I love credit cards so much!

[platamama]

I want to jump in and say thank you to everyone who responded about my Hawaiian Air question. I personally ended up applying for the Marriott Biz and just got approved this morning (applied Friday, got the 2 week automated message/30 day email)! This way I didn't have to pull DH into the game if I didn't have to. LOL!

Just so it's out there in case anyone else is looking for Hawaii flights, I am trying to get 5 coach seats to Hawaii in October. Round trip miles is 47,500 each.

DH and I applied for the HA Barclays card, and after the MSR, each got 50,000 miles.
I have 71,000 SPG points that I am going to convert to Marriott points = 213,000 (I will only convert what I need)
After MSR on the new Marriott Biz, I will get 78,000 points

For 270,000 Marriott points, I can get 120,000 HA miles and a 7 night cert to a cat 1-5 hotel which I will use at another time.

So essentially, 5 coach tickets will cost me $178. (The HA card annual fees)

I don't know why DH doesn't like this game.

NICE!! I LOVE the Marriott travel packages! I even buy SPG points on sale to reach those Marriott package redemptions. Quick question on HA - are those award flights capacity-controlled, i.e. do they only release a limited number of seats for each flight? I'm used to Southwest, where you can pretty much always use your points for any flight.

Quick q about these Marriott vacation packages, I'm having trouble finding a FAQ page on them or something of the like. Are the certificates for hotels subject to black-out dates? Is it only good for use if rooms for points are available? what if you want a specific view room, like an ocean view in HI?

Yes, they are subject to blackout dates and only if rooms for points are available. Factors like the desirability of the Marriott property, and how far in advance you're reserving, will affect what you can find for availability (but remember you don't need the points in your account when you book, so just book a points reservation if you find one when you might be traveling, making sure you pay attention to the cancellation policies for that booking). Usually the nicer rooms are not the ones you can book on points. You could always hope for an upgrade I guess? Frequent Miler has some good posts about the Marriott travel packages if you want more details.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Thanks for the tip about the deposit, he never carries cash or ATM card.

Check will work- but who carries around a checkbook anymore? I'd regulated it to my desk at home and forgot it!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Yes!

At least for now. Because the way merchants (even websites and apps) codes their transactions can change in the future. At least with Visa, merchants have merchant category codes ("MCC"), which determine how transactions with those merchants fall into the bonus categories on your card. So whatever Gyft's MCC is, it's earning 3x on the CIP's bonus categories. I saw a DP on /r/churning yesterday that a recent Amazon gift card purchase on Gyft earned 3x UR, so that's the most recent info I have.

But more generally, that's the point I've been trying to make, I can't think of a UR-earning card that earns more than 1x or 1.5x (on CF) at Home Depot (unless CF runs a 5x home improvement store category). So instead of putting your Home Depot (or where ever else) spend on a credit card that doesn't have a bonus category for that merchant, and earns you only 1x or 1.5x, you could buy a gift card to Home Depot or anywhere else using CIP for 3x, or CIC or Ink+ for 5x.

Just be aware that credit cards do offer certain consumer protections, like price, product, and return protections, and extended warranty, which you won't get on a gift card. And if you decide to return something to the store, they'll refund you back onto the gift card (or a new gift card), so your money is tied up with that merchant. You have to judge whether your purchase needs those protections over any savings/earnings you get.

Have fun!

Just to add to Lain's great explanation, I use Gyft extensively with the Ink cards via paypal checkout and can confirm it is earning 3X/5X as recently as 10 minutes ago, just as it always has.

GAME.CHANGER. I am so excited! ...again I have read your posts about gift, it just takes me a little while to wrap my head around things. lol

I want to jump in and say thank you to everyone who responded about my Hawaiian Air question. I personally ended up applying for the Marriott Biz and just got approved this morning (applied Friday, got the 2 week automated message/30 day email)! This way I didn't have to pull DH into the game if I didn't have to. LOL!

Just so it's out there in case anyone else is looking for Hawaii flights, I am trying to get 5 coach seats to Hawaii in October. Round trip miles is 47,500 each.

DH and I applied for the HA Barclays card, and after the MSR, each got 50,000 miles.
I have 71,000 SPG points that I am going to convert to Marriott points = 213,000 (I will only convert what I need)
After MSR on the new Marriott Biz, I will get 78,000 points

For 270,000 Marriott points, I can get 120,000 HA miles and a 7 night cert to a cat 1-5 hotel which I will use at another time.

So essentially, 5 coach tickets will cost me $178. (The HA card annual fees)

I don't know why DH doesn't like this game.

I am going to re-read this several times so decipher it. We are going this year too and I like your idea.

 

[wendow]

I want to jump in and say thank you to everyone who responded about my Hawaiian Air question. I personally ended up applying for the Marriott Biz and just got approved this morning (applied Friday, got the 2 week automated message/30 day email)! This way I didn't have to pull DH into the game if I didn't have to. LOL!

