I love credit cards so much! v6.0 - 2023 & 2024 (see first page for add'l details)

[leeniewdw]

We are back from our 2nd trip to Ireland with 3 nights tacked on the end in London. Brief thoughts/redemptions:

RDU-BOS on Delta, used last of my Venture X $300 travel credit, so seats were ~$145 ea out of pocket
BOS-DUB on Aer Lingus, used Avios pts plus $115 ea in fees***

SNN (Shannon)-LHR on Aer Lingus, used Avios pts plus $113***

LHR-RDU on AA, used 27k AA pts plus $190ea in fees. I upgraded our seats to the bulkhead row in economy for another $113 ea. Again, not great redemption, but had the AA pts just sitting there and the direct flight was too tempting not to take. The upgrade was probably a mistake because there were so many empty seats that everyone moved around to spread out and sleep (despite it being a daytime flight). Boy flying direct to RDU was fantastic!

(***I made my original DUB flight via EWR in economy via the AVIOS website but found Biz seats via BOS. By the time I wanted to switch to BOS/Biz, Aer Lingus bookings were being done via their own website. I called to handle this and while they were able to cancel my l original booking my pts were stuck. Of course it was a Friday night, so support wasn't available until Monday. I didn't want to risk losing the 2 biz seats, so I xferred add'l pts and booked. Got my original pts back the following week and used them to defray costs of our SNN-LHR flight. Terrible redemption, but whatever. )

Lodging:
Dublin: URs to Hyatt for 2 nights at The Wilder Townhouse in Dublin. Booked when SLH were still part of Hyatt, but due to change we didn't get free breakfast, etc. We landed at 4:50am and in our room for a nap at 5:38am. Booked 2 nights due to the very early arrival and so glad we did. Took a nap until 11am and then walked all over Dublin and were adjusted to local time.

We stayed mostly in small Irish towns, so using pts was almost impossible, but decided to use my Ven X pts to erase a number of bookings. I tend to use the VenX/Cap1 pts for random stays or erasure. Again, perhaps not the best use of pts, but I didn't have to pay for 5 nights this way.

London: 3 nights at the Hyatt Regency Churchill in Marylebone. This was a great redemption IMO. Very comfortable/safe area and I swear the bed was SO comfortable. I think rack rates were $500. Restaurant there is insanely expensive. We got 1 beer, 1 glass of wine and a piece of cheesecake that was much smaller than a hockey puck and it was $50, lol.

Rental Car: Booked via Hertz and it was about $500 for 10 days. Contrast that to the prices last summer: $1300 for 14 days. I did have another snafu (self inflicted) because I'm the Hertz Gold member but DH had the CSP letter to waive CDW. I'm sure my plan was to add the card to my profile but I never did it and the desk person was like "you can't do this" and offered us $56/day for insurance... More than the rental. So we did a "walk up" rental instead and booked the whole thing under my DHs name and card, etc.

Rental note: While Enterprise did not put a $5k potential damage hold on our CSP last summer, Hertz did do that this year. YMMV.

This trip was a late plan (and not confirmed as a "go" until about a month ahead) and I can see some of my mistakes, but we're glad we took the trip as opposed to canceling just because some redemptions weren't amazing. I think it came out to 10 free nights between UR/Hyatt redemptions + VX erase charges.

 

[trenty]

If you have been to Chicago - what are your "must dos" and "things to avoid?"

Is there anything that needs to be booked in advance? - I would rather not make plans to see anything specific until we are there, unless advance reservations are an absolute must.

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

I've done similar in London in the past a couple of times (Gatwick to Heathrow, though with even shorter layover of about 10-12 hours or so during the day, so no hotel room). Would get to Heathrow, leave luggage at left luggage storage (need to pay fee), then go into London and do a bit of shopping, stock up on chocolate and all the snacks I love, have a meal somewhere. Then head back to Heathrow, get luggage, pack stuff I bought into luggage, and check in for next flight.

I've not done this in Tokyo but would be very happy to spend a few hours shopping in Tokyo!

I transited through both Narita (T1) and Haneda (T3 I think) last year (didn't enter Japan either time). Will add that I found the duty free selection extremely good in both airports (may be cheaper than downtown - not sure as I think you can also get tax refund for items purchased elsewhere), and bought a slightly ridiculous amount of snacks there which went into my carry on for the flights! Off the top of my head stuff they had included Tokyo Banana, Tokyo Milk Cheese Factory, Kit Kats, Hangetsu, Press Butter Sand, Royce, Shiroi Koibito and then also stuff where I don't remember the brands of but various savoury crackers, chocolate coated strawberries, matcha snacks, mochi, ramen... Basically the selection was really good and I had so much fun shopping for all these snacks (especially as I didn't actually enter Japan)!

