I love credit cards so much!

[Jen and Ashwin]

Logged into DH's Chase account and the IHG has already shown up. They gave him $29k limit. It should help a lot with his credit utilization, which will hopefully increase his credit score some more. I sent a SM asking for a match of the 80k offer. Hoping that will get an affirmative. If I can sell another 2 sewing machines in the next 2 months, then my CIP MSR will be met without any out of pocket spending. That will make the IHG spend easy to meet.

 

[speedyfishy]

Mathing out my trip budget...I'm playing around with that dining plan calculator now, but please someone double check me (English was always my strongest subject!):

- The Disney dining plan, at $75/pp, is approx. $150/night for two adults. For five nights, that's a total cost of $750, or 75,000 points if redeeming at a 1:1 ratio through the UR Cruise & Tours department as part of a package.
- BUT, if I have the CSR, I can redeem points at a rate of 1.5 cents per point. So for five nights on the regular Disney Dining plan I would need 50,000 points. Yes?
- If my math is accurate, would that make the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan (right now at a cost of $116 pp/night) worth purchasing for two adults? I'd really like to try Tiffins, California Grill, and Le Cellier on our next trip, and we do each enjoy a drink or two with dinner

Normally I would NEVER consider purchasing a dining plan as I value flexibility and it really doesn't seem like a good value if you're paying cash, but if I have some extra points lying around I'd love to get our food at Disney paid for courtesy of Chase.

Thanks for helping me procrastinate on packing!

I just wanted to share SO and I love the deluxe dining plan. we do an early lunch at 11 and then a signature dinner at 8ish. We have paid cash and found it worth it. If you have the points I vote go for the deluxe. It’s also easier to come out ahead. Last trip we paid 1090, but got $1500 worth of food. It was a lot of food but we managed to eat most of it.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

BUT if you could eat for $500 would you use $900 worth of points to have the dining plan. I’m just saying I treat points as cash meaning I won’t spend them on things that aren’t worth it to me (even though they are free)

EDIT: I also realize I’m probably not explaining how I look at things very well LOL. Basically I just over analyze everything, haha.

No, I do understand what you mean. But I did use 30k UR points plus a little cash for one night at Poly and I in no way think that room was worth that much cash. And yes you over analyze, it part of your job description, no? Mine too (dietitian, who else calculates every calorie and gram of protein? Even the docs ballpark it. Lol)

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

No, I do understand what you mean. But I did use 30k UR points plus a little cash for one night at Poly and I in no way think that room was worth that much cash. And yes you over analyze, it part of your job description, no? Mine too (dietitian, who else calculates every calorie and gram of protein? Even the docs ballpark it. Lol)

So you must’ve thought the Poly was worth $450 in points though, right? (Or at least the $300 cashout value lol).

My ability to analyze every penny spent is just who I am and extracting the maximum possible value out of every transaction in life is important to me. It actually has very little to do with my job Basically my wife is a very special person to put up with somebody like me HAHA.

 

[Jax1023]

No, I do understand what you mean. But I did use 30k UR points plus a little cash for one night at Poly and I in no way think that room was worth that much cash. And yes you over analyze, it part of your job description, no? Mine too (dietitian, who else calculates every calorie and gram of protein? Even the docs ballpark it. Lol)

Hey I’m a dietitian too!

And I’d never spend ur points on he poly. My discover cash back, apparently is fair game in my head. But ur points are worth more

 

[WVMomof3]

I have had some success on a site called Skiplagged. You can enter the airport you want to fly into (Juneau or Anchorage might be the most likely) and then see the cheapest flights into that airport. Then see if you can get to that airport for a reasonable price To make a connection.

I can find Chicago to Fairbanks around $600 but no direct flights to Fairbanks
Just briefly checking, it seems Cleveland or Pittsburgh flights connect in Chicago quite a bit. So maybe a cheap flight to Chicago on SW or something then AS to Fairbanks?

