I love credit cards so much!

[WVMomof3]

I'm just so upset. I was planning on utilizing the 90 day FP pilot program for CL guests for a few days at the end of my trip. (Been saving up bank bonuses for it ) Was your date of departure super close in when you bought? Chase never said it would 60 days prior to departure before I would get my tickets!

I called Chase and they said that's their vendor and they can put in a request the tickets process sooner but that won't necessarily happen and to call Chase back every other week and see if the vendor has processed it. Nothing else they could do. Waiting until 60 days before a Disney World trip for the tickets would scare the daylights out of me even if I wasn't looking to participate in the CL pilot program! Just trust I have it on the 60 day mark at 4am for FP booking?! The crazy thing is @WVMomof3 is in the same boat and is getting the same response from Chase and she is already in that 60 day window. I tried calling Chase's vendor today and was told at least 30 min wait, yesterday I waited about 15 mins with them, but it looks like they won't talk to me since I'm not the agent that booked the ticket. I've sent an email explaining the situation to the original Chase rep who forwarded me the Funjet confirmation explaining the situation and I will settle in for holding with Funjet later this morning and hope to heaven I can get someone there to accelerate the processing on this. This is ridiculous.

Oh no! What was the problem? I wonder if someone else could help you resolve it.

@gottalovepluto and I having the same issue of trying to get our Disney Etickets from Chase. They put our tickets through Funjet and not directly through Disney. Between the two of us, we have talked to several Chase agents and not much help so far. At least @gottalovepluto has time before her trip, but we are within our 60 day window already.

Weirdly, we have now called several times and we have gotten a different phone tree menu every time we have called. Sometimes we get immediately to a person, sometimes directly to a press 1 type menu. So far I have pressed 2, 3 and 4 to get hooked to Cruise and Tours. One time I also had to pick after the Cruise tours menu between Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo. Getting to an actual person is not a fun process.

If anyone has had any other super helpful Chase agents besides Melissa let me know.

 

[Reuven Shechter]

Personally, I think your current cards are better everyday cards than the Amex everyday preferred. Are you just looking for a bonus though? How many cards have you gotten in the last 24 months? Are you looking for free travel? Cashback? What are your travel goals? Who’s in your travel party?

2 cards in the last 24 months (CSR and CFU). Definitely free travel. Most of my travel goals are flight oriented. We're DVC members, so we spend most of our points on flights to Orlando and occasionally other locations. We don't often stay in other hotels because of DVC. We usually flight Southwest, occasionally Delta and United. Just me and my husband.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

So with a newly approved CIP and need for a new roof, trying to figure out how to pay. Contractor charges 3% for cc payments, doesn’t take Venmo. Says he takes Chase QuicKPay. Any way to make that work with a cc?

I need $1800 deposit. Can’t wait 10 days for Plastiq to deliver a check. Was thinking of charging it and paying 3% then paying the remainder thru Plastiq. Other ideas ?

 

[pillow]

There’s a 500 sb ($5 bonus) right now for every $50 purchase. A lot of us have been buying $50 Disney gift cards and getting $6 (12%) back for each one. If you have chase freedom and use chase pay you can get another 5% if that’s not maxed out. Plus you earn Best Buy rewards (at least 1%).

Oops - I meant to type 12% on Swagbucks. Fixing my post . . .

 

[havaneselover]

Ah okay, So I would have to make multiple $50 transactions... Well the CF is in my wife's name and she prob wont come with to BB I might just have to stick with the Gyft/SAMs process since I can do that w/out her.

If you can get chase pay it shouldn’t matter. They are just scanning a qr code to pay. But this method is a hassle. But for 17% off it may be worth it.

 

[DisneyMandC]

@gottalovepluto and I having the same issue of trying to get our Disney Etickets from Chase. They put our tickets through Funjet and not directly through Disney. Between the two of us, we have talked to several Chase agents and not much help so far. At least @gottalovepluto has time before her trip, but we are within our 60 day window already.

Weirdly, we have now called several times and we have gotten a different phone tree menu every time we have called. Sometimes we get immediately to a person, sometimes directly to a press 1 type menu. So far I have pressed 2, 3 and 4 to get hooked to Cruise and Tours. One time I also had to pick after the Cruise tours menu between Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo. Getting to an actual person is not a fun process.

If anyone has had any other super helpful Chase agents besides Melissa let me know.

I booked a Disney trip with Sydney there before, but do not have her extension. I know others have had good luck with Leon x. 8179.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I was about to move 94k URs from my CSP to DH CSR and then had a thought...


