I love credit cards so much!

[WardFam]

Well that's a perfect response then lol

You can potentially apply for both marriott personal and Biz same day. Apply for the Biz card first and make sure it gets approved. If it goes pending it might make sense to wait out for an approval a few days before applying for the personal card.

I should have been more specific in the first place - thanks!!

 

[3 DD love princesses]

I see Disney tix and APs are set to increase. We were going to get APs later this year as ours have expired. Anyone have any tips on the best way to optimize that purchase?

Basically I would need discounted diney GCs by Saturday I think it is. Let me think....please help me think
- I usually get them at Sams (but i don't have to)
- No costcos nearby
- I have CIP, CIC, both preferreds and freedom. Spg and mariott too but don't think those would help much. Any of those work for a good category bonus...
-CIC 5x at office stores, do they sell disney GCs, or walmart that would be even better but unlikely...hmmm...
-CSR, no gift cards, buy straight from disney with csr and it will code 3x for travel?
- Freedom...wonder if they do samsung pay at Sam's. Then I'd get 5x for that right? Or do gcs not count.
- ETA...were working on MS's for mariott and dh's personal SPG right now, we should be MS without this though.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm not new to saving money, but new to doing that by optimizing cc points and offers...any shove in the rignt direction is much appreciated.

You should be ok to purchase the ap and it won’t activate till you go to use it first day. As for the best deal looks like the 5x with CIC at staples will get you disney cards without having to go to an additional store.

Would anyone be able to help me figure out which credit card(s) to get? We're having our wedding in WDW this summer. We have the money to pay for the wedding in full. However, Disney will let us use credit cards so I thought maybe we could get some good credit card bonuses since it's going to be such a large amount. I'm a little embarrassed to say exactly how much, but it's way higher than 10k.

Does anyone know which cards have really good bonuses right now? I got a southwest card from chase already this year, but that's the only card I've opened this year.

Like others have said depends on when your points posted. Also check southwest shopping portal as sometimes there are bonuses.
If your points posted in Jan or feb this year then I would apply for the southwest business card.

If you points didn’t post this year I’d go for the CIP since it would get you quite a bit of UR 80k sign up.

Also have your finance double dip CSR and CSP. That’s another 100k for bonus sign ups.

Like others have said join the reddit group and see the links there to help make some magic

I know this is a stupid question... but I keep seeing that you can’t have two sapphires at once. If you successfully are able to double dip for csp/csr, how much of a risk is it that they’d shut one or both down? I have to imagine that dps point to that not happening given that recommendations to try to double persist, but I guess I’m afraid we would try for both and then lose them.

Haven’t seen anyone shut down for this yet. If you haven’t gotten any chase cards in the last couple of months you probably are ok.

 

[amalone1013]

A few days ago I cancelled and rebooked my San Diego hotel because the price went down. This is the one for BILs wedding trip, that we were going to share with the in-laws for the night. I was trying to help them by covering it. It was about $260 on hotels.com and I had a $215 gift card, and it dropped to $202 so I was pretty happy with that. Well, now they aren't going to fly in that night with us, they're going to fly the next night and most likely miss the rehearsal dinner so MIL doesn't have to take another day off

So now I'm thinking... maybe we just fly into SNA and go to Disneyland before the rehearsal dinner, go do wedding things, then go back to Disneyland... the rental car would be half the price.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Just set up my Chase business account since my Marriott card arrived earlier. Boy am I glad I listened to you all when you said to make a separate business account and not combine it with my personal cards... YIKES.

It is really bad. The charges post super weird too...like show up in the total acct balance but aren’t listed in the transaction history. They eventually show up, but makes it difficult to reconcile the account in YNAB or similar.

 

[wendow]

So now I'm thinking... maybe we just fly into SNA and go to Disneyland before the rehearsal dinner, go do wedding things, then go back to Disneyland... the rental car would be half the price.

I vote this! Disneyland and you are saving money (you guys have AP's right?)...Either way, who can pass up a chance to be at Disney?!?

 

[amalone1013]

I vote this! Disneyland and you are saving money (you guys have AP's right?)...Either way, who can pass up a chance to be at Disney?!?

Disney World APs and they expire this month...

But it's only $30 total to add another day to our tickets...

