I love credit cards so much!

[disneymagicgirl]

We've ALL been there! And still find ourselves there! For Sapphires and Freedoms if you make a purchase on Walmart.com you'll get a total of 10x points back if you use Chase Pay. Gift cards count. People with Sam's clubs bought Walmart gift cards to buy Disney gift cards. Someone bought Walmart gift cards and used those to buy Disney gift cards in store. Some of us bought 3rd party gift cards, Netflix, hulu, Uber. Some of us (me and one or 2 others I think) bought Visa gift cards (those have a fee attached so you have to make sure the math still works in your favor) I was too nervous to go Walmart gift card to Disney gift card route because I don't shop at Walmart and didn't want to stuck with Walmart gift cards. What we've learned:
-Can't use Chase Pay if you have business credit cards and personal credit cards on the same login
-Walmart loves to cancel orders, if your order is canceled use the chat feature on their website to find out why, usually it's some sort of security reset they have to do
-Walmart delays their stuff so long sometimes the pending charge drops off the card and has to be re-charged by Walmart. This can result in the charge not showing on your card until a week or more after it should have (@hsmamato2 was the latest victim of this I think, although they are having a real mess because they product changed their Chase card in the middle of the obscenely long Walmart transaction). So if you want to participate don't wait in case you get the freaky Walmart charge delay (Chase offer expires end of Aug)
-Can use the promo once on each Sapphire and Freedom card you have, 10x back on purchases, up to $250 in purchases

I'd also add:

- Walmart loves to cancel orders -- especially electronic gift cards. You may have better luck ordering physical gift cards (free shipping), but it can take awhile for them to be delivered.

- You can use the Shop through Chase shopping portal for additional UR points; iirc, Sapphire cards earn 2x UR and Freedom earns 4x UR. (Check cashbackmonitor .com for latest rates). You will not earn these extra shopping portal points if you're ordering only gift cards. But if you add in gift cards with a non-gift card filler or add-on item, it seems you'll qualify for Shop through Chase points on the entire order.

- Can use the promo once on each Sapphire and Freedom account you have -- not card. Since Chase AU cards have the same number, expiration date and CIC as the primary card, I guess there's not much distinction, but I wouldn't want someone to try to double dip on this deal with an AU card -- it won't work.

Don't forget this deal ends on 8/31/17 so get your spending in!

Ok, so we have a freedom and 2 CSPs. I want to take advantage of this asap. I actually have some real spending I need to do on walmart.com anyways and can fill the rest with gift cards. I am a bit confused on the sams club part. How does that play in....what do you gain? I guess I don't have time to do that part anyways since it is almost the end of the promo?? Also, I ordered disney GC from sams recently for our park tickets and I didn't get the 2x rewards thru chase shopping portal for those, even though I had another item in the order. Does sams not work like walmart in that regard?
Thanks again y'all for your constant help!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Haha.....yes, makes me feel better. I usually fly Southwest as well, but am in the very preliminary stages of planning a Hawaii trip, which is what made me get into the travel points. For the last several years, I have just used cash back cards, along with a Southwest and IHG card and been content. But, learning that Chase UR transfers SW 1:1, it made sense to make the switch.

AA has a non-stop from Dallas to Honolulu, but everything I am reading is that Delta through Korean is the best deal with only 45,000 points for first class. However, they are wanting to route me from Dallas to Atlanta and then to Hawaii. I'm not interested in flying 3 hours in the wrong direction, regardless of how many points it saves me. There has to be a better way. I would like to fly to LAX and then on to HNL. I'm going to keep digging, but giving some serious consideration to one of the services to help me figure it out.

Please let me know what you find out. We have been talking about Hawaii a lot too. Our youngest is 20mths, so we will wait til she is prob 3+ due to the long flight. We hare pretty good at racking up points, so I think we could do it close to free!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

AA has a non-stop from Dallas to Honolulu, but everything I am reading is that Delta through Korean is the best deal with only 45,000 points for first class. However, they are wanting to route me from Dallas to Atlanta and then to Hawaii. I'm not interested in flying 3 hours in the wrong direction, regardless of how many points it saves me. There has to be a better way. I would like to fly to LAX and then on to HNL. I'm going to keep digging, but giving some serious consideration to one of the services to help me figure it out.

