I love credit cards so much! v4.0 - 2021 (see first page for add'l details)

[havaneselover]

You picked a lovely time, LOL. I'm sure you've saw/hear that most of SE MI is flooded like CRAZY! My basement gets a little water w/ lots of rain. The water started to seep in last night. The water triggered the breaker on my A/C. I wasn't understanding why the house felt so muggy. The BF helped me figure that out before he left. We're supposed to get rain ALL WEEK! The break today was NEEDED! I'm hoping we don't get a TON more or I'm going to have some issues.

So far we've gotten a ton of rain. Not the best week in terms of weather, but I had a tiny window (after graduation, before puppy, brother's family always comes for the 4th) so I got stuck with this week which is a little earlier than I would have liked. I will say, everything looks lush and things seem to be open. My only complaint is my dad keeps this house so warm (think Seinfeld) and the dog has Cushing's so she's panting a lot.

I hope you can keep the AC operational I feel for you. I'm going to head home to no AC (and hoping they are working on the 5th otherwise I'll be stuck without it for three days in VA--yuck) and a mouse.

 

[becauseimnew]

Ya'll, DH was instantly denied for the CSP.

We downgraded his CSR to Freedom on 6/4... I was really hoping he wouldn't have to call recon at all, he's a team player so he'll call but was really hoping to MDD.

 

[IFlossU]

Thbks

Thanks! I’ll look into both of those. I don’t really have a timeline for this trip, just kind of whenever I can make all of this happen so hubs agrees lol

what about a good hotel card? I looked up hotel cards, and Wyndham rewards seemed to be ranked high. Thoughts on that? Are there nice Wyndham properties along Katella near DL that the free nights could be used at? I honestly never stay at Wyndham hotels so I don’t know at all! The only time I’m in hotels is at WDW

As far as hotels, I went for the Hyatt card. The Hyatt House on Harbor is 15k/night. The SUB for the Hyatt card was 60k points, which gets us 4 free nights there. Hyatt House is within decent walking distance. There are also several Marriott options, but the points just don’t go as far. Maybe 1 or 2 nights with a 1 card. The only Wyndham property I’m familiar with is the HOJO. We are big fans of staying at HOJO. Nice rooms and reasonable walking distance. However, again the card bonus may only get you 1 or 2 nights. HOJO is 30k/night and you have to call them to book with points. It’s definitely something we may do in the future, but it’s not something I would do when just starting with credit cards, but that’s just me. You can always use the Chase Portal to book your hotel with points, or better yet use Pay Yourself Back to get cash back for points, OR transfer your points to Hyatt. A lot of options there.

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

Hope they find your reservation! We went through Costco. You can also check Auto Europe.

Thank you for the recommendations. I really started to think I somehow didn't complete the reservation, but BlueCar was able to locate my second reservation and everything is in order. With Carmageddon, I just didn't know what I would have done!

 

[sarahrdh]

As far as hotels, I went for the Hyatt card. The Hyatt House on Harbor is 15k/night. The SUB for the Hyatt card was 60k points, which gets us 4 free nights there. Hyatt House is within decent walking distance. There are also several Marriott options, but the points just don’t go as far. Maybe 1 or 2 nights with a 1 card. The only Wyndham property I’m familiar with is the HOJO. We are big fans of staying at HOJO. Nice rooms and reasonable walking distance. However, again the card bonus may only get you 1 or 2 nights. HOJO is 30k/night and you have to call them to book with points. It’s definitely something we may do in the future, but it’s not something I would do when just starting with credit cards, but that’s just me. You can always use the Chase Portal to book your hotel with points, or better yet use Pay Yourself Back to get cash back for points, OR transfer your points to Hyatt. A lot of options there.

awesome info! Thanks! So the points per night don’t change seasonally or anything? It’s just 15k per night, anytime? How do you find out how many points per night that particular hotel is?

 

[KPK02090]

No fee MCGCs at Staples this week for those who can use them. For me, that’s tuition.

Thank you for this! The Visa's weren't accepted for my DD's school. Time to give MC a try!

 

[IFlossU]

awesome info! Thanks! So the points per night don’t change seasonally or anything? It’s just 15k per night, anytime? How do you find out how many points per night that particular hotel is?

