I love credit cards so much!

[GlamMistress]

I made it out to Las Vegas safely. The vertigo did not win on the plane - I made it without getting ill!

We are at MGM Grand (have stayed here many times). We got a large suite. Apparently the conference rate was like $95 a night... awesome except we had no hot water. So I took a 35 second freezing shower last night after waiting for maintenance for 2 hours. Gave up and went to bed.

Maintenance came this morning, ran the water and said "yeah it's not hot."

So they moved us. I probably should have asked for compensation but we're not paying so I let it go (reimbursement).

Keep in mind I'm an east coast time zoner so I've been up since 5 a.m. telecommuting. So I had to repack all our crap and bust butt to another room on another level before my next conference call. Mayhem.

But now all is calm. Work is a bananas right now but they are eating lunch (it's just 10 am here in Sin City still) so while the emails slow down I thought I would jump on here to see what I missed.

Oh and I had to cancel my Wednesday United award flight since I'm obviously already here. I had to pay a $125 redeposit fee for the miles. I was not able to just cancel without getting the miles back, which seems outrageous but whatever.

 

[wanderlust7]

A weird thing happened on my CSR - the parking charge at Universal Studios got 0 URs. Zero, zilch, nada. It should count as 3x travel, or at least 1x. Why?? Just sent SM asking. It's only 75 URs if I get the 3x, but it's gonna bug me, lol.

 

[Albort]

A weird thing happened on my CSR - the parking charge at Universal Studios got 0 URs. Zero, zilch, nada. It should count as 3x travel, or at least 1x. Why?? Just sent SM asking. It's only 75 URs if I get the 3x, but it's gonna bug me, lol.

make ur life easier and just SM them. haha.

 

[afan]

DoC just posted about this AT&T deal and I actually had it on my app! https://www.doctorofcredit.com/highly-ymmv-att-thanks-app-30-nordstroms-gift-certificate/

Any ideas on what to buy at Nordstrom, maybe for resale? We have one locally and I've gone in it several times, but I've never bought anything there besides my mom's mother-of-the-bride dress for my wedding.

In the comments it's good at nordstrom rack too. I shop at both, more the rack for handbags and wallets.

Is this the my at&t app? I just downloaded it and will have to get the login info from mom. Is this something they do often? Is it worth my keeping an eye on the app?

 

[kmc8826]

@SouthFayetteFan I love Josh at Easywdw, so I understand your man crush. In fact, I am relatively new to the Disboards but have been on his forum for quite a while. I've met and had two meals with him and he is as entertaining in person as on the blog. This is his review of Crystal Palace (last time we met) and had breakfast together. https://www.easywdw.com/easy/blog/review-crystal-palace-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner-at-magic-kingdom/

@wendow I had DH apply for Arrival Plus this weekend. Same message and he has never had the card. Hard pull...so he had better be approved.

And on the Biz Plat I agree on the fee. That is too much. I am a little worried now because mine hasn't posted yet...the $450 was bad enough $595 I have a hard time explaining away.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

A weird thing happened on my CSR - the parking charge at Universal Studios got 0 URs. Zero, zilch, nada. It should count as 3x travel, or at least 1x. Why?? Just sent SM asking. It's only 75 URs if I get the 3x, but it's gonna bug me, lol.

It didn’t happen to get reimbursed via your travel credit, did it? That would be an explanation.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

I learned my lesson re: sams gc last month...not gonna bother again! too much work! I'm still getting emails to activate that last card (that had to be specially activated after a huge hassle,and is long spent just to get rid of it)

Ugh I’m glad mines only $10 almost not worth the fight. I’ve never heard of such a thing, needing to activate it first and them freezing it. Oy

From what I've been told on here (plus a bit of personal experience in the last month) the AMEX won't show up yet, so you could still get it if you apply before the AMEX hits your credit report. DH has FOMO about that Hyatt card but has to wait until April I think.

Yeah but then I’d be 6/24 eventually and since I’ll go back to 4/24 in March I want to be able to have that leeway and then I’ll prob throw caution to the wind because the after that doesn’t fall off until 1/20

 

[wanderlust7]

It didn’t happen to get reimbursed via your travel credit, did it? That would be an explanation.

