I love credit cards so much!

[hsmamato2]

Sorry, we are at $2.06 also, Costco is at $2.04.

wait.... regular prices? we're at about 2.45 here for the cheapest....

 

[elgerber]

wait.... regular prices? we're at about 2.45 here for the cheapest....

Yep, regular prices. Thank goodness that's a good number, because looking at our retirement accounts make me want to hurl!

 

[Haley R]

The good thing is it's only $1 higher, so not going to make or break the budget. I'll just pay it. Just so strange!

I'm too paranoid and would worry about that! And wouldn't want to ask. I'll pay the extra dollar to be anti-social

It would be even more awkward if you got a random person stuck in between you two lol. Are you sure you can afford that $1?

 

[disneedee]

Fwiw I’ve never had an issue with a UR reservation getting lost either but I call prior to travel. Every time! I call a week after booking to get my hotel confirmation number (which has maybe once matched what Chase gave me) and I call a week before arrival just to double confirm my requests & that the res is in the system.

IMHO: Call the hotel before you arrive if you booked via 3rd party EVERY TIME. No matter what 3rd party system you use.

Call even if you booked directly. i had trouble with an ihg ressy that was booked directly on line and when called the hotel to verify a couple of months later they had trouble finding the ressy even with the confirmation number. better no surprises when you get there!

 

[amalone1013]

Mini Nashville Write-up

• Flights
  • 9563 RRs each way plus CP, paying $22 in fees; cash price $584 for 2 RT
• Hotels (reviews on Hotel thread)
  • Fri: Courtyard Marriott Downtown for 35k pts; cash price $485.40
  • Sat: Hyatt Place Downtown, transferred 14k URs (had 1k already from a promo); cash price $347.10
• Shows
  • Grand Ole Opry Friday night at Ryman Auditorium - this was so much fun! I'm so glad we went in early on Friday to do this. It's such an intimate setting compared to the big concert tours too. We got to see an amazing group of artists and we loved them all
  • Martina McBride's Christmas show - amazing, she's always amazing I treated myself since it was an early birthday gift when I bought them, so we had 4th row seats
• Food
  • Cafe Lula at the Ryman - quick dinner before the show since we were low on time, we were surprised by our sandwiches as we just didn't expect them to be anything special (like when touristy places have overpriced mediocre cafes? this was not like that). It was stuffed full of people but it had rained and the patio was closed, or that would have helped
  • Puckett's - for breakfast, was delicious and a block from the Marriott. DH wanted to go here again on Sunday (
  • Merchant's - for dinner, we walked in at 5pm wanting to eat on the 1st floor and were told it would be 1.5hrs, luckily there were seats at the bar. We had trouble deciding what we wanted so many options looked good! And they kept going by us to other tables which wasn't helping
  • Mike's Ice Cream - recommended by our Uber driver and we can't resist ice cream - it was very good
  • the Diner - 24hr place, had okay food especially for late night
  • Biscuit Love in the Gulch - good but over-hyped IMO. Apparently the line usually gets up to an hour on the weekends; we lucked out and waited about 15min to order. What I found interesting was the biscuits that came on the side were different than the ones they used for the breakfast sandwiches. I thought Puckett's biscuits were superior
  • Luke Bryan's place on Broadway - fun place, food was decent but nothing stand out, kind of what I would expect from all of the country artist's bars along there
• Activities:
  • Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum with Studio B tour - awesome for fans. It's interesting to see the all of the history, but don't expect too much of modern music - mainly all of the artists from the 80s/90s/today get just a tiny spot in a display case. I would highly recommend adding Studio B. We got an especially great tour guide for Studio B too, who was a website designer for some of the artists in Nashville. But he was awesome, and Studio B is really neat because it's just so historical and played such a big part in the music industry in general, not just country music, and people still record in it today - and it was set up so well, they haven't changed much at all.
  • Ryman Auditorium guided tour - I felt like we got more out of the guided tour than the self one, and we got to see backstage. They have a pretty amazing pre-show for the tour that everyone gets to do, self or guided tours. It was like being at Disney
  • Belmont Mansion - worth it if you enjoy history/historical houses. I think when I find things like this DH is skeptical, but he really enjoyed it too. There was a lot of funny things going on in this house too, like faux painted flooring. We had another good tour guide here, a student at the University.
  • Hop on Trolley Tour - we were going to do a regular bus tour, but got a call that morning that it was cancelled because the driver was sick - so we grabbed Trolley passes instead. We were going to Uber to Belmont but were able to take the trolley instead, plus added the Parthenon since it stopped there. And of the 2 of the 3 drivers we got were excellent tour guides - the third was good, just not as good as the first two.
  • Parthenon - I'm glad we ended up here. It was really interesting to see, though we didn't quite know what to expect going in. We were early since it was a Sunday, so we did some exploring and DHs day was made seeing the Steam Train on display
  • We bought Total Access Passes from the Visitor's center - you can pick 4 attractions off the list, plus the Parthenon, TN Sports Hall of Fame, and a couple discount cards for $75. We used it on Country Music HoF and Studio B (adding Studio B counted as a 2nd attraction), Trolley Tour, and Belmont Mansion, plus the Parthenon, so we saved ~$27 each

I was not a good photographer over the trip, but I'll share some here. At Studio B they let you sit at the piano which has been there almost since the studio opened, it is on most songs that have been recorded there, has been played by many artists including Elvis, and they still use it today. And you can also see a cabinet missing part of the door... because Elvis kicked it

 

[hsmamato2]

CSR vs CSP wwyd? I'm thinking just keep my csr....it's been good to me.... or am I crazy? I could downgrade to the csp (now that this years tc is used already).... what is the wisdom here of 95 vs 150 AF? As noted before I rarely make use of any other perks...except I have in the past booked hotels or cars thru the portal

 

[Albort]

CSR vs CSP wwyd? I'm thinking just keep my csr....it's been good to me.... or am I crazy? I could downgrade to the csp (now that this years tc is used already).... what is the wisdom here of 95 vs 150 AF? As noted before I rarely make use of any other perks...except I have in the past booked hotels or cars thru the portal

booking via portal does make a difference of 8% off(25% off vs 33% off). If u do that quite often, may be a good idea to keep the CSR.
also big difference in 3 points vs 2 points for dining, travel, etc. I kept my CSR... although im not sure if i want to keep it anymore with the Amex Gold card covering dining at 4x.
could also make a difference if u have another travel card in your wallet.

