I love credit cards so much!

[palhockeymomof2]

I still don't understand why that person would have to sit in the back. Assuming I purchased the same types of fare tickets at or about about the same time as the other unknown single traveler and I reserved my seats for an aisle and window in row 7 on the right side of the plane it doesn't mean they have to sit behind me. They can choose, if available, a seat in row 7 on the left side of the plane.

Then, one also must consider that some people will be allowed to chose their seats and others won't depending on the type of ticket they purchase. Someone who purchased a basic economy fare will not be allowed to choose their seat unless they pay extra to do so and often not until 48 hours before the flight. If they want to sit up front then they need to purchase their ticket sooner rather than later and choose a fare bucket that allows them to chose their seat at the time of purchase.

I rarely fly economy anymore. If I do, it's a work trip that I'm not paying for and I'm usually alone. But, on the rare chance that DH is coming with me, like last month (which makes twice in 15 years LOL) you bet I'm gonna play that lame game. Now, if someone would rather sit between us, instead of taking the aisle seat in the row they chose when I offer it to them, which may or may not be closer the front, then I'm ok with that too. It's their loss. I'm not the type of person who will cut off her nose to spite her face, but I get that there are some people like that. So, if I gamble on what most people are likely to do, which is take the better seat when offered, and if I lose that bet, I'm not upset. It will not prevent me from doing it again. Human nature dictates that a person will take what they initially desired when it is offered to them at no cost.

I “think” they were referring to SW which has no assigned seats and you board according to your assigned boarding number... So if someone with an earlier boarding number gets on and sees the aisle and window taken they pass up the middle seat and head to the back of the plane where aisle and middle seats may be available.
Then someone with a later boarding number goes to sit in the middle seat between the couple who sat aisle window trying to keep the middle seat open...they get an aisle or window seat in the front of the plane
If I’m misunderstanding what they meant hopefully they will answer you

 

[palhockeymomof2]

I guess depends on what airline you travel. I mostly travel Jetblue and Alaska and they allow you to choose your seats ahead of time. I forgot the point of leaving the middle seat open, is it in hopes that nobody will sit there and you’ll get the row to yourselves? Does that ever work out? Why not just sit together in the first place? Maybe I fly popular flights because it’s rare that any seats are open.

I’m pretty sure that’s what they were saying......we fly SW and most flights are full or almost full as well

 

[amalone1013]

Where’s the lounge?

It's behind the emergency exit door, but don't tell anyone I told you...

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I know I’m not a mod here lol...but I think we should move on from the whole aisle,window seat game discussion. I enjoy the off topic discussions here that are constructive or fun...this one has run has its course in my opinion. Let’s talk Churning again, lol!

 

[hsmamato2]

amex offer.... strange I did the sams club offer I see it posted July 20 for 50/15....yet my page still shows the offer as unclaimed? any ideas why?

 

[hsmamato2]

So I had Amex offers at Bed Bath & Beyond and BuyBuyBaby, purchased a $50 Disney GC at each (fortunately they are next to each other) with $5 off each. Also bought $150in Disney GCs at Sam’s with the $15 off 50, used 2 different Amex cards for $30 off. All purchases are pending but I got emails on the BBB ones, but not Sam’s.
Not a problem, right?
Also this should finish my spend on SPG Card but wanted to confirm via chat. Can’t seem to get chat function to work. Is it not open on weekends? Should I wait until tomorrow?

I just posted before I read this,same issue! I can see the offer doesn't look used on my page.....

 

[Judique]

amex offer.... strange I did the sams club offer I see it posted July 20 for 50/15....yet my page still shows the offer as unclaimed? any ideas why?

No, but I have the same situation. I actually waited a bit before the credit posted - no email, but eventually the credit came. I like to wait to pay until the credit posts, so that I am not over paying. I'm not sure if the offer got itself deleted from my claimed offers and jumped back in - I look at them fairly often but don't remember. I'm going to try another redemption to see what happens. It won't cost anything as I'll have my daughter do it on a regular shopping stop at Sam's this week.

 

[hsmamato2]

Do you need to double dip the bus and person thought the double dip was both personals?

urggg sorry for all the typos there... I had originally thought the advice was dd the two personals, but I was gonna go look up the old post before making a move. I think (hope) Dh will qualify for the biz,and the a personal now. (want to get as close as possible for cp) we shall see. I highly value having those points/cp over most everything else.

 

[Judique]

My Amtrak card is in my informed delivery!!! Yay! Hope the mail comes today and not tomorrow as I have a full day planned for tomorrow and can get a head start on my spend!

