I love credit cards so much!

[calypso726]

Where do you find the referrals with the 50K bonus? I want to get new CSWRR and CSWRR business cards. It's been 2 years since I opened them so I qualify for the new bonus offers. I can only find the 40k offers online.

Are people allowed to pm a referral code to me? If so, I would love to help out s fellow DisBoard member

Can't help you with a referral as I don't have the SW cards. If no one has PM'd you with a referral yet then there are other ways to find the higher offers. I usually will apply off of a link from whichever travel hacker blogger has had the most helpful information for whatever I am trying to figure out how to accomplish. So I rotate bloggers and their application links tend to have the highest bonus offers. Another way is to go to Flyer Talk and search for the current offers in the credit card thread. Hope that helps.

 

[Ngwira]

Met the 3k threshold for the Amex platinum. Hoping my points post soon. I'm going to give my credit score and wallet a break until May (6months). It's a shame because I have some big payments coming up including car insurance(March) summer camp deposit in February, summer camp full payment in April. Wish I could meet minimum spend on a new card for all of that spend but after paying $900 in annual fees in 3 months, I'm taking a break.

 

[Ngwira]

Amex MR points have posted. I currently have 165,000 MR points to use from two credit cards, the PRG and the Platinum. I had to spend $5k to get them plus $450 in annual fees but I think it's worth it.

Not going to touch them since they are likely frozen so I'll use my 107,000k UR first from the CSR. I had to spend $4k and a $450 annual fee. This hobby is not cheap for those that don't manufacture spending. All spend was organic. I bought gift cards and prepaid bills for the most part and shifted all spend to a particular card to get there.

 

[peel]

Where do you find the referrals with the 50K bonus?

I used links from the Reddit churning page, since I've found so much useful info over there.

 

[Albort]

I used links from the Reddit churning page, since I've found so much useful info over there.

wouldnt suggest asking questions though, they tear u apart... haha. Flyertalk is a great source too.

 

[Ngwira]

I used links from the Reddit churning page, since I've found so much useful info over there.

I saw a link on slickdeals...

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

Okay who wants to help me make this happen?

DH and I both have our 100K UR points. The idea is to use them to get us (4) to Hawaii Christmas 2017. We'll be flying from Detroit (DTW). Since it's a LONG flight, and we have the points, we want to try for first class. We're not opposed to having to break up the flights and do say coach to Vegas or LA and then first class from there to Hawaii. How early can I book these? And what's the best way? Book the full trip first class? Split it? HELP! Use our $600 in travel credits for part?

From there, I think I'm okay. We'll likely use our Starwoods to book rooms, and I guess maybe remaining UR points, or again we have the $600 in travel credits (if we pre-paid rooms).

As a teacher, I get spring break (which is still tax season for my husband), summer (which we'll have a pool so we won't need an island vaca) or Christmas to travel. So we decided Christmas 2017 it is!

 

[calypso726]

Okay who wants to help me make this happen?

DH and I both have our 100K UR points. The idea is to use them to get us (4) to Hawaii Christmas 2017. We'll be flying from Detroit (DTW). Since it's a LONG flight, and we have the points, we want to try for first class. We're not opposed to having to break up the flights and do say coach to Vegas or LA and then first class from there to Hawaii. How early can I book these? And what's the best way? Book the full trip first class? Split it? HELP! Use our $600 in travel credits for part?

From there, I think I'm okay. We'll likely use our Starwoods to book rooms, and I guess maybe remaining UR points, or again we have the $600 in travel credits (if we pre-paid rooms).

As a teacher, I get spring break (which is still tax season for my husband), summer (which we'll have a pool so we won't need an island vaca) or Christmas to travel. So we decided Christmas 2017 it is!

