an great job detailing your plans and your Marriott stash is amazing! We primarily fly Delta and stay at Hilton, so I will leave the churning advice to others.

Thank You! It is really pretty here. We moved here from New Mexico 7 years ago and I grew up in Arizona and still have family there. East Tennessee is very different! Lots of trees/vegetation and water. So beautiful. I'm still not used to the humidity though.

 

[WinterAloe]

It's so nice to see someone else looking at Radisson. The Radisson Rewards Visa is a great to card to have. It is one of my favorite sock drawer cards due to the annual 40k card anniversary points. DH and I each have one and find the two AFs we pay for the 80k points have served us well. We generally only use the points when traveling in Europe for free hotels stays since Radisson Blu properties are fairly common across the pond. The card will give you Gold status which allows you early check in and late check out as well as a room upgrade. We've had the card for years and maybe purchase something nominal once a year for activity. The sign up bonus is pretty good too on the Radisson Signature Visa. $2500 spend in 3 months will get you 85k points which would actually wind up 97,500 points since you get 5x on the dollar.

Thank You! Great information on the Radisson Rewards Visa. This will be one we will both eventually want to get specifically for properties when we return to Europe. Many, many years ago we stayed at a Radisson Blu in Prague and really liked it. Good location and a huge (and yummy!) breakfast buffet.
This card would go against the 5/24 for Chase, right? If it does, and after lurking for so long on here, I think we will wait to apply for this one until after we get our Chase cards figured out.

 

[havaneselover]

All over. A lot of small out-of-state liberal art colleges, local universities Like Towson and UMD, the HS’s head’s son is going to the Army Academy, one boy going to Georgia Tech.

I am really hoping that this is the beginning of the end to of SAT and ACT. I think it is just a big money grab and a horrible weigh to assess people On how they do on a one day test.

I am going to inquire with their college counselor. I just didn’t know it was a thing.

Even weighted grades can be all over the place. DD is a rising senior in IB. They have very few choices in what they take. They do have options like taking gym online or Economics from Longwood University instead of the county, and in 12th grade they can take a few AP courses. DP courses are weighted like AP courses. I know in her program, the max GPA for freshman and sophomores is 4.5 if they take 100% advanced/honors classes. They cannot take DP classes until 11th grade (unless they did early bird math then they could be in DP math in 11th grade). So basically if they made straight As for 4 years they could end up with a 4.75. I know the valedictorian for the city of Richmond (I didn't know a city could have a valedictorian) had a 4.96 this year. I guess they give you a 6.0 for an A in an AP class vs. 5.0 in our county next door. I think I've seen kids at TJ in NoVa having GPAs > 5.0. So even with weighting its complicated to standardize. I encouraged dd to pick the IB specialty center (only 50 kids in each cohort) because the year she went in the previous graduating class had sent half their students to UVa or William & Mary so I knew it had a very strong repuation within VA.

I didn't have weighted grades in my high school (small public school in CT) and had no issues with very competitive out-of-state schools. I think class rank came into play.

And yeah, I hear you on standardized testing. While it's optional for most schools this year I feel like you're disadvantaged not to submit them unless you are way below what they typically accept. I do think the Khan Academy has done a decent job leveling the field but still.

 

[WinterAloe]

Welcome! You've done well for yourself! I don't see any American Express cards on your list? That may be something you want to get into eventually. Especially since now Chase business cards are hard to get. First one you might want to try for is the personal Platinum card. There's an elusive 100k Membership Rewards (MR) offer that seems to be easier to pull up if you've never had any Amex cards. MRs can be transferred to many airline and hotel partners. Or cashed out for 1.25 cents per point if you also have a Schwab brokerage and a Amex Schwab Platinum card. They have several Hilton cards if you ever want to get into Hilton points. Also Bonvoy (Marriott) cards, but you'd have to check the complicated rules on what you can get when you've also had Chase Bonvoy cards.