 

[hsmamato2]

Well…whether you want them or not, here are my thoughts on the new Southwest Priority Card…LOL!

For those newer or wondering why my opinion may matter on this…Well I currently have 503,419 SW RR points. I also have probably used over 600k SW points in the past 4 years (that’s an estimate as my spreadsheet doesn’t accurately have those details for 2014 & 2015). Between my wife and I, we have also earned the CP 4 times in the past 5 years. I traveled SW as a somewhat frequent business traveler (approx. 6x per year) in my prior career. I don’t have accurate records on this one either but I have probably flown 50+ round trips with SW in the past decade. Perhaps that gives me some credibility...or maybe not, either way, here goes!!

1. Annual Fee: $149 – it’s obvious they’re trying to market this as a step up from the current Premier card (which may be going away…but there is still a mention of it at the bottom of the application page) and they’ve largely achieved that. This is totally offset by a $75 credit and 7,500 anniv. points (worth $111 in my book).
2. $75 Credit: This one is hard to analyze. In one respect…it’s worth $75…on the other hand, if you use it towards a flight that costs $130 you just ended up spending $55 that you didn’t intend to. If you apply the $75 towards airfare you’ll earn some points on that flight so that’s cool. It might be possible to trigger this with a refundable flight and then cancel it…but we probably should debate that loophole here.
3. 7,500 Anniv. Points: I value SW points at 1.48cpp so this where I get my $111.
4. Four Upgraded Boardings: I know many of us here travel as a family and so I think this benefit means almost nothing. I know that when I board with family boarding I can always get seats together. When we age out of family boarding I will be buying Early Bird. I wouldn’t “chance” it and hope that there are early boarding positions available at the airport. If I had the card…I’d probably find a way to use the benefit, BUT I cannot in good conscience ascribe any value to it. If I was traveling solo, for work, or as a couple more often, I think that may change my opinion on it. I usually frame my opinions on things with a family of 4+ in mind. For those interested in how this will work – you’ll purchase it and get reimbursed through a statement credit:
   Southwest Upgraded Boardings: Each anniversary year you will be reimbursed for the purchase of up to 4 Upgraded Boardings which are positions A1-A15. Upgraded Boardings may be purchased at the departure gate or ticket counter on the day of travel only, when available. Price of Upgraded Boardings is based on your itinerary.. After you make your purchase with your Southwest Rapid Rewards® Priority Card, you will receive a statement credit for the price of the Upgraded Boardings. Statement credit and purchase of Upgraded Boardings may not post on the same statement; please allow up to 8 weeks for the statement credit(s) to post to your account. You may purchase all 4 Upgraded Boardings at one time or on separate flights; you will only be reimbursed via statement credit for the first four Upgraded Boardings you purchase during your anniversary year.
5. Earning TQP towards A-List: If anybody here is chasing A-List…good for you. I think this barely applies to anybody.
6. 20% back on random SW related expenses: Ok…thanks? I personally don't spend money on any of this.

Ok and of course the important part….

The Sign Up Bonus:

• PART1: 40,000 SW RRs for $1,000 spend…using my earlier valuation, $592 for $1,000 in spend…is GREAT! It’s also the same as the offer for the Plus and Premier (again is this one going away?). Of course there is an in-flight offer for 50k for $2k for the Plus right now and we’ve seen 60k offers before.
• PART2: 25,000 SW RRs for $15,000 spend…this one makes little sense to me (outside of those that can MS to hit it very inexpensively)…Assuming all $15k was in NON-SW spend you would earn 15k + 25k on that spend for a total of 40k SW RRs (again worth $592). So that’s approx. a 3.95% return on $15k. A CFU partnered with a CSR gives you a 2.25% return on everyday purchases. Unless I was big in MS or I had a HUGE amount of organic spend coming up, I give that one a pass…Of course, for those chasing the elusive CP, 25k points could mean a lot…the problem is how long will it take you to rack up that 15k in spend. Most people like to earn that CP early in the year. The best (easiest) way to earn a CP is still a 60k Business + 50k Personal (curr. only available via an in-flight application). Partnering a 40k Personal + 60k Biz would get you 104k points (including the MSR) leaving you 6k short. There’s a bunch of ways to earn that last 60k, the easiest probably being a referral offer if you can find a willing friend (or DISchurner).

