I love credit cards so much! v7.0 - 2025 (see first page for add'l details)

Renting a car in Vegas Feb 28 for one day. My status matched status goes through that day. Do I need to worry about status matching on the 1st before we return the card or is it being there when we pick up enough?

I tried to status match last week and it won't let me because it's good through Feb 28.
 
These are great questions. Here's some tips on ways you can potentially save some money.
  • Remember when you are looking at prices, it's in KYD. KYD is fixed to the dollar at 1:1.25. So add 25% to everything. Service charge is also added at 18%. So roughly add 43% to everything.
  • Coccoloba is great and they have certain foodie nights, like Taco y Tequila on Tuesdays- I think the drinks are a bit discounted that night.
  • There's a grab n go shop in the resort. Works if you want to grab a salad or sandwich for the room for later and then you avoid service charge (I think).
  • Ave at the Seafire is up there in price and we don't go there for dinner anymore. It's also where breakfast/brunch is served. I do think brunch is very good, but it's a buffet that's worth the one time splurge, if you're there on a Sunday.
  • Get as much value as you can out of the resort fee.
    • Morning coffee and tea in the lobby, just near the elevators.
    • Complimentary non-motorized water sports. The rafts are really great and we love kayaking. They'll provide all the snorkeling gear.
    • Evening social hour. I believe from 5-6pm, in the lobby. Complimentary wines and appetizers.
    • Leave your sunscreen at home. Sunscreen is provided all over at the beach and pool, as is aloe. It's actually unlabeled Sun Bum brand.
    • I absolutely love, love their Atelier Bloem bath products. I've have ordered them and they are expensive! For your $80/day resort fee, I'm not opposed to dispensing some into travel sized bottles I bring from home.
  • Hotel Indigo is worth a visit. We really liked their rooftop bar and thought the food was very good. Ask your concierge to make you reservations to get the best seats around sunset. Drinks were really good there too. They have a couple of restaurants on site- it's worth looking at their menus.
  • There's a new beach club (not part of Kimpton or Hotel Indigo) just to the left of the Seafire that has food and drinks, either at tables or tables in the sand or the bar. We didn't find the drinks to be any good, so we didn't order food. But worth looking at reviews to see if it's for you- Bonny Moon Beach Club. It's cute.
  • I agree, a car is an unnecessary expense. Just grab a taxi there and back.
  • Yes, there is a walkable supermarket, just follow the beach path to the left of the Seafire when looking at the ocean. You can also get complimentary bikes from the Seafire. The restaurant/supermarket development (The Grove?) is about .4 miles from the public beach/Bonny Moon beach club. There's a small grocery store, a bakery, Mykonos restaurant, Jonny Pastrami's sandwich shop, Island Naturals (breakfast/lunch?). I haven't eaten at any of these places as we just stumbled upon it this last visit in November. The small grocery store is called Shopright- the Grove. The walk would be a bit sketch for small kids as you have to cross on West Bay Road, but when we went in that direction in November, it seemed they were doing construction and perhaps a sidewalk is to come? It's fine for adults, but just know you're walking alongside a busy-ish road once you get off the beach path. I would do this early in your trip.
  • You can request a microwave in advance from your concierge.
  • If it makes sense to you, you can also order some groceries and have them delivered to the hotel. Fosters is who we have used and the produce quality was very good. Shopright is fine for drinks and snacks- but very limited on fresh products.
  • Free-ish excursion: There's a free trolley that takes you to the Cayman Turtle Center (that gets VERY mixed reviews; I haven't been but my sister enjoyed). Ask a concierge for trolley hours. But, once you get off the trolley, you can walk over to Macabuca, a beachfront tiki bar/restaurant set over lava rock. If you're into snorkeling, there's a dedicated snorkeling area that you go down a ladder just next to Macabuca to access, so be sure to bring your snorkel gear from the Kimpton.
Have so much fun. Hope you enjoy the sun and the resort.

This is fantastic! Thank you so much! So many good ideas.
 
If you haven't read this very comprehensive review of Hermitage Bay from Thrifty Traveler, it's worth the read!