Caveat with Amex cards is you need to keep putting spend on their cards after meeting the MSR or you may get the dreaded pop-up when you go apply for a new cards saying you're not eligible for the bonus.

Thank You! We do not have any American Express cards. It is something I want to look at but is this best to apply for after we have hit the 5/24 with chase?

 

[Killer Fish]

Does anyone know if you can unenroll an AMEX offer from one card and put it on another? The Dell 10% back would now make much more sense on my new Biz Plat instead of a Delta biz card.

 

[hsmamato2]

Once you click on one of the restaurants in the pickup tab this is what it looks like for me. Under the displayed distance away there is a toggle to make sure you have pickup selected (it defaulted to pickup for me as long I select the restaurant through the pickup tab). It stays pickup throughout checkout. Make sure you aren’t selecting a restaurant until you have selected the pickup tab at the bottom of the app to make sure aren’t picking a restaurant that doesn’t do pickup. Other than those potential issues, I have run out potential solutions. I know that I have likely been as helpful as Disney IT, but I tried
View attachment 503551

thank you!

 

[Minnie368]

Does anyone have any experience with signing up for MotleyFool to get SW bonus points or any other ways to get some points towards companion pass. My DD has a pretty low credit limit or I'd just spend! lol. I'd like to get the CP sooner than later. She needs about 8-9K more.

I don't know if anyone responded to this yet or not. We've not done MotleyFood but recently had to come up with about 15,000 points for DH's companion pass. He referred my son for 10,000. Also, until the end of the month you've got 3x on groceries up to $1500, so for $1500 spend you'd get 4500 points. Can you cycle the credit limit once or twice?

 

[WinterAloe]

Boy am I lost without my phone. I ended up doing this deal. I decided on the 128GB for $8.30/month or $249 total. Seemed too good of a deal to pass up. I am still unclear why it was such a good deal, lol. I hope I didn't sign anything that said I agree to give my first born or anything (though since she is 22 now they won't want her either lol). The 11Pro was sooooo tempting, DH even told me I was worth it and I should get it. But at the $700 difference, I just couldn't do it. My thinking right now is I will keep this SE for a few months and then maybe have DH take it when the new phones come out and I will get an 11Pro when the price drops. We will see. It is supposed to get here tomorrow, though I haven't gotten any tracking info yet, so who knows if that will actually happen.

I think it is a great deal. I still don't understand why it is at such a low price for a brand new phone but I am happy it is. $199 for a new iPhone that doesn't require a new line or tie me into a contract is nice. When I saw it on Slickdeals in mid-April, some people on there were surmising that the trade-in value months from now will be the same as this purchase price. Going from a 6 to this SE will probably be a big improvement. I have a 7 and am now considering getting this before the deal expires.
You might need to be patient dealing with Walmart though. If I remember correctly, our shipment was a day or two late. Communication and delivery is not Walmarts strong suit.

 

[wanderlust7]

Thank You! We do not have any American Express cards. It is something I want to look at but is this best to apply for after we have hit the 5/24 with chase?

If you have 5 personal Chase cards (potentially 6 with MDD) that you want. If you plan to go over 5/24 and not look back. Then yes, it would be good to focus on only Chase cards for now. My strategy has been to stay under 5/24 as much as possible. If I go over, it's only for a few months until one drops off and I'm under again. But that's because Chase business cards have been relatively easy to get with the proper spacing. Now that's no longer true. But I'm not quite ready to go over and not look back yet in case things change again.

 

[wanderlust7]

Question to those who use Mint or some other money tracking program:

How are you accounting for the money that you're paying yourself back in the program? When I use the UR portal to pay for travel expenses, I just basically zero it out. I put the charge to that specific vacation and then the credit goes to it as well for a net zero cost.

