I love credit cards so much!

[GusGus16]

Just got my first Chase Card, CSP... I hope that was the right card to get first... I am now 5/24 Wish I had got the business card first but wasn't sure I would get it. If I take myself off as an authorize user on my husband's bank of america card I could still apply for a business card right?

What are your cards from the past two years? We can help direct you if you have questions.

If your husband's BOA, is included in 5/24, then removing your AU and having it removed from your credit reports will bring you back down to 4/24 and then you will be eligible for a chase business card. You still may be eligible for an amex business card depending on what you currently hold.

ETA: thanks @SouthFayetteFan, reviewed their previous post, looks like they could remove the AU and still be eligible for a Chase Business card. Amex business would also be a good option if they wanted to still keep the slot open for another chase card later in the year.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Just got my first Chase Card, CSP... I hope that was the right card to get first... I am now 5/24 Wish I had got the business card first but wasn't sure I would get it. If I take myself off as an authorize user on my husband's bank of america card I could still apply for a business card right?

So you got approved? Congrats - if I recall you had a lot of recent cards and your options were limited so if you felt CSP was best then it probably was. I can’t recall - did you join DISchurners and support a fellow DISer by chance?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

What are your cards from the past two years? We can help direct you if you have questions.

If your husband's BOA, is included in 5/24, then removing your AU and having it removed from your credit reports will bring you back down to 4/24 and then you will be eligible for a chase business card. You still may be eligible for an amex business card depending on what you currently hold.

They shared the info back on 11/30 if you wanted to look. They were already 4/24 and 6/24 if you counted store cards.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Thank you

I haven’t looked at Sequoia yet, but for Yosemite we were looking at Yosemite Valley Lodge. I haven’t delved too deep yet, but you’ve given me a great direction to go in.
Dramamine for Car sickness? Or heights? None of us has ever gotten car sick.

Yosemite Valley Lodge (so hard for me to type the new-ish name) is my kids' favorite place to stay in the Valley. We haven't been there in a couple years, though. I grew up staying in the bathroom-less tent cabins, so once I wanted to stay there with the family. The older two heard a bear moving around, checking out the bear boxes nearby, and told youngest about it the next morning. She has refused to stay in the tent cabins since then

We could have used dramamine or similar on the drive into (or out of? I can't remember) Sequoia. Even dh, the driver, was nauseous! The park and hikes more than made up for that

 

[StephPlum]

Which cards? I'm 0/13 on ours for the Lowe's or Staples.

It was on my and DH's SPG Biz and Hilton Biz.

Happy New Year!
SWA Companion Pass: DH and I applied (separately) for the business cards on 12/27. We have a legitimate business. He was immediately accepted and I was put into review status. He then applied for the Rapid Rewards Plus card and was put into review status. I didn't apply for the 2nd card.
I know all the rules and we meet all of them. I canceled my SWA card over 100 days ago to prepare to open these. What could be the issue? Is only 1 card allowed per business and I have to be an authorized person on his card? I called Chase and was told my application is still in review and I will be notified with a decision in 10 business days. I didn't opt to speak to anyone because I don't want to draw attention, I guess. Should I not apply for the Plus card until the status is determined on the business card? This is just frustrating.

If you do apply for the Plus in a few days, you might want to try the link I reposted yesterday the @Andysol originally posted. For me I got 50K for 2K MSR so it will be really easy to make 110K RR needed for CP. YMMV on the link but it did work on the 31st.

After I hit reply I realized you are already gone to staples. I just handed the cards and told him I was doing each on a different card. No prob.

That is what I have been doing as well and no problems so far.

I haven’t looked at Sequoia yet, but for Yosemite we were looking at Yosemite Valley Lodge.

I am planning to visit Sequoia this August. If you have URs that you want to use on this trip, Wuksachi Lodge is on the Chase portal. I booked through there. I am also staying at John Muir Lodge but I can't remember if it was on there and sold out or not on there at all. I don't think it was on there.

 

[mmmears]

Staples and Lowe’s 10% off offers are back on AmEx. Staples is up to $50 and Lowe’s is up to $100.

Running to check all my AMEX offers...

Dell and Boxed too.

Note: Terms say offers for enrolled BUSINESS cards - but looks like someone at Amex has screwed up and the offers are going to personal cards also. Grab 'em while you can, but tread carefully if not adding to a business card.

... and I have none of these offers. There are 7 AMEX accts in this house and not ONE of these offers?

