I love credit cards so much!

[Judique]

BUYING my Southwest gift card via the Southwest website to get my $100 credit:

For a physical gift card they want to charge me $2.95. Is this always the case?
I've never dealt with e-gift cards. If I e-gift myself, with the idea of eventually giving it to a son or daughter, how difficult is that? I'm really not into e-gift cards.

Also, buying it through the SW website will generate the credit? Just making sure I'm not missing something here, as this is something I've never done before.

Thanks for any help and really I guess what I want is reassurance that I'm doing this correctly. I think I'm going to pay for the plastic.

 

[hsmamato2]

Our Hawaii trip is coming so (!) soon too..and I wanted to say THANK YOU to all of you here with the invaluable help booking it using Marriotts nights/flights and BA avios (all new to me!) it's almost 100% paid for with points at every step - and I so appreciate all the support and advice on this board!!! I never thought I would actually be going to Hawaii!!! (got to start a new travel list after this!) (RIP nights and flights with the great deals,I booked an entire fam trip already using the SWA points from that deal)

 

[hsmamato2]

For the Hilton card you go into Benefits (I think, I didn't watch over hubby's shoulder when he did it) and activate the benefit and then PP sends you a card just the like the CSR card. There's nothing different on the card, it's just how the card is used behind the scenes. For the Hilton one you have the 10 visits, after it's "swiped" the 10 times you can still use it but you'll be charged for each visit - I think it's $32 per visit after the first 10 now. So make sure you label them so that there's no surprises later.

Thanks. I did some digging around and realized how stupid I was on this one. I JUST activated the PP on his card yesterday. I sm'ed,and rep said I could get the number after 48 hours. I'm hoping I can still use those credits via the number and the app on the phone.....

 

[Judique]

Do you have an At Home (used to be Garden Ridge) near you? They have 50% off select trees but it ends today. We've bought several fake trees from them and they've all been nice and have held up well.

I see 2 - one in Crofton and one in Frederick. I'll check the website out.

 

[speedyfishy]

Well went for the Hyatt so bummed I couldn’t wait for a link but time is of the essence if I want SO to get this card. It went pending called in and it says two weeks. So that’s good it’s not a straight 5/24 denial. Now do I have him risk it and call in to get him approved or do I just let it play itself out. I don’t want to draw attention to the three apps in 30 days but idk ugh. This is a mess.

In other news my boxed order arrived and everything is lovely. I struggled carrying it up to my apartment but everything else is great will def order again.

 

[Judique]

Well went for the Hyatt so bummed I couldn’t wait for a link but time is of the essence if I want SO to get this card. It went pending called in and it says two weeks. So that’s good it’s not a straight 5/24 denial. Now do I have him risk it and call in to get him approved or do I just let it play itself out. I don’t want to draw attention to the three apps in 30 days but idk ugh. This is a mess.

In other news my boxed order arrived and everything is lovely. I struggled carrying it up to my apartment but everything else is great will def order again.

Glad you went for it! I have 3 favorite cards right now: Amex Gold, Hyatt and Amtrak.

 

[liloca]

I got a HP and a denial letter....too many cards within 24 mos. well then.

How many cards have you opened in the last 24M? I just applied yesterday and I am waiting. I am 5/24 right now.

 

[hsmamato2]

@platamama and any others...I think this is actually a cool little discussion topic.

What is the most number of cards you've ever opened in a "short time span" (up to you to define) and what was the combined MSR you were working on...

• I once opened 5 cards in 6 days
• If you go back a few weeks that time I actually opened 7 cards in 1 month
• I think I had already hit the MSR on those other 2 cards so I probably had $7k in combined MSR open at once (the 7 cards was a total of $11k MSR).
• Some of these were fairly small MSRs so it wasn't that crazy (yes it felt odd to type that sentence as any "normal" person would say opening 7 credit cards in a month is insane).
• About 2 months prior to the "7 card month" I also had a "6 card month" with $8k in combined MSR
• If I look back I had one other 6 card month and one other 7 card month but both of those were mostly $500 MSRs on BofA cards and such

So what other crazy things have you guys done? I'm sure there's people that have way more than this lol. To the newer folks saying "What are you guys talking about"...imagine a time before the Chase 5/24 rule, before BoA cracked down, before the AMEX RAT existed, and when Chase Shutdowns were totally not a thing. Unfortunately these days it's much less common to see due to all the rules (although @platamama is doing some big things over there )

I'll be fascinated to read the stories here....my own is boring! 1 at a time,and those are spread out carefully. That's all I've ever done. Anything else overwhelms me(aka too many good deals at once) so now I just pick what's most important to me at the moment and ignore the rest of the great deals.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Just saw groupon is selling universal tix. I got ours already for feb so I didn’t price them closely but between the ability to buy Groupon gcs discounted and cashback portals a good deal may be had...

 

[schmass]

I just received an email from Amex that said:
What happened:
We didn't issue you the Starwood Starpoints you earned.
What we did about it:
We issued a statement credit to your account.