I find it easiest to check points pricing through the hotel apps. Bonvoy, Hyatt, Hilton apps are great for searching flexible dates, and seeing points availability. For HOJO I just checked through the Wyndham site. Takes some work, and playing around to search out what you like, especially Anaheim because there are a lot of options.

 

[IFlossU]

awesome info! Thanks! So the points per night don’t change seasonally or anything? It’s just 15k per night, anytime? How do you find out how many points per night that particular hotel is?

You may also want to consider Chase Business cards. Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited currently have nice SUBs. 75k UR/$7.5k spend in 3 months. You can then transfer points to your CSP and either transfer to Hyatt, book through travel portal, or cash out with pay yourself back.

 

[calypso726]

Hey hey DISchurner peeps!

Popping in to report on another timeshare presentation offer completed. This one was booked pre Covid and I was targeted due to the IHG credit card I believe. Anyhow it was $299 for 3 nights in Orlando. A few months ago I got a call from them with an offer to refund the full $299 if I booked our stay and tour for June. So we booked for this weekend. They put us at the Crowne Plaza and the room wasn’t bad except for a maintenance issue that was fixed right away.

The presentation was for 2 hours. I kinda felt sorry for the sales person. I guess their spiel is how much one spends on hotels and I’m like well very little if anything because travel hacking. He asked how often we come to Orlando and I said a few times a month but we have DVC. He asked how many points we had and was stunned when I told him. He was trying to explain how their timeshare works and didn’t know if banking and borrowing were final transactions and had to ask someone. You can put points back for a $35 fee after banking and borrowing.

So he asks about our other types of vacations which are DCL and ABD. So then he tells me I can get 30% off Carnival cruises because they are business partners and I said there wasn’t enough money to pay me to set foot on a Carnival ship.

So his next selling point was using the Timeshare points to book IHG hotels. Now, they have pictures of the Intercontinental Dubai and Intercontinental Thalasso and Le Moana etc. on the walls. He tells us that the average owner has 200k points and that they convert 5:4 for IHG hotels as if this is a good thing. I started laughing uncontrollably. I went on to explain to this man that for $40,000 and whatever the maintenance dues are and a $299 fee, he is telling me that I cannot even get one night at the Willard in DC during cherry blossom season with these Holiday Inn vacation club Timeshare points. Meanwhile, I can book the hotel direct for under $300 a night. Then, he goes on to switch gears and says that the points aren’t good for hotel stays. As if I didn’t just hear him use that as a selling point. Uhm ok.

So then he hands us this RCI catalog which is his next selling point and says, I want you to browse through there and choose 3 places you’d love to visit and walks away to give us time. I happened to see Aulani listed. So when he came back I said, you are telling me that I can book Aulani with these points through RCI plus the $299 with no problem and he says yes unless I’m looking at Christmas week or something which can be challenging. So I said ok show me. I asked him to look for any week in March in a 2 bedroom ocean view at Aulani. Of course he couldn’t find it. So I asked if he could find availability for any other week and then he said the system wasn’t working right now. Sure Jan. He asked what would prevent me from buying and I said the lack of flexibility or ability to stay anywhere with their program except for places I have no desire to visit.

Another one bites the dust. I got my $299 back in cash and headed to the parks.

 

[jujubiee4]

Can some of you please give me your interpretation of this offer from my Barclay
Jet Plue card?

1. 5X miles / points for every $1 spent on grocery store, drug store and restaurant purchases, up to 20,000 miles, from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021 plus an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021. (total of up to 40,000 bonus miles)

I want to get the full 40k miles. I called barclay and they were clueless. One agent said spend 4k
on groceries to get full miles. I hung up and called again. The next one said spend 1k groceries
and 3k everywhere else. Called just now and she couldnt figure it out and sent my question to
"back office" team. I've read on travel vlogs different opinions on what it means also. I've already
spent about 2k at grocery stores (organic and gift cards).

Thanks for your help!

 

[becauseimnew]

Can some of you please give me your interpretation of this offer from my Barclay
Jet Plue card?

1. 5X miles / points for every $1 spent on grocery store, drug store and restaurant purchases, up to 20,000 miles, from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021 plus an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021. (total of up to 40,000 bonus miles)

I want to get the full 40k miles. I called barclay and they were clueless. One agent said spend 4k
on groceries to get full miles. I hung up and called again. The next one said spend 1k groceries
and 3k everywhere else. Called just now and she couldnt figure it out and sent my question to
"back office" team. I've read on travel vlogs different opinions on what it means also. I've already
spent about 2k at grocery stores (organic and gift cards).

