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

[Arcades]

Can you explain the triple dip airline credit to me? Thanks!

Certain American Express cards come with an airline incidental credit. Platinum charge cards ($200) and Hilton Aspire ($250). The credits are based on calendar year. So, if you were to obtain one of these cards now and use the credit before 12/31/21, it would reset on January 1st and you could use it again in 2022. Because you opened the card in December, the closing date of your 13th cycle won't be until January 2023, so you would be able to use the credit again in that calendar year, then cancel for a full refund of the 2nd annual fee. Few issuers still use calendar-year credits; most use membership year credits.

The "triple dip" only works if you open the card in late November/early December because the 13th statement close has to be after January 1 for the credit to reset a third time.

 

[Alexle2007]

Tomorrow we leave for San Juan! My GTY suite reservation on RCCL has got upgraded to a Grand 1 bedroom suite with lounge access and concierge service! Not bad for $2200 (after the AmEx discounts). Super excited to be cruising again!
SW flights- RR for 2 + CP + A list
2 nights- San Juan Marriott Stellaris in a vice-presidential suite- 100k Bonvoy points and 2 SNA (value $1800)
7 night RCCL cruise- $22
excursion to Park Hyatt in St. Kitts- using expiring FNC
2 nights- San Juan Caribe Hilton/ 100k HH

Basically, a mostly “free” 11 night Christmas Break vacation

This has been a super stressful week so i

 

[Haley R]

The list I got included fake ivy and wisteria, and fairy lights to decorate her room. Plus a salt lamp, anime poster and manga books.

Lol sounds very similar to my niece’s list. She had a salt lamp and fairy lights on hers too

 

[DaveL]

Southwest flights are open.

 

[IFlossU]

The list I got included fake ivy and wisteria, and fairy lights to decorate her room. Plus a salt lamp, anime poster and manga books.

This was my DD’s exact Christmas list last year

 

[hsmamato2]

well....not cc related but a budget win for sure! Where I live we've had exactly one internet choice for many years..... I was paying $80+ every month for sub par service that dropped a lot. Recently Frontier upped its game and now we have fiber optics on our street... after a couple of useless calls begging for a rate match,yesterday we got the new service installed. Double the speeds,less than 1/2 the price! it was REALLY fun to call xfinity and let them know why I was canceling.....the rep actually sounded unhappy when I told them..... I asked why they don't offer deals to existing customers if they cared?

 

[Jax1023]

Booked my summer southwest flights- man we’re the flight times awful. We have to leave at 5am and get home after midnight from Phl to the west coast.

My other choice is AA but I have so many southwest points and will have 2 companion passes

 

[chattadisser]

well....not cc related but a budget win for sure! Where I live we've had exactly one internet choice for many years..... I was paying $80+ every month for sub par service that dropped a lot. Recently Frontier upped its game and now we have fiber optics on our street... after a couple of useless calls begging for a rate match,yesterday we got the new service installed. Double the speeds,less than 1/2 the price! it was REALLY fun to call xfinity and let them know why I was canceling.....the rep actually sounded unhappy when I told them..... I asked why they don't offer deals to existing customers if they cared?

I understand! We were Comcast hostages for a LONG time and then our local electric company got into the fiber optic business and I was never so happy to ditch Comcast! As an added bonus, if we need anything now we only deal with local people which is huge to me. Now the down size is that I can never take advantage of any of the internet bonus categories but that's where VGC's come in for me. Win/win as far as I'm concerned.

 

[catsinawindow]

Booked my summer southwest flights- man we’re the flight times awful. We have to leave at 5am and get home after midnight from Phl to the west coast.

My other choice is AA but I have so many southwest points and will have 2 companion passes

Also really disappointed with the PHL to MCO flights that were just released. No nonstops at all for my travel dates! Booked the best available using RR points and keeping my fingers crossed that they add some better flights I can switch to!