The good news: our flights to MCO dropped another 2200 RRs each.
The bad news: got rear ended on the way to work. Minor accident, doesn't look too bad. Just a pain in the rear.

I was going to like your post until I saw the second part. I hope you are ok and I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It happened to me twice in 2018 and I know how awful it is.

I just found out this morning a boy in 6th grade died over break in a car accident. I had subbed for him back when he was in 4th grade and I know his brothers really well. It’s really sad that it happened over Christmas break and he was so young

This is so sad.

Sorry, brain is tired this morning. I meant Lowes. I don't have Lowes or Staples on any of our 13 cards so wondering which cards these offers are on.

None of our cards either.

I gave up. I realized that 1) FD'ing has never made financial sense for our family and 2) if my dd gets into DCP, we will have AP's by August. I'm very much having a 'Monday' and I don't need the extra frustration of crashing MDE (just for you lol!).

FD has never made financial sense for my family. And we do eat in the parks/resorts the entire time we are at WDW. The room only deals have always worked better for us.

I'm back from Edinburgh (aka The Pajamas trip!). BA First was very nice-I think we had one of the "mixed fleet" crews meaning young, enthusiastic and not paid well. They were sweet and helpful (all wore reindeer antler headbands and the purser had on an ugly Christmas sweater since it was Christmas Day) albeit not super smooth. The food was meh, but I'm super picky and eat like a toddler , but the dedicated overhead bin was very nice, as was having a little storage locker, pajamas and holiday entertainment (yes, I watched The Holiday and was super disappointed Love Actually wasn't available).

Things I wish I had known- dedicated overhead bin meant we could have done carryon only (although the LHR security guy confiscated and threw out my contact wetting solution of 105 ml-TSA and every other security person has allowed it since it's medically necessary for gas perm contacts but you know, Heathrow agents ) AND the pajamas run super small. I was fairly comfortable in the M that DH gave me for my S-he has a 30 in waist at 53 and said they were "snug" so next time I'll ask for a larger size! We were sent to the Galleries Club which is the business level (not the super nice first club that calypso has discussed- I was too annoyed with losing my wetting solution to look for it honestly) and it was chaotic and busy. Not impressive at all.

Our flight to EDI was quick and we were served another meal since we were in BA Business but honestly we didn't need any more food!

The Sheraton Grand Hotel and Spa is my go-to hotel in Edinburgh. It's a very short downhill walk to Princes Street, across from the Castle and gardens. We stay on the Club Lounge level so we have breakfast and a light dinner in the lounge as well as access to Escape at One area (which is essentially like the Rainforest Room on DCL) but with an outdoor jacuzzi that is amazing, especially when it's cold outside, and a couple of new areas since our last visit.
The Escape at One is 75 pounds/pp/day so although our room was about 90 pound/day more than a regular room, we were able to save money on meals and Escape at One, so feel that it's worth it (to us). While we did visit the Christmas Markets near the castle gardens, we basically ate, went to the gym and spa, and watched game shows. It was completely relaxing and a wonderful way to end the year.

We flew back on Delta in Delta One on one of their older planes and the service wasn't nearly as good (tbh I sent two complaints to Delta about minor things on this flight and the subsequent one) then First from JFK to ATL. That was not a great experience (delays, confusion and general what the heck is going on for 2 hours) and I'm definitely glad I didn't do a mileage run to keep my Platinum Sky Medallion status. I did appreciate being upgraded for both of our PNS-ATL flights but not enough to tolerate the Team Delta Only mentality.

I was impressed with BA First and will fly them again. I still love the Sheraton (although they did transition from coke to pepsi products with the merger-boo) and I now want to spend another holiday period in Edinburgh. I'm glad I'm a free agent with airlines since I was not impressed with Delta service over New Year's Eve. I still have 4 or 5 flights with them but I'm definitely not as loyal.

And...my points for this stay have already posted-37,638 PLUS whatever I earn from the SPG Lux that I used to pay. The Lux $300 credit is pending but pretty sure that covers one spa treatment and a pedicure

Welcome home! It sounds like an amazing getaway! PJs sound like a nice extra. I'm not picky but the BA food is certainly not good. We've been to both the "top" lounge at LHR and the Galleries one, and yeah there is a difference. But I'm happy to have any lounge rather than trying to get a seat near the gate. Edinburgh sounds wonderful, and that hotel (and spa area) are now on my list.