You want to start looking at booking your flights about 331 days out depending on the airline. All first class isn't created equal. Domestic first class does not compare to international first class and seats can vary widely. Check seat guru dot com to compare what the seats on different airlines, flights and routes will be. Compare both the business and first class seat offerings on seat guru. When we booked our American Airlines flights to Hawaii for this March the AA web site had business class seats for 37.5k miles pp and first class seats for 90k miles pp. When I checked seat guru for the seat configuration the business class seats were the same as the first class ones. Had I not checked I could have easily spent 57K miles more for 2 tix in first class and still been in the same business class seat. I booked the biz class seats at 37k each and the ticket when issued still coded as first class. We also made sure to choose the connection that offered a lie flat seat on the way to Hawaii. There are a few articles from the bloggers out there about flying to Hawaii using UR points. Here is one from TPG http://thepointsguy.com/2016/10/chase-sapphire-reserve-destination-hawaii/

I'll tell you what we did for our trip to Aulani in March in case it serves to help some outside the box thinking if you get stuck or need a different option. Trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Hawaii from 3/8 - 3/17, Disneyland from 3/17 - 3/21.

We used a combination of American Airline miles, Thank You Points from the Citi Prestige and Premier cards and airline gift cards that were purchased to trigger the annual airline credit redemptions from Amex Platinum cards and Thank You Prestige cards. Our flights form FLL-HNL were booked using AA miles. We couldn't find award flights from HNL-LAX or HNL-FLL with a stop over using miles that was worth the cost of the miles. So, we purchased HNL-LAX in first using Thank You points from the Thank You premier card that were transferred to the Thank You Prestige card for maximum value. We chose AA flights because TY points were worth 1.8 cents on AA vs 1.6 cents on all other airlines at the time. We will stay in Disneyland for a few days after our trip to Aulani. We are using DVC points to stay at Aulani. We don't own there but were able to book at the 7 month window. Using DVC points to stay in Villas at Grand California. Don't own there either but also managed to book it at the 7 month window which was almost as exciting as scoring tix to Hamilton Smallest DVC resort and darned near impossible for those who don't have home resort priority and flexible dates on their side. There were no decent flights for coming back home using miles and DH really wanted a direct flight back. So we used the airline gift cards to purchase direct flights back in first class. Hope this helps.

 

[ski_mom]

Okay who wants to help me make this happen?

DH and I both have our 100K UR points. The idea is to use them to get us (4) to Hawaii Christmas 2017. We'll be flying from Detroit (DTW). Since it's a LONG flight, and we have the points, we want to try for first class. We're not opposed to having to break up the flights and do say coach to Vegas or LA and then first class from there to Hawaii. How early can I book these? And what's the best way? Book the full trip first class? Split it? HELP! Use our $600 in travel credits for part?

From there, I think I'm okay. We'll likely use our Starwoods to book rooms, and I guess maybe remaining UR points, or again we have the $600 in travel credits (if we pre-paid rooms).

As a teacher, I get spring break (which is still tax season for my husband), summer (which we'll have a pool so we won't need an island vaca) or Christmas to travel. So we decided Christmas 2017 it is!

What a great trip! I don't have much advice though. We just did a Hawaii vacation last summer and flew Alaska Air from St. Louis. We applied for their credit card to get a B1G1 free flight for each adult that had the card. I'm sure after finding this thread, we could have done much better, but it really worked pretty good for our group of 9 travelers. Saved a lot of money and was relatively simple. Good luck in your planning!

 

[wendow]

I am getting ready to apply for a CSP. Are there ever better bonus offers than the public offer? Should I bother trying to get a referral code?

 

[wendow]

Okay who wants to help me make this happen?

DH and I both have our 100K UR points. The idea is to use them to get us (4) to Hawaii Christmas 2017. We'll be flying from Detroit (DTW). Since it's a LONG flight, and we have the points, we want to try for first class. We're not opposed to having to break up the flights and do say coach to Vegas or LA and then first class from there to Hawaii. How early can I book these? And what's the best way? Book the full trip first class? Split it? HELP! Use our $600 in travel credits for part?

From there, I think I'm okay. We'll likely use our Starwoods to book rooms, and I guess maybe remaining UR points, or again we have the $600 in travel credits (if we pre-paid rooms).

As a teacher, I get spring break (which is still tax season for my husband), summer (which we'll have a pool so we won't need an island vaca) or Christmas to travel. So we decided Christmas 2017 it is!

I can't wait to get to make this kind of trip happen! Have fun planning!!