 

[Alexle2007]

I understand! We were Comcast hostages for a LONG time and then our local electric company got into the fiber optic business and I was never so happy to ditch Comcast! As an added bonus, if we need anything now we only deal with local people which is huge to me. Now the down size is that I can never take advantage of any of the internet bonus categories but that's where VGC's come in for me. Win/win as far as I'm concerned.

Too funny! We were never so happy as when Xfinity finally installed on our drive as our other internet options and DirectTV were terrible.

 

[becauseimnew]

For those that have island hopped during the summer months, does southwest have sales for summer month? Flights are $79 should I assume they’ll be $39 at some point? I’m using Luv vouchers so I don’t want to use them if the price will drop.

 

[Pixiedustspreader]

Booked my summer southwest flights- man we’re the flight times awful. We have to leave at 5am and get home after midnight from Phl to the west coast.

My other choice is AA but I have so many southwest points and will have 2 companion passes

Add me to the disappointed in the full summer release options from my home airport. Saturday only nonstops to MCO and still zero to BWI - their main hub. I really thought they would start adding more after seeing the Thanksgiving travel numbers. Travel was close (90%) to 2019 numbers. Spirit announced they will be coming in April with a daily n/s to MCO so maybe that will pressure WN to add more nonstops.

 

[mhautz]

Also really disappointed with the PHL to MCO flights that were just released. No nonstops at all for my travel dates! Booked the best available using RR points and keeping my fingers crossed that they add some better flights I can switch to!

Looks like one Nonstop a week is the new normal for OMA to MCO. I really hoped their recent trend of additional flights (even just an extra Sunday flight) would continue, but apparently not. There are still plenty of reasonable one stop flights, but I really do like getting to Orlando before late afternoon.
Might be time for us to try driving to Kansas City (three hours vs. one hour to Omaha)

And of course when I start getting more into the credit card game and am willing to test the waters outside of SW, our local airport in Lincoln lost Delta, so the options are very limited (and expensive).

I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, things are pretty much the same as pre-Covid. We
never felt compelled to fly from LNK before and the SW flight availability and prices aren’t really too different (and probably the best airline from OMA), I just wanted “better”

 

[dez1978]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but I have 2 questions. 1-Wanting to book SW flights. RT for 7 is $2512 or 178K points. Between DH and I we have enough points (if I transfer his to mine) to cover flights there. I also have about 17k UR points. I have a SW credit card and a Chase Freedom unlimited card. He does not anymore (his cards were hacked, took months to resolve, long story). What is the best way to go about this? Do I split the flights into 2 bookings? Is there a hack to get points cheap? I'd rather book with points instead of cash with that many ppl in case we have to cancel, travel funds are a pain.
2- Planning a USO/Beach trip. Looking at the Clearwater area. Any recommendations for a Hilton property in the area? Ones with queen beds, not doubles lol. We have a king bed at home, no way I'm sleeping in a double lol. We have over a million Hilton points that need to be used. We'd need 2 rooms and want direct or walkable beach access.

One more question. I have the Chase freedom unlimted card. I think it gets 1.5%. Is there a way to upgrade that to the one with the rotating quarters? I currently have 3 chase cards. Disney (opened 3 years ago), SW (opened in Oct 21) and the freedom unlimited (at least 3 years old). Dh has no chase cards. The only 2 cards I've opened in the last year is the SW card and a Lowe's store card (synchrony bank I think). Or would I be better off with a different card? Mainly looking for rewards I can use to pay for travel, like park tickets, airfare, car rentals etc.

 

[LB002]

Booked our summer SW flights! Prices were much more moderate than the spring break flights to MCO. I fly from a small airport (BDL), so I'm used to limited direct flights. I was happy to get just 1 layover to the West Coast.

Now, does anyone have recomendations for hotels for a family in San Francisco? Planning to take the BART from the airport and stay for 3 nights before renting a car and visiting several CA national parks.

 

[*pixie*]

It's looking like I'm going to end up about 5,000 points short from getting a companion pass for next year. I didn't realize I was that close. Frantically trying to figure out how to get them in the next week and a half. . .