Thanks for your help!

I have the same offer on my AA card.
$4,000 in those 3 categories will earn you 20,000 miles + 20,000 for the spend.

 

[wanderlust7]

awesome info! Thanks! So the points per night don’t change seasonally or anything? It’s just 15k per night, anytime? How do you find out how many points per night that particular hotel is?

A Hyatt category 4 is 15k points and won’t fluctuate for now. They’ve delayed implementation of peak pricing until October for stays beginning in March 2022 (once you’re booked you’re locked in). The free night certificate will be based on the category and won’t be affected.

Bonvoy has peak/non peak and tends to fluctuate often. For example, the Fairfield Anaheim is 35k regular season, it can go down to 30k non peak (rare) or 40k peak (often). Their 35k free night cert is capped at that amount so does get affected by this.

 

[IFlossU]

Can some of you please give me your interpretation of this offer from my Barclay
Jet Plue card?

1. 5X miles / points for every $1 spent on grocery store, drug store and restaurant purchases, up to 20,000 miles, from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021 plus an additional 20,000 miles if you spend at least $3,000 on purchases from 5/15/2021 to 7/31/2021. (total of up to 40,000 bonus miles)

I want to get the full 40k miles. I called barclay and they were clueless. One agent said spend 4k
on groceries to get full miles. I hung up and called again. The next one said spend 1k groceries
and 3k everywhere else. Called just now and she couldnt figure it out and sent my question to
"back office" team. I've read on travel vlogs different opinions on what it means also. I've already
spent about 2k at grocery stores (organic and gift cards).

Thanks for your help!

I have the same offer on my AA card.
$4,000 in those 3 categories will earn you 20,000 miles + 20,000 for the spend.

I also have this on my AA card. @becauseimnew is correct. $4k in those categories before 7/31 will get you the 40k miles. I’m working on it right now

 

[jujubiee4]

I have the same offer on my AA card.
$4,000 in those 3 categories will earn you 20,000 miles + 20,000 for the spend.

They don't give us very long do they

 

[mmmears]

Anyone get a good retention offer on a CSR lately?

 

[mmmears]

Back with another question (on a really quiet day here, I guess). DH has an Amex Hilton Honors Biz card. He also has an Aspire. From what I can tell, the Biz card isn't really giving him anything of value. Is there a reason to keep it? Is there something to PC it to? Or do we just cancel the card? I'm always nervous of upsetting the "jealous misstress" Amex, as @Lain called them.

 

[IFlossU]

They don't give us very long do they

I believe it started on 5/15, but I didn’t get notified until almost the deadline to activate the offer at the end of May. I started working on it the last week of May, but yes, even 2 months isn’t much time to spend $4k.

 

[IFlossU]

Back with another question (on a really quiet day here, I guess). DH has an Amex Hilton Honors Biz card. He also has an Aspire. From what I can tell, the Biz card isn't really giving him anything of value. Is there a reason to keep it? Is there something to PC it to? Or do we just cancel the card? I'm always nervous of upsetting the "jealous misstress" Amex, as @Lain called them.

Are you able to take advantage of the $10 monthly Wireless credit? That’s the only reason I’m keeping mine. I plan to close it next year when the AF hits. Yes, it may upset Amex, but I’m not willing to keep paying the AF just to make Amex happy. It’s a risk I’ve decided I’m willing to take.

 

[mmmears]

One more question (sorry). DH has opened 5 cards in the last 24 months. If Credit Karma is only showing 3, does that make him 5/24 for Chase, or 3/24? (One was recent enough that it may show up soon, but the other missing one was from Feb. 2020).

 

[mmmears]

Are you able to take advantage of the $10 monthly Wireless credit? That’s the only reason I’m keeping mine. I plan to close it next year when the AF hits. Yes, it may upset Amex, but I’m not willing to keep paying the AF just to make Amex happy. It’s a risk I’ve decided I’m willing to take.

He is using it, but thinks it will disappear at the end of the year, so it would be another $95 AF for $60 off on wireless. In the same position as you - it might upset Amex but we just don't want to keep paying the AF now that he has the Aspire.