Nope, already used all my travel credit a few months ago. Good guess though.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

@SouthFayetteFan I love Josh at Easywdw, so I understand your man crush. In fact, I am relatively new to the Disboards but have been on his forum for quite a while. I've met and had two meals with him and he is as entertaining in person as on the blog. This is his review of Crystal Palace (last time we met) and had breakfast together. https://www.easywdw.com/easy/blog/review-crystal-palace-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner-at-magic-kingdom/

That is CRAY!!! After looking again, I totally remember reading both of those reviews. How does that work - you just invite him along? Do you buy him the meal or separate checks? Had you met him before you invited him to the first meal? I know I sound crazy but I we missed meeting him at the Mexico pavilion book signing by a few hours last year when we were there. My wife things I'm nuts but I could read his blog ALL DAY - it makes me feel like I'm actually at the park! (I may just be a little jealous of these meals you had, HAHA!)

 

[Lain]

I'm so far behind on this thread. I think I skimmed some approvals (CONGRATULATIONS!). Here to add to the good news:

Applied for the CIC for my wife on Friday, 11/30, stayed pending with the 2 weeks message until last night when I called to check before going to bed. APPROVED! We'll hit the $3k MSR in one charge. That's another 50k UR on the way!

My wife's been wanting to pay down her student loans, so we've been taking advantage of all the MCGC deals at Safeway to pay with Plastiq and GoC at Lucky, but in the time it takes these payments to post to her account it'll have racked up quite a bit of interest. That's to be expected if we're making monthly payments, but those payments are making only knicks and we want a good dent in the principle. Unfortunately, Amex makes it hard to pay student loans with their cards, so they were off the table for this spend. Visas are GTG, and the CIC was high on our to get list anyway. We're going to hit the CIC MSR by making a $3k payment, and most of it should go towards the principle.

In other news, the 50k UR bonus on her CIU is in pending mode right now and will post later this month.

My wife is still 2/24, with cards dropping off in January and February 2019.

Before applying for the CIC, I trimmed my wife's CIU CL a little down to $10k, canceled her CIP a few months back that freed up $12k, and the CLs on her personal cards are fine. She was in the ~30% range of total Chase CL/HHI. The CIC app came about ~75 days after approval of the CIU in 9/18. Chase approved her CIC with an $8k CL.

 

[amalone1013]

DH got a letter from Sears while we were gone. I think yes! They're going to close his other account for inactivity, finally! He hasn't used this card in over 3 years, and I just don't even want to deal with keeping it alive. It's already 5 years old. Well, that's what it is... use by end of January to keep the account active. But then they went and threw in a $60 statement credit if you spend $300. My little deal searching soul is torn...

 

[MrPTato]

I don't have any UR earning cards but downloaded Chase Pay to see what it was about, and if it would work with Amazon Prime and/or Disney card. Shocked to see if works with my Amazon Prime card. I also had offers yesterday but they have disappeared today.

 

[GlamMistress]

DH got a letter from Sears while we were gone. I think yes! They're going to close his other account for inactivity, finally! He hasn't used this card in over 3 years, and I just don't even want to deal with keeping it alive. It's already 5 years old. Well, that's what it is... use by end of January to keep the account active. But then they went and threw in a $60 statement credit if you spend $300. My little deal searching soul is torn...

I got this two years ago and just let the card go. There was just no sense in keeping it. If you want to be done with it, do the promo and cancel it after you get your $60.

 

[usakiwi]

Air NZ doesnt release too many award seats for its partners. I occasionally see one or 2 randomly. I think the best way to fly them is to wait for cyber mon when the prices drop by half and book them with cash.
Of course, Cyber monday almost a year from now... :\

I think UA flies to NZ from SFO so thats another route u can try to fly.

Yes, I believe you are right on the small amount they release...I’m pretty sure that is the cause of the issue. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing any sort of known “trick!” It used to be MUCH easier to get those Air NZ award seats...sigh.