But would also love to actually enter Tokyo, I have a very long shopping list of items I want in Tokyo!

Edit to add - although no idea about the transportation logistics needed to get between Narita and Haneda though...

Thanks for your experience! Great tip about the luggage storage. It would probably be easier (if we are responsible for transferring checked bags) to take them right to HND and leave in luggage storage, so that we're not hauling to the hotel and back to the airport again. Didn't think of that, but makes perfect sense!

We also have the option of just having a 4 hour layover in Haneda, which I thought we could do some duty free shopping as well. My problem with that is, 1) DH wants to go shoe shopping, 2) the duty-free did have good snacks, I agree (I spent a bunch there last time as well), but I want more, lol. What I really wanna do is go to a grocery and get random items that wouldn't be at duty free, such as red bean paste, premade breads and pastries like taiyaki, pineapple cakes, gummy candies, teas, etc. We spent like $40 at a grocery store last trip getting all the most random items and we were eating like we were still in Japan for 2 weeks once we were back, it was great! I also want like 16 egg salad sandwiches and 8 of the fruit/whipped cream sandwiches from 7-11 and some onigiri

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

If you have been to Chicago - what are your "must do" and "things to avoid?"

Is there anything that needs to be booked in advance - I would rather not make plans to see anything specific until we are there, unless advance reservations are an absolute must!

We loved renting Citi bikes and biking along the lake, so much so that we extended our rentals and did this on and off all day, from Lincoln Park area down to the Planetarium. The Architecture Cruise along the river was really great too! We did all the other "touristy" things on our first visit as well (Willis Tower skydeck, Navy Pier, Millenium Park, Magnificent Mile, Lincoln Park Conservatory, etc), and the two that we want to do again are rent bikes and another river cruise. We're planning to go back next summer.

 

[afan]

Thanks for your experience! Great tip about the luggage storage. It would probably be easier (if we are responsible for transferring checked bags) to take them right to HND and leave in luggage store, so that we're not hauling to the hotel and back to the airport again. Didn't think of that, but makes perfect sense!

We also have the option of just having a 4 hour layover in Haneda, which I thought we could do some duty free shopping as well. My problem with that is, 1) DH wants to go shoe shopping, 2) the duty-free did have good snacks, I agree (I spent a bunch there last time as well), but I want more, lol. What I really wanna do is go to a grocery and get random items that wouldn't be at duty free, such as red bean paste, premade breads and pastries like taiyaki, pineapple cakes, gummy candies, teas, etc. We spend like $40 at a grocery store last trip getting all the most random items and we were eating like we were still in Japan for 2 weeks once we were back, it was great! I also want like 16 egg salad sandwiches and 8 of the fruit/whipped cream sandwiches from 7-11 and some onigiri

Maybe see if the timing works for you to use a luggage service to transfer the bags from NRT to HND. I would think with that long of a layover there would be enough time.

 

[leeniewdw]

One add'l note on London, particularly transportation to Heathrow. Our flight was at 9:30am and given it was our first time departing from LHR we definitely wanted to arrive 3 hours in advance. We ended up using a taxi from our hotel to Paddington Station (under 10£) and then the Heathrow Express ($50 for 2). Perhaps a taxi at that hour (around 6am) would have been the same price, but unsure how fast? But it seemed extremely efficient, we were at LHR in 30 minutes from our hotel (in Marylebone), had we been 1 minute faster to Paddington we would have made the prior train, getting us there even faster. Our taxi from LHR to our hotel on arrival (a Sunday evening) took 45 minutes or more and was nearly 100£.

 

[trenty]

We loved renting Citi bikes and biking along the lake, so much so that we extended our rentals and did this on and off all day, from Lincoln Park area down to the Planetarium. The Architecture Cruise along the river was really great too! We did all the other "touristy" things on our first visit as well (Willis Tower skydeck, Navy Pier, Millenium Park, Magnificent Mile, Lincoln Park Conservatory, etc), and the two that we want to do again are rent bikes and another river cruise. We're planning to go back next summer.

Thank you!

 

[elgerber]

If you have been to Chicago - what are your "must dos" and "things to avoid?"

Is there anything that needs to be booked in advance? - I would rather not make plans to see anything specific until we are there, unless advance reservations are an absolute must.

The architecture cruises are an absolute must do. We didn't book more than a few hours in advance when we did one. And of course some Chicago style deep dish pizza.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

We loved renting Citi bikes and biking along the lake, so much so that we extended our rentals and did this on and off all day, from Lincoln Park area down to the Planetarium. The Architecture Cruise along the river was really great too! We did all the other "touristy" things on our first visit as well (Willis Tower skydeck, Navy Pier, Millenium Park, Magnificent Mile, Lincoln Park Conservatory, etc), and the two that we want to do again are rent bikes and another river cruise. We're planning to go back next summer.