However I don't see any kind of statement credit on my account. Maybe blasphemy to say, but I would have zero clue if they actually did short me points. I think I did have one transaction in the summer when everyone else was having issue. I only know about that one because it was a specific date I knew to look for. This was for my SPG biz.

I got that too! Did you get cheated points when they had that issue back in April? My credit showed up on the first day of my October statement (closed on 10/12, credit posted 10/13). I got cheated for my tax payment and I'm thinking that was it.

I got this email this morning too. I did have missing points in April, but I thought they posted a few months ago. I feel like the way they post the points is so confusing and I also have no idea if I'm getting the proper amount or not.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Well went for the Hyatt so bummed I couldn’t wait for a link but time is of the essence if I want SO to get this card. It went pending called in and it says two weeks. So that’s good it’s not a straight 5/24 denial. Now do I have him risk it and call in to get him approved or do I just let it play itself out. I don’t want to draw attention to the three apps in 30 days but idk ugh. This is a mess.

In other news my boxed order arrived and everything is lovely. I struggled carrying it up to my apartment but everything else is great will def order again.

I would let it play out for a little bit. You can always recon after a denial...you'd hate to recon your way INTO a denial though, lol!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

How many cards have you opened in the last 24M? I just applied yesterday and I am waiting. I am 5/24 right now.

Here is DoC's post discussing the Barclay 6/24 rule that I referenced earlier:
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/is-b...s-similar-to-524-contribute-data-points-here/

Recent comments show 2 people at 11/24 getting approved. A person at 5/24 getting approved. And a person who didn't share the 5/24 status but contending they are WELL ABOVE getting a hard denial due to too many accounts. It seems 6/24 isn't a hard rule but does get applied at times.

 

[hsmamato2]

Are you over 6/24? I think that's the rule the Arrival+ has. There's some debate on whether it's a hard rule...but numerous people run into it.

I thi'm probably about 10/24(?) I have to double check that tho..... well I'll figure something else out... maybe I'll get down below 6 and try again.....

 

[Alexle2007]

Looks like I might have to spend some money on a Xmas tree.

The top third of my pre lit tree is not working. I only put one tree up these days inside and gave away my other ones last year.

Looking at Lowe's and some that may be acceptable are between 2 and 3 hundred. I'm going to stop by later and take a look. I have the Chase offers and if I buy one will use one of them.

I like this tree because it is slim and fits nicely where I want it. Gahh….don't want to change! Wish I had the patience to undue the light strings and rewrap it!

I got the BEST tree at the holiday for either HD or Lowe's 3 years ago at a steal! It is gorgeous pre-lit 9 ft tree that I put in my foyer by my spiral staircase. I didn't even want to put decorations on it because it looked so nice. Anyhow, the first year I put it up we had a strand of lights that for the life of us, DH and I thought were dead. Then last year, it was all my task to set the tree up and low and behold, those lights were not defective and we now have a fully lit tree.

 

[amalone1013]

I got this email this morning too. I did have missing points in April, but I thought they posted a few months ago. I feel like the way they post the points is so confusing and I also have no idea if I'm getting the proper amount or not.

They definitely are confusing. I could even see them miss that they got them posted eventually and also give you the statement credit. I just know we didn't get ours since it was a large amount, like $1400. What a pain.

 

[amalone1013]

Guys, I think my favorite thing about Amazon Prime sometimes is that I can shop for clothing without going to the store. Like, company Christmas party is Saturday.. I don't really have anything to wear. Amazon Prime and free return clothing to the rescue, for under $35

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Guys, I think my favorite thing about Amazon Prime sometimes is that I can shop for clothing without going to the store. Like, company Christmas party is Saturday.. I don't really have anything to wear. Amazon Prime and free return clothing to the rescue, for under $35

I find it hard to believe that you don't have anything to wear on Saturday (Says the guy who purchases new clothes approx. once a decade)

 

[Alexle2007]

BUYING my Southwest gift card via the Southwest website to get my $100 credit:

For a physical gift card they want to charge me $2.95. Is this always the case?
I've never dealt with e-gift cards. If I e-gift myself, with the idea of eventually giving it to a son or daughter, how difficult is that? I'm really not into e-gift cards.

Also, buying it through the SW website will generate the credit? Just making sure I'm not missing something here, as this is something I've never done before.

Thanks for any help and really I guess what I want is reassurance that I'm doing this correctly. I think I'm going to pay for the plastic.

I don't know about the physical card fee but for my Plat and Gold, I just went online and purchased them via the website and received the credit in a few days from AmEx. It will just be an email with the gift card information that you could easily just email off to whoever for them to use. Super simple!

 

[speedyfishy]

I would let it play out for a little bit. You can always recon after a denial...you'd hate to recon your way INTO a denial though, lol!

Thanks! This is what I’m thinking too. Just hurry up and approve him, Chase!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thanks! This is what I’m thinking too. Just hurry up and approve him, Chase!

No prob - whenever I would go pending with a number of recent cards I'd always wait it out. I always thought that whoever is looking at my app can make up their own mind why I applied for those recent cards...perhaps they'll approve me. If they put me on the spot and I give the wrong answer...I could cause my own denial