 

[Calfan]

Sharing in case this is helpful to others. I have a Disneyland AP that was going to expire on Monday that I just renewed. I had previously purchased a $300 Disney gift card at Best Buy using the 10X promotion for Chase Pay. I wasn’t really thinking about the AP renewal at the time. I just knew a Disney gift card was one I would eventually have a use for. I was planning to use one of my new biz cards that I was recently approved for to pay the balance of the renewal, but neither card is here yet. I had about $530 left to max out this quarter’s CF bonus category, so I stopped at Albertsons on my way home today and bought a $500 Disney gift card using Apple Pay. All good. I go to renew my AP online and, wait, Disney gift cards aren’t an accepted means of payment??? Really???? I knew I’d eventually be able to use $800 in Disney gift cards, but that wasn’t really what I had in mind. So since it was just a little after 7pm in CA, I called DL ticketing. It turns out that gift cards and split payment are not permitted for online AP renewals, but over the phone, they are allowed to apply up to three gift cards. Phew!! With the $50 renewal discount, the AP came to $799, so I now have $1 left on one of my gift cards. Mission accomplished. Just wanted folks to know they’d have to call in to apply Disney gift cards to an AP renewal, and that three is the max. By the way, there is no additional DVC discount available for an AP renewal at DL.

 

[wendow]

Disney World APs and they expire this month...

But it's only $30 total to add another day to our tickets...

Oh that's right, to WDW...Are you guys gonna be able to squeeze in another trip?? I want AP's so bad to WDW but getting a fam of 6 to FL from here is really difficult Enjoy just the two of you and the ease of traveling while you can!

I didn't realize that y'all already had tix. For $30 to add another day, I'd still jump at it

 

[kmc8826]

It is really bad. The charges post super weird too...like show up in the total acct balance but aren’t listed in the transaction history. They eventually show up, but makes it difficult to reconcile the account in YNAB or similar.

Yes DH’s business and personal is combined and I HATE it. I can’t even figure out if things code correctly on the UR side. It is exhausting!

 

[kmc8826]

Oh that's right, to WDW...Are you guys gonna be able to squeeze in another trip?? I want AP's so bad to WDW but getting a fam of 6 to FL from here is really difficult Enjoy just the two of you and the ease of traveling while you can!

I didn't realize that y'all already had tix. For $30 to add another day, I'd still jump at it

You can do it. I have faith. We are a family of 5 from SLC. We had AP’s 2017 and our passes fell into the weird window where if we renewed we got them for 13 months twice. So then I unexpectedly renewed them all. Did help meet minimum spends though. One nice thing with Disney is that they take all sorts of cards and if you are buying more than one you can pay all sorts of ways.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Hey - if anybody is interested, DoC posted an opportunity to share your Disney Card $200 stmt credit links here: https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chas...bonus-no-af-100-per-referral-share-referrals/

All you have to do is retweet his article and you're allowed to share your link. Might be worth a shot as a click would be worth $100 (and I'm not sure there's a lot of us here to use that particular card on DISchurners, lol!)

 

[wendow]

You can do it. I have faith. We are a family of 5 from SLC. We had AP’s 2017 and our passes fell into the weird window where if we renewed we got them for 13 months twice. So then I unexpectedly renewed them all. Did help meet minimum spends though. One nice thing with Disney is that they take all sorts of cards and if you are buying more than one you can pay all sorts of ways.

We've go once a year and never more than that. I'd love to get in 2-3 trips a year but the logistics of an almost 4-hour flight and 4 kids & their crazy schedules just makes it seem like such an insurmountable task. We are seriously considering a move, either back to TX where are from or something SE like SC, GA or FL. If we can make the move happen, which also seems like another insurmountable task lol, we'll get in lots more Disney time

That 13-mo promo Disney ran was pretty great! I was ready to jump. How neat you were able to get it twice!!

 

[amalone1013]

Oh that's right, to WDW...Are you guys gonna be able to squeeze in another trip?? I want AP's so bad to WDW but getting a fam of 6 to FL from here is really difficult Enjoy just the two of you and the ease of traveling while you can!

I didn't realize that y'all already had tix. For $30 to add another day, I'd still jump at it

I think we're done with WDW for now we got in four trips on them, so not too bad. Might have done more shorter trips except for that wedding thing Also, I didn't write that very well, we haven't gotten Disneyland tickets yet but I want to get them before Sunday now.

