I love credit cards so much!

[mhartman09]

I'm assuming the answer to this is yes, but wanted to confirm with more seasoned folks here. For SW flights, if I use points to cover a flight, can I use a SW GC to pay the taxes/fees portion?

 

[Alexle2007]

I'm assuming the answer to this is yes, but wanted to confirm with more seasoned folks here. For SW flights, if I use points to cover a flight, can I use a SW GC to pay the taxes/fees portion?

Absolutely!

 

[mhartman09]

I think this is something really new that WDW is trying out with offering the 'half board' so there isn't a lot of info about it yet. I think many are not even sure what it is. Essentially what you are seeing with the high taxes and fees is Disney covering the cost of the QS dining plan. This is in regards to our dates back in late Aug-early Sept but the only resort I saw that did not add a ton of taxes and fees was AoA. If that is available for your dates, it might still be a great deal like it was for our dates. We are just too big of a family to comfortably fit there so I passed. It was really tempting though!

I checked Sports, Music and AOA for the half board option. As of now, it's only showing up on a standard room at Sports and a suite at Music. It's adding almost double the points to get it, and I don't think I'm willing to use that many UR for that. My family has never used the dining plan before and we usually do just find using GCs to pay OOP for food. I still want to do the trip though. I just have to decide where we want to stay. We absolutely loved POR, so that's tempting, but I'm thinking for a quick 3 day, 2 night trip, a value would work just fine.

 

[mhartman09]

Absolutely!

Thanks! That's what I figured, but wanted confirmation before I buy a SW GC through SBs today.

 

[afan]

I wasn't focused at all on Alaska Airlines because I'm on the east coast, but I received 10,000 miles from them for free after the Virgin America buyout simply because I had signed up for both frequent flier programs at one point. We have preliminary plans to do a west coast vacation that will include going from either LA or SF to Seattle or Portland, so Alaska will be beneficial for us down the line. I haven't gone for any credit cards yet (I'll wait until we have a clear plan for that trip), but whenever they have a points promo going on I complete the requirements to add points to the account in drips and drabs. I just got 3K this month, 1K each for placing an order through their shopping portal, completing a survey, and eating at a restaurant in their dining plan--which also got me an additional 400 miles for the initial dining rewards signup. Included in their restaurant list is a natural food store we shop at that has a hot food buffet, and any purchase made in the store counts for the dining credit. So we picked up a few groceries and got the 1,400 miles. With little effort we have enough in our account for 2 one-way flights from CA to WA/OR.

I've been paying attention to Alaska since they bought Virgin America. They seem to be positioning themselves to be a bigger player. I have a friend in Seattle who is a frequent world traveler and he absolutely loves them.

If I could I would only fly Alaska. I missed them when I was living in NC. Being back home in Seattle I've used them for flights from MCO and Dulles. I wouldn't discount them because you are on the east coast. They've expanded to a lot of cities from before when it was just west coast. I'm working on meeting spend on their card for a wdw flight next year.

 

[Albort]

I copy and pasted what @Jen and Ashwin had on her post into the IFTTT box as instructed and got my first set of points this morning after setting it up last night. You shouldn't need to do anything different on a daily basis, but the weekly ones I guess will require you (or someone here) to figure out what exactly to post and hashtag. I'm also totally Twitter illiterate, but I followed Jen's instructions to a tee and they worked! I also linked my facebook and instagram for additional points. I've earned over 1000 points just doing all that, but unfortunately was a mere ten minutes late on doing the NFL tweet.

Yes, thank you. I get the daily points, it just took me a while to set it up. I also got the extra points yesterday after the second try. I am just not quite sure what I did differently the second time.

I think I finally got it figured out also. I had followed the directions from @Jen and Ashwin but got messed up somehow. Now it seems to be working. How does everyone figure out what to tweet?

DoC reports its gonna be a weekly thing. 1000 points will be offered next Sunday. So more chances to come!

I'm assuming the answer to this is yes, but wanted to confirm with more seasoned folks here. For SW flights, if I use points to cover a flight, can I use a SW GC to pay the taxes/fees portion?

hmm, would suggest perhaps putting it on a travel card, so you can use the insurance benefits.

 

[speedyfishy]

I finally got around to making a Marriott and Twitter account. Thank you Jen for the detailed instructions. Everything worked perfectly for me and I have 1150 Marriott points already.

 

[wendow]

I checked Sports, Music and AOA for the half board option. As of now, it's only showing up on a standard room at Sports and a suite at Music. It's adding almost double the points to get it, and I don't think I'm willing to use that many UR for that. My family has never used the dining plan before and we usually do just find using GCs to pay OOP for food. I still want to do the trip though. I just have to decide where we want to stay. We absolutely loved POR, so that's tempting, but I'm thinking for a quick 3 day, 2 night trip, a value would work just fine.