Would I be able to book a trip without DH through his UR portal? Like just me and the kids, for example. Does he have to come on the trip or is it like SW and I can book whomever I wish with my points? If not, I better leave some points in my account.

So a couple of thoughts
1) You should be able to book travel for others through UR portal - all the confirmation info would likely go to your husband though.
2) You could always transfer them back some other time when necessary. If they stop transfers we all fully expect that to be announced with some warning

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thanks!!

The only credit card I've actually opened over the last 24 months is a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card. I had a Macy's card upgraded for me without my involvement... I "re-opened" a Target Red card that got closed due to inactivity.


Sayhello

Hey - welcome to the group! Glad you found us here What are your travel interests - are you looking to go to Disney for free? Other places? A little of both? We have experts here on all of the above!!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

After thinking about it I’m liking the option #1 but am so clueless on spg/Marriott. I tried searching but did not find a good primer that I could understand. Can you direct me or answer some more questions? How do I get all the Marriott/spg points into one acct? After purchasing a night/flight package the certificate shows on your Marriott acct? How do you get the “Certificate” to convert to southwest rapid rewards points?

It's easy to transfer SPG points between family members if you share the same address (it takes about 3-5 days to complete the move). It's also easy to transfer Marriott points to SPG (that's instant - you just log out and log back in again). This can all be done from the Marriott and SPG sites.
Here's a hypothetical process of what I'd do:
1) Transfer "player 2" Marriott points to "player 2" SPG account
2) Transfer "player 2" SPG points to "player 1" SPG account
3) Transfer "player 1" SPG points to "player 2" Marriott account

Now all the points are in one place

 

[sayhello]

Hey - welcome to the group! Glad you found us here What are your travel interests - are you looking to go to Disney for free? Other places? A little of both? We have experts here on all of the above!!

I'm *planning* on booking the Japan ABD tomorrow, and it's a long flight to do in Economy. I'm hoping to upgrade to at least Business Class for the flight. But I have NO clue how to start or what questions to ask. How do things work here?

Sayhello

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Pick your favorite child and leave the others waiting by the gate?

Good thing I know which child is my favorite HAHAHA!

Sorry I've been a little quiet this morning, haha. I ran a choir practice before church today and was a little tied up until now I will BLAST you all with responses now

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I am trying to follow suggestions but am confused. What is the difference between paying for Disney trip with my CIP directly vs going through Cruise & Tours. I have learned so much from y'all already and am very grateful.

I didn't explain fully... I booked ($200 on my CIP) deposit for son for Dec. with free dining. I was going to pay balance on husband's new CIP to help meet $5K spend. Any reason to transfer to Cruise/Tours for this booking? Do we net the same amount of points either way?

Looks like you may have already gotten your answer but obviously your plan would be to use those points (once earned) on a future trip. No advantage using Chase for booking a trip you are paying cash for.

In reference to where I said you could cover a $3,000 trip - you need to earn 200k URs to cover that and have a CSR card. Once you get there, you're living the dream LOL!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I have a couple of questions about the Hyatt card,is this personal or biz? and hyatt doesn;t count 5/24? if I'm lol/24,I could get a hyatt card? I've never considere Hyatt before but I like your use of the points- so if you trabsfer UR-Hyatt and combine points, you'd have 50k hyatt to transfer whiich is a bonus point for swa points?

could you post the link of non 5/24 personal cc's again? I can't find it right now....

I'm waiting for @SouthFayetteFan 's answer also. I have a Hyatt card and I thought it counted in my 5/24. I'm thinking you can apply for it when you are lol/24, just like the Marriott Biz. But, it is not a business card, and will count as a 5/24 card once you have it?


I was anxious to get it and the Marriott personal last fall, and put myself at what I think is 5/24. I could have waited a few months on the Hyatt and gotten another Chase card as the hotel I wanted the card for delayed it's opening.

Hyatt counts toward your 5/24 status but you can get the card if you are over 5/24. Idk how it works transferring to swa.


Here are the Chase cards you can get if you are over 5/24.

Chase IHG Select

Chase IHG Premier

Chase IHG Traveler

Chase Hyatt

Chase British Airways

Chase Iberia

Chase Aer Lingus

Chase Disney

Chase Fairmont No longer available

Chase Marriott Premier business card

Chase Ritz-Carlton

Chase Amazon

Chase AA


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-524-rule-explained-detail-need-know/amp/

So I'll just stop through and reiterate that all of these cards (including Hyatt) you are able to get if you are above 5/24. However I would TREAD LIGHTLY! You may not want to get shutdown applying for a chase card when you're 10/24. However if the reward (i.e. you really need these points) outweighs the risk (getting cards shutdown that you NEVER use) then it's probably worth trying. Before applying for one of these cards I'd recommend people share their situation here and get some advice.