 

[Teal03]

Amex offers are SUPER hit and miss. Even if you have a card they're showing up on for others doesn't mean you'll get it. Don't base your Amex cc decision off which is likely to get certain offers.

You can get a credit card bonus and a bank account bonus from BoA (and any other bank), one does not affect the other!

Thank you for your help. The one I want for sure is the Bank of America card. I’m 70/30 on the Uber Visa because we eat out a lot unfortunately. Plus my brother is moving away this summer to play college sports and we’ll be going on a lot of road trips.

I’m also looking at the CapitalOne VentureOne instead of the Amex and Chase Sapphire later down the road for my plane tickets for my Disney Asia trip in 2020.

 

[Albort]

Anyone buy Universal Studios tickets directly? it codes as entertainment right?

 

[Haley R]

Omg Dh is driving me insane. We both agreed after our October WDW trip we would be done with Disney for awhile, but today he said we need to start planning our trip to do all 3 DAH events! I want to go so bad, but do we need to? lol

 

[StephPlum]

I’m going to take a moment for my fellow Californians here- OP is paying $2.06/gallon pre discounts. At a SHELL. Sometimes I forget just how expensive living in the CA sun is...

They just opened a new United Dairy Farmers right by my house. First few days gas was 1.77. On the day I decide to stop it was already up to 1.97.

 

[mmmears]

I’m going to take a moment for my fellow Californians here- OP is paying $2.06/gallon pre discounts. At a SHELL. Sometimes I forget just how expensive living in the CA sun is...

Right there with you. I see these prices and just figure it's a different world where I live.

 

[GlamMistress]

They just opened a new United Dairy Farmers right by my house. First few days gas was 1.77. On the day I decide to stop it was already up to 1.97.

Skip the gas. Go inside. Order ice cream cone, Dutch Chocolate Almond flavor. You're welcome.

 

[afan]

They just opened a new United Dairy Farmers right by my house. First few days gas was 1.77. On the day I decide to stop it was already up to 1.97.

I'd be happy with 1.97. I think the cheapest here is 3.05. It's been going down but I haven't seen anywhere under 3.

 

[tink1970]

I’m going to take a moment for my fellow Californians here- OP is paying $2.06/gallon pre discounts. At a SHELL. Sometimes I forget just how expensive living in the CA sun is...

Apparently gas is around $2.06 to $2.09 here. I don't drive enough to notice gas prices, apparently! Florida sun is cheaper than CA I suppose ...it's the dehumidifier in CA, maybe?

 

[elgerber]

They just opened a new United Dairy Farmers right by my house. First few days gas was 1.77. On the day I decide to stop it was already up to 1.97.

Wow, I used to go there as a kid when I lived in Ohio! Haven't been to one in probably 30 years. We don't have them up here.

 

[georgina]

Anyone buy Universal Studios tickets directly? it codes as entertainment right?

I bought some Volcano Bay tickets while I was there in Nov and Chase coded it as Entertainment/Fun.

 

[Albort]

I bought some Volcano Bay tickets while I was there in Nov and Chase coded it as Entertainment/Fun.

thanks!

 

[tink1970]

Hi! My name is Shay and I'm a hypocrite! The idea of not having a new card for our final $5400 quarterly tax payment was killing me so I lifted my credit freeze and was approved for the Citi AA Biz. Whoo hoo! As soon as it comes in I'll make the tax payment and once the statement closes I'll have 70,000 (+5400) AA miles. No idea what I'll do with them but always good to resupply! Merry Christmas to me

 

[amalone1013]

Arrggghhhhh. On a whim I checked SW flights for the weekend in January. I have DHs flights booked currently for 9054pts to MCO and 18777pts home. The return flight has dropped to 12610 - awesome! So I cancelled and rebooked him. Unfortunately his CC statements are going to close Jan 14th and 15th and the flights are the 10th and 13th, so his CP won't be active yet. So I also need to book myself. The return flight was booked on my account with my points, so the drop in points has left me with... 12447 points. 163pts short. After his work flight tomorrow he will have 9663pts (darn travel lady must have found WGA flights, because originally it should have taken him to 12006pts based on the flight options she sent) in his account, so I could book my flight to MCO (his is booked already on his account). Maybe I need to check out RR dining again...

I just had to come back to this comment, because I just looked and the flights to MCO have dropped - I can book 1 person at 6152pts and 1 at 7603pts. Yay!

But...

Collectively I am still 123pts short from booking the 4 one ways. Even after getting DHs work trip points at almost 4k pts, with they way the points are distributed between our accounts, I still can't book them. At best I can book the two flights down and one back. I really thought the drop in points would fix that problem for me! Instead I am looking at it costing 4400 pts less total (in addition to the return flight dropping from 18k to 12k yesterday) and it still doesn't work, which may make it even more frustrating. Obviously 1st world problems here...

Guess I'll stay in WDW