I love credit cards so much!

[AmyAnne]

Yes, but if you want until next year to use the certificate, won't you have to pay the annual fee? And if you cancel before the fee hits and use your certificate next year, you won't have elite status when you check in which comes from being a cardholder, right?

Those are good questions that I had not even thought about - thanks for pointing them out. The Fairmont card is the first hotel card we have had - I had planned to get a Hilton or SPG card sometime later this year, but applied for the Fairmont now because it was being discontinued (or at least new applications were not going to be accepted - not sure exactly).

We are not hotel brand loyal at all. I used to use the bidding function on Priceline a lot until too many of the 3 and 4 star hotels became pretty sketchy. Recently I have used hotels.com. I think we might be members of a few hotel rewards programs but if we have ever received any benefits from them, I don't recall. So clearly I need to do some more research about this . . .

 

[AmyAnne]

So, we have built up a decent amount of Chase points over the last few months that will hopefully be very helpful for these trips.

This is my understanding: There are two ways to use the Chase UR points for airline flights. The first, which is probably usually more profitable in terms of value per point but also more of a hassle, is to transfer the points to an airline and then book directly though the airline using points. The second, easier way is to book the flights through the Ultimate Rewards site. Using the CSR UR portal, you would get 1.5 cents per point.

 

[Ngwira]

Those are good questions that I had not even thought about - thanks for pointing them out. The Fairmont card is the first hotel card we have had - I had planned to get a Hilton or SPG card sometime later this year, but applied for the Fairmont now because it was being discontinued (or at least new applications were not going to be accepted - not sure exactly).

We are not hotel brand loyal at all. I used to use the bidding function on Priceline a lot until too many of the 3 and 4 star hotels became pretty sketchy. Recently I have used hotels.com. I think we might be members of a few hotel rewards programs but if we have ever received any benefits from them, I don't recall. So clearly I need to do some more research about this . . .

So from what I understand, you have to use the certificates this year, so you are able to cancel the card before the annual fee hits and before you lose elite status at fairmont hotels. If you don't do so, you will have to pay the fee and/ if you don't pay the fee next year and cancel, you won't have elite status when you check in.

 

[mhartman09]

Now that I'm close to finishing up minimum spend on my CSR (about $1200 away with a payment coming up in the next week or so for a bus for our family cruise), I'd like to try to convince DH to apply for his own CSR before the 100K bonus goes away. I know we'd have to go in branch to get this, and there is a branch about 20 minutes from home near where I go to shop at least twice a month anyway.

He was thoroughly against us getting any new CCs before I got my CSR earlier this month. Now, I'd say he's at least starting to understand the value in these points and what we can do with them. Showing him how far 100K would go in the UR portal on a Disney resort hotel really made a huge difference. LOL Still not 100% on whether he'd be ok getting his own CSR though. Guess I'll have just have to plead my case since that bonus will be gone soon. Going to check on any possible Chase bank account bonuses, as I think this might help me with convincing him to go in branch to apply.

If I can get him to apply I'm thinking after the first year of having his card, we'll just look into downgrading to another Chase card. I can't see a real benefit in both of us having the CSR long term and I would like to keep mine as none of our other cards have any good dining rewards. Does this sound like a good plan to you guys?

 

[CyndiLouWho]

UR wont help u with AA though. Would scan through UA, KLM, AF, BA(have high fees though). If you need AA, a citi card would help with that.
As for DD Qualifying, does she has relations with the bank? would be a good idea to have a good relations and then applying for one of the card. For income, id probably just put in Total "Household" income...

Actually you can book AA thru Chase's own portal. May or may not be a good deal. Our trip to DLR is courtesy of UR points used thru the Chase portal. I couldn't get 3 flights on SW or UA (& SW had very few nonstop) for a reasonable number of points but found some on AA thru Chase.

 

[calypso726]

Now that I'm close to finishing up minimum spend on my CSR (about $1200 away with a payment coming up in the next week or so for a bus for our family cruise), I'd like to try to convince DH to apply for his own CSR before the 100K bonus goes away. I know we'd have to go in branch to get this, and there is a branch about 20 minutes from home near where I go to shop at least twice a month anyway.

He was thoroughly against us getting any new CCs before I got my CSR earlier this month. Now, I'd say he's at least starting to understand the value in these points and what we can do with them. Showing him how far 100K would go in the UR portal on a Disney resort hotel really made a huge difference. LOL Still not 100% on whether he'd be ok getting his own CSR though. Guess I'll have just have to plead my case since that bonus will be gone soon. Going to check on any possible Chase bank account bonuses, as I think this might help me with convincing him to go in branch to apply.