 

[GZanta77]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask but I have 2 questions. 1-Wanting to book SW flights. RT for 7 is $2512 or 178K points. Between DH and I we have enough points (if I transfer his to mine) to cover flights there. I also have about 17k UR points. I have a SW credit card and a Chase Freedom unlimited card. He does not anymore (his cards were hacked, took months to resolve, long story). What is the best way to go about this? Do I split the flights into 2 bookings? Is there a hack to get points cheap? I'd rather book with points instead of cash with that many ppl in case we have to cancel, travel funds are a pain.
2- Planning a USO/Beach trip. Looking at the Clearwater area. Any recommendations for a Hilton property in the area? Ones with queen beds, not doubles lol. We have a king bed at home, no way I'm sleeping in a double lol. We have over a million Hilton points that need to be used. We'd need 2 rooms and want direct or walkable beach access.

One more question. I have the Chase freedom unlimted card. I think it gets 1.5%. Is there a way to upgrade that to the one with the rotating quarters? I currently have 3 chase cards. Disney (opened 3 years ago), SW (opened in Oct 21) and the freedom unlimited (at least 3 years old). Dh has no chase cards. The only 2 cards I've opened in the last year is the SW card and a Lowe's store card (synchrony bank I think). Or would I be better off with a different card? Mainly looking for rewards I can use to pay for travel, like park tickets, airfare, car rentals etc.

Just wanted to say you should definitely try breaking that SW booking up if you haven't already - if you start by searching the price for 1 person....then 2 etc, you can see where the price goes up. Hopefully you can get the flights booked cheaper for the first 2 or 3 people.

Also, if there is a price drop, it is easier to take advantage of this with a booking for 2 people vs a booking for 7, as sometimes the price will drop but only for for a few seats. Also for this reason, I always book the outbound and return separately.

 

[catsinawindow]

Looks like one Nonstop a week is the new normal for OMA to MCO. I really hoped their recent trend of additional flights (even just an extra Sunday flight) would continue, but apparently not. There are still plenty of reasonable one stop flights, but I really do like getting to Orlando before late afternoon.
Might be time for us to try driving to Kansas City (three hours vs. one hour to Omaha)

And of course when I start getting more into the credit card game and am willing to test the waters outside of SW, our local airport in Lincoln lost Delta, so the options are very limited (and expensive).

I guess I shouldn’t complain too much, things are pretty much the same as pre-Covid. We
never felt compelled to fly from LNK before and the SW flight availability and prices aren’t really too different (and probably the best airline from OMA), I just wanted “better”

That's a good point, our next-closest major airport is Baltimore which looks to have a bunch of nonstops to MCO! It's an extra hour and a half drive, but maybe worth it to avoid layover, changing planes, etc.

 

[DaveL]

Looks like one Nonstop a week is the new normal for OMA to MCO. I really hoped their recent trend of additional flights (even just an extra Sunday flight) would continue, but apparently not.

I was kinda disappointed with their availability within minutes of them opening their schedule up.... This is a Sunday back from MCO in June. Just checking now a few hours later and nothing more. So they must be holding back a lot of seats at this point. But did notice they only have 1 direct flight to/from per week. Pre-COVID there were two a week each way over the summer months.

 

[dez1978]

Just wanted to say you should definitely try breaking that SW booking up if you haven't already - if you start by searching the price for 1 person....then 2 etc, you can see where the price goes up. Hopefully you can get the flights booked cheaper for the first 2 or 3 people.

Also, if there is a price drop, it is easier to take advantage of this with a booking for 2 people vs a booking for 7, as sometimes the price will drop but only for for a few seats. Also for this reason, I always book the outbound and return separately.

I did check that, but it's the same amt of points per person no matter if I look for 1 person, 2, 7 etc. We could prob reasonably break it up into 2 groups, but there are 4 kids in the group so too many makes it a hassle to check in and get seats together esp since the kids are all over 7. Too old for family boarding but too young to not be with an adult lol