I spent way too much time today trying to piece a trip together cheaply. I looked at flying southwest to Chicago, Seattle, Lax, Las Vegas, Denver and Minneapolis then flying to Fairbanks from those cities. I think Minneapolis would have been the cheapest option, or I could have just bought the whole ticket through the CSR travel portal and used a lot of UR points. BUT, I just remembered I am busy that weekend!! Shoot, I should have looked at the calendar first. I think he is going to Florida soon after the Alaska trip so maybe I can tag along on that one instead.

 

[calypso726]

@WVMomof3 - Thank you for the reminder to see the magnolias behind Smithsonian Castle. They were beautiful and a much needed respite after visiting The Holocaust Museum.

To everyone who recommended Founding Farmers it was amazing! I felt pretty smug having made reservations online when I see there is a line out the door. That is, until I discovered I was a week early for dinner Fortunately, the staff was really cool and squeezed us in right away anyhow.

We’ve had an awesome weekend in DC. Enjoyed an evening White House Secrets and Scandals walking tour, a Hamilton themed walking tour. We enjoyed a cherry blossom afternoon tea, ate at Occidental and were seated at THE table! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay at The Willard thanks to the IHG card and we were happy to not pay for any flights or Uber rides thanks to one or more of our Amex Platinum cards. I love travel hacking. Best. Hobby. Ever. Ok maybe this post wasn’t too off topic after all.

 

[WVMomof3]

@WVMomof3 - Thank you for the reminder to see the magnolias behind Smithsonian Castle. They were beautiful and a much needed respite after visiting The Holocaust Museum.

To everyone who recommended Founding Farmers it was amazing! I felt pretty smug having made reservations online when I see there is a line out the door. That is, until I discovered I was a week early for dinner Fortunately, the staff was really cool and squeezed us in right away anyhow.

We’ve had an awesome weekend in DC. Enjoyed an evening White House Secrets and Scandals walking tour, a Hamilton themed walking tour. We enjoyed a cherry blossom afternoon tea, ate at Occidental and were seated at THE table! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our stay at The Willard thanks to the IHG card and we were happy to not pay for any flights or Uber rides thanks to one or more of our Amex Platinum cards. I love travel hacking. Best. Hobby. Ever. Ok maybe this post wasn’t too off topic after all.

In all the times I have been to DC, I still have not made it to the Holocaust Museum main section. I have been through the section downstairs that is kid appropriate and it was hard going through that part. I am very emotional and I can just picture me crying through the whole thing. We did the African American one last week, and I thought that was pretty intense in parts also. Happy you had a great little trip.

 

[Lain]

Finally had a moment since coming home. Called in to Amex to cancel my Amex Platinum, turned down a retention offer of $300 statement credit or 30k MR points. That was a tough call! Applied for the Amex MB Platinum, went to pending, and Amex's new accounts office is closed now until Monday! Argh!

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Logged into DH's Chase account and the IHG has already shown up. They gave him $29k limit. It should help a lot with his credit utilization, which will hopefully increase his credit score some more. I sent a SM asking for a match of the 80k offer. Hoping that will get an affirmative. If I can sell another 2 sewing machines in the next 2 months, then my CIP MSR will be met without any out of pocket spending. That will make the IHG spend easy to meet.

And less than an hour later, Chase messaged back saying they would honor the 80k offer.

 

[Calfan]

To me, URs are worth their redemption value so whether it’s “worth” it or not would be a decision made purely on the cost. If I wouldn’t pay cash for it...I’d probably not use URs either. Others may treat their points differently but that’s how I see it.

EDIT: this “theory” of mine works here because URs have a pretty specific and understood value (1.5cpp). To me, this is different than things like hotel and most airline points (excluding Southwest) where your cpp can vary widely based on what you redeem them for.