This is how I feel about the trip I'm planning to Vancouver. From Chicago, I need to go to Dallas to get to Canada? Seems like Seattle or San Fran would be better, but no go.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Ok, so we have a freedom and 2 CSPs. I want to take advantage of this asap. I actually have some real spending I need to do on walmart.com anyways and can fill the rest with gift cards. I am a bit confused on the sams club part. How does that play in....what do you gain? I guess I don't have time to do that part anyways since it is almost the end of the promo?? Also, I ordered disney GC from sams recently for our park tickets and I didn't get the 2x rewards thru chase shopping portal for those, even though I had another item in the order. Does sams not work like walmart in that regard?
Thanks again y'all for your constant help!

You can buy Walmart gc's and use them to get Disney GCs 5% off. I bought $150 in Walmart GCs and then used them at Sams for $150 in Disney GCs for 144.98. Not a lot, but unless you have a card giving a higher % off, that is about the best you can do for Disney GC

 

[calypso726]

Have any of you ever used a paid service to help book travel? I've come across Expert Flyer, which is a subscription based service, but helps locate flight availability and awards seats. Also, PointPros is a consulting service that takes care of everything for you, but is more pricey.

I don't particularly like the idea of of paying for services to book, but I am completely overwhelmed at all the options out there. I have read so many blogs and articles the last few weeks and am starting to get a better handle, but still need some help.

Anybody had good or bad experiences? Thanks in advance.

I sought out the services of one of the consultants early on when I first started because I was trying to get 4 flights in first. I didn't like anything they came up with and was able to do it on my own. This was early on in the game for me and perhaps I may not have been as clear when explaining what my priorities were. I think they were trying to save me the taxes and fees on BA but I was more interested in direct and lie flat seats, taxes and fees be darned. Would I do it again? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. If I knew and I needed to book flights and I would be out of the country, on a cruise or in some way unable to book what I needed when the flights are released then I'd use a service to do it for me. Also, if what I was trying to accomplish seemed impossible and no other blogger has blogged about what I'm trying to do then I'd seek out the help of a service.

I signed up for an expert flyer subscription and have yet to use it to book flights. I did it proactively when I thought I might have a hard time getting to Hawaii. I forgot t cancel it and now have it for another year. I should play around with it and learn how best to use it.

So far, I've been able to do everything myself by just Googling what I'm trying to do and find out which bloggers have already done it. Then I use what they did as a basis.

 

[Budzooka]

I sought out the services of one of the consultants early on when I first started because I was trying to get 4 flights in first. I didn't like anything they came up with and was able to do it on my own. This was early on in the game for me and perhaps I may not have been as clear when explaining what my priorities were. I think they were trying to save me the taxes and fees on BA but I was more interested in direct and lie flat seats, taxes and fees be darned. Would I do it again? Yes, but only under certain circumstances. If I knew and I needed to book flights and I would be out of the country, on a cruise or in some way unable to book what I needed when the flights are released then I'd use a service to do it for me. Also, if what I was trying to accomplish seemed impossible and no other blogger has blogged about what I'm trying to do then I'd seek out the help of a service.

I signed up for an expert flyer subscription and have yet to use it to book flights. I did it proactively when I thought I might have a hard time getting to Hawaii. I forgot t cancel it and now have it for another year. I should play around with it and learn how best to use it.

So far, I've been able to do everything myself by just Googling what I'm trying to do and find out which bloggers have already done it. Then I use what they did as a basis.

Thanks for the input. I am afraid in exactly what you described in that I will sign up and not use it. I've been googling what I'm trying to do and learning a lot about Hawaii travel, but nothing that meets my criteria specifically. I live in a major city....I can't be the first person to ever book points for this flight!

I'll continue to keep digging. The good news is I am planning for a summer 2019 trip, so I'm getting an early start.

 

[Dugette]

Dang. Hyatt app got 30 day reply.

If you have other Chase cards, log in to the Chase website and see if there's a Hyatt card there. That's what happened to both DH and I - got the 30 day reply and within the hour we both had cards showing on their website. Good luck!