If I can get him to apply I'm thinking after the first year of having his card, we'll just look into downgrading to another Chase card. I can't see a real benefit in both of us having the CSR long term and I would like to keep mine as none of our other cards have any good dining rewards. Does this sound like a good plan to you guys?

Absolutely. Hope you can convince him that getting a minimum $2100 in value for $450 is a good deal.

If you spend at least $3200 per year in dining and travel categories then keep your CSR card and have you DH downgrade his to either a Sapphire Preferred, Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. If you spend less than that amount annually then the fee won't justify the point earning potential when compared to the Chase Sapphire Preferred and I'd suggest downgrading your card. Hope that helps.

 

[calypso726]

I have a few questions for the experts! My DD is going to study abroad next year and has chosen to do a program called semester at sea. Basically she boards a ship in San Diego in January and their journey ends in Germany in April. So, now I need to look into booking international flights which I've never done.

I've used the site www.hotelhustle.com before when looking to book hotels with rewards. Is there anything like this for flights? I'm not even really sure where to start looking. I went to travelocity and from there looked at American Airlines because they seemed to have the best flights for our area (St. Louis is our home airport). If I was looking right, it looked like there were flights for as little as 60,000 points round trip?? I thought that seemed good considering the flights were around $1700 on travelocity. DH and I have each gotten the CSR and I got the Ink+ before it stopped giving the 5x for office supplies etc. So, we have built up a decent amount of Chase points over the last few months that will hopefully be very helpful for these trips.

Somewhat related to this is, do you think that DD would qualify for any good point earning card that would be helpful. She has paid a (fully refundable) deposit and was able to do it on a credit card with no extra fees. So, we will probably be paying the entire semester off by credit card if that holds true. If we could get her a card in her name, she will definitely be able to meet spending requirements, but I wasn't sure if 20 year olds were able to qualify for these type cards. She has mainly worked as an in home babysitter, so has never had very much in the way of W2 earnings to report on card applications. She has been an AU on one of our cards for awhile though.

I'm not necessarily asking to be spoon fed this information, but I really don't even know where to start and everyone here is so knowledgeable! Thanks!

Google flights is another tool to look for flights and so is Momondo. See which airlines have numerous flights to your destinations and compare costs. UR points can be used as cash and give you 1.5 cents value per point so make sure that any Ultimate Reward transaction using points as cash is coming out of your CSR account. So you may need to transfer your Ink+ points to your CSR account first.

If you plan to use the points as miles you would need to have a frequent flier account first in the airline you plan to transfer miles into. UR points do not transfer into AA. They do transfer into BA which can be used to book partner award travel on AA flights. Beware that any flight on BA connecting through London is going to incur a large amount of taxes and fees. In order to use BA Avios points on an AA award ticket there has to be an award flight available in the saver category. In addition, BA awards are distanced based so it is likely that it may cost you many more miles to use them to book an AA ticket. For example if I have AA miles to book a one way economy saver ticket from MIA-HNL it would be 20,000. If I have to use BA Avios to travel on AA though it would be 27,500 BA Avios to book the same flight.

You are also looking at an open jaw award ticket not round trip if you are flying her from STL-SAN - Germany - STL. Two one ways may be easier to find and book as not every airline allows open jaw tickets. BA will not allow you to book an open jaw award but you can book two one way tickets with them. I do this all the time on BA.

Se what her score looks like on Credit Karma. If she is in the 700's then she may be able to qualify. Length of credit history and income will play a part though. Are you hoping to get a a reward card that has variable travel points like a Chase UR earning card or cash back points?

 

[mhartman09]

Absolutely. Hope you can convince him that getting a minimum $2100 in value for $450 is a good deal.

If you spend at least $3200 per year in dining and travel categories then keep your CSR card and have you DH downgrade his to either a Sapphire Preferred, Freedom or Freedom Unlimited. If you spend less than that amount annually then the fee won't justify the point earning potential when compared to the Chase Sapphire Preferred and I'd suggest downgrading your card. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the input. I actually talked to DH about this at dinner tonight. When I explained we could get another 100K bonus UR if he got a CSR, he surprisingly said "Sure, go ahead and set it up online for me." Of course, I had to tell him we'd have to do it in branch instead of online and it had to be soon...LOL. He was fine with that, so I guess he really is coming around to this whole thing. He said "I'm sure you have like a 2-year plan going in your head and you've been researching like crazy, so just tell me what I need to do and we'll get it done." I'm thrilled.

