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

[Tink-aholic]

Looking for some advice. We are planning on going to Iceland in August and we were just going to book on Icelandair. However, United is basically the same price so wondering if I should open a United card to not only get the sign up mileage bonus but earn points on UA. I have no current MSR. Or should I just use my amex gold or CSP to earn MRs or URs? Just trying to maximize the rewards.

Long term goal for all the URs and MRs is a trip to Europe next year in business class, with hotels and everything paid with points. Am fine flying coach to Iceland for 5 hours so don't want to burn my points to upgrade there.

It depends on your tastes. I have flown both United and IcelandAir and IcelandAir was superior in every way.

 

[georgina]

Yikes! I just looked at the map again for Va/Md and it's bad in Va. News Just reported that 44% of stations in Va (I think in our area, but could be state wide) are out of gas. In Maryland it is 11% out of gas and in DC it is 10% out of gas.

Looking at west of I-95 in SC, it is looking worse than what I saw earlier today. I specifically looked at Florence, Columbia, Myrtle Beach and Charleston. Columbia is much worse than what I saw this morning, so this is moving minute by minute. Looks like many stations are out and many more have low supply, similar to your report.

Virginia gas is usually cheaper than Maryland so people who work over there tend to gas over there. They are saying that price gouging is also going on, and in Maryland, the price gouging law that went into effect for covid just expired.

I hope they get this fixed quickly for all who have to drive to work or wherever. It's not just that, it's our supply chain will suffer and quickly.

Just saw on the local news that Colonial is restarting the pipeline, though it may be a few days before the supply is back to normal. I did not fill up Sunday when I saw the news, since I only drive about once every 10 days, but we will need some gas next week.

 

[Alexle2007]

Yikes! I just looked at the map again for Va/Md and it's bad in Va. News Just reported that 44% of stations in Va (I think in our area, but could be state wide) are out of gas. In Maryland it is 11% out of gas and in DC it is 10% out of gas.

Looking at west of I-95 in SC, it is looking worse than what I saw earlier today. I specifically looked at Florence, Columbia, Myrtle Beach and Charleston. Columbia is much worse than what I saw this morning, so this is moving minute by minute. Looks like many stations are out and many more have low supply, similar to your report.

Virginia gas is usually cheaper than Maryland so people who work over there tend to gas over there. They are saying that price gouging is also going on, and in Maryland, the price gouging law that went into effect for covid just expired.

I hope they get this fixed quickly for all who have to drive to work or wherever. It's not just that, it's our supply chain will suffer and quickly.

I hear one of our local stations is out (just below the PA line in MD) and DS’s school sent this note out. Hopefully we don’t go there since they only have 9 more school days. That sounds so crazy that he will be finished before Memorial Day weekend.

 

[becauseimnew]

So I bought a Vanilla visa gift card at walmart, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't use... not even for an Amazon reload. I set up the zip code over the phone. Any ideas?

 

[Alexle2007]

So I bought a Vanilla visa gift card at walmart, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, I can't use... not even for an Amazon reload. I set up the zip code over the phone. Any ideas?

They might take overnight to work.

 

[Hoosier John]

Just saw on the Amex Plat an elevated bonus for "recommending" (is that the right term? ) the card - 30k MR up to 55k, the applicant receives 100k MR with $5k spend in 6 months and 10x gas stations and supermarkets. I don't know if the sign up bonus is higher but I know that yesterday my recommendation award was 20k. I should figure out how to put this on dischurners.

That's a good deal ... I'd definitely offer it on DISchurners. What I got was only 60k, currently.
Some people may be able to pull a 125k deal, but not everyone gets that lucky, and should be willing to help out a friend.

I helped a family member apply for a Chase biz card on Monday and got the “we’ll let you know” immediate response. Since then the application seems to have disappeared—calling the status line gets the message “we have no applications on file for this SSN in the past 30 days.” But I know the application was received by Chase because an email was sent and a credit check was done.
Has this happened to anyone else? (I seem to recall that it has but I can’t find anything using the search function.)

I applied Monday night (?) for a CIU and got a "we need more time" message. Haven't seen it on my Chase account yet. Haven't tried the phone line.

I took screenshots of the message, but somehow saved them in some unknown place ... still looking

I don't know, here in SC no where has gas either (at least where I live, upstate, near NC). I went to 9 stations before I found one with gas and people were making huge lines, a fight broke out at the pump, and I saw a guy literally filling a big round trash can full of gas.

I know gas jugs are plastic, but not all plastics will hold up to gasoline! It could dissolve in his garage and the water heater or garage door opener could explode the fumes.

Yes, hope this resolves soon! I work from home, so I don't have to drive too much except for usual errands. But we are leaving next weekend to drive down to Florida, so I hope the situation is better by then! That's partly the reason why I topped off my gas today... thinking well I could use hubby's car for my errands and just let mine sit until we use it for Florida and at least then it'd have a full tank, lol.