MY VERDICT:

• It’s ALWAYS good to see a new card come out.
• The 1 SW personal rule makes this a difficult decision now…There are currently 3 SW personal cards, and it’s hard to figure out which is best.
• For now, I’d say the BEST offer is the 50k in-flight for the PLUS card (but you have to be on a flight to do this one).
• If the offers on all 3 were identical…this new card would probably be tops in my book.
• Of course the real BEST SW card right now is the 60k Biz offer!
• Overall, I think it’s a nice addition to the SW card lineup. I think it fell short of the “Priority” card we were all expecting, but that comes as no surprise from the leaked info DoC previously provided.

We are SW RRs rich currently so all of my focus is on URs. That said, if I were going for a SW personal card, this would warrant consideration.

glad to have you back...your spreadsheet clarity is always helpful. I'm looking for Dp on difficulty in getting approved for the biz for a 'business'..... any advice here?
I agree about side topics like 'seat saving' and 'where to eat while at disney'.... but maybe that's just me wondering why the thread gets so filled with that stuff....

 

[hsmamato2]

Wow - I finally have used ALL of my Hilton points...but this one threatens to pull me back in. $0 annual fee...very tempting!!

is this the one a lot of us did recently? or different......

 

[Limes96]

No, but I have the same situation. I actually waited a bit before the credit posted - no email, but eventually the credit came. I like to wait to pay until the credit posts, so that I am not over paying. I'm not sure if the offer got itself deleted from my claimed offers and jumped back in - I look at them fairly often but don't remember. I'm going to try another redemption to see what happens. It won't cost anything as I'll have my daughter do it on a regular shopping stop at Sam's this week.

Seems like this happened last time there was an Amex offer for Sam's. No emails and the credits came later than most offers, but they did eventually come. Something to do with the arrangement between Amex and Sam's.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Forgot to post yesterday that my Barclays card came in this weekend! Wish it had shown up before the horse show since they didn't take Amex and do take MC, but there's no minimum spend to meet on this card anyways. I'll put my dry cleaning bill on it today and we'll see how long it takes to get my 50k AA miles. I just got my informed delivery email today too and see that there's a letter from Barclays for DH, so we'll see what that says. The status checker still maintains that he never submitted an application

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

is this the one a lot of us did recently? or different......

I admittedly haven't been following the various Hilton biz offers closely...but I don't believe we've yet seen one this good (lower MSR, AF waived being the two major things attracting me to it).

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

glad to have you back...your spreadsheet clarity is always helpful. I'm looking for Dp on difficulty in getting approved for the biz for a 'business'..... any advice here?
I agree about side topics like 'seat saving' and 'where to eat while at disney'.... but maybe that's just me wondering why the thread gets so filled with that stuff....

Getting approved for a SW Biz card is very similar to a CIP, or CIC/CIU which many of us are familiar with. Chase biz apps pretty much follow the same set of rules and I think it's been mentioned before but it can get increasingly difficult to get multiple Chase cards (i.e. most people can get a second, a third can be a little more difficult, a fourth even harder, etc.) so it's important to make sure you prioritize your Chase business cards if you want to get a bunch of them.

 

[Lain]

amex offer.... strange I did the sams club offer I see it posted July 20 for 50/15....yet my page still shows the offer as unclaimed? any ideas why?

Has the statement credit posted yet? It can take a few days.

 

[JKalai]

PSA: It's worth a check if you have SW flights right now.

I just saved 6k points on my Sept. WDW trip

 

[Lain]

Just approved the other day for the Citi AA Biz and now DOC posts this...

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/hilt...-offer-50-statement-credit-annual-fee-waived/

So much for slowing down the MSRs and optimizing the stash of GCs I've amassed/cards in wallet for a couple months...that plan is likely out the door soon

is this the one a lot of us did recently? or different......

I admittedly haven't been following the various Hilton biz offers closely...but I don't believe we've yet seen one this good (lower MSR, AF waived being the two major things attracting me to it).

This is a really good offer.

The previous offer was for 125k Hilton points after $5k/3 months MSR, $95 AF not waived, +$50 statement credit through dummy booking.

However, some of us didn't do the dummy booking for the $50 statement credit because the application had a glitch that might approve you for a personal Hilton card when you applied for a business Hilton card (the glitch has reportedly been fixed). Or we applied through a support link.

This offer is 100k Hilton points (so lower), but requires only $3k/3 months MSR, waives the $95 AF and a +$50 statement credit is possible through a dummy booking. So is 25k Hilton points worth saving $95 or $145 (depending on if you got the statement credit)? I think a lot of people would say yes. This, plus the lower MSR makes this offer really attractive.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Citi TY Premier is up to 60K TY after $4k spend in 3 months:

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-thankyou-premier-60000-points-bonus-af-waived-first-year/

Great card, great offer for those of us past 5/24. I signed up in May at 50K and am hoping Citi will match since I'm still within the first 3 months (even though I already got the bonus). Because of Citi's annoying 24 month rule and the fact that TY Premier mailers are at best very rare, it's best to jump on this now and get the 24 month clock started. Usually Citi is very good with retention offers in the form of spend bonuses when the AF posts in a year, so it's not too hard to justify keeping this open for 2 years until you can sign up for another one.