What room type do you have booked? When our stay got rescheduled due to their construction delays, they agreed to put us in a Hilltop Suite with pool for the inconvenience. I'd requested it since we really like a pool. But now I see that their Garden View rooms come with a plunge pool, which is the room type we technically paid for. Some other reviewers commented that the Hilltop suites are many many many steps and it would be annoying to go back and forth. So now I'm regretting the upgrade! Since they had already allocated a Hilltop Suite to us, they said they no longer have a Garden View room they could give us instead. Since I see others are paying $1000+ to upgrade to a Hilltop Suite, I'm going to try to convince myself to look at it as a once in a lifetime complimentary upgrade.

We're flying AA and I booked economy, but I just recently realized one leg is over 4 hours. Saw the upgrade banner for "as low as $90 per person" and clicked through, and it was $756/pp for that leg alone for "domestic" first. On points it was like 96k vs the 10k I paid. So I gave up on booking in first. But today I looked on a whim and saw 2 seats were left in first for 25k. Man, I grabbed those seats so fast!
Thanks for the link to that review! I love that it's so current. I'm going to pass it on to DH.

We're in a Garden View room, and it's a happy surprise to hear they were recently renovated with a plunge pool, that will be really nice. We've stayed at an Autograph Collection place in Costa Rica (Punta Islita) that has those, and it is a really nice feature to have!

Nice get on those seats! I do still need to figure out how we're going to get there and back. :laughing:
 
Last edited:
Considering a Red Week rental.

Has anyone used Red Week?

Does anyone know if Red Week will code as travel for Capital One Venture to use points to erase the charge?
 
How many moons? In the past, people have reported Amex forgets after 5-7 years. I've churned the Biz Marriott, got it in 2018 and again in 2023.
Hmmm maybe 6 years ago now? Maybe we can have him try again later this year. Did you just use a public link?
 
Can someone refresh my memory... if I want to transfer URs between spouse accounts, but their account does not show up... how do I get it to? Do I have to call? Or can I SM? Does anyone remember what info they need?

ETA: I read a few blog posts, and I think what I have to do is have my husband call under his account (UGH! no wonder I haven't done this...), and have them add MY card for transfer option. Then I can transfer his URs to my account. I'm getting ready to cancel his CSP in the next few weeks, and want to get his URs to my CIP before then, so I can still have the ability to transfer to Hyatt and such.
 
Last edited:
Magic band question. We haven't stayed on site since 2021 - can we still use our old magic bands? Do they still work?
 
Magic band question. We haven't stayed on site since 2021 - can we still use our old magic bands? Do they still work?
My 2022 old version MBs work for anything you physically tap. They aren't great at the rides where pictures autoload (Frozen, Slinky, 7D) so I have to pay attention to my photo rides and report missing photos to get those.
 
Magic band question. We haven't stayed on site since 2021 - can we still use our old magic bands? Do they still work?
Yes they will work. The battery is dead so they won’t work for ride photos, but will work for everything else as the power comes from the tap device and not your MB. You can enable Bluetooth in the app and on your phone for ride photos.
 
Magic band question. We haven't stayed on site since 2021 - can we still use our old magic bands? Do they still work?

Ours from 2014 still worked! I think anything you physically tap doesn't need the battery, so should work forever. The ride photos need the battery, so that didn't work. Most of our photos still linked though, I think from my phone bluetooth.

You can check that your magic bands are still activated in the app. Ours became deactivated, so I just had to click the activate button.
 
Alaska airlines is not a favorite of mine but I have to give props to them. Even though im around
3 hours from the fires my Aunt and Uncle live very close and house badly damaged. Had a trip planned
this week but didn't feel comfortable going. Im already on an extension from a flight I canceled last
year. Called Alaska CS explained and asked/begged for a 2-3 month extension.

She agreed and this morning I logged in to see if she extended it to March/April and saw this instead.

ISSUE DATE - EXPIRATION DATE
01/10/202501/10/2030


How very kind. I even called to see if it was a mistake and was told no. So anyone having difficulty with
with any service keep calling not all customer service has gone downhill (looking at you Amazon) lol.
 
