I love credit cards so much!

[papaof3]

Went on the UR travel through my CSR card to check on some dates and it’s changed over to Expedia...need to learn how to navigate this site..

Darn. Bad news for car rentals. I was checking both sapphire cards travel portals last week. Preferred was Expedia and reserved was still the old portal. Well even without the better 1.5x redemption with reserved card, the Expedia site cannot get as good of car rates. Like several hundred dollars more for a 10 day minivan rental in Orlando. I assume there was some discount code the reserve card portal was using to get a great deal. Well I was waiting for JetBlue to release summer 2019 dates before I booked van. Now the rates are jacked up to what Expedia thru preferred was showing with the switch. Thinking rates will be higher now with Expedia portal for car rentals. Bye the way. Sunday November 11th at noon JetBlue next extension for summer next year.

 

[pillow]

Number I'm getting, assuming you use the MCGC to buy 2 Disney at $75 each and then have $50 left over for... whatever... is 75.88% vs 76.67% straight Disney.

That is tempting, I didn't even think about doing it more than once!

So 14.1% off on the original MCGC
Then another 13.3% ($10 RMN off $75 Disney)
Would total 27.4% for the $75 Disney x 2 cards (if you did RMN thing twice after the original MCGC purchase)

Then you'd have 14.1% off another $50 of MasterCard general spend.

Am I thinking about this incorrectly? This may be moot since I'm not sure if RMN will let you link a MCGC.

Personally, since I get a nice "discount" during 4x fuel points at Kroger, I'm buying my Disney there. I'll use the MCGC on general spend or will use it to pay my mortgages on Plastiq.

Full disclosure - I walked into Staples yesterday and bought a few of the $200 MCGC's for the SPG Busn 10% off and totally forgot about RMN. Came home and smacked myself!! Ugh!!!!

 

[amalone1013]

Aw man, Ebags has some of the purses I'm considering even cheaper today. Like $12 cheaper per bag.

Obviously, this means I have to go home and decide tonight, and if one of those is the one I want, send everything back from the first order and reorder at the lower price.

 

[papaof3]

Just saw @SouthFayetteFan contradicted it & actually got a better rate!

A better rate now might be because the rates dropped for your dates. Just yesterday I went between my two sapphire cards and found Expedia version several hundred more. So the Expedia portal doesn’t use some good code the old CSR portal used. Kicking myself for not booking.

 

[disneybirds]

My dream is that they will come to Kroger in $500 denominations. I need to dump some funds into DD's 529 before I pay spring tuition in December. I sure do hate just transferring from my bank account . . .

We can all dream!!

 

[Jaime4004]

I had just looked on the UR portal last night for an excursion in phoenix for my parents, couldn't book it because my bonus points from my CIP haven't posted yet, logged in today and the excursion has increased by over 100 dollars. I continue with my disappoint with chase ultimate rewards...

Same, I looked at a car rental a few days ago on the portal but didn't have enough points to book. Checked today with the new one and it's >20000 more points.

 

[LynnTH]

Imho you have nothing to lose by filing with CFPB if you haven’t already. You called to ask & were told you were fine, you’d get the bonus and as a result you gave them your financial business.

Ok. I just filed a complaint. Will see what happens. I did happen to print out the chat exchange between myself and the rep when I was approved for the card - it shows on there them telling me that the bonus is attached to the card. So, hopefully that will help...

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Here's some thoughts:

• If you are keeping a CIP open and paying the fee you will obviously retain the ability to transfer URs to partners (Southwest/Hyatt/etc.)
• If your sole plan is to now transfer points to partners then the 1.50x is a non-factor for you
• You will pay the $95 AF on the CIP...would you keep your CIP and pay that fee if you DID NOT have a CSR? (We'll call this Example1)
• IF you would get rid of your CIP then you have a $450 fee vs. a $95 fee.
• Of course you also get the $300 Trav Cred with the CSR. Most people figure that is worth $300 (I actually feel it's worth less than $300 since I could've spent that $300 in a way that earned me something otherwise...but I digress, let's call it $300 for this argument.) So your net AF is $150.
• Example1 Summary: So you would either pay a $95 AF or a $150 AF...the difference is $65. If your husband puts more than $4,334 in dining and travel on his CSR annually, you would come out ahead vs. him putting this spend on a CFU.
• Now if you would keep your CIP open and your CSR open due to the earning possibilities...that's a little different. (We'll call this Example2)
• Example2 Summary: You will pay $95 regardless so you are looking at an ADDITIONAL $150 in AF. If your husband puts more than $10,000 in dining and travel on his CSR annually, you would come out ahead vs. him putting this spend on a CFU.

Hope that helps Again there's a lot of assumptions built in here so if those assumptions ARE NOT correct, this math could be mis-leading.

You are the best!