Just so it's out there in case anyone else is looking for Hawaii flights, I am trying to get 5 coach seats to Hawaii in October. Round trip miles is 47,500 each.

DH and I applied for the HA Barclays card, and after the MSR, each got 50,000 miles.
I have 71,000 SPG points that I am going to convert to Marriott points = 213,000 (I will only convert what I need)
After MSR on the new Marriott Biz, I will get 78,000 points

For 270,000 Marriott points, I can get 120,000 HA miles and a 7 night cert to a cat 1-5 hotel which I will use at another time.

So essentially, 5 coach tickets will cost me $178. (The HA card annual fees)

I don't know why DH doesn't like this game.

Hmm, you have my wheels turning on this idea too. Curious also about the HA flights. We are a family of six. Are you able to get all five of you on the same flight? How far out can you book the award seats?

I need a better understanding of these Marriott packages. Sounds like the certs may be harder to use since only cat 1-5?

 

[MinnieMay]

Hi

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Hmm, you have my wheels turning on this idea too. Curious also about the HA flights. We are a family of six. Are you able to get all five of you on the same flight? How far out can you book the award seats?

I need a better understanding of these Marriott packages. Sounds like the certs may be harder to use since only cat 1-5?

You can order a cat 6 package, etc. it just costs more points. The math is based on what the hotel would normally cost in points PLUS airline transfer at 1:1 essentially.

So to move from cat 5 to cat 6 it costs 30k more (5k per night x 6 nights (since the 5th night is still "free"). Every subsequent cat increase is 30k more. You can see how it all works here: http://www.marriott.com/rewards/usepoints/morepack.mi

 

[1GoldenSun]

So you can use Marriott points to get "packages" that include airfare, not just the hotel room? Wow! I had no idea! My husband stays in a Marriott 3 or 4 nights out of every week and has about a gazillion points. I learn so much from this board!

 

[gottalovepluto]

...I want to open a 0% APR, $0 BTF card to transfer an existing balance that had a low rate but expired. We will make the new card 1 owner so the balance does not show on both reports...

You need to start here. Pay that balance off completely asap, that's Step 1. Imho you can get ONE card, a cashback card and apply your cashback bonus and all your cashback you receive to paying down your balance. Obviously that won't be enough to pay down a balance so you'll have to commit other parts of your finances to paying down this balance. Once you're entirely credit card debt free, then you should start acquiring points, miles, etc.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

So you can use Marriott points to get "packages" that include airfare, not just the hotel room? Wow! I had no idea! My husband stays in a Marriott 3 or 4 nights out of every week and has about a gazillion points. I learn so much from this board!

The one limitation of this is you have to be able to use a 7night stay at the same Marriott property. If you do that regularly (or can make that work with your travel plans) it's a great benefit. If you can't don't the 7 nights you will sacrifice value.

Breaking it down - here's how it works (using a Cat 5 as an example property):

7 nights at Cat 5 = 150,000 Marriott points (6 x 25k w/ 1 night free)
PLUS
spend 50k, 70k, 100k or 120k add'l Marriott points and receive airline miles.

• The following airlines work out to be a 1:1 on top of your hotel: Southwest, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, British, AirCanda, AeroMexico, Virgin, Iberia.
• United actually transfers at 1:1.1 (10% bonus)
• JetBlue is a 2:1 so your Marriott points are cut in half.
• A bunch of other foreign airlines are available at 10:7 ratio.

 

[christineinvegas]

AH! I just checked and now my flights are 60k each - so I need 75k more points. Think I will be paying cash for at least 1 ticket.

Note to others- start accumulating points early. The flights are 7 months from now and the point price went up. I think a week ago (or 2) it was 47,500 each. So book early if you can!

From what I can tell, there is no limit to award seats, but then again, I can't even try yet. I'll let you know!

 

[Albort]

Hello Everyone! I hope I'm not interrupting a thread of intense sharing or consultation, but I got some great advice with getting a JetBlue Plus card through Barclay a few months ago, so I thought I'd come back seeking more advice from you wonderful people. Hopefully some of you great credit card gurus out there can help me figure out the basics with the newest credit card crossroads I'm facing.

The JetBlue Plus card has been great so far(I've scored 2 of the 8 tickets for my trip to WDW in August for almost free), got a relatively decent spend limit of $2600, and have been paying it off in full monthly(the variable interest rate of ~24.99% has been dodged multiple times). Lately, I've noticed that it seems to be taking longer for payments to reflect back on my available balance, sometimes up to 2 weeks. I do want to earn points quicker, but the limit I have is kind of preventing me from doing so. I was wondering if it's worth asking for a limit increase so soon after opening the account. Credit scores are holding up pretty nicely, personal income has gone up a bit, and overall utilization between three cards is about 25%. I know there are other factors that are considered, and I can answer them on a vaguely need-to-know basis if need be.

want to mention, if your an amazon shopper, Jet Blue portal allows you to earn 3x per $1 spent on amazon if you go through the portal. Help you get closer to your goals...

