I love credit cards so much!

[amalone1013]

We did it!

We ended up skipping the double dip. ILs decided they'd rather go for one card each, so we got a CSR for each of them.

CSR: $4k spend/50kpts = 54kpts earned @ 1.5cpp = $810 + $300 TC - $450 AF = $660 + possible $300 double dip TC = $960
times 2!

Plus I referred them both from my card.

So I'm still shunned...


I cannot wait to surprise them with this trip. I'm already trying to come up with ideas of how to tell them at Christmas.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Well DH just applied for the CIP so now we just wait! He seems very excited about it now. We both are the type of people that circle things in weekly grocery ads just to save any penny possible so the idea of saving this much money to make our Japan trip possible is exciting!

I was an extreme couponer before becoming a churner lol

 

[Haley R]

I was an extreme couponer before becoming a churner lol

I wouldn't say we are extreme, but we try to look out for good deals. We also have our local movie theater's rewards card, a card for Hu Hot, and a bunch of others lol

 

[Lain]

I was an extreme couponer before becoming a churner lol

I was a gift card churner before becoming a credit card churner!

 

[calypso726]

Thank you! I heard you all are great and helpful. I have applied to no credit cards. In fact paid off all of them years ago and now want to find ways to get my family on a vacation. heard this is a great way once you understand it. So her eis my plans:

Disney cruise, LAX or San Diego are the two closest. Any advice I'm all ears.

I'm just curious as to how you found us and heard about this great and helpful group.

You got great advice from @SouthFayetteFan - Start with the Chase credit cards.

Did everyone finish up those SPG spends early? Leave you people alone for Mother's Day and you go application crazy! I love it!!

If by SPG spending you mean, did DH's brother and sister each purchase 30k SPG points during the 35% off sale that ends this month and did my brother and nephew also buy 30K SPG points? Why yes, they all did as soon as they moved in with us

Do they have something that helps keep track of how much you have spent out of the spending requirement?

I usually go by my statement and just see what the purchases total and subtract any returns. After the second statement closes I pay much closer attention to where I'm at and where I need to be in terms of MSR.

I think our mortgage, student loans, utilities, and other charges will get us up to that $5000 pretty fast. I was worried at first, but DH and I talked and think it will be easily achievable. I'm getting really excited at the thought of saving so much money for our trip!

YAY! So excited and happy that our little group here was able to guide you to a nice chunk of savings towards your trip!

Anyone ever find the frustration planning a vacation by cheaper dates? I will get these emails for great airfares
but i get the dates and look around for hotels....and they are high. Same when i see specials for hotels. I get the
dates and......the flights are high.

I wonder if hotels and airlines are in cahoots??

Yes! There's always a fare war when or pricing drops drastically when I can't take advantage of it. This is because I always schedule and plan way in advance. Looking forward to retirement and planning nothing except taking advantage of fare wars some day.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

I was an extreme couponer before becoming a churner lol

I wouldn't say we are extreme, but we try to look out for good deals. We also have our local movie theater's rewards card, a card for Hu Hot, and a bunch of others lol

I was a fairly hard core CVSer for a few years. Free toothpaste and toilet paper isn't as exciting as free flights, but it's pretty darn useful!

 

[Albort]

Do they have something that helps keep track of how much you have spent out of the spending requirement?

i mark mine on a whiteboard in my room. i do 10x @ $.50 per transaction.
I got my mom to do her 10x by buying a $.19 banana at trader joes.
i know someone bought 10 crickets at petco on single transactions.

 

[miztressuz]

I was a gift card churner before becoming a credit card churner!

It was such a shame the Best Buy deal got nerfed recently It was the first good gift card churn in forever. I guess I have to make do with actually churning my CC's now. (I know how to get the CC, I just don't know how to churn the CC. And that's really the most important part of CC bonuses: the churning. )

 

[Haley R]

I'm just curious as to how you found us and heard about this great and helpful group.

You got great advice from @SouthFayetteFan - Start with the Chase credit cards.



If by SPG spending you mean, did DH's brother and sister each purchase 30k SPG points during the 35% off sale that ends this month and did my brother and nephew also buy 30K SPG points? Why yes, they all did as soon as they moved in with us



I usually go by my statement and just see what the purchases total and subtract any returns. After the second statement closes I pay much closer attention to where I'm at and where I need to be in terms of MSR.



YAY! So excited and happy that our little group here was able to guide you to a nice chunk of savings towards your trip!



Yes! There's always a fare war when or pricing drops drastically when I can't take advantage of it. This is because I always schedule and plan way in advance. Looking forward to retirement and planning nothing except taking advantage of fare wars some day.

I started a Google Sheet to help us keep track. It just gives me peace of mind if I do it after every transaction. I also want to keep track of things we get 3x on.

All of this was SO overwhelming at first, but it is so awesome that there are ways to save so much money on traveling. We really don't travel very often and usually it's to Orlando. This will probably be our last "big" trip before starting a family.

 

[Haley R]

I was a fairly hard core CVSer for a few years. Free toothpaste and toilet paper isn't as exciting as free flights, but it's pretty darn useful!

LOL we have a CVS by us but we never go there. We shop at Hyvee a lot because they give good Fuel Saver rewards. We get 20 cents or more off per gallon a lot.

 

[Haley R]

i mark mine on a whiteboard in my room. i do 10x @ $.50 per transaction.
I got my mom to do her 10x by buying a $.19 banana at trader joes.
i know someone bought 10 crickets at petco on single transactions.