Regarding my CSR, I'm sure we have enough annual spend on dining alone to make up for the AF on that card. I'm hoping we'll also be able to add in a good amount of travel soon now that I'm really starting to figure all this out. I think it would be a good idea to hold on to mine. After seeing what our dining/travel spend and other category spend looks like (outside of trying to reach minimum spends) on the cards, I'll decide what to downgrade his to.

 

[MamaBear12]

Random Chase question for you savvy card users... so, hubby and I are planning to get the chase sapphire, ink, and freedom to maximize travel reward points. I'm the one who will qualify for the ink business card, so do I need to apply for all 3 and make him the authorized user in order to have all our rewards in one account. Or, if I apply for the ink and he applies for the other two (or me two and him one), once we're authorized users on each other's accounts can we somehow merge all the rewards into one account? I want to keep it simple, but spreading the credit inquiries between us is appealing. Thanks!

 

[mitchwebb]

I can not find the CSR 100k bonus anymore. Has it gone back to 50K

 

[mitchwebb]

I spent $237 on dining, which posted on my CSR as "DLR dine" but only got 1 point/$.

I've had the same problems and if is not a restaurant or categorized as one it will not count for extra points. Also found on our last vacation some tours we
bought were not counted as travel. I do like paying annual dues on DVC got us three points per dollar on CSR.

DH qualified for CSR but i had opened to many cards last year and was hoping to get this year but can not find 100K bonus offer anymore

 

[Albort]

I spent $237 on dining, which posted on my CSR as "DLR dine" but only got 1 point/$.

u win some, u lose some...

Random Chase question for you savvy card users... so, hubby and I are planning to get the chase sapphire, ink, and freedom to maximize travel reward points. I'm the one who will qualify for the ink business card, so do I need to apply for all 3 and make him the authorized user in order to have all our rewards in one account. Or, if I apply for the ink and he applies for the other two (or me two and him one), once we're authorized users on each other's accounts can we somehow merge all the rewards into one account? I want to keep it simple, but spreading the credit inquiries between us is appealing. Thanks!

wouldnt suggest adding ur DH to your ink+ card. Ink+ authorized users are a bit tricky. The rules are like, you cant just transfer to any of the authorized users, unless they are the owner of the business...

I can not find the CSR 100k bonus anymore. Has it gone back to 50K

100k is still available but u need to apply in branch. You cannot get them to match via SM either... :\

 

[mitchwebb]

Thanks might need to head into a branch and see if I qualify yet.

 

[MamaBear12]

u win some, u lose some...

wouldnt suggest adding ur DH to your ink+ card. Ink+ authorized users are a bit tricky. The rules are like, you cant just transfer to any of the authorized users, unless they are the owner of the business...

Good to know! Thanks. Would just be using that one predominantly for the 5% back on internet, cable, phone so he wouldn't really need that card.

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

It's TIME! It's TIME! My dates are now open for booking. How can I figure out if the flight I want has reward seats? We want to do DTW to OGG. I'm trying through the sky alliance on Korean, as it has the lowest points. But it's coming up w/ nothing available. HELP!

 

[Albort]

It's TIME! It's TIME! My dates are now open for booking. How can I figure out if the flight I want has reward seats? We want to do DTW to OGG. I'm trying through the sky alliance on Korean, as it has the lowest points. But it's coming up w/ nothing available. HELP!

i was told for korean air, to look up the skyteam partner's website, find the flight u want, then call korean air to book the award ticket.

 

[ski_mom]

UR wont help u with AA though. Would scan through UA, KLM, AF, BA(have high fees though). If you need AA, a citi card would help with that.
As for DD Qualifying, does she has relations with the bank? would be a good idea to have a good relations and then applying for one of the card. For income, id probably just put in Total "Household" income...

Thanks! UR points are the only ones we have right now. We wouldn't need the tickets until April 2018, so I may look into the Citi Thank You program (or whatever it's called) too. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with UR points, so possibly time to master another one! I did look last night and didn't see cards with great sign up bonuses, but I need to research that a bit more too.

Otherwise, we can definitely do United or any other airline that UR points work with.