 

[ski_mom]

Question on the CSR card. DH currently has it and I'm going to apply for it soon. I'd love to go ahead and get it, but will probably only be keeping it for one year. If I applied now, would it mess up the possibility of getting the $300 travel credit 2 years for one annual fee? DH got his card in October and we've already gotten his 2 travel credits, but I wasn't sure how if it would work since it's right at the beginning of the new year.

Our long term plan with these cards is that we will probably keep DH's CSR card because at this point, we are planning on using most of our points to book travel through their portal. I know that's often not the best use of points, but right now, our family is still taking trips with the 5 of us and we really enjoy cruises. We can book those through the portal and get 1.5x the point value on cruises. It seems like they have the same promotions that I'm able to find elsewhere, so at least for now, that works for us.

Then, along with his CSR, I applied for the Chase Ink Plus when it still had the 5x categories and we're racking up points by getting any gift cards we can at office supply stores and gyft.com. I just want to get the CSR for myself for the first year to get the 100,000 points and we are both planning on applying for the global entry (however that works) because DH is eligible for trips through his employer and we often fly places where this would be helpful, even though we aren't paying for those trips ourselves.

Thanks for all the help everyone has provided through this thread! It's really a great resource.

 

[WDWRook]

I can book my roundtrip flight for four from Detroit to MCO using Chase URs of 112,000 points. Or, I can use the Korean Air trick for 100,000 points. Is it worth the hassle for saving 12,000 points? Assuming they have the flights I want.

Booking for October 2017, when is the best time to book? Do you think prices will drop as we get closer? I can also use Spirit points, but they don't have times for October yet and their point usage is a mess.

EDIT: also does anyone know, can you use a small backpack as "Personal Item" on Delta, and still have your one free "Carry On"? I usually fly Spirit and a backpack is specifically stated as being a personal item.

 

[Ngwira]

Is it better to use 12,000 Chase UR points booking through the portal for the renaissance Baltimore hotel or 35,000 Marriott points? I have both but not sure which is a better value..

 

[Albort]

Is it better to use 12,000 Chase UR points booking through the portal for the renaissance Baltimore hotel or 35,000 Marriott points? I have both but not sure which is a better value..

when it comes to points to price, Baltimore hotel is the cheaper one. 12000 UR = $120. Marriott points, 35,000 pts = $350.
but is the hotel on the same levels of service and quality?? what is the price of Baltimore hotel and Marriott hotel are regular price? both of these can be factored into the good choice...

 

[calypso726]

Is it better to use 12,000 Chase UR points booking through the portal for the renaissance Baltimore hotel or 35,000 Marriott points? I have both but not sure which is a better value..

It depends on how you value the points. Here is TPG's point valuation http://thepointsguy.com/2016/11/november-2016-monthly-valuations/

If you by his values or something close then the UR points you have are worth $252 and the Marriott ones are worth $245. While UR points are far more valuable they are also easier to earn through bonus spend across multiple cards. As straight cash value the UR points at a minimum should be valued at 1.25 if you have the CSP and 1.5 if you have the CSR. Since you are considering using the UR points as cash and I am thinking you have the CSR then the hotel is $180. In this situation I'd actually use the UR points because the redemption value on the Marriott points is far less. At a minimum I would earn .01/$ for spending on the Marriott card. Therefore, I wouldn't touch those points unless I am getting at least .01 value for them and I would use the valuation @Albort used.

Personally, if using the CSR travel credit was an option then I'd go that route and earn points for the stay. Another option would be to see if that hotel was a cat 1 - 5 and my annual free night certificate for having my Marriott card was available for the stay. This is mostly because I prefer using UR points as miles to book seats in first so I value them pretty high. The thought of using them for a hotel stay makes me cringe but I have done it before especially when trying to cut costs on what would otherwise be a very expensive vacation. For example, in 2015 we went on the Frozen Disney cruise that left out of Copenhagen and went to Norway, Iceland, Scotland and finished off in Dover. That cruise was the most expensive cruise we'd ever booked, plus we added the pre-cruise Adventures by Disney in Copenhagen trip to it. Now, we used discounted Disney gift cards that also racked up 5 UR points/$ and were loaded to the DVA account to pay for both but was still a lot of money out of pocket. We were getting into Copenhagen a day before the ABD trip and wanted to stay at the same hotel which was the Tivoli. We used UR points to pay for the Tivoli which saved us about $350. I would have done it even if the redemption value was only .01/point or less. I simply didn't care and just needed to cut costs where I could. We decided to stay in London over the weekend after the cruise. The St. Ermin's hotel was going for 40K Marriott points/night or $350/per night and taxes and fees would have likely pushed past the $400 mark. We used the Marriott points. We couldn't use the free night cert since it was a cat 8 hotel. Even if we weren't getting .01/point for those Marriott points I would have used them. My point of all that is simply that how anyone uses or values their points is subjective and sometimes depending on the circumstances the value of a point won't even come into play. I hope that helps