The architecture cruises are an absolute must do. We didn't book more than a few hours in advance when we did one. And of course some Chicago style deep dish pizza.

As a native Chicagoan, I have done the architecture cruise and it was well worth it. You can actually book through the Chase portal. Pizza, Chicago hot dogs and beef sandwiches are iconic Chicago foods but if you’re a foodie there is lots of fine dining in Chicago. I absolutely recommend anything by Stephanie Izard (Girl & the Goat, Little Goat, etc ).

 

[Psychodisney]

If you have been to Chicago - what are your "must dos" and "things to avoid?"

Is there anything that needs to be booked in advance? - I would rather not make plans to see anything specific until we are there, unless advance reservations are an absolute must.

Agree with river cruise and Pizza! There are some fun food tours too that might include pizza, a Chicago hot dog, Fannie May candy etc.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

We recently sold our Boca house — wasn’t on the market, but a realtor brought a couple through that loved the house and they made an insanely good offer that we couldn’t refuse. With dd in uni here and me seldom going there, it made sense to sell. Dh rented a 4 bedroom / 3 bathroom house in Fort Lauderdale while we decide what we want to buy (condo on the beach most likely). This is a long-winded way of asking if this is going to hurt my credit score? We are very fortunate to have no debt (mind you we aren’t exactly young anymore), so I’m worried that my credit score may have taken a hit. With the upcoming 120k CIP offer I want to be sure that I’m well-positioned (can’t apply until the end of July).

I’ve been wishing that there was an AmEx I could apply for. Haven’t hit them since the Hilton offers with FNCs last summer. I could apply for the Surpass, but would love to have the Aspire to get diamond status. Does AmEx ever have NLL offers on the Aspire? I cancelled mine 3 yrs ago.

WRT to transfer from NRT to HND, NRT is outside of Tokyo — train from Tokyo Central took me about an hour. HND is much closer — I had to transfer trains and it was about 25 mins from HND to Tokyo Stn Hotel. I’d probably either take a bus from NRT —> HND to drop the luggage or see if you could leave it somewhere at Tokyo Central Stn. In Tokyo Central Stn you can get almost any kind of food you can imagine — it’s massive and all the good food stores have places in the station. Tokyo Foodie Sarah on YT has some excellent videos with taste tests and suggestions for food places in the station which are very helpful. After getting your fill you could easily take the train to HND from Central, super easy.

LOVE Chicago! Such an amazing city. ITA with others, river cruise is a must. I booked mine while I was walking to the dock. Stayed at the Thompson (wrote a brief review) with a FNC and it was nice. Moved to the WA for 3 nights to use 3 expiring FNCs; probably wouldn’t stay there again, though the breakfast was very good. I also did a China Town food tour and really enjoyed it.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I also did a China Town food tour and really enjoyed it.

Even as a Chicagoan I’ve considered this. We love China town but I might be biased because DS is Chinese.
Do you recall which tour you did?

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Even as a Chicagoan I’ve considered this. We love China town but I might be biased because DS is Chinese.
Do you recall which tour you did?

Bobby's Bike Hike Taste of Chinatown Food & Walking Tour (no biking on this one). It was really good.

 

[CoP Luv]

My advice is to check again. AF and KLM play with the number of points they are asking for and it often goes up and down. That happened with our 2023 and 2024 flights on Flying Blue. With the 2023 return flight, the points cost never went down (it was bouncing between something like 200k to 300k per person one way) so I pivoted and booked BA through LHR even though it wasn't the most convenient.

I would love to try VA, but they drop their flights so late in the game that I'm not willing to wait to book (and lose out on a BA or an AF flight for a reasonable number of points). The only time we booked VA it was for a return flight from Europe booked with one day notice (Covid evac at the beginning of the pandemic) so the flight was showing up by then. DD said VA Upper Class may have been her nicest flight out of KLM, AF, AA, and UA Polaris so I wanted to try it but I'm more a "bird in the hand" kind of travel planner.

I am trying to book AF nonstop via Virgin. I did some research and saw lots of talk about award space showing up on Virgin but not being able to actually book it. I was just wondering what other people’s actual experience was.

I keep checking and hoping that the points cost goes down. It’s actually less points if I book through the Chase portal (but not by much)!

 

[mmmears]

I am trying to book AF nonstop via Virgin. I did some research and saw lots of talk about award space showing up on Virgin but not being able to actually book it. I was just wondering what other people’s actual experience was.

I keep checking and hoping that the points cost goes down. It’s actually less points if I book through the Chase portal (but not by much)!

Ah, so that's backwards from how I did it. Sorry I can't be more of a help. I hope something opens up. Are your dates at all flexible? I had to add a day onto our 2024 Europe trip to get a better outbound points fare, and I had to add a day onto my proposed 2025 Japan trip in order to get a reasonable return flight. I guess another option is looking at nearby airports and positioning (but I really don't like to do that unless I am desperate).