 

[mmmears]

Yosemite Valley Lodge (so hard for me to type the new-ish name) is my kids' favorite place to stay in the Valley. We haven't been there in a couple years, though. I grew up staying in the bathroom-less tent cabins, so once I wanted to stay there with the family. The older two heard a bear moving around, checking out the bear boxes nearby, and told youngest about it the next morning. She has refused to stay in the tent cabins since then

We could have used dramamine or similar on the drive into (or out of? I can't remember) Sequoia. Even dh, the driver, was nauseous! The park and hikes more than made up for that

We stayed at the lodge when I was a kid. It was nice. We stayed at the Ahwanee a few years ago and it was very nice (but the room was really small). Now that they have changed all the names because of hotel management changes I can't tell what is what anymore. I will second the car sickness thing. It's real. Unfortunately it's something everyone in my family has issues with on occasion, and this drive was pretty windy.

 

[StephPlum]

Yosemite Valley Lodge (so hard for me to type the new-ish name) is my kids' favorite place to stay in the Valley. We haven't been there in a couple years, though. I grew up staying in the bathroom-less tent cabins, so once I wanted to stay there with the family. The older two heard a bear moving around, checking out the bear boxes nearby, and told youngest about it the next morning. She has refused to stay in the tent cabins since then

OMG that freaks me out. I did see a black bear in Smoky Mountain NP but it was very far away. Even though I was very anxious and kept telling DS to get back in the car. In Grand Tetons, my DD and I were hiking when a couple coming the other way told us a grizzly was up ahead. We quickly did an about face and I don't think I have ever hiked as fast as we did after hearing that. I am very torn from wanting to see a bear in the wild and an irrationally huge fear of being attacked.

 

[Alexle2007]

Is the one by seaworld one that gets park perks? If not I'd do the airport to get to bed sooner. But what do you do with your stuff either way? Rental?

I went with SeaWorld. Yes, it does have perks and you can walk from the hotel to the park. Since we are platinum, I figured I would just do the late check-out at 4 pm and we can leave our luggage in the room since we’ll probably be at SeaWorld for a few hours (mainly to ride the coasters). Then we can just Uber to HRH and avoid the parking charges since we won’t need a rental while we are there.

 

[wendow]

@elgerber No advice for your SW situation...like others, it made no sense to me that you were not approved before...wishing you tons of luck this time!

 

[miztressuz]

A few churning activities... met MSR for both of my SW cards over the past week, now just waiting for the bonus points to post later this month. Booked 1 flight for feb, hope the CP posts by the end of the month, and need to figure out how I'll book the 2nd flight needed. I'll probably cancel one of flights I have booked later in the year and have the points refunded to get that flight booked later this week vs. waiting until some of the point post. Only thing holding me back is for some reason I can't cancel that flight online and I would need to call in to cancel (oh the horror). Was hopeful after seeing @amalone1013 SW flights drop and I checked all of my flights and got a whole 8 points back, unfortunately not enough to book the other flight.

My sapphire preferred year will be tomorrow, will be calling to product change to the freedom, at this time I see no reason to keep it, I have the CIP, and my original plan was to have all my UR's and product change to the reserve, but without being able to book disney, I ended up transferring to SW and Hyatt and getting a better redemption value than the 1.5 cents anyway. I also have the SPG lux so have primary rental car insurance with that card.

My DiscoverIt 1 year will be up in March, working on maxing the current 5% category to maximize the first year double. Nice that this year, the first quarter for discover is groceries and the freedom is gas.

Worked super hard on actually writing down a budget, it is crazy that my computer doesn't have office so will need to pick that up to get it all in an excel spreadsheet. I'm going to work very hard on trying to keep a budget and track my spending better. I have always had some rough budget but never have paid close attention to it and haven't had a problem with this in the past. With this I want to be better at tracking everything, redemption history and CC points. My biggest concern with this is being able to keep track what every dollar is allocated for and accounting for pre-paid gift cards so I can max the above credit card rewards.

Going to look at another bank bonus after I get everything transferred for the new year with max'ing the 2019 IRA and HSA. I'm still waiting for my last bank bonus to post-citibank. In regards to credit cards, no plans for another card, plan is to slow down for the next several months. I'm currently 5/24 until March, so no plans to open anything new unless a business card with a reasonable MSR and awesome sign on bonus comes to light.

I have two trips planned this year, and hoping to plan at least one other trip probably in fall/early winter. First trip is to phoenix and 2nd is disneyland/san diego. No plans for WDW for now and probably going to take a break for awhile.

Wow long post today...Happy New year.