 

[Lain]

Ok, so we have a freedom and 2 CSPs. I want to take advantage of this asap. I actually have some real spending I need to do on walmart.com anyways and can fill the rest with gift cards. I am a bit confused on the sams club part. How does that play in....what do you gain? I guess I don't have time to do that part anyways since it is almost the end of the promo?? Also, I ordered disney GC from sams recently for our park tickets and I didn't get the 2x rewards thru chase shopping portal for those, even though I had another item in the order. Does sams not work like walmart in that regard?
Thanks again y'all for your constant help!

You're conflating two deals here.

There's the first part, which is earn 10x Ultimate Rewards points on purchase(s) up to $250 on Walmart .com when using Chase Pay and one of Chase's UR-earning credit cards (Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred, and Sapphire Reserve) to pay. You can take advantage of this promo for every UR-earning credit card account you have. Each of your CSPs have their own homepage and you can access the Shop Through Chase shopping portal to potentially earn an additional 2x UR when shopping at Walmart .com. But like I mentioned in my earlier post, if you're only buying gift cards you won't qualify to earn the extra 2x UR because gift cards are specifically excluded in the fine print. But some people have mentioned that if you mix in a non-gift card item with gift cards in your cart, check out and pay with Chase Pay, you should get 10x UR up to $250 on your purchase, and an additional 2x for the full purchase amount (including the gift cards that are typically excluded). This promo ends on 8/31/17, so get your Walmart .com purchases in before then.

Next, some people have been buying Walmart gift cards, because if you are a Sam's Club member, you can use Walmart gift cards to buy Disney gift cards at a slight discount at samsclub .com or the warehouse. There is no expiration date to this part of the deal.

 

[calypso726]

I have no experience by the if it makes you feel better all the flight stuff is super confusing to me too. All the alliances and such is over my head. Luckily I fly mostly southwest.

I'm 5 years in to this hobby and have managed to accomplish a whole lot of awesome travel. That said, some of it is still pretty confusing to me too The alliances were easier to understand for me when I broke it down into the idea of thinking of them as 3 teams or groups.

The One World team/group: https://www.oneworld.com/member-airlines/overview

The Star team/group: http://www.staralliance.com/en/member-airlines

The Sky Team/group: https://static.skyteam.com//content...35.1506670759.1503761897-150668101.1503761897

So each of the 3 teams has airlines that are only part of their group/team. You can book flights with miles from any airline on any other airline that is in the same team/group.

Example: I needed to book a flight from China to Tokyo. My best option was Japan Airlines aka JAL. I have never flown JAL. I do not have a JAL credit card and have no miles with them. I see that JAL is on the One World team so I check to see which other airlines are part of One World's team that I might have miles with or can transfer some UR, MR, SPG or TY points directly to in order to get a flight on JAL using miles from another One World team member.

I see that British Airways (BA) is part of the One World team and I already have BA airline miles. But if I didn't, I could also transfer UR, MR or SPG points to BA if I didn't already have BA miles in my BA frequent flier account. So, I then searched for my flight on BA's website because I will be using BA miles to book it. I find the JAL flight I wanted on BA's website and then booked it right there. Deciding whether or not to book it with miles or pay for it with credit card points is also a factor to take into consideration. In this case it cost me waaay less in points to book it with miles than it would have by using points to pay for it on the UR portal.

Where things get a little more complex is when you are using miles from an airline that doesn't show the partner availability. This is where reading the blogs come in handy.

Example: I needed to book a flight from Tokyo to the USA. My best option to get home in time was JAL once again. I already know JAL is part of One World and I can use BA miles to book the flight. However, I also know that BA award flights are distance based. It's going to cost me more miles than necessary to book with BA miles. American Airlines (AA) is also a One World team member and I have a ton a miles racked up with them so I think I should use their miles to book the JAL flight and the bloggers have recommended it as a good strategy from all I've read. The problem though is that AA's website will never show if JAL has availability using their miles. So I can't search for my flight on AA and book it online. But I know I can search on BA's site. I know that if BA shows the flight I need on JAL, that means I can book it with AA miles, just not online through AA's website. I have to call AA, give them the flight numbers and book over the phone. Since it isn't bookable online the phone booking charge is waived.