I have checked LAX and SFO, SFO actually has the non stops and LAX doesn’t (reward availability anyway). IAH hasnt had award availability for that route yet that I have ever found, I figured once it wasn’t so “new” there might be some, but it doesn’t appear to be changing. I haven’t even bothered to check routes from Chicago for awards because I figure if they don’t have them from Texas which isn’t as new of a route , they aren’t going to have them from there!

And yes, I was super tempted during the Cyber Monday sale!!! That is always such an awesome deal!!! I even checked to see if the prices had dropped using UR during the sale, but in the end I really wanted to use these UA points and not UR.

I guess I can just hope they move us to an Air NZ flight like last year!!

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Has anyone purchased a gift card on one of the Chase offers other than reloading a Starbucks gift card? I have the 30% off Petsmart offer and am thinking I'll just buy a gift card there instead of ordering online (because of aforementioned $100 Chewy order!). It doesn't say it excludes gift cards, so I'm thinking it'll work.

Yes I’ve done gcs at Lowe’s and Dicks. Went to the pending feature in the app and posted. I’m waiting on staples and Dunkin’ Donuts. I’ll keep posted but gcs seem to work no problem

 

[speedyfishy]

Uhhh I think I have a problem.....
so I applied SO for the SW priority on 11/28 and it went pending. I called to have him reconsider the application and the rep did not see the application and said it must not have went through we probably didn’t finish it. I was like I have a confirmation email but he said nope wasn’t seeing it. I thought that was weird so the next day I applied again for the Priority. Now when I call the application status line it says he has been approved for the 11.29 one and the 11.28 one is the two week notification. Did he just get approved for the same card? That would be fine with me lol. But how weird. I shouldn’t have listed to the rep. Bet this messes up my Hyatt plans for him tomorrow too. Ugh.

 

[PolyRob]

Alexa actually, its more responsive than google... google does give better search results though.
theres time where im screaming at google at the top of my lungs to get it to respond to me... :\
Alexa seems to respond better when i asked it to turn something off. I do have to remind myself to stop saying My bedroom light, i have to say Bedroom light.
If your attaching a speaker to it, u would need to go amazon echo since google makes u buy a chromecast...

probably not the answer u want...

Few pages back, but I am totally on the Echo/Alexa bandwagon. I have had a brand new *free* Google Home Mini sitting in a box on my desk for 3 weeks from the Spotify family promotion. I am wondering if the adorable Mickey Otter Box stand is enough for me to break it out and start talking with Google. I would have to get it for a great price considering the device was free lol

Nope, already used all my travel credit a few months ago. Good guess though.

I had an issue where two travel charges coded as 0 points in addition to 1 regular charge. I was paranoid Chase had flagged me and I was doomed because of my double dip earning me 100,000 URs between two sapphires so I did not pursue it in any way (about 450 URs total). Looking back at all my points, it evened out with something I had returned and lost points on. So rather than seeing -450 and +450, I somehow got 0 on two transactions and reduced points on 1. Not sure if that is something that happens a lot because I do see the + and - on the statement for points returned. It was right as the statement was closing so I am not sure if that had something to do with it either.

 

[Ava]

Ok - so this is WAY OFF TOPIC but I just have to share this with you guys... I assume some of you here are fans of EasyWDW and Josh (I think he's amazing personally).

Check out this exchange on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/easywdw/status/1069464862705766400

And then read all the comments if you go to his Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pg/easywdw/posts/?ref=page_internal

I know that we have a number of Disney Touring gurus here in our midst...With people like this still on the prowl, I don't think we have to worry about everybody figuring out our secrets HAHA!

This was a great read on a Monday morning. It’s amazing how obtuse some people are, even when you explain something to them multiple times.

I feel that way too many times..... like I noted earlier, we are NOT wealthy people! But when one of our trips is looming (usually 2-3x a year, not even a lot around here!) I start getting weird questions and funny stares in response....I try to avoid as many of them as I can but I got cornered last night and the response from the prying person was so neurotic and somewhat scary..... "WHAT???? HOW much is Hawaii costing you? I KNOW it's really expensive! I've asked (x,y,z) and they told me how $$$ it is!"
So I tell the truth rotfl2:basically free) and then I get...."hook me up! why are you keeping secrets?? I want it for free too! Just tell me how to get this deal and I'll do it!!!" (as if it's one simple step and it all falls into your lap lol) which is exactly why I try to avoid these types of conversations in the first place...If I mention something insane like prepaying my electric bill for points at the right time...I don't even know what would happen!