Yes, but that’s assuming all you do with URs is redeem them by booking travel via the portal (or thru Chase travel dept.) at 1.5cpp. I (typically) get way more value than 1.5cpp out of my URs by transferring them to an airline and booking an award ticket. So in a way I agree with you. It would be a last resort for me to cash out URs at 1.5cpp when I know I can get so much more value out of them. I got to that last resort for our upcoming Peru trip when I couldn’t find saver awards with the miles currency we had, and it was “cheaper” points/miles wise to purchase the tix with UR via the portal. I guess this is just another example of folks valuing different points and miles currency differently depending on how they typically use them.

 

[calypso726]

In all the times I have been to DC, I still have not made it to the Holocaust Museum main section. I have been through the section downstairs that is kid appropriate and it was hard going through that part. I am very emotional and I can just picture me crying through the whole thing. We did the African American one last week, and I thought that was pretty intense in parts also. Happy you had a great little trip.

I get very emotional as well. I cried the entire time we were there. I’ve got the African American museum on the bucket list as well. So we will definitely be coming back to DC again down the road. Now I gotta figure out where IHG will take us next!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

So you must’ve thought the Poly was worth $450 in points though, right? (Or at least the $300 cashout value lol).

My ability to analyze every penny spent is just who I am and extracting the maximum possible value out of every transaction in life is important to me. It actually has very little to do with my job Basically my wife is a very special person to put up with somebody like me HAHA.

Maybe the idea of the Poly was worth that much, but the actual stay? No. Wouldn’t do it again. But points gave me a chance to splurge on something I would never spend that much money on. And I found out I was right, it’s not worth that much money. Lol.

The analytical part is just you, but you apply it both at home and work. I’m pretty type A, though more so at work than home.

 

[Artygal90]

BUT if you could eat for $500 would you use $900 worth of points to have the dining plan. I’m just saying I treat points as cash meaning I won’t spend them on things that aren’t worth it to me (even though they are free)

EDIT: I also realize I’m probably not explaining how I look at things very well LOL. Basically I just over analyze everything, haha.

No, that makes sense as a part of any cost/benefit analysis! I'm just considering the dining plan as another way to spend some of my points and get my food costs covered in addition to my flight, hotel, and ticket costs. The way I look at it, I'm going to be paying for food one way or another - either with "free" points or with cash out of pocket. If I go to California Grill and pay cash, I will probably just split an app with my husband and get the cheapest glass of wine because I don't know that I could bring myself to pay upwards of $35 for an entree. But if I use points to get a dining plan, well then you bet I'm going to go for it and order a martini, steak, and creme brulee, and that way I'm not spending any real money on that experience. I am losing out on the possibility of redeeming those UR later, though, so I need to weigh that as well. But the main reason I asked was just to confirm that the 1.5 multiplier on UR with the CSR does in fact apply to the dining plan as well, which makes it a more appealing purchase to me. I feel like most of us here are probably over-analyzers to some extent or another, whether it's touring plans, calculating the value of the DDP, or churning credit card rewards, so you're not alone )

 

[Artygal90]

If your reservations are separated you can add dining to just part of your trip. We have done deluxe and it’s a lot of food even if only doing a breakfast and a signature dinner. If you can break your reservations into different days then it helps. I’ll add deluxe dining for a day then use the two days to eat the three meals. Then go a couple days then add dining again. Have also done deluxe then reg then deluxe to make it worth the savings. Have to decide what reservations you can get. Good luck

Can you explain a bit about how you would do that? Do you schedule a split stay at two different resorts or make more than one reservations at the same resort? Or just request fewer nights on the dining plan when you book the package?

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Hey I’m a dietitian too!