In addition to airline alliance members there are also airlines that aren't part of an alliance but do partner with other airlines, sometimes across alliances. Alaska air is an example. They are not part of an alliance but they partner with a number of airlines. Therefore, you can use their miles to book flights on the airlines they partner with. I hope this helps anyone who was trying to understand airline alliances.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

If you have other Chase cards, log in to the Chase website and see if there's a Hyatt card there. That's what happened to both DH and I - got the 30 day reply and within the hour we both had cards showing on their website. Good luck!

No nothing yet

 

[AmyAnne]

Anyone know if Discover will give you another card if you already have one? My current card account is 25+ years old, but I'd love to get the DiscoverIt offer.

I'd love to know that too. I've had mine for 14 years and, if I recall correctly, unless it's a 5% bonus category I only earn .25% cashback on the first $3000 in purchases per year and then it jumps to 1% for the remainder of the year. Needless to say I never use it unless I'm doing category spending. I'd love to have the DiscoverIt but still want to keep my other card since I've had it for so long.

What is the DiscoverIt offer?

 

[Albort]

What is the DiscoverIt offer?

its similar to Amex offers. i think the most popular one is the $10 off $30 purchase @ kohls.

 

[Albort]

btw, theres some speculation on the Marriott/SPG Merger. To summerize, Marriott doesnt seem to know how to proceed and are planning to just leave where everyone is until they can figure it out. at least for 2017, 2018. Which is good news to us SPG holders. I would hate to loss my SPG points and partners.

Fingers cross that it stays this way for awhile.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

its similar to Amex offers. i think the most popular one is the $10 off $30 purchase @ kohls.

Actually it is more like the Freedom. 1% on everything, rotating 5% quarterly. But at the end of your first year they match whatever you earned that year effectively doubling it from what I am understanding

 

[Albort]

AA has a non-stop from Dallas to Honolulu, but everything I am reading is that Delta through Korean is the best deal with only 45,000 points for first class. However, they are wanting to route me from Dallas to Atlanta and then to Hawaii. I'm not interested in flying 3 hours in the wrong direction, regardless of how many points it saves me. There has to be a better way. I would like to fly to LAX and then on to HNL. I'm going to keep digging, but giving some serious consideration to one of the services to help me figure it out.

it looks like its possible to do Dallas --> LAX --> HNL.
might not be worth doing J/F class for it though.

 

[Albort]

Actually it is more like the Freedom. 1% on everything, rotating 5% quarterly. But at the end of your first year they match whatever you earned that year effectively doubling it from what I am understanding

oh, i thought u were asking about the discover It Deals. yeah, Discover IT is just like a freedom. with both cards having the same categories the same months this year... lol.

 

[Budzooka]

it looks like its possible to do Dallas --> LAX --> HNL.
might not be worth doing J/F class for it though.

Thanks for looking into that. Did you find this through Delta? If so, I thought I needed to search and book through the partner airlines because Delta is 135,000 points directly but Korean Airlines is 45,000. I've searched through Korean Airlines, Air France, and Alaskan Airlines and haven't been able to locate this flight.

I don't quite understand how many award seats are available and when the best time to book those seats are. I've just been randomly selecting a date trying to play around with it right now. I guess it could be that I am picking days without any awards seats available.

 

[kmc8826]

Quick question for you credit card experts and people who care: I am about to put down payment on a off site vacation home for upcoming WDW trip. Payment will be made directly to "Oasis Vacation Homes." I was thinking of putting it on Reserve or Capital One Venture. Reserve it might code as 3 point travel, plus seems like some trip insurance , Capital One I at least know no matter what it codes as I will get the 2%. (I am saving points on in it for Disneyland tickets so wouldn't use purchase eraser function anyway). Thanks for your thoughts...

 

[disneymagicgirl]

You can buy Walmart gc's and use them to get Disney GCs 5% off. I bought $150 in Walmart GCs and then used them at Sams for $150 in Disney GCs for 144.98. Not a lot, but unless you have a card giving a higher % off, that is about the best you can do for Disney GC

Great idea! We have trip soon too. Thx!

You're conflating two deals here.