I try really hard not to go into details with anyone about how I pay for my vacations. I’ve mentioned casually to my coworkers about using points to pay for things but thankfully none of them have asked any details. My mom knows that I sign up for credit card for the bonus points, and I’ve assured her I’m not wrecking my credit or going into debt, so she leaves it at that.

By the way, I finally got around to reading that Mommy Points article on TPG that everyone was talking about. What a... bizarre story. I truly didn't understand it. I know I'm not a mother, but I don't really understand how not having lounge access just to spend another, what, maybe an hour?, with her kids somehow left her in tears and so upset that she needed to write this article. I mean, we're talking about her leaving to take a nice vacation with her own mother when she already travels all the time for her job anyways. It's not like she was leaving for a year's deployment to Afghanistan...

I really don't mean to mom-shame. This was just a super strange scenario to me.

Out of curiosity I had to go find this post and read it. Definitely bizarre. I get wanting to “keep it real” with her readers and share stories of travel difficulties as well as travel successes, but I agree with a lot of the commenters that this post just makes her come off as entitled and overreacting. The employees she dealt with were just doing their jobs and enforcing rules that they were told to enforce by their superiors, and she just made the situation worse by reacting the way she did. It also read like the kind of post that should be on a personal blog, not a website that is supposed to be for travel tips.

Is anyone else feeling honestly overwhelmed by the amount of deals going on this holiday season? Haha, what a first world problem to have! I'm trying to make a list of a variety of things I need to purchase and which cashback portals, cards, and apps to use to get the best deal! Uber gift cards at Walgreens with 10% Chase offer and $10 Walgreens card back, Walmart grocery order with Amex offer and Shopkicks app credit and email coupon I just got, Target savings through Google Express... I need to sit down lol.

YES! For my own sanity I gave up trying to get the absolute best deals on everything. If I’m shopping online I check cash back monitor for the best portal to use, and I’ve been using up the Target & Amazon GCs I got with the 10% back AMEX offer at Staples, but other than that I’m not searching for deals. Probably my best deal was buying a bunch of stuff at Kohl’s (full disclosure I work for them so I get an employee discount on top of their sales/coupons) with their Black Friday sales and then using the $65 in Kohl’s Cash I earned towards a $90 LEGO set for my DD9, since LEGO is always excluded from coupons.

 

[magickingdomprincess]

So it looks like I'm just going to be out my SW Plus 3k anniversary points. I called again today to check on my points and they said I should get them when my statement closed on 12/9. Well, my payment is due 12/6 and I don't have a retention offer on my account, so I need to either pay the AF or close the card. I really don't think I have a reason to keep the card, I don't really get referrals (although it seems like I'm always telling people they should get a SW card!). Oh well. One less card to keep track of I guess. That will leave me with only 1 personal Chase card (and one that I'm an AU on from a long time ago), and three Chase biz cards! I'm hoping to get the CIC in Feb. and maybe the CSP in Apr or so, but still working on that plan.

 

[wanderlust7]

I had an issue where two travel charges coded as 0 points in addition to 1 regular charge. I was paranoid Chase had flagged me and I was doomed because of my double dip earning me 100,000 URs between two sapphires so I did not pursue it in any way (about 450 URs total). Looking back at all my points, it evened out with something I had returned and lost points on. So rather than seeing -450 and +450, I somehow got 0 on two transactions and reduced points on 1. Not sure if that is something that happens a lot because I do see the + and - on the statement for points returned. It was right as the statement was closing so I am not sure if that had something to do with it either.

Ohhh...I think I get it now! I had a travel refund, but I haven't had any travel charges since then except for that parking one. So my theory now is that they will just keep giving me 0 points on travel until I've "paid back" the points. What an odd way to do it, instead of just deducting the points from the balance. Darn, I was wondering why they didn't take back the points, thought maybe I'd get to keep them, lol (fat chance!).