We aren't DP people either. When it was a highly discounted AoA room and the system was only adding $300 for my fam of 6 for 6 nights of QSDP, I was thinking that would be worth it. Otherwise, it's just not worth the cost for us b/c we are fairly light eaters and don't do sodas or desserts regularly. In fact for this last trip, I ordered off the kid's menu or shared with one of my dd's for every single meal. Never went hungry

I love POR too. We stayed at CS this last trip and by the time we were 10 days out, both CS and CBR were less than $100 and not much more than the values.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

So what was the error? I haven't gotten anything from Twitter saying the I violated its code.

Somhow in activating it I was retweeting anything with #hashtag. Like 30 tweets in an hour. I went back thru your instructions and figured where I went wrong. (Totally my error, I didn't see what you described so did the wrong thing). Thanks for the detailed instructions. I got my 50 points today and got 1150 yesterday.

 

[Angrose]

Thanks, Guys. To answer your questions, I already have a CC that gives me 2% cash back so the Wells Fargo one would just be for the initial $200 sign up incentive (and I'm already a customer and I figure I would easily be approved ). Bc of that I just want to put the minimum ($333.33 lol) a month for the first three months to earn the $200 then close it. So since I earn the 2% on my other CC, I don't want to put too much on the WF one if I open it, and I kind of just wanted to put on the $1000 of Disney GCs bc that's all i need. Hmmm. Not sure what to do.

Do you have the Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited? Freedom has rotating categories each quarter. For Oct-Dec it's Walmart, which sells Disney GCs as well. So, that's just as good as or better than buying them at BJs. Freedom is offering $150 cash back but only requires a $500 minimum spend.

Since you are prepared to spend $1,000 anyway, I would do the above, plus apply for the Disney Rewards Visa, the one with no annual fee. You should be able to find a link for the $200 Disney gift card bonus for spending $500 in 3 months.

If you already have one of the above, you could substitute one of them with Chase AARP, also $200 cash back, $500 min spend, no annual fee.

 

[Cackyschmackers]

Do you have the Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited? Freedom has rotating categories each quarter. For Oct-Dec it's Walmart, which sells Disney GCs as well. So, that's just as good as or better than buying them at BJs. Freedom is offering $150 cash back but only requires a $500 minimum spend.

Since you are prepared to spend $1,000 anyway, I would do the above, plus apply for the Disney Rewards Visa, the one with no annual fee. You should be able to find a link for the $200 Disney gift card bonus for spending $500 in 3 months.

If you already have one of the above, you could substitute one of them with Chase AARP, also $200 cash back, $500 min spend, no annual fee.

Okay, thank you. Here's my situation: I have had the Disney Visa Premiere for years (just completed two DCL cruises this year so that gave us almost $1000 in rewards which we redeemed for airfare and on board cruise stuff). I will downgrade that to the regular 1% earned rewards when the annual period renews (to no annual fee) bc we opened a PayPal MC that gives us 2% cash back on everything. I also just yesterday opened the Wells Fargo Cash Wise Visa to get the $200 (the 1.5% isn't helpful since we have the PayPal one). Can you clarify what you mean with Oct-Dec thing at Walmart? Is there an additional percentage back being earned? I don't understand that part.

 

[Angrose]

Okay, thank you. Here's my situation: I have had the Disney Visa Premiere for years (just completed two DCL cruises this year so that gave us almost $1000 in rewards which we redeemed for airfare and on board cruise stuff). I will downgrade that to the regular 1% earned rewards when the annual period renews (to no annual fee) bc we opened a PayPal MC that gives us 2% cash back on everything. I also just yesterday opened the Wells Fargo Cash Wise Visa to get the $200 (the 1.5% isn't helpful since we have the PayPal one). Can you clarify what you mean with Oct-Dec thing at Walmart? Is there an additional percentage back being earned? I don't understand that part.

Oops, caught ya a little too late for this plan.
Oh yes, sorry about that. Freedom is giving 5% cash back for Walmart purchases Oct-Dec. They have rotating categories each quarter. Jul-Sep is restaurants and so we've been using the heck out of that card lately!
You can have both Disney visa cards. I have both. I downgraded the premier to the regular earlier this year, then applied for the premier again to get the bonus again. In hindsight I should have just closed the premier and applied for the regular to get the $200 in gift cards.