I know it's tough to think 2 years down the line with churning, but it's very much necessary to play the long game with Citi outside of the AA mailers.

I'll second this comment, This is a great offer on this card. DoC calls this out well in his post but it's important to note that getting a bonus on this card would restrict you from getting a bonus on the Prestige card for 24 months. However, the Prestige card currently has no bonus, hasn't had a bonus since fall of last year, and its last bonus offer was 75,000 points for a $7,500 spend making this a more attractive return.

For those considering it, Citi has a "strange" list of transfer partners for TY points so keep that in mind if you aren't a big International traveler:
AirFrance/KLM Flying Blue; Avianca LifeMiles; Cathay Pacific Asia Miles; Etihad Airways Guest Programme; EVA Air Infinity MileageLands; Garuda Indonesia Frequent Flyer; Jet Airways JetPrivilege; JetBlue TrueBlue; Malaysia Airlines Enrich; Qantas Airways Frequent Flyer; Qatar Airways Privilege Club; Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer; Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus; Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles; Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

The Prestige allows you to cash out at 1cpp (which is what I did when I signed up last year). The Premier DOES NOT allow you to cash out at 1cpp so you'd be looking at gift cards at a 1cpp value or buying flights at 1.25cpp if the transfer partners above don't work for you.

Here's my feedback on the last Prestige offer that rolled around for those interested...again there is NOT an offer on this card currently:

Citi Prestige Feedback
I applied for the Citi Prestige 75,000 Thank You point offer for $7,500 spend back in September. We had a roof project coming up plus were going to be paying for our Disney trip, so I was looking for some high spend offers. This particular offer (75k pts) is no longer available but here was the DoC writeup on it - https://www.doctorofcredit.com/citi-prestige-75000-point-signup-bonus-now-publicly-available/

This card might have a 40,000 point offer currently and maybe the 75,000 will come back someday so I figured I'd just let everybody know how well it worked and easy it was.

To date, I spent exactly $7,750.40 (excluding the $450 annual fee).

• About $1,200 of that spend was on airfare with Southwest and my $250 credit posted right on the statement closing date that the charges appeared on (no issues at all!)
• I earned 87,599 Thank You points between the bonus and my regular spend. The bonus points posted right on the statement closing date after I met the minimum (no issues at all!)
• I redeemed my TY points for statement credits totaling $875 (was very easy!)
• In January I'll spend $268.75 on airfare (assuming the ticket price remains constant) and will earn another $250 statement credit
• I plan to get the TSA Precheck credit on my wife ($85 spend then $84 credit!) and then spend $5 more at restaurants to bump up my TY points to the minimum redemption amount of 1,000 points for another $10 statement credit.

In all I will spend $8,109.15 and earn $1,470 in statement credits. If I net out the $450 annual fee I paid I basically put $1,020 cash in my pocket at an 12.6% return. Depending on how you calculate your return you might see that differently, but that's just an example of how I look at it. There are certainly better cashback returns out there but usually at small min. spends ($500 or $1,000). If you have a lot of spend coming up and want to generate some cash off of it, this is a great candidate if the card has a good offer.

The card itself has some neat benefits like the 4th night free at hotels, no foreign trans. fees, pre-check credit, $250 annual airline credit, and earns extra points on air, hotel and restaurants. Hopefully this is helpful to some folks that maybe hadn't read a lot on this card.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

PSA: It's worth a check if you have SW flights right now.

I just saved 6k points on my Sept. WDW trip

I'll echo this and mention that for those unfamiliar with booking with Southwest (especially on points), it makes sense to basically check your pending flights each day. Southwest will save recent searches so it takes me about 30 seconds to check each morning and afternoon...I do it twice a day haha. I currently have 2 pending SW flights coming up already booked and if I see an opportunity to rebook and save points I jump on it.

EDIT: I'll also mention that those click-bait articles that say flights are cheapest to book (or check) on Tuesday OR booking 3 months 8 days out is the best time, etc. are garbage advice with Southwest (and probably garbage advice period). I've found the BEST price on SW flights booking the day they are released (they never went down) AND in other scenarios I've rebooked as late as the week of the flight and saved points AND anywhere in between there in other scenarios. I've also found SW flights cheapest on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays...you get the picture...