 

[calypso726]

Question on the CSR card. DH currently has it and I'm going to apply for it soon. I'd love to go ahead and get it, but will probably only be keeping it for one year. If I applied now, would it mess up the possibility of getting the $300 travel credit 2 years for one annual fee? DH got his card in October and we've already gotten his 2 travel credits, but I wasn't sure how if it would work since it's right at the beginning of the new year.

Our long term plan with these cards is that we will probably keep DH's CSR card because at this point, we are planning on using most of our points to book travel through their portal. I know that's often not the best use of points, but right now, our family is still taking trips with the 5 of us and we really enjoy cruises. We can book those through the portal and get 1.5x the point value on cruises. It seems like they have the same promotions that I'm able to find elsewhere, so at least for now, that works for us.

Then, along with his CSR, I applied for the Chase Ink Plus when it still had the 5x categories and we're racking up points by getting any gift cards we can at office supply stores and gyft.com. I just want to get the CSR for myself for the first year to get the 100,000 points and we are both planning on applying for the global entry (however that works) because DH is eligible for trips through his employer and we often fly places where this would be helpful, even though we aren't paying for those trips ourselves.

Thanks for all the help everyone has provided through this thread! It's really a great resource.

It depends on your closing statement date. I got the card in August and redeemed the travel credit right away. By late December the following year's travel credit was available to b redeemed. I'd personally wait until February or March to apply if you aren't in a rush and make certain that I would be able to get $600 within the 12 months. Global entry is a HUGE time saver!

I can book my roundtrip flight for four from Detroit to MCO using Chase URs of 112,000 points. Or, I can use the Korean Air trick for 100,000 points. Is it worth the hassle for saving 12,000 points? Assuming they have the flights I want.

Booking for October 2017, when is the best time to book? Do you think prices will drop as we get closer? I can also use Spirit points, but they don't have times for October yet and their point usage is a mess.

EDIT: also does anyone know, can you use a small backpack as "Personal Item" on Delta, and still have your one free "Carry On"? I usually fly Spirit and a backpack is specifically stated as being a personal item.

I haven't used the Korean air trick yet so I don't know if it is worth the hassle. I flew Delta recently for a work conference with a carry-on and personal item. My personal item wasn't a backpack but it was a large tote bag about the same size as a backpack and I was able to take both with no issues.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I am so excited. We are planning a Norwegian Fjord cruise in the spring. I have been planning to use my CSR bonus to pay for our airfare. We planned to fly SAS since they have non-stop flights to Copenhagen. I couldn't see any way to transfer UR points into flyer miles for SAS, so I needed to just pay using points. The tickets have been sitting at $830 each for the last two months, so I decided to wait and see if they would dip a bit more. I really didn't want to spend over the 100,000 UR points that I got for the bonus.

Well, this morning I logged on to check the price and it had dipped $200! I am ecstatic because I spent just 84,234 points!

ETA: I know SAS is part of Star Alliance, but I could not book the non-stop flights through another carrier, such as United or Air Canada.

 

[indyannamom]

does anyone happen to have a link to the 50000 southwest PREMIER card offer? I can't find it on their main site, but I think one is still active.

 

[Ngwira]

when it comes to points to price, Baltimore hotel is the cheaper one. 12000 UR = $120. Marriott points, 35,000 pts = $350.
but is the hotel on the same levels of service and quality?? what is the price of Baltimore hotel and Marriott hotel are regular price? both of these can be factored into the good choice...

It's the same hotel..one price is through the UR portal and one booking directly through Marriott.