 

[speedyfishy]

2 cards in the last 24 months (CSR and CFU). Definitely free travel. Most of my travel goals are flight oriented. We're DVC members, so we spend most of our points on flights to Orlando and occasionally other locations. We don't often stay in other hotels because of DVC. We usually flight Southwest, occasionally Delta and United. Just me and my husband.

Definitely don’t get the Amex yet. This would be a good card to get when you are over 5/24.

Some Chase cards have a rule that you can only get approved for the card if you have less than 5 approvals in the last 24 months. Chase’s Southwest cards fall under this rule, so you should go for the Southwest companion pass. You get the companion pass by achieving 110k Rapid Rewards points in a calendar year. When you achieve the companion pass your companion will fly free with you for the rest of the calendar year it was earned and the following year. To get 110k RR points you can get a Southwest Business card (usually a 60k Rapid Reward bonus) and a Southwest personal card or you can apply for the two Southwest personal cards on the same day. (Usually these cards have a 40k or 50k bonus they were at 60k last year briefly they are currently at 40k) if you want the two personal cards you need to apply for both the same day.

It may make sense for you to wait until January 2019 to apply since the current Southwest personal cards have a low bonus and Southwest maybe releasing a premium card soon. If you wait until 2019 you will get the companion pass for the rest of 2019 and 2020. But if you want the companion pass soon for upcoming flights go ahead. I got the companion pass in the summer of 2017 because I had a lot of trips at the end of 2017. I didn’t max the amount of time I had it for, but the free flights in 2017 were more important to me.


United also has a card that you won’t be able to get once you have more than five cards in 24 months.

Amex has two Delta Biz cards that won’t count to your 5/24 status as well. It is very easy to get a Biz card with Amex.

Chase Biz cards would also not effect your 5/24 status as well. You can get the CIC or the CIP which have a UR bonus and you can transfer to your CSR.


For the Buisness applications you can have a “business”. I got approved for the CIP with $5 in “business” revenue. (I’d list a higher revenue if you can lol) You will be a sole proprietor and your name will be your business name. Your Tax identication number with be your social. If you have a legit business with an EIN that’s even better.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

What does everyone think of the Amex Everyday Preferred? I currently have the Blue Cash Preferred and am considering diversifying into Membership Rewards Points in addition to UR. I currently have CSR, CFU, and CF as well.

2 cards in the last 24 months (CSR and CFU). Definitely free travel. Most of my travel goals are flight oriented. We're DVC members, so we spend most of our points on flights to Orlando and occasionally other locations. We don't often stay in other hotels because of DVC. We usually flight Southwest, occasionally Delta and United. Just me and my husband.

Is there a reason you don't have a Southwest Card? If you pick up a SW business and SW personal card at the right time you could earn over $1,600 worth of points AND get a companion pass to fly your husband free with you for 13-23 months (depending on when you earn the pass).

If you're open to business cards - I'd recommend a Chase Ink Preferred (CIP) as your next move as it's the best bonus out there right now! You can qualify for a business card pretty easily if you have a side job of any sort (sell on Ebay, sell cookies, teach piano, mow lawns, shovel driveway). I know some of that sounds ridiculous but it's true!

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

DH and I will combine the Disney GCs all on to one up to $1,000 which is the max. This is why we really miss the DVA account. We maxed out 3 of them and were working on the 4th one and then they did away with the program. DH said he'd miss the 2% in Disney GCs back but he had wished they'd left the accounts open as a way to consolidate gift cards all in one spot. I agree. You can consolidate your gift cards on to one for up to $1,000 here https://www.disneygiftcard.com/ under manage cards. I do not throw out those cards until after the trip is over. I write the amount with a sharpie on the back of each card.

Nice! I was looking at UA award space and the standard was at 175k each way! Yikes!! I'm going for Cathay Pacific this round. I will position us out of one of their US gateways and route through HKG. That is, unless I find something more interesting like taking a shower on the plane. So, it might be Emirates or Etihad. We'll see how things shake out. Ugh, I'd hate searching for 4 biz seats at saver level. That is some serious dedication and I definitely wish you luck!

It's so nice to finish up an MSR. I've been using the SPG relentlessly on all non category spend and not splitting the difference between the CFU and SPG on occasion. CFU is on hiatus now. DH is also under mandatory SPG use I plan to get every point I can while the card is sitting in Hospice until it's demise come August. I am going to mourn this card the way I mourned the loss of RedBird MS. Still hurts. I just picked up an Amex Blue for business card and plan to hit the MSR on that with the on our own pre and post stays in China/Japan this month. I also made the mistake of watching a video on Tokyo Disney Sea merchandise that will be available when we get there. I am fairly certain I will be purchasing another piece of luggage for that shopping trip alone and hoping my new card doesn't start smoking and catch fire.

