I love credit cards so much!

[jujubiee4]

I almost always transfer my UR to United to book flights on the United site using miles, but I just recently purchased our flights for a Peru trip this summer from the Chase travel portal using UR directly. I was not finding any saver awards on United, so four roundtrip coach flights would have been 400,000 miles. I played chicken for a while to see if saver awards would pop up, but there were a couple of specific flights that were far preferable for us from an elapsed time, layover and arrival/departure time standpoint, so I ended up pulling the trigger on the Chase portal when these same flights were bookable for just slightly over 90,000 points per roundtrip, so just over 360,000 for all of us. I know I will be kicking myself if saver awards do pop up on United, but my solution to that is just not to check, lol.

ETA: And there were no taxes owing with the booking. Just the UR.

That is what I am doing.....playing chicken and not enjoying it. I love to just book and get it over with.
What I don't like about the portal is the lack of seeing flexible dates like a kayak or google flights. Im open
to any cheap dates but find i have to SELECT the date to do. Did you have specific dates in mind or how did
you search. I'm open to any date in the summer and might have to put in each date

 

[Calfan]

And by doing it that way, you'll earn United miles from flying. If you had transferred points directly to United and booked with points on their site, you wouldn't earn miles.

Great point that did occur to me after booking but that I neglected to mention in my post. So that will effectively reduce further the 360,000 points/miles I used for the booking. Still going to avoid finding out whether saver awards ever become available though.....

 

[pillow]

Great point that did occur to me after booking but that I neglected to mention in my post. So that will effectively reduce further the 360,000 points/miles I used for the booking. Still going to avoid finding out whether saver awards ever become available though.....

I don't blame you! Kinda like buying a stock and then watching the price go down down down . . .

 

[pillow]

That is what I am doing.....playing chicken and not enjoying it. I love to just book and get it over with.
What I don't like about the portal is the lack of seeing flexible dates like a kayak or google flights. Im open
to any cheap dates but find i have to SELECT the date to do. Did you have specific dates in mind or how did
you search. I'm open to any date in the summer and might have to put in each date

Can you use Google Flights to find cheap dates and then use those dates to check the UR portal? I know the portal varies somewhat, but that might give you an idea of which dates are likely to be cheapest.

 

[platamama]

I don't blame you! Kinda like buying a stock and then watching the price go down down down . . .

Laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.

 

[amalone1013]

With how Marriott let's you book before you have all the points in your account... what's the cutoff date on that?

 

[miztressuz]

It looks like for anybody using a "referyourchasecard" link - the link has updated to the $200 statement credit. If you had posted an old "applynow.chase" link it still shows the $200 gift card. I guess it's really personal preference for which offer you like better. I'd say eventually the $200 Gift Card offers will cease to exist but for now both seem to actually be available depending on which link you choose.

How do you use the "applynow.chase" to get a link? I looked everywhere and the referafriend was the only spot I could get links from. Its actually quite annoying you'd think there'd be somewhere in your account to do it but it eluded me. I think I found the referafriend from an email they sent me and just plugged in all my cards to see which would generate an offer. Is there a better way?

 

[platamama]

With how Marriott let's you book before you have all the points in your account... what's the cutoff date on that?

Are you asking when the points need to be in your account by? My reservation says 10 days prior to check-in date.

 

[Calfan]

That is what I am doing.....playing chicken and not enjoying it. I love to just book and get it over with.
What I don't like about the portal is the lack of seeing flexible dates like a kayak or google flights. Im open
to any cheap dates but find i have to SELECT the date to do. Did you have specific dates in mind or how did
you search. I'm open to any date in the summer and might have to put in each date

I did have very specific dates (and actually times too) that I needed to book. We are on a small-group trip to Peru and needed a flight arriving after 9pm on a specific date and departing after 9pm on our departure date. I did contemplate spending an extra night to get a saver award on the return, but I didn't want to burn an extra vacation day, we would have had to spend money or points on a hotel night to do that, and the saver return flight option wasn't great in terms of elapsed travel time or the particular stopover location. While playing chicken with United, I was also checking the Chase portal multiple times a day and was surprised to see how the points price fluctuated. The first time I looked, it was the 90,000+ per person that we ended up booking. Then it jumped to 94,000+, and I was kicking myself for not pulling the trigger earlier. Then it went back to 90,000+ so I decided to end my game of chicken.

 

[amalone1013]

Are you asking when the points need to be in your account by? My reservation says 10 days prior to check-in date.

That was it, thank you!

 

[Calfan]

How do you use the "applynow.chase" to get a link? I looked everywhere and the referafriend was the only spot I could get links from. Its actually quite annoying you'd think there'd be somewhere in your account to do it but it eluded me. I think I found the referafriend from an email they sent me and just plugged in all my cards to see which would generate an offer. Is there a better way?

I just added referral links to the DISChurners Reddit page a little while ago, and I got the Chase referral links by going into my Chase account and clicking on Offers. Referral links for CSR, Freedom and CFU popped up.

 

[havaneselover]

Google Express has another 20% off in app deal. I'm trying to restrain myself but I'm really tempted to pick up an echo for $68.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Google Express has another 20% off in app deal. I'm trying to restrain myself but I'm really tempted to pick up an echo for $68.

Paying my the end of my Xmas credit card bills and making lump sum contributions to my retirement accounts for last year have really helped me with this type of temptation

 

[miztressuz]

I just added referral links to the DISChurners Reddit page a little while ago, and I got the Chase referral links by going into my Chase account and clicking on Offers. Referral links for CSR, Freedom and CFU popped up.