 

[platamama]

Chase personal cards: You can transfer UR points to another UR card account belonging to you or one member of your household.
Chase business cards: You can transfer UR points to another UR card account belonging to you or one member of your household or your joint business owner.

Keep in mind the rules for transferring UR points to another person's loyalty account (UA, BA, SW, IHG, Marriott etc.) are different. The person has to be a member of your household and an authorized user on your account.

A little extra to add to this, since I have DH as an AU on CSR (so we can transfer UR to his loyalty accounts - he doesn't have his own CSP or CSR anymore), and DD as AU on CSP (for the extra AU UR bonus) : Chase apparently defaults to ONE member of your household to transfer UR points to, even if you have two separate AUs on separate accounts. I tried to transfer CSP UR to DD's SW RR account, but Chase only recognized DH as a household member. I had to escalate it to a supervisor in order to do make the transfer and it took a lot of time on the phone but it eventually got worked out. I'll probably downgrade CSP to CFU when AF comes due, and keep DD's SW RR pts alive with biennial SW portal purchases or eat at a SW dining program restaurant.

 

[3 DD love princesses]

A few days ago I cancelled and rebooked my San Diego hotel because the price went down. This is the one for BILs wedding trip, that we were going to share with the in-laws for the night. I was trying to help them by covering it. It was about $260 on hotels.com and I had a $215 gift card, and it dropped to $202 so I was pretty happy with that. Well, now they aren't going to fly in that night with us, they're going to fly the next night and most likely miss the rehearsal dinner so MIL doesn't have to take another day off

So now I'm thinking... maybe we just fly into SNA and go to Disneyland before the rehearsal dinner, go do wedding things, then go back to Disneyland... the rental car would be half the price.

With hotels.com you can ask them to match the lower price without canceling. Also I’d go for the Disneyland extra day if you have the time.

Yes DH’s business and personal is combined and I HATE it. I can’t even figure out if things code correctly on the UR side. It is exhausting!

I have mine combined since I didn’t know it would change anything. If you click on the ur portal for the card and click see more it details each line with the ur.

 

[calypso726]

Antarctica flights are all booked! The award flights for our return flight were released this morning. I have also officially received the absolute worst value for AA miles on this trip ever No saver awards to be had. I am still reeling over the fact that I've just blown 690,000 AA miles for our 2 RT flights for lie flat business class seats The flight over was 150K pp and the return was 195K pp. The cash option would have been $7,808 and since I value UR points way more than AA miles, I couldn't justify spending over 520,000 UR points for this. Generally, I am able to get anywhere between 1.6 - 1.9 value on my AA miles. This is 1.1 Sigh ... I see some new AA Citi cards in my future and a Barclay Aviator card churn as well. On a more positive note, if it weren't for this hobby we would not be flying to Antarctica to celebrate the New Year and my 50th birthday.

 

[Judique]

Sharing in case this is helpful to others. I have a Disneyland AP that was going to expire on Monday that I just renewed. I had previously purchased a $300 Disney gift card at Best Buy using the 10X promotion for Chase Pay. I wasn’t really thinking about the AP renewal at the time. I just knew a Disney gift card was one I would eventually have a use for. I was planning to use one of my new biz cards that I was recently approved for to pay the balance of the renewal, but neither card is here yet. I had about $530 left to max out this quarter’s CF bonus category, so I stopped at Albertsons on my way home today and bought a $500 Disney gift card using Apple Pay. All good. I go to renew my AP online and, wait, Disney gift cards aren’t an accepted means of payment??? Really???? I knew I’d eventually be able to use $800 in Disney gift cards, but that wasn’t really what I had in mind. So since it was just a little after 7pm in CA, I called DL ticketing. It turns out that gift cards and split payment are not permitted for online AP renewals, but over the phone, they are allowed to apply up to three gift cards. Phew!! With the $50 renewal discount, the AP came to $799, so I now have $1 left on one of my gift cards. Mission accomplished. Just wanted folks to know they’d have to call in to apply Disney gift cards to an AP renewal, and that three is the max. By the way, there is no additional DVC discount available for an AP renewal at DL.