On the Excel front, if you don't want to spend the money on MS Office, there's Google Sheets that's free but in the cloud or OpenOffice/LibreOffice that I think you can still download for offline. OpenOffice is a free open source office suite, but works for most stuff just as well as MS Office. (some people actually prefer it over MS Office) I admit though I haven't used OpenOffice or LibreOffice in some years but if you're just adding and subtracting and easy formulas it should still be sufficient. I do still pay for MS Office because I'm most familiar with it and we're a Windows house, but I get the keycodes for Office 365 at a discount, usually through Amazon, and we use it for a couple peoples accounts that we usually pay for anyway so it's reasonable.

 

[StephPlum]

Coming up on my CIP anniversary in Feb. Does anyone know when the AF will hit? Is it on your exact anniversary date? I am planning to cancel this one as it is no longer needed. CIC will be a keeper Biz card. When should I cancel the CIP - wait until anniversary date or just before? or wait for AF to hit and then be refunded so I don't have to pay it?

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

OMG that freaks me out. I did see a black bear in Smoky Mountain NP but it was very far away. Even though I was very anxious and kept telling DS to get back in the car. In Grand Tetons, my DD and I were hiking when a couple coming the other way told us a grizzly was up ahead. We quickly did an about face and I don't think I have ever hiked as fast as we did after hearing that. I am very torn from wanting to see a bear in the wild and an irrationally huge fear of being attacked.

Dh and I came across a mama bear with 2 cubs while in Denali NP! We walked across the road from our campground to a trailhead, went around some trees, and there they were, 20 or so yards from us! Luckily a shuttle bus was just pulling into the stop so we quickly side-walked to the bus and reported the encounter to the bus driver.

 

[alryan]

Thank you

I haven’t looked at Sequoia yet, but for Yosemite we were looking at Yosemite Valley Lodge. I haven’t delved too deep yet, but you’ve given me a great direction to go in.
Dramamine for Car sickness? Or heights? None of us has ever gotten car sick.

You're welcome! Car sickness, we hadn't ever gotten car sick either, but those winding, high roads got to all of us except my DH. I will have a fourth grader as well next year so I am also trying to narrow down to which NP we will go. Happy Planning!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

DISchurners Tip:

We don't have a ton of discussion over there, if you want to see any recent comments across ALL threads just click here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DISchurners/comments/

You can do this same thing on any sub by replacing the "DISchurners" part of the link with that sub name...but on a sub like r/churning there's so much activity that you'd never keep up that way.

 

[StephPlum]

Dh and I came across a mama bear with 2 cubs while in Denali NP! We walked across the road from our campground to a trailhead, went around some trees, and there they were, 20 or so yards from us! Luckily a shuttle bus was just pulling into the stop so we quickly side-walked to the bus and reported the encounter to the bus driver.

Amazing!

 

[jujubiee4]

Where do I find all these offers from Chase? I see deals, is this where I would find them?
I see gift card offers and shopping deals? Isn’t this the right place?

Lot of people said they saw them on the app. I never downloaded the app but saw the offer in my email.
I clicKed the linK and it went to the page and i added it. From my laptop.

 

[Haley R]

Sorry to bring everyone down. I read more about the 11 year old boy that died in a car wreck. He was with his 13 yo sister, dad, and uncle in Texas. They were going there to deliver stuff for their religion like bibles or posters. They got rearended by a pick up truck and they were in a van. His sister had a broken collarbone and the two adults are fine I believe. Still really sad

 

[Haley R]

I was going to recommend looking at those cards when I read your earlier post. I have the Capital One Venture card and I think the Aviator works very similar. When you have a travel charge, you use your "miles" to erase the charge(essentially a statement credit). You can use it for flights, rental cars, hotels, buses, trains....The travel category is not as liberal as Chase. For example, parking fees are not considered travel. But UT and my DD's bus to the airport was.

Okay so I have some more questions for you. Our JR pass would be bought in advance and we plan on getting it at the end of this month. We are buying it through JTBUSA. Do you think that will come through as travel?

Also, while we are in Japan we planned on using PASMO cards for trains because you can just load it with money and scan your card at the turn stiles. I feel like the PASMO cards definitely won’t count towards travel but I’m not sure.

 

[Alexle2007]

Okay so I have some more questions for you. Our JR pass would be bought in advance and we plan on getting it at the end of this month. We are buying it through JTBUSA. Do you think that will come through as travel?

Also, while we are in Japan we planned on using PASMO cards for trains because you can just load it with money and scan your card at the turn stiles. I feel like the PASMO cards definitely won’t count towards travel but I’m not sure.

Oops, wrong post.