That's right! I forgot I tried that. I did do that first but it only gave me the Freedom and not the Disney or SW. That's when I dug out an email for SW and then somehow I got to the page where you could put in your card info to get the Disney one. But that's all the referafriend site. Of course, now when I check all 3 cards are showing in the offers section When I did it before it was trying to get me to apply for other cards as my other offers.

 

[pillow]

Google Express has another 20% off in app deal. I'm trying to restrain myself but I'm really tempted to pick up an echo for $68.

DON'T DO IT! Google Express makes me want to . . .

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Justifiable homicide???
I think you guys will understand ... my husband got "confused" and has been charging all his food this month on the Chase Freedom and not the CSR. Bye bye BB bonus points. Crying right now.

 

[DisneyMandC]

Google Express has another 20% off in app deal. I'm trying to restrain myself but I'm really tempted to pick up an echo for $68.

DON'T DO IT! Google Express makes me want to . . .

I haven't had any issues with shipping/incorrect orders, but I had posted yesterday about how I was charged for my cat food I ordered through Google Express and then received a full refund yesterday. I woke up this morning and the refund was gone but I had been charged again, but this time for $5 less... so not sure what's going on there.

 

[Calfan]

Justifiable homicide???
I think you guys will understand ... my husband got "confused" and has been charging all his food this month on the Chase Freedom and not the CSR. Bye bye BB bonus points. Crying right now.

I feel your pain. DH hasn't done anything quite that egregious, but I cringe every time I check receipts off on a credit card statement and see a restaurant charge on the CF or CFU, for example (at least when the 5% CF category isn't dining). He's getting better and better at using the correct card, but I abhor leaving any points on the table. He also set up some automatic payments on the CF instead of the CFU. He had a decent rationale to try to avoid fraud on our more-used card, but I'm making him change all those. I'd rather get a new card from time to time if the CFU is compromised than give up that extra half point on those transactions, lol.

 

[WVMomof3]

Justifiable homicide???
I think you guys will understand ... my husband got "confused" and has been charging all his food this month on the Chase Freedom and not the CSR. Bye bye BB bonus points. Crying right now.

I feel your pain. lol I swear my husband does it to annoy me sometimes. I tried the little sticker on the card, but he was embarrassed using the card with "restaurants" taped to it so he took it off after some cashier commented about it and won't let me put any more stickers on.

 

[3 DD love princesses]

I am working toward a Universal Trip myself. So, definitely not an expert, just muddling my way through.

We are focusing on UR now that we both at 4/24. I just applied for the CIP yesterday (got 30 day message) and then DH will also apply. I think we will go for CSP after that since it should be two years since our last bonus by the time we spend on the CIPs.

Anyway, you can book any Universal hotel through UR. If we get enough UR, I am even considering getting a few tickets through that (but the redemption value isn't as good) and then upgrading them to APs for not much more $ when we get there (still researching this piece).

We have a family of 6 and we are leaning toward a Cabana Bay suite. That will get us into the parks an hour early but no express passes. Since we are going to be there for several days, I think we'll be fine without. But I could potentially change my mind on that again! It is just that getting enough room for us at one of the nicer hotels is a LOT of $/points!

If you can do the CSR and CSP on the same day in different browsers you can get 100k ur bonus between the two.

I booked the Royal Pacific via the UR portal in Dec and for the two nights it would have cost $660 OOP but using points it was 42k. The prices were exactly the same via the portal as they were through the Universal website.

You can upgrade your tickets at Universal. You need park-to-park tickets to ride the Hogswarts Express. It is pretty neat since the ride is different both ways. But that is the only thing you won't be able to do if you have one park only tickets.

How much do they give you to upgrade?

I personally would not do Universal without park to park tickets. The parks are not as big and it is so easy to go from one to the other. The hotels will all be different prices, with the 3 with express passes, Hard Rock, Portofino and Royal Pacific being the most, but totally worth it. We actually upgraded our tickets to AP while there and booked our hotel with the AP hotel discount before we had the AP in hand. At the time, it was cheaper with the discount than using URs with the CSR so we did that and just paid OOP. We have loved Universal so much, we have not been back to Disney in years. It is so relaxing and no work at all! Just go and have fun. No planning ahead, no worrying about fast passes or meals months in advance! We are trying to go back to Disney this year and I always loved planning our trip, but now it just seems like so much work. We have not been since the Magic bands have started but we loved the old paper Fast passes, we had our system down so we never waited in any lines. Just doesn't seem like that is possible now.

Leaning towards the hotels with express passes as we have never been and rather not spend a lot of time waiting in lines. We don’t wait more than 20 min in line at Disney.

You've already gotten some great responses but to answer your question the hotels do cost different amounts. Of those three, Royal Pacific is normally the cheaper one (still a fabulous hotel) and Portofino is the most expensive (haven't stayed there myself). I loved both Hard Rock and Royal Pacific. They do have cheaper hotels onsite but they do not include free express pass. My family loves to have express pass but if that isn't a necessity to you then you may want to consider Cabana Bay or Sapphire Falls.

We normally do get park to park tickets but I wouldn't get them just to ride Hogwart's. That's just my opinion, but I'm not a diehard Potter fan. Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are definitely worth seeing even if not a Potter fan..they did a great job with these areas.

We ended up upgrading our park tickets to AP's for only $10 per ticket by price bridging last time we were there. Might be worth looking into depending on when you might go again.

How does it work to upgrade to an annual pass?

Congratulations on getting an extra 500 points!

Thanks totally forgot it was only supposed to be 1500. I’ll take the extra 500 as a reward for having to message them so many times to get my points. Too bad dhs account finally connected to twitter. Missed all the points in the past Bc his account wouldn’t connect. Hoping they do something for the Olympics!