It can make it easier to do also if you combine the cards online before you call. You can combine them up to $1000 on each card. Since you only needed 3, you were okay, so this is for someone random reading who may have missed this info.

And, I'm still sending kudos to the ticketing office CM at WDW who patiently took 26 $50 cards from me a few years back when I needed AP's prior to a price increase. He was the epitome of customer service and said something like, 'we want to get you here so you can enjoy yourself and have fun with Mickey!'. That was the year they had the $399 sale if any of you remember, where you got the premium AP for less than a regular one.

I also have a question. Do they still have the AP where it's combined and you can go to DL and also WDW? Or has that been discontinued?

After going in January my older daughter is now Disneyfied again and asked me if I would fly to DL with her and the babies before one turns 3 on Dec 31, this year. Both of us have annual passes to WDW as we are also going to WDW's food and wine in November 2018. I don't know when she is thinking of fitting this trip in as between both of us we have something big going on all year. (She still has a job, lol!)

 

[Lain]

Antarctica flights are all booked! The award flights for our return flight were released this morning. I have also officially received the absolute worst value for AA miles on this trip ever No saver awards to be had. I am still reeling over the fact that I've just blown 690,000 AA miles for our 2 RT flights for lie flat business class seats The flight over was 150K pp and the return was 195K pp. The cash option would have been $7,808 and since I value UR points way more than AA miles, I couldn't justify spending over 520,000 UR points for this. Generally, I am able to get anywhere between 1.6 - 1.9 value on my AA miles. This is 1.1 Sigh ... I see some new AA Citi cards in my future and a Barclay Aviator card churn as well. On a more positive note, if it weren't for this hobby we would not be flying to Antarctica to celebrate the New Year and my 50th birthday.

I'm so thrilled to read about your trip to Antarctica. It's one of those truly magical, inspirational, awe inspiring places everyone says they'd love to visit one day but the closest they're likely to ever get is a documentary on Netflix. And you might get to catch the southern lights after having already witnessed the northern ones.

But I have two pressing questions:

1. Where in the world airport would you fly into to visit Antarctica? And that's bookable via AA? I had a colleague who visited Antarctica years ago, and I think she and her husband took a boat cruise out of Chile.

2. How the heck do you accumulate so many points and miles, and maintain them with the kinds of trips you're always taking? I get Citi AA cards are ridiculously churnable, but you're lol/24 so I'm imagining the UR points must not be coming from signup bonuses anymore and only from spend and referrals.

 

[Lain]

I also have a question. Do they still have the AP where it's combined and you can go to DL and also WDW? Or has that been discontinued?

After going in January my older daughter is now Disneyfied again and asked me if I would fly to DL with her and the babies before one turns 3 on Dec 31, this year. Both of us have annual passes to WDW as we are also going to WDW's food and wine in November 2018. I don't know when she is thinking of fitting this trip in as between both of us we have something big going on all year. (She still has a job, lol!)

They still do! It's the Disney Premier Passport:

https://disneyland.disney.go.com/passes/premier-passport/
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/premier-passport/

Do you currently have a WDW AP, or were you planning to buy a Premier AP in November for F&W and use it at Disneyland in December?

 

[WVMomof3]

I'm so thrilled to read about your trip to Antarctica. It's one of those truly magical, inspirational, awe inspiring places everyone says they'd love to visit one day but the closest they're likely to ever get is a documentary on Netflix. And you might get to catch the southern lights after having already witnessed the northern ones.

But I have two pressing questions:

1. Where in the world airport would you fly into to visit Antarctica? And that's bookable via AA? I had a colleague who visited Antarctica years ago, and I think she and her husband took a boat cruise out of Chile.

2. How the heck do you accumulate so many points and miles, and maintain them with the kinds of trips you're always taking? I get Citi AA cards are ridiculously churnable, but you're lol/24 so I'm imagining the UR points must not be coming from signup bonuses anymore and only from spend and referrals.

@calypso726 posted a while back their vacation costs for this year. She uses a lot of points, but they also have to pay out a lot of pocket for big trips, which leads to more points. Her yearly DVC dues alone are more than our whole vacation budget, and if she can pay for those and other vacation expenses and get 3-5 UR or MR points back per $ then she is adding lots of points while having fun. She is a DINK so, none of these darn money wasting kids to slow her down. Haha