There's the first part, which is earn 10x Ultimate Rewards points on purchase(s) up to $250 on Walmart .com when using Chase Pay and one of Chase's UR-earning credit cards (Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred, and Sapphire Reserve) to pay. You can take advantage of this promo for every UR-earning credit card account you have. Each of your CSPs have their own homepage and you can access the Shop Through Chase shopping portal to potentially earn an additional 2x UR when shopping at Walmart .com. But like I mentioned in my earlier post, if you're only buying gift cards you won't qualify to earn the extra 2x UR because gift cards are specifically excluded in the fine print. But some people have mentioned that if you mix in a non-gift card item with gift cards in your cart, check out and pay with Chase Pay, you should get 10x UR up to $250 on your purchase, and an additional 2x for the full purchase amount (including the gift cards that are typically excluded). This promo ends on 8/31/17, so get your Walmart .com purchases in before then.

Next, some people have been buying Walmart gift cards, because if you are a Sam's Club member, you can use Walmart gift cards to buy Disney gift cards at a slight discount at samsclub .com or the warehouse. There is no expiration date to this part of the deal.

Thx!

I'm 5 years in to this hobby and have managed to accomplish a whole lot of awesome travel. That said, some of it is still pretty confusing to me too The alliances were easier to understand for me when I broke it down into the idea of thinking of them as 3 teams or groups.

The One World team/group: https://www.oneworld.com/member-airlines/overview

The Star team/group: http://www.staralliance.com/en/member-airlines

The Sky Team/group: https://static.skyteam.com//content...35.1506670759.1503761897-150668101.1503761897

So each of the 3 teams has airlines that are only part of their group/team. You can book flights with miles from any airline on any other airline that is in the same team/group.

Example: I needed to book a flight from China to Tokyo. My best option was Japan Airlines aka JAL. I have never flown JAL. I do not have a JAL credit card and have no miles with them. I see that JAL is on the One World team so I check to see which other airlines are part of One World's team that I might have miles with or can transfer some UR, MR, SPG or TY points directly to in order to get a flight on JAL using miles from another One World team member.

I see that British Airways (BA) is part of the One World team and I already have BA airline miles. But if I didn't, I could also transfer UR, MR or SPG points to BA if I didn't already have BA miles in my BA frequent flier account. So, I then searched for my flight on BA's website because I will be using BA miles to book it. I find the JAL flight I wanted on BA's website and then booked it right there. Deciding whether or not to book it with miles or pay for it with credit card points is also a factor to take into consideration. In this case it cost me waaay less in points to book it with miles than it would have by using points to pay for it on the UR portal.

Where things get a little more complex is when you are using miles from an airline that doesn't show the partner availability. This is where reading the blogs come in handy.

Example: I needed to book a flight from Tokyo to the USA. My best option to get home in time was JAL once again. I already know JAL is part of One World and I can use BA miles to book the flight. However, I also know that BA award flights are distance based. It's going to cost me more miles than necessary to book with BA miles. American Airlines (AA) is also a One World team member and I have a ton a miles racked up with them so I think I should use their miles to book the JAL flight and the bloggers have recommended it as a good strategy from all I've read. The problem though is that AA's website will never show if JAL has availability using their miles. So I can't search for my flight on AA and book it online. But I know I can search on BA's site. I know that if BA shows the flight I need on JAL, that means I can book it with AA miles, just not online through AA's website. I have to call AA, give them the flight numbers and book over the phone. Since it isn't bookable online the phone booking charge is waived.

In addition to airline alliance members there are also airlines that aren't part of an alliance but do partner with other airlines, sometimes across alliances. Alaska air is an example. They are not part of an alliance but they partner with a number of airlines. Therefore, you can use their miles to book flights on the airlines they partner with. I hope this helps anyone who was trying to understand airline alliances.

This is wonderful. Thank you!
Is there a good list of the airlines and the point redemption values? For example someone upthread said booking on Korean air points used much less than the same flight thru delta. A list of tips and tricks like that somewhere?

 

[AmyAnne]

Quick question for you credit card experts and people who care: I am about to put down payment on a off site vacation home for upcoming WDW trip. Payment will be made directly to "Oasis Vacation Homes." I was thinking of putting it on Reserve or Capital One Venture. Reserve it might code as 3 point travel, plus seems like some trip insurance , Capital One I at least know no matter what it codes as I will get the 2%. (I am saving points on in it for Disneyland tickets so wouldn't use purchase eraser function anyway). Thanks for your thoughts...

If you have time, and it's a large enough payment that the 1% or so difference is a fair amount, you might want to do a test payment of $10 or so with the CSR to see how it codes.