And I’d never spend ur points on he poly. My discover cash back, apparently is fair game in my head. But ur points are worth more

I’d spend UR over cashback. I can earn 5x UR points on a number of purchases and accrue URs much faster. As evidenced by my current cashback bonus of $120 and my UR balance of 80,000.
Good to see so many perspectives. Keeps me thinking and considering other options.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Yes, but that’s assuming all you do with URs is redeem them by booking travel via the portal (or thru Chase travel dept.) at 1.5cpp. I (typically) get way more value than 1.5cpp out of my URs by transferring them to an airline and booking an award ticket. So in a way I agree with you. It would be a last resort for me to cash out URs at 1.5cpp when I know I can get so much more value out of them. I got to that last resort for our upcoming Peru trip when I couldn’t find saver awards with the miles currency we had, and it was “cheaper” points/miles wise to purchase the tix with UR via the portal. I guess this is just another example of folks valuing different points and miles currency differently depending on how they typically use them.

I was going to say pretty much the same thing. I value URs much higher than that because of the ability to use them for first/business class seats. My calculus is more like $.02 minimum for using URs--and I probably wouldn't even do that--or I pay cash. For our China trip, I converted them for something like $.06-$.08 for our RT in Business Polaris (going west) and First Class Polaris (coming back east). I don't even like transferring them to SWA because the value is typically only $.016-$.017. It is funny how we all do things so differently!

 

[gottalovepluto]

No, that makes sense as a part of any cost/benefit analysis! I'm just considering the dining plan as another way to spend some of my points and get my food costs covered in addition to my flight, hotel, and ticket costs. The way I look at it, I'm going to be paying for food one way or another - either with "free" points or with cash out of pocket. If I go to California Grill and pay cash, I will probably just split an app with my husband and get the cheapest glass of wine because I don't know that I could bring myself to pay upwards of $35 for an entree. But if I use points to get a dining plan, well then you bet I'm going to go for it and order a martini, steak, and creme brulee, and that way I'm not spending any real money on that experience. I am losing out on the possibility of redeeming those UR later, though, so I need to weigh that as well. But the main reason I asked was just to confirm that the 1.5 multiplier on UR with the CSR does in fact apply to the dining plan as well, which makes it a more appealing purchase to me. I feel like most of us here are probably over-analyzers to some extent or another, whether it's touring plans, calculating the value of the DDP, or churning credit card rewards, so you're not alone )

What is going to make you happiest? That’s your answer. I’m, mostly, all about the math when getting a card but in analyzing redemptions (I do get bonuses without plans for them sometimes) I’m all about what will you enjoy the most? Will you have the most fun knowing the dining plan is covered? Do it

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Yes, but that’s assuming all you do with URs is redeem them by booking travel via the portal (or thru Chase travel dept.) at 1.5cpp. I (typically) get way more value than 1.5cpp out of my URs by transferring them to an airline and booking an award ticket. So in a way I agree with you. It would be a last resort for me to cash out URs at 1.5cpp when I know I can get so much more value out of them. I got to that last resort for our upcoming Peru trip when I couldn’t find saver awards with the miles currency we had, and it was “cheaper” points/miles wise to purchase the tix with UR via the portal. I guess this is just another example of folks valuing different points and miles currency differently depending on how they typically use them.

Yeah - it's good to have a clear understanding of your valuation. I previously always valued my URs at my Southwest valuation of 1.61cpp but we have enough SW points to cover our next 3-4 years worth of trips so I have to focus those points elsewhere, haha! My assumption now is they'll probably go towards rooms onsite at WDW and/or Disney cruise when that hits our agenda in early 2020.

I can definitely see where somebody using other airlines could see URs as worth well beyond 1.5 cpp. So yeah, I definitely agree that once you've established a "value" to the points - they are worth that to you and if you cash them out or redeem through something less than that you should have a logical/rational reason for doing so, otherwise you're "wasting" value and should've just paid cash (or not booked that trip, experience, etc. at all).

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

DISchurners Request
If you have a 35k SPG support link out there, please remove it From HERE Those have expired and we don't want anybody newer wondering why all the SPG links don't work (or not using a link at all because they think they're all broken). If you have a working 25k link you can definitely leave that up