 

[mmmears]

@mmmears It's easy to see the packages on the website. Basically, 3 day tickets: Disneyland on day 1, Disneysea on days 2 and 3. Day one you get 3 fastpasses, Day 2 you get unlimited fastpass access to Fantasy Springs (the biggest draw, it seems, for most bloggers), Day 3 you get 3 or 4 fastpasses to Disneysea (can't remember exactly how many. Two nights at a resort with breakfast included. There's a second version that also includes a character meet and greet.

ETA:: You can't add a third night to the package, but if you book the night separately and get the same room category, you can ask at the hotel to be allowed to stay in the same room.

Thanks so much. This is really, really helpful. I've looked at the website a couple of times already, but obviously I need to spend more time there. I'm bogged down in an upcoming trip and planning for that one just can't wait any longer. I took a lot of time out to try to figure out a tentative itinerary for Japan and get flights and hotels, so hopefully TDL can wait until I get back from this summer's trip.

I suggest checking out the Tokyo Disney forum. It's a wealth of knowledge around vacation packages, all of the different passes, booking strategies, etc. Lots of great help over there, including several just-back reports in progress!

Also know that things in Tokyo will likely continue to evolve between now and next year, as things with Fantasy Springs settle in and adjustments are made.

I've been there following @Haley R 's trip report and I've browsed some other threads. I'll have more time to plan for this trip later on in the summer, but it's helpful to have an idea of what I should be looking for.

LOL, I'm trying to tell myself this to get behind it. I don't even wanna ask DH, I already know it will be an emphatic YES. I'm trying to be the voice of reason and logic here, haha.

We've done this out of LHR like another poster here, but we were able to store our luggage at the airport which made things easier. 10-12 hours is a long time and I think it's totally worth making the most of your time there. A friend just did this but they pushed back the return flight so they were able to spend on night in Tokyo - is that an option? She had a lot of fun just shopping and dining that day.

If you have been to Chicago - what are your "must dos" and "things to avoid?"

Is there anything that needs to be booked in advance? - I would rather not make plans to see anything specific until we are there, unless advance reservations are an absolute must.

Architectural river cruise is my favorite. Also the art museum is worth some time. We walked along the lake and ended up at the aquarium, where I was planning to visit anyway, so we went in and they were sold out for the day (it was Labor Day weekend though so YMMV) but the natural history museum next door (which was also on my list) was still available so I booked the aquarium right then and there for the following day. The dinosaur fossils are really cool - I recommend that museum too. Walking along the lake is nice and there are some nice sandy beaches if you want to take a dip. The food is great at so many places. I didn't love Navy Pier but some people like it. The Museum of Science and Industry is nice, too, but farther from downtown. And if you have a plat card, there is a Saks on Michigan where you can buy GCs. Hope this helps!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

not sure if it’s system wide or just SW changing direct flights to/from ISP and MCO but my mid October flight times were just changed

 

[afan]

I am trying to book AF nonstop via Virgin. I did some research and saw lots of talk about award space showing up on Virgin but not being able to actually book it. I was just wondering what other people’s actual experience was.

I keep checking and hoping that the points cost goes down. It’s actually less points if I book through the Chase portal (but not by much)!

Even if it shows up it doesn't mean you'll be able to book it. Lots of complaints on r/awardtravel. People seeing it on VS, transferring points and then finding out it can't be booked.

VS is having issues with it, generally can't book it online. Small chance a phone rep can do it. Supposedly it'll be fixed next month.

As always, if you don't know 100% those flights are there, call before you transfer points for any airline. If they can't hold the flights then transfer while you are on the phone with them, it's generally quick enough.

 

[trenty]

Architectural river cruise is my favorite.

Agree with river cruise a

As a native Chicagoan, I have done the architecture cruise and it was well worth it. You can actually book through the Chase portal. Pizza, Chicago hot dogs and beef sandwiches are iconic Chicago foods but if you’re a foodie there is lots of fine dining in Chicago. I absolutely recommend anything by Stephanie Izard (Girl & the Goat, Little Goat, etc ).

ITA with others, river cruise is a must.

The architecture cruises are an absolute must do. We didn't book more than a few hours in advance when we did one. And of course some Chicago style deep dish pizza.

Looks like we will definitely do the architecture river cruise! Thank you all for this suggestion and all the others. I have made a list of all of it.

 

[newski_mom]

not sure if it’s system wide or just SW changing direct flights to/from ISP and MCO but my mid October flight times were just changed

Our October flight from STL to LGB was also changed. They changed us to a 5:05 am flight with a 2.5 hour layover - no thank you! I've got to see what else is available.