Ok, so I’d keep CIP or CSR open but not both, since plastiq died. I haven’t been using CIP much due to plastiq dying and all the good GC deals where I can save more than the 3x ur on Gyft.

Yes he def spends over $4334 on dining/travel. He spends several thousand a month on it just for work...and we spend several thousand most months for personal as well. (We need to reign in our personal dining out drastically. Oops)

So it sounds like csr is still worthwhile. I assume there isn’t a better card out there for my purposes?

 

[speedyfishy]

Well my car needs to go in the shop no MO runs for me for awhile. I have 2500 left on SO’s Plat and then my 32.5k MSR in three months will be complete. I have to finish this month. I’ll go to a grocery store that’s walking distance in a few days. Unfortunately, they check the giftcards so I’ll have to float some cash until my car is repaired. I have a $500 deductible for my insurance, but I don’t think I can put it on the Amex and have it post before the statement closes. My Blue Biz was supposed to arrive but I never got it so I need to order a replacement. Hopefully that card will come before I have to pay the deductible and hopefully they take Amex. I may ask if they do a cash discount tho.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Just to add to SFF's thoughts, if you're looking for something else to put your dining on, there are now more options - 4x MR Amex Gold and 4% cash back Barclays Uber. Of course, if you're mostly using your URs to transfer to Southwest, maybe continuing to earn at 3x is your best bet. It would have to be a lot of points to offset the AF though (even if it is effectively $150). CFU would get you 1.5x UR on everything. Could get a CF for rotating categories and use it in the quarters with 5% comes around for restaurants.

I was looking at the Costco card sign in the store the other day and thinking it seemed good for him too. I have one I don’t use, so he could carry it.
Maybe I should have him do hotels on csr, gas and dining on Costco. Or just gas on Costco. Hmmnnn.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

OMG I was not expecting much from Frozen sing a long thing in HS but I have a Frozen craze 2 year old so we went. The “narrators” are great! We ended up watching it twice and the second set of narrators were so funny I was crying! Poor Kristolf could not even speak his lines!
It was also a great break from the heat!

Agree...this is a must do each time at the Studios...the narrative is always different

 

[AquaDame]

Man, now that our window has opened up for our trip to Africa next year Im just not seeing any business or first rewards available. We grabbed them on the way to Nairobi but I am having a heck of a time finding them from Johannesburg home. We've tried every gateway city in the US in a three day spread and best we can do is some random one leg nonsense and even that is slim pickings. Anyone have tricks other than just waiting and seeing? I thought my husband would be OK with coach if we couldn't find one in the end but now its sounding like a deal breaker for him. This from the mid 30s guy who has indeed flown coach to Europe happily in the past now just can't imagine having to do it again, even if we overnight in London to break up the two 10+ hour flights.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Darn. Bad news for car rentals. I was checking both sapphire cards travel portals last week. Preferred was Expedia and reserved was still the old portal. Well even without the better 1.5x redemption with reserved card, the Expedia site cannot get as good of car rates. Like several hundred dollars more for a 10 day minivan rental in Orlando. I assume there was some discount code the reserve card portal was using to get a great deal. Well I was waiting for JetBlue to release summer 2019 dates before I booked van. Now the rates are jacked up to what Expedia thru preferred was showing with the switch. Thinking rates will be higher now with Expedia portal for car rentals. Bye the way. Sunday November 11th at noon JetBlue next extension for summer next year.

If you have a Costco card...lately I’ve found the best rates on their site and a second driver is free

 

[disneymagicgirl]

OMG I was not expecting much from Frozen sing a long thing in HS but I have a Frozen craze 2 year old so we went. The “narrators” are great! We ended up watching it twice and the second set of narrators were so funny I was crying! Poor Kristolf could not even speak his lines!
It was also a great break from the heat!

I finally took the time for it in aug and it was probably my fave thing of the trip. I wanted to go do it again but dd19 said no. It was sooo great!

 

[brownhaired_girl]

Unfortunately you have to wait 24 months from the time you last received a bonus on any SW personal card to apply for the Priority card.

Thanks, good to know.

 

[miztressuz]

Both DM's and my CP expire in Dec. I had been planning to wait until the end of 2019 to apply for the SW business card and the new Priority card. Then, when I logged into my Chase account I'm seeing that I am now at 4/24 (My CSR dropped off) and DM should be 4/24 next week. I have known this was coming but hadn't put much thought into how that could affect our options for getting my CP earlier. We both got the SW Plus/Premier mid-2017 when they were at 60,000 points. I'm wondering if I can be sure that the new SW Priority card is a new product that we allowed to get. We could both cancel current SW cards now if this is the case. If we apply early Nov for the business cards, we are flying home from Orlando on Dec 15th and could do in flight applications for the new Priority cards. I had been planning on DM applying for CIP next month but the CP is so much more valuable for us. If we needed to space out the applications some I'm sure we will be going somewhere at the end of Feb to get out of the cold. I currently have two Chase business cards and DM has none. I lowered the CL on her cards last week and mine today. Is there anything I am missing??