I hope by "next" weekend, you mean the weekend following this upcoming one? Might still have problems this weekend. I'd guess it will take a while to get everything going again?

 

[Princess Michele]

I don't know of any benefit for going through the travel portal and in my experience booking through travel portal, the hotel treats your reservation like a third party reservation. If paying cash I would always book direct.

Thanks for the information. I went ahead and booked directly. I know I will earn URs when I pay but I could not see any extra advantage to booking through the portal. I am new and learning my way with Chase and thought I might be missing something.

 

[Albort]

Thanks for the information. I went ahead and booked directly. I know I will earn URs when I pay but I could not see any extra advantage to booking through the portal. I am new and learning my way with Chase and thought I might be missing something.

5x UR with a freedom card would be the only reason why i would book with the portal.
or
1.5x redemption with the CSR.

if price is lower on the portal than direct, most hotel chains have lowest price guarantee. Make sure u can find it on expedia or any site that the reps can look at and make them match it. You will get the elite night and use of status if u book direct as well.

 

[wendow]

Excellent info. Booked the Hyatt Regency today. Thanks!

Hope y'all have a great time! I've still not seen June Rockies tickets released but I'm watching. We want to go too but I want warm weather so waiting for June

 

[Alexle2007]

Huge SW change window open. I could change 6/10 flight and 8/18 flight. I tried booking a late May flight and it was a no go. I didn’t play around past 8/18 so maybe those with Sept flight could check. Now to book Memorial Day flights since we now know DS finishes on 5/27. Crazy that he only has 9 more school days. His freshman year flew by!

 

[Judique]

Hope y'all have a great time! I've still not seen June Rockies tickets released but I'm watching. We want to go too but I want warm weather so waiting for June

Nice to see you posting a bit again!

 

[becauseimnew]

Huge SW change window open. I could change 6/10 flight and 8/18 flight. I tried booking a late May flight and it was a no go. I didn’t play around past 8/18 so maybe those with Sept flight could check. Now to book Memorial Day flights since we now know DS finishes on 5/27. Crazy that he only has 9 more school days. His freshman year flew by!

I can't believe it's already mid May, so crazy!
Our 6/8 flight is eligible for change too.

 

[iujen94]

Huge SW change window open. I could change 6/10 flight and 8/18 flight. I tried booking a late May flight and it was a no go. I didn’t play around past 8/18 so maybe those with Sept flight could check. Now to book Memorial Day flights since we now know DS finishes on 5/27. Crazy that he only has 9 more school days. His freshman year flew by!

SW went crazy overnight changing almost ALL of my flights to/from/among Hawaii. There definitely seems to be a correlation between SW tweaking it’s schedule and these change windows opening. Now currently on hold with SW to fix my flights. I wish I could just change them online, but I already paid for EBCI AND I have a companion, which makes things so much more complicated!

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

I know gas jugs are plastic, but not all plastics will hold up to gasoline! It could dissolve in his garage and the water heater or garage door opener could explode the fumes.

I hope by "next" weekend, you mean the weekend following this upcoming one? Might still have problems this weekend. I'd guess it will take a while to get everything going again?

Thats crazy! I hope that doesn’t happen to the poor guy. I honestly don’t know what he is going to do with that much gas… maybe he was trying to resell it? I saw that some government official tweeted not to fill up plastic bags with gas. I sure hope that was just a joke and no body would be that stupid! Lol

Yep, next weekend the 22nd. Sooo glad it’s not this weekend… we’d probably have some not so fun wild goose chase to find gas.

 

[lsutigers03]

Are these SW free flight change windows something they normally do or a product of COVID that will eventually go away?

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Does anyone recall when miles post to your AA account from CitiBusiness card? Is it within 24 hours of statement close?

 

[hsmamato2]

I have a no fee Hilton, as does P2, we have not had any upgrade offers, or if we did, it was a long long time ago.

I have a no fee hilton with an upgrade to aspire offer..... I can't exactly tell if they're offering much tho...... looks like 7x points?

 

[hsmamato2]

.....

 

[Babars_Wife]

If I have a deal to a store on an amex card and a deal through PayPal saying use PayPal and save — if I use PayPal, with that amex chosen as the pay method will amex know I got the PayPal benefit? I know there’s talk about making sure you don’t try double dipping benefits with amex or they’ll claw back.

 

[hsmamato2]

Odd..... So apparently Amex has caught on that I don't use my cards too much..... got the popup even for the most basic everyday ($0 af) card.... I called in to ask about a pc from Blue to Everyday...was told my only PC option was to blue cash magnet....I asked 'how does that make sense- the ones I am pc'ing from/to are both MR cards,but my only pc option is to a cash card?' should I HUCA on this one? I'm beyond annoyed with myself for not researching carefully before I got this dumb blue card...I just have a few points sitting there uselessly, so my choice is either spend on that card (which I hate) to get enough points to use for something not great, or just leave them there.