Magic band question. We haven't stayed on site since 2021 - can we still use our old magic bands? Do they still work?
yes im still rocking the OGs one of mine the battery died but I went threw a phase like funkos were I bought too many magic bands now I only buy one if its a new model.
 
Alaska airlines is not a favorite of mine but I have to give props to them. Even though im around
3 hours from the fires my Aunt and Uncle live very close and house badly damaged. Had a trip planned
this week but didn't feel comfortable going. Im already on an extension from a flight I canceled last
year. Called Alaska CS explained and asked/begged for a 2-3 month extension.

She agreed and this morning I logged in to see if she extended it to March/April and saw this instead.

ISSUE DATE - EXPIRATION DATE
01/10/202501/10/2030


How very kind. I even called to see if it was a mistake and was told no. So anyone having difficulty with
with any service keep calling not all customer service has gone downhill (looking at you Amazon) lol.
I don't think 5 years is a coincidence, it's most likely a side-effect of new airline regs. TPG picked up on this 5 year extension last week. Specifically DL and AS have done this with some credits. AS in the example had even done it on flights the writer had cancelled. The regulations say something like under certain circumstances like airline screwups, airline vouchers are to have extended validity dates. So while cancelling yourself wouldn't qualify it might be that it's just easier to extend the date on all vouchers being updated/issued. I'm sure we'll have more data on what's getting extended by who over the next month.
 
My flight back from Paris in May, the best I could do was klm via ams to ord and then I got a dl flight home to sea. It was 50k miles for biz and it was as far west as I could get.

Just got an email that my cdg to ams flight had been cancelled and that I needed to confirm the new one. I was ready to do that but it also gave me the option to change to the air france non stop to ord for nothing extra and it gets in almost 4 hours before my dl flight so it's perfect. Much easier.

I had booked the night before the flight at the moxy at the airport using last year's dl stay credit, so I'll still use it but it's nice to know I can sleep a bit longer and have time to not rush in the morning since my flight leaves at 110p now.
 
Anyone have a ShopYourWay Citi MC? I've got a spend offer for spend $1000, get $100 in online purchases and I'm trying to figure out if a Disney hotel payment would qualify. There are a million exclusions as to what does not qualify but I'm not seeing travel excluded...
 
Do you guys mean that old magicbands will work for tapping into park, and using LLMP? If so, that's awesome! I have the magic mobile card things in my wallet on my iphone, thinking I would have to use my phone every time to tap in.
 
Last edited:
Do you guys mean that old magicbands will work for tapping into park, and using LLMP? If so, that's awesome! I have the magic mobile card things in my wallet on my iphone, thinking I would have to use my phone every time to tap in.
An old magicband should work for tapping into the park entrance, tapping into lightning lanes (whatever they are called these days), opening the door to your room, and having a Photopass photographer tap them. If the Magic Band is so old that the battery died, then they won't work for long distance, such as the photos which are taken when you are on a ride.
 
I don't think 5 years is a coincidence, it's most likely a side-effect of new airline regs. TPG picked up on this 5 year extension last week. Specifically DL and AS have done this with some credits. AS in the example had even done it on flights the writer had cancelled. The regulations say something like under certain circumstances like airline screwups, airline vouchers are to have extended validity dates. So while cancelling yourself wouldn't qualify it might be that it's just easier to extend the date on all vouchers being updated/issued. I'm sure we'll have more data on what's getting extended by who over the next month.
I think there is something to this. My friend who is going with me cancelled online and got expiration for
Nov ( a year from when she booked it with CC). Not wallet credit. She wants 5 years also lol. I wonder if
she books something else with the credit then cancels it will revert to 5 years? If so nice loop.
 
Last edited:













Free Vacation Planning!

Dreams Unlimited Travel is here to help you plan your ideal Disney vacation, with no additional cost to you. Our Authorized Disney Vacation Planners offer expert advice, answer all your questions, and constantly seek out the best discounts, ensuring you get the most value for your trip. Let us handle the details so you can focus on making magical memories.
CLICK HERE










DIS Tiktok DIS Facebook DIS Twitter DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest

Back
Top