That you can't get another personal SW card of any kind until 24 months after receiving a bonus on any one of them:

…"previous Cardmembers of any Southwest Rapid Rewards Credit Card who received a new Cardmember bonus within the last 24 months. " The exception is for Business cards, so you could still get the a Business card if you needed to top up points BUT that would lock you out for another 2 years on that card too so the 2019 plan would go out the window!

If you could use the Priority card in the meanwhile you could PC one of your existing SW cards to that but no real points to go along with it (just the higher anniversary points a year from now).

 

[gottalovepluto]

Man, now that our window has opened up for our trip to Africa next year Im just not seeing any business or first rewards available. We grabbed them on the way to Nairobi but I am having a heck of a time finding them from Johannesburg home. We've tried every gateway city in the US in a three day spread and best we can do is some random one leg nonsense and even that is slim pickings. Anyone have tricks other than just waiting and seeing? I thought my husband would be OK with coach if we couldn't find one in the end but now its sounding like a deal breaker for him. This from the mid 30s guy who has indeed flown coach to Europe happily in the past now just can't imagine having to do it again, even if we overnight in London to break up the two 10+ hour flights.

What type of miles are you trying to use? If it's AA.... there was a DP a couple weeks ago on FT about AA miles to book QR, availability not showing on BA but the agent was still able to book the flights for them. Also, QR is supposedly bookable on AA's website as of today for awards.

 

[wendow]

I was looking at the Costco card sign in the store the other day and thinking it seemed good for him too. I have one I don’t use, so he could carry it.
Maybe I should have him do hotels on csr, gas and dining on Costco. Or just gas on Costco. Hmmnnn.

I use our Costco citi for gas if it's not a CF 5% category. I think, for a free card, the Costco citi is highly underrated. I know it's cause points are more valuable to most of us. But with UR's becoming less tempting due to no Disney, I'll probably just be cashing a lot out anyways to pay for Disney expenses so a cash back card doesn't seem so crazy now. Especially a free one. I've been contemplating if we will keep a CSR also. With no option for Disney, I'm not sure I see the point.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Good news...this new UR portal has a lower rate on our rental car for our trip next weekend.

Bad news...I like to go with Alamo and "Skip the Counter" and it doesn't seem to be working...

Hmmm...now I'm considering Dollar instead because they are less expensive than Alamo. I almost always go with Alamo because of "Skip the Counter" and know nothing about Dollar. Of course Yelp has a bunch of terrible reviews out there (when doesn't it??) that don't make me feel good about going with them.

Thoughts from my friends here???

EDIT: Also, ever since I hit the error on "Skip the Counter" when I try to click into my reservation online on the alamo site it says "an error occured". That's a tad unsettling, haha. They assured me on the phone that nothing is wrong...but I'm half tempted to cancel and re-book with URs just to have a "clean reservation".

I just re-booked our Alamo car via URs for a week and a half from today. I've never rented from them before but they're cheaper than National and now the drop off at Dolphin is available. I went to "check in" on Alamo website using the confirm info from Chase. All was well, I got the pop up offering skip the counter, put my payment info in and then was told "We're sorry for the inconvenience, but we are experiencing technical issues with this reservation attempt. Please call 1 (877) 222-9075." No interest in calling tbh, I'm gonna wait it out for now and cross my fingers something changes. Also, did the payment page say the price was due on pick-up? That part confused me having just paid that money to Chase/Expedia with UR points. I have a Twitter inquiry into Alamo regarding that.

(Did you see Bank of America Loyalty program listed in the res? I did, lol.)

ETA: Alamo on Twitter is now telling me they see payment is still due on this reservation and asked for a screenshot of my payment to Expedia. (I told them I booked via expedia for simplicity sake.) Giving them full explanation and screenshot of my payment to Chase. Crap. This was supposed to be EASIER!

 

[Albort]

Man, now that our window has opened up for our trip to Africa next year Im just not seeing any business or first rewards available. We grabbed them on the way to Nairobi but I am having a heck of a time finding them from Johannesburg home. We've tried every gateway city in the US in a three day spread and best we can do is some random one leg nonsense and even that is slim pickings. Anyone have tricks other than just waiting and seeing? I thought my husband would be OK with coach if we couldn't find one in the end but now its sounding like a deal breaker for him. This from the mid 30s guy who has indeed flown coach to Europe happily in the past now just can't imagine having to do it again, even if we overnight in London to break up the two 10+ hour flights.

how are u looking up ur flights? on the airline website or Expertflyers.