When I'm paying myself back for groceries, I want to basically keep my grocery costs the same and put the credit toward travel. I'm thinking the two options are to put it into a vacation expense as a negative amount (so I guess it would sit there with a negative expense until I spend money to put against it) OR I could possibly set up a goal category and put the money in there until I use it. I've never set up a goal, so not entire sure how that works in mint.

just wondered what others are doing with these new credits.

I've been putting it under income, in a cashback category. I considered putting it under travel, but my travel category is so negative already. It's really more psychological than anything else lol.

 

[happ]

Does anyone know if you can unenroll an AMEX offer from one card and put it on another? The Dell 10% back would now make much more sense on my new Biz Plat instead of a Delta biz card.

I don't think so, unless something has changed. I asked Amex about this in 2019 for a Marriot offer and was told "no."

 

[magickingdomprincess]

Does anyone have any guesses on when/if the SW free change window will be back? I'd love to update to a later return flight on 8/3 but I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra points. If it was free then I'd go ahead and change. I think I might have just missed one that ended recently, unfortunately. TIA!

 

[ski_mom]

I've been putting it under income, in a cashback category. I considered putting it under travel, but my travel category is so negative already. It's really more psychological than anything else lol.

Ah, that's a good idea. I just started using Mint and I kind of felt ok with how I had decided to code everything and then we get this lol!

So, if you put it into income, it would just continue to add up during the year and your travel expenses would also add up during the year? I guess that would be a true picture of what's taking place.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Does anyone have any guesses on when/if the SW free change window will be back? I'd love to update to a later return flight on 8/3 but I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra points. If it was free then I'd go ahead and change. I think I might have just missed one that ended recently, unfortunately. TIA!

I was able to switch a flight this past weekend....not sure when it will open up again

 

[becauseimnew]

Does anyone have any guesses on when/if the SW free change window will be back? I'd love to update to a later return flight on 8/3 but I'm trying to decide if it's worth the extra points. If it was free then I'd go ahead and change. I think I might have just missed one that ended recently, unfortunately. TIA!

I think you’ve missed that window. They did their August flights adjustment just last week. DH changed his 8/13 flight Friday and the option to change is already gone.

 

[wanderlust7]

Ah, that's a good idea. I just started using Mint and I kind of felt ok with how I had decided to code everything and then we get this lol!

So, if you put it into income, it would just continue to add up during the year and your travel expenses would also add up during the year? I guess that would be a true picture of what's taking place.

Yes. I already had the category for cashback portals and pure cashback cards (Discover, US Bank, BCP). I put my MR Schwab cashout in that category too.

There's no right or wrong way though, just however you want to look at it. I've changed how I want to code something years later, lol.

 

[Psychodisney]

I don't know if anyone responded to this yet or not. We've not done MotleyFood but recently had to come up with about 15,000 points for DH's companion pass. He referred my son for 10,000. Also, until the end of the month you've got 3x on groceries up to $1500, so for $1500 spend you'd get 4500 points. Can you cycle the credit limit once or twice?

Thanks for the reply! I did max out groceries this month and last with gift cards to places like Home Depot etc. Nobody to support in the family...but maybe I'll have her ask her roommates! I did cycle last month but it makes me nervous!

 

[ski_mom]

Yes. I already had the category for cashback portals and pure cashback cards (Discover, US Bank, BCP). I put my MR Schwab cashout in that category too.

There's no right or wrong way though, just however you want to look at it. I've changed how I want to code something years later, lol.

The more I think about it, I really like that idea. I already have an income category for online earnings. I use it for things like ibotta, ebates, my ebay sales, etc. I think I might just add a category for this because I honestly have a lot of points that I was saving for booking a cruise, but there's really no need to save when I can just basically cash out for other purchases and stash the money for the cruise or whatever in the future.

 

[ski_mom]

I had an awful experience with them at SEA 2 years ago and vowed never again. I have rented from them in the past with no issues but one time was enough for me to throw them off the list.

Thanks for the feedback - I think I'll probably just go with budget through the UR portal. I don't want to deal with any problems over a small amount of money.