I meant for us to make the $5000 spending requirement for the CIP card lol

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I was a fairly hard core CVSer for a few years. Free toothpaste and toilet paper isn't as exciting as free flights, but it's pretty darn useful!

Our most proud couponing moment was 96 boxes of cereal that we were paid $0.25 each to carry out of the store LOL.

 

[calypso726]

i mark mine on a whiteboard in my room. i do 10x @ $.50 per transaction.
I got my mom to do her 10x by buying a $.19 banana at trader joes.
i know someone bought 10 crickets at petco on single transactions.

I remember reading about that! Were you the one that told us about it like nearly 2 years ago or did I read it on FT?

OMG! I can't believe it is almost 2 years that we've all been together on this thread!

 

[Haley R]

Our most proud couponing moment was 96 boxes of cereal that we were paid $0.25 each to carry out of the store LOL.

That's a lot of cereal lol

 

[gottalovepluto]

I think I forgot to mention here, MIL is good with trying the double dip. I just realized we can refer her to the CSR. And then hopefully I can become un-shunned because neither of us have a CSP...

We’ll consider it.... ......

 

[amalone1013]

We’ll consider it.... ......

Haha wait til you see my next posts!

 

[miztressuz]

Yes! There's always a fare war when or pricing drops drastically when I can't take advantage of it. This is because I always schedule and plan way in advance. Looking forward to retirement and planning nothing except taking advantage of fare wars some day.

We got a great deal on a last minute cruise a few years back that we couldn't pass up. So we booked it and then realized it was during the many weeks of spring break so airfare from PHL-FLL was more than cruise. We went into it with the backup plan of driving, and when flights didn't budge for a week we decided to take an extra day off from work and do the drive. We met so many retired folks on the same ship that did the same thing BUT they booked even later than us after stalking flights and found a couple days before the cruise a fare war had started for the last bunch of seats on flights those weekends.
I was so jealous, I couldn't wait to retire or be otherwise flexible in scheduling to do that. The one lady had just got back from a cruise when she got the email for that one and when she told me what she paid she had two weeks of cruising in different itineraries for less than what someone would pay for a single trip! One day in the distant future I hope that's me

 

[afan]

I was an extreme couponer before becoming a churner lol

I wasn't extreme but I do miss my super double and triple coupons at Harris Teeter. Anymore I'm lucky to combine a coupon with a cartwheel deal or sale. We lack a lot of choice for groceries and no one does anything interesting with coupons.

I was a fairly hard core CVSer for a few years. Free toothpaste and toilet paper isn't as exciting as free flights, but it's pretty darn useful!

I miss having CVS close, though free flights are better. The closest one to me is 20 min without traffic and it's just not worth the weekly trips you have to do to make it worth while. Between there and coupons at Harris Teeter I didn't have to buy dental floss for I think 3 years when I moved home from NC (I floss daily) because of all the free I'd get. It's the one thing that makes me sad to only save 50 cents on.

 

[ski_mom]

I love atom tickets and the discounted GC's! Last time Costco offered this, I bought two of the $100 packs. Loaded $50 each to my dd's apps and $100 to mine. Thanks to @mfly for keeping me up to date on atom ticket discounts

ETA: We are Stubbs premiere members so the fee for buying tickets online is removed. The membership pays for itself with 10 tickets. Considering we are a fam of 6 and will go see 3-4 movies a year as a fam plus my dd's go a lot, it is more than worth it for us!

Is there a thread that discusses ticket discounts? I'd love to bookmark if there is. We've used Atom a couple of times, but have just stumbled upon the discounts. Sounds like I need to get some gift cards next time we're at Costco.

 

[3 DD love princesses]

On May 10 (last Thursday) I was approved for the CIP. Said it would be sent in 7-10 business days. I didn’t call to expedite it. Is it too late to do that? Is there a charge to expedite shipping? I want to start earning those points!

Worth a call to see. DH didn’t call to expidite his since we weren’t home when his was approved. It took less than a week to get here.

I'll look out for the plastiq emails when we decide to start that. DH thinks paying the 2.5% fee is worth it to make our $5,000 spend requirement.

Our checking does have automatic bill pay, but it doesn't count toward our 3% back because those have to be actual card swipes. DH said we might just get gas in $10 increments to make the 15 transactions.

I think our mortgage, student loans, utilities, and other charges will get us up to that $5000 pretty fast. I was worried at first, but DH and I talked and think it will be easily achievable. I'm getting really excited at the thought of saving so much money for our trip!

Once you sign up with plastiq they do send out emails with lower fees here and there.

Well DH just applied for the CIP so now we just wait! He seems very excited about it now. We both are the type of people that circle things in weekly grocery ads just to save any penny possible so the idea of saving this much money to make our Japan trip possible is exciting!

Congrats! You can call the status line to check if you don’t want to wait in the mail for a letter.

I started a Google Sheet to help us keep track. It just gives me peace of mind if I do it after every transaction. I also want to keep track of things we get 3x on.

All of this was SO overwhelming at first, but it is so awesome that there are ways to save so much money on traveling. We really don't travel very often and usually it's to Orlando. This will probably be our last "big" trip before starting a family.

I just check the ur site to see if the charges show 1 or 3 per dollar. If you do decide to use Plastiq you will see your ur account grow a lot faster.

As for keeping track of the spend I use what my monthly statement was, but I also met it before the first statement closed thanks to plastiq.

Dollar items for your checking account to make the transactions would help.