Awesome! Thanks for the link to the card combiner. That will definitely help, although it will still be a lot of cards to manage. I'll have to read the Dreams policies to see how they handle gift cards for payment (i.e. max allowed).

I looked at UA, too, and the standard Business rates are ridiculous. I love that they partner with ANA though. My strategy with four is to break up the reservation, buy saver coach and keep an eye out on openings for business going person by person. I also spend a lot of time watching for patterns to see what programs are most likely to open business awards on good flights. With the amount of time I spend on trying to find premium awards for cheap, I probably would be better off buying the tickets! (But that wouldn't be nearly as much fun). The thing with this "sport" is that it totally hits my couponing gene I love "saving" and getting stuff for "free."

I wanted to do all non-category spend for the SPG (i hate giving up 3x URs for any travel spend) BUT I wanted to get his bonus miles ASAP to give time to transfer to partners to be in place when seats are released. I'm planning to combine our Starpoints into my account and then transfer in increments of 20,000 to Alaska. They partner with JAL (among others), but they are also great for Hawaii if I end up finding award space in another program. Are most of you guys proactively transferring your Starpoints over before the merger?

So jealous of your Tokyo Sea trip. I can't wait to read all about it!

 

[Lain]

Who’s getting the CIC before 5/20? I just need to decide if it will be me or DH who applies. He is 1/24 but has the CIP with approval in mid March. So he’s 0/30 but 1/60. I am 0/24 but hate to get it because I am planning to get the CIP with DH’s referral (soon) and I am afraid Chase will come out with the one ink rule.

Me! (or DW, or both)

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Is there ever a reason not to use a flight/nights package when redeeming Marriott points? I may want to book a cat 8 and can always use a topper offer to my SW account. It seems these packages are very popular, so wondering if any reason not to book that way.


Looks like cat 8 with SW is 290k/310k/340k/360k.

Gives me the cert for hotel and 50k/70k/100k/120k SW RR points.


Looks like the hotel would normally by 240k points for 7 nights. Or if did the Sheraton or Westin (this would be after the merger) I am not sure what cat, but I'd guess the same. These are all for 2019 maui.


So I don't really get the math on these, but it seems like I am basically spending 120k extra marriott points to get 120k sw rr points. Well in my case, I have spg points, so 40k spg for 120k swrr.

The math is pretty simply - you're taking 40,000 SPG points (or 120,000 Marriott points) and turning them into 120,000 SW points. Since you have a bona-fide use for the nights it's purely that - transferring to airline at 1:1. (Now I will say if you weren't going to do 7 nights that can change this math slightly).

So those 120k Marriott points then turn into 120k SW points worth almost $1,800. You likely would NOT get $1,800 in value out of them as hotel points (that'd be like 1.5cpp and most people say Marriott points are worth between 0.7and 1cpp . The only reason I wouldn't do this is if you already have WAY more SW points than you need.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I'm *planning* on booking the Japan ABD tomorrow, and it's a long flight to do in Economy. I'm hoping to upgrade to at least Business Class for the flight. But I have NO clue how to start or what questions to ask. How do things work here?

Sayhello

We have a bunch of people (like 100+ active) on this thread that have varying experience levels with all sorts of things. That one wouldn't be my area of expertise but I'd bet @calypso726 and others can help you. I'll leave that advice to them

My areas of expertise are Disney World, flying on Southwest, Using Marriott/SPG points, a little bit of cash back, and anything involving difficult MATH, lol!

 

[Lain]

So with a newly approved CIP and need for a new roof, trying to figure out how to pay. Contractor charges 3% for cc payments, doesn’t take Venmo. Says he takes Chase QuicKPay. Any way to make that work with a cc?

I need $1800 deposit. Can’t wait 10 days for Plastiq to deliver a check. Was thinking of charging it and paying 3% then paying the remainder thru Plastiq. Other ideas ?

I mean, it's not ideal, but it is "only" a $54 fee on the deposit, and does knock out 37% of your CIP's MSR. When you pay the balance of $1,800 (?) with Plastiq, you'll pay another $45 fee, but earn $55.35 in cash (worth between $69.18-$83.02 in travel redemption), and you'll be about 74% of the way through your MSR. Don't forget you're working towards 80,000 UR!

Is your contractor willing to accept Venmo?