Oh man, I was like 26 pages behind from being gone and spent yesterday trying to read everything!
We should have had a meetup, I've seen so many people who were in WDW... we were there from the 26th to 31st. I figured out why it was so hard to get the 30th booked at the Dolphin - Sherwin Williams convention
Also, I'm so glad we aren't the only ones noticing how busy it was... This was only our second January trip, and 4th overall. But we went exactly the same days last year, over the ProBowl weekend, just left Wednesday morning last year instead of evening. Last year we were doing wedding research (we told people...
) and really had about 3.5ish days total, so we did 2 MK/1.5 Epcot (we also wanted to watch Illuminations twice because we had a dessert party in the Italy area for our wedding, and wanted to see what we had signed up for - good thing because the first night the globe didn't light up, and we were very confused by the middle portion of the show
Like, this is nice, but why do people love it so much?).
I was told those phone will work on ANY register.
So far I've had no trouble with Samsung Pay anywhere. I haven't tried it at say, the gas station, but grocery store, stores, restaurants where you swipe yourself...
Samsung Pay will not work on ANY register, but it does work on a lot more than Apple Pay, even when the NFC symbol is not there. I use Samsung Pay and love the convenience. And if it were not for Chase Freedom offering 5x this quarter, I never would have started using it. Now I use it all the time.
That's the only reason I started using Samsung Pay... and it was more like, just in case I get a Freedom during Q1. Yes, I have a problem. I tried it out first on the vending machines at work in case I had trouble, so I wouldn't be holding up a line
A few days??!??! I can't go a few hours without checking in lol!
Also For those wondering, vaca at WDW has been great so far but January is definitely seeing an uptick in crowds. Still has to be one of the slowest times though.
Usually I check every few hours, but I knew I couldn't keep up like that on the trip! Haha!
I was there last week and the crowds were unbelievable. We always go in January to avoid crowds, and the crowd calendar predictions for last week were low, but there were hordes of people everywhere. I couldn't believe the wait times for the heavy hitter attractions, and at one point there was even a 30 minute wait for Living with the Land. It wasn't as enjoyable a trip as in past years, and I don't think there will truly be a slow time at WDW again. The weather was perfect for us though.
I almost died last week when I saw that LWTL was 20mins in the morning... we were going to grab something from Sunshine Seasons and I thought, surely it will go down if we do that first, but no, it went up to 30 mins! I never saw it that long when we were there in September even!
I need to vent: I help my parents with their CC bonuses. Super responsible, mom is into this, dad is scared of losing his perfect credit score but after free flights to hawaii came on board. I helped them set with a BRM for their legit business's CIPs and offered the next card as the CIC. My father applies with his BRM for the extra points and everytime I asked him about it "I haven't heard anything, I'm sure I'll get something soon." end of convo. Finally a couple weeks after the app he calls the BRM- who is out for 2 weeks. He won't do anything else even after I explain he should have received a letter and needs to talk to Chase to find out what is happening because something is wrong. He won't. Whatever, throw my hands up and go about my holidays. Finally gets hold of BRM a month after the app and has to shift credit from from CIP for approval. Gets approved. Finally! lol- no. 2 weeks later no letters, no cards, one email saying congrats you were approved. I tell him he has to call, something is wrong. Says, it'll come I need to be patient. One week later calls Chase. Chase says yes, he was approved 3 weeks ago, they sent the card to [insert very old address here] and it was sent back to Chase. Chase agrees to expedite new CIC, should have it by Tues.
May this be a reminder of the pitfalls of family and friends you help with this journey. Even once they seem to be on board they can change from enthused to dumb and lazy and screw themselves over- and blame you for the hassle. His lazy rear finally did what needed to be done, but he almost lost his new card and gained a hard pull. I can't imagine Chase would have kept that account open in perpetuity and he now has almost a month less to meet his spend (lucky Chase uses 115 days from approval instead of 90 days / 3 months exact like other issuers- although he doesn't deserve those extra days). (I try to help because they travel on these points and my mom loves to travel while dad can stay at home forever but is happy once he gets out to travel. The points get them traveling and that keeps them a bit happier.)
We were just talking about people we will not help or offer credit cards to anymore.
DH's friend, who we referred for a Disney card for some free spending money when he came to our wedding - his score isn't that great, I don't think, so hopefully his limit wasn't too high, but he immediately ran it up to the limit and is just paying the minimum.
DH's aunt, who we also referred clicked some email or pop up the day after applying and got a computer virus, and ended up spending $200 to get it fixed. Obviously these aren't connected, but they are in her mind, so...
DH's brothers, because one we don't trust to be responsible (a year or two ago he complained to DH that Capital One wouldn't raise his limit even though he'd had the card for years... it's always been 50%-75% utilization...) and the other just won't do it, which hurts me because he and his partner flip houses and I believe they have one business card and one personal each. All the points!
We just got back from WDW yesterday and I agree we should have planned a churners meet! Sounds like a couple of us were there at the same time. Couple random thoughts on trip that is relevant to the those who “love credit cards so much!”
- Mobile ordering is awesome unless you are trying to use gift cards or Apple Pay. It just charges your card directly.
- I used the Priority Pass that comes with the Reserve for the first time! We got off the train at MCO yesterday morning and instead of going left to our gate I told DH to follow me and we went right. Found Club MCO without problem. We got some basic breakfast without charge and more importantly free coffee! The family was impressed (and maybe a little confused) but hey they are used to me.
I haven't tried mobile ordering yet because we usually pay for everything with gift cards I've earned for free or picked up at a discount.
I'd like to try the lounge just for free food/snacks vs paying for anything in the terminal... I'm not a big fan of the options...
We did this the last trip, I looked around and it looked like we'd clearly be able to get back to the left terminals but when we returned there was suddenly a wall! Took us off guard but thank goodness for PreCheck!
That's exactly why I haven't tried!
I used a few chase offers on my Marriott Card. Bought a gift card at Lowe’s and one at Whole Foods. I never got the credits (I’m thinking because I bought gift cards). This is probably different but I thought I would mention it.
I never got the credit at Lowe's either, so I never tried any of the other offers. I might have tried Whole Foods but it isn't super convenient for me.
Priority Pass question
We are flying swa into mco. Do we have to go back through security?
Flying out of mco same thing do we have to go back through security?
Trying to figure out our plans since it’s less than a month away
There is a good chance you might have to go through security. When an international flight lands in the terminal where the lounge is, they pull a temporary wall across so that the people getting off the train have to go out of the secure area instead of being able to cut over to the other terminal. We've had such poor security experiences the two times we've been since I got PP that we haven't tried and don't plan on it until we get PreCheck/GE squared away.