 

[Cackyschmackers]

You can have both Disney visa cards. I have both. I downgraded the premier to the regular earlier this year, then applied for the premier again to get the bonus again. In hindsight I should have just closed the premier and applied for the regular to get the $200 in gift cards.

Interesting! Maybe we'll do that. When the Premier runs its course, maybe I'll just close that and open a new regular one? But I have had that card (going between Premiere and Regular depending on our plans) since 2011. I feel like I get superb customer service bc of the length I've had it; is that true, do you think? Or are they just super nice? I've always had weird fees if I make a boo boo waived and this year I got my annual fee credited back bc of something that was in reality my error (but they gave me misinformation so I guess the blame was 50/50.)

 

[Angrose]

Interesting! Maybe we'll do that. When the Premier runs its course, maybe I'll just close that and open a new regular one? But I have had that card (going between Premiere and Regular depending on our plans) since 2011. I feel like I get superb customer service bc of the length I've had it; is that true, do you think? Or are they just super nice? I've always had weird fees if I make a boo boo waived and this year I got my annual fee credited back bc of something that was in reality my error (but they gave me misinformation so I guess the blame was 50/50.)

As long as you have had the card for over 24 months and also have not received a bonus on that particular card in the last 24 months, then you can apply for it again. I think Chase has excellent customer service in general. We have all our accounts there and several credit cards. I also like that if I want to close a card I can just send them a secure message and it's done!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

Oops, caught ya a little too late for this plan.
Oh yes, sorry about that. Freedom is giving 5% cash back for Walmart purchases Oct-Dec. They have rotating categories each quarter. Jul-Sep is restaurants and so we've been using the heck out of that card lately!
You can have both Disney visa cards. I have both. I downgraded the premier to the regular earlier this year, then applied for the premier again to get the bonus again. In hindsight I should have just closed the premier and applied for the regular to get the $200 in gift cards.

But if you have a Sam's club membership, you can use Freedom to buy Walmart gift cards at 5% off, then use the Walmart Gift cards to buy Disney GCs at Sam's.

 

[Angrose]

But if you have a Sam's club membership, you can use Freedom to buy Walmart gift cards at 5% off, then use the Walmart Gift cards to buy Disney GCs at Sam's.

Yes, that's true and such a good deal! I think the other poster mentioned that she wanted to buy from BJ's before.

 

[ejcraft]

woohoo, my CIP showed up in the mail today, wasn't sure I was going to get it as I was at 5/24 if you count the fact that the seemed to have put my jcpennys card as a new card when they changed over to Mastercard, even though it was really just a transfer. So quick question, I think I must have filled this application out different then my SW business because I can't seem to add them to the same online acct, and the SW has my name listed twice, where the CIP has my name and the name of my small business on it, should I just leave them with separate sign-ons or try and call and join them, I do think I will wait till after the minimum spend and my 80,000 UR post.

 

[Alice Sr.]

Couple questions...As far as the IHG Reward points once the spending requirement is satisfied should they show up on your Chase account? Just like the CF and CFU...

Also as far as removing an AU from the account is it better to wait some time after the points have been awarded...

TIA

My 100k IHG pnts showed up in my IHG account 4 days after my statement ending spend pnts did.

 

[Alice Sr.]

I feel like I have been a bad girl. No new cc's for you Alice. I keep telling myself it's no big deal but it is I want the new BoA card, the Discover IT, the Freedom cards and I want to start exploring AMEX, stinks to be grounded.

 

[calypso726]

I wasn't focused at all on Alaska Airlines because I'm on the east coast, but I received 10,000 miles from them for free after the Virgin America buyout simply because I had signed up for both frequent flier programs at one point. We have preliminary plans to do a west coast vacation that will include going from either LA or SF to Seattle or Portland, so Alaska will be beneficial for us down the line. I haven't gone for any credit cards yet (I'll wait until we have a clear plan for that trip), but whenever they have a points promo going on I complete the requirements to add points to the account in drips and drabs. I just got 3K this month, 1K each for placing an order through their shopping portal, completing a survey, and eating at a restaurant in their dining plan--which also got me an additional 400 miles for the initial dining rewards signup. Included in their restaurant list is a natural food store we shop at that has a hot food buffet, and any purchase made in the store counts for the dining credit. So we picked up a few groceries and got the 1,400 miles. With little effort we have enough in our account for 2 one-way flights from CA to WA/OR.

I've been paying attention to Alaska since they bought Virgin America. They seem to be positioning themselves to be a bigger player. I have a friend in Seattle who is a frequent world traveler and he absolutely loves them.

Alaska definitely gets a lot of love from those who fly their airline. I always hear good things. Once day, I will try then out too.