 

[1GoldenSun]

The one limitation of this is you have to be able to use a 7night stay at the same Marriott property. If you do that regularly (or can make that work with your travel plans) it's a great benefit. If you can't don't the 7 nights you will sacrifice value.

Breaking it down - here's how it works (using a Cat 5 as an example property):

7 nights at Cat 5 = 150,000 Marriott points (6 x 25k w/ 1 night free)
PLUS
spend 50k, 70k, 100k or 120k add'l Marriott points and receive airline miles. The following airlines work out to be a 1:1 on top of your hotel: Southwest, Alaska, American, Delta, Frontier, Hawaiian, British, AirCanda, AeroMexico, Virgin, Iberia.

United actually transfers at 1:1.1 (10% bonus)

JetBlue is a 2:1 so your Marriott points are cut in half.

A bunch of other foreign airlines are available at 10:7 ratio.

Wow, thanks! I could've spent hours of research unearthing this information!

I don't think we've ever spent 7 straight days of a vacation in one place except for Mexican resorts, but that doesn't mean we can't! We could always take day trips. We'd like to go to Alaska, so maybe this would work out well for that.

 

[1GoldenSun]

I need a better understanding of these Marriott packages. Sounds like the certs may be harder to use since only cat 1-5?

What is a cert?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Wow, thanks! I could've spent hours of research unearthing this information!

I don't think we've ever spent 7 straight days of a vacation in one place except for Mexican resorts, but that doesn't mean we can't! We could always take day trips. We'd like to go to Alaska, so maybe this would work out well for that.

The other nice part of the Marriott packages is - you don't have to use those airline miles and the hotel nights on the same trip. For example - the points transfer to your Southwest account and now are just normal everyday RR points you can use anytime. The nights are available for to use for one year from the redemption and it seems there's reports that they'll extend them for an additional year too.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

What is a cert?

A "certificate" - when you do one of these redemptions you get a certificate in your Marriott account for one 7-night stay at a specific category property. @wendow was concerned that it was only good for category 1-5 but as I said earlier you can actually do it for any of Marriott's categories by paying the incremental points cost (basically 30k points for every category increase).

 

[Lain]

Thanks for the suggestions. I am considering the Business Gold Rewards (BGR). I can't justify the AF for Business Platinum, I don't have any paid flights in my current plans.

It’s probably a good idea to wait on the Amex Business Platinum if you don’t have paid flights in your plans in the next year. The $450 AF is significant, but as @SouthFayetteFan already said, there are a lot of tangible first year benefits that offset the cost of at least one annual fee.

One additional reason to time your Business Platinum for a year where you will be redeeming all those MR points you’re accumulating in the meantime on cheaper cards and the bonus you’ll get when you eventually sign up for the Business Platinum is when you redeem through Amex’s Pay With Points, you’ll get 35% of the points rebated back on all flights booked with your selected airline, and all first and business class flights on any airline through Amex’s travel portal.

And because Amex’s signup bonuses are generally once per lifetime per product, you’ll want to wait for a really good 100k or 150k MR points offer to apply for the Business Platinum. The MSR on this card is also usually significant, so you also want to be sure you have the requisite spend to meet the MSR.

 

[Albort]

A "certificate" - when you do one of these redemptions you get a certificate in your Marriott account for one 7-night stay at a specific category property. @wendow was concerned that it was only good for category 1-5 but as I said earlier you can actually do it for any of Marriott's categories by paying the incremental points cost (basically 30k points for every category increase).

im not expert at marriott but i read a lot of ppl having the hardest time using their cat 1-5 certs... haha.

 

[1GoldenSun]

A "certificate" - when you do one of these redemptions you get a certificate in your Marriott account for one 7-night stay at a specific category property. @wendow was concerned that it was only good for category 1-5 but as I said earlier you can actually do it for any of Marriott's categories by paying the incremental points cost (basically 30k points for every category increase).

Oh, that makes sense! There is so much too learn! I still hardly understand anything but this is all really, really fun! I think it's all of you guys that make it fun, though. If I had to scour the internet and read the fine print in credit card agreements to get information I probably wouldn't bother with it.

 

[Lain]

im not expert at marriott but i read a lot of ppl having the hardest time using their cat 1-5 certs... haha.

I honestly don’t think there’s a Cat. 1-5 Marriott hotel in Hawaii.

 

[Albort]

I honestly don’t think there’s a Cat. 1-5 Marriott hotel in Hawaii.

there is not, 7 and 8 the last time i looked.
i havent had that issue yet, since my marriott free night will be next year. i guess ill find out next year lol.