Try awardhacker for award flight searches.

Thanks so much, that is a great site!

This is my understanding: There are two ways to use the Chase UR points for airline flights. The first, which is probably usually more profitable in terms of value per point but also more of a hassle, is to transfer the points to an airline and then book directly though the airline using points. The second, easier way is to book the flights through the Ultimate Rewards site. Using the CSR UR portal, you would get 1.5 cents per point.

True, I used the UR portal to book the cruise we just got off of. I got 1.5x points toward it - I thought it was a great deal for us!

Google flights is another tool to look for flights and so is Momondo. See which airlines have numerous flights to your destinations and compare costs. UR points can be used as cash and give you 1.5 cents value per point so make sure that any Ultimate Reward transaction using points as cash is coming out of your CSR account. So you may need to transfer your Ink+ points to your CSR account first.

If you plan to use the points as miles you would need to have a frequent flier account first in the airline you plan to transfer miles into. UR points do not transfer into AA. They do transfer into BA which can be used to book partner award travel on AA flights. Beware that any flight on BA connecting through London is going to incur a large amount of taxes and fees. In order to use BA Avios points on an AA award ticket there has to be an award flight available in the saver category. In addition, BA awards are distanced based so it is likely that it may cost you many more miles to use them to book an AA ticket. For example if I have AA miles to book a one way economy saver ticket from MIA-HNL it would be 20,000. If I have to use BA Avios to travel on AA though it would be 27,500 BA Avios to book the same flight.

You are also looking at an open jaw award ticket not round trip if you are flying her from STL-SAN - Germany - STL. Two one ways may be easier to find and book as not every airline allows open jaw tickets. BA will not allow you to book an open jaw award but you can book two one way tickets with them. I do this all the time on BA.

Se what her score looks like on Credit Karma. If she is in the 700's then she may be able to qualify. Length of credit history and income will play a part though. Are you hoping to get a a reward card that has variable travel points like a Chase UR earning card or cash back points?

Thanks for the other websites to search from too. I'm trying to soak all this in.

I hadn't even thought about open jaw tickets. I figured she'd fly to San Diego in January and then since she'd be getting to Germany on a ship, we'd then book a one way home from Germany. Might have to look into it though if it could save points.

At this point, I'm hoping to fly the family (all 5 of us) to San Diego for her departure and then DH and I can fly to Germany to great her and fly home with her. I think with our points, it's all very feasible. We have LOTS of SW points to get to San Diego and i'm sure by the time we'd need to book, we'll have plenty of points for the Germany flights as well. I need to look into hotels for Germany as well, but I'm just getting started.

The kink though is that middle DD is thinking about doing the same study abroad program and hers would leave from Germany the following August. I don't know about going to Germany in April and again in August, but that might be how it works out. Time will tell and points would be the only way it could happen!

Thanks again everyone for your input and help!

 

[Ngwira]

Those are good questions that I had not even thought about - thanks for pointing them out. The Fairmont card is the first hotel card we have had - I had planned to get a Hilton or SPG card sometime later this year, but applied for the Fairmont now because it was being discontinued (or at least new applications were not going to be accepted - not sure exactly).

We are not hotel brand loyal at all. I used to use the bidding function on Priceline a lot until too many of the 3 and 4 star hotels became pretty sketchy. Recently I have used hotels.com. I think we might be members of a few hotel rewards programs but if we have ever received any benefits from them, I don't recall. So clearly I need to do some more research about this . . .

Chase finally sent my paperwork to Fairmont so my online profile shows my elite status. I was also able to find an awesome rate at the Fairmont Georgetown for a quick weekend getaway at the end of the month. Paid $175.00 (inc tax!) for a Saturday night stay there! Looks like we'll be checking out the Smithsonian zoo at the end of the month. My profile also shows several upgrade certificates and dining certificates as a benefit of holding the Chase card. But, they expire on 2/28/17 so I plan to "double dip" by using the expiring ones this month. They will refresh on March 1, 2017 and I will use them again on our trip in June. All without paying an annual fee. Can't beat that!

 

[calypso726]

Random Chase question for you savvy card users... so, hubby and I are planning to get the chase sapphire, ink, and freedom to maximize travel reward points. I'm the one who will qualify for the ink business card, so do I need to apply for all 3 and make him the authorized user in order to have all our rewards in one account. Or, if I apply for the ink and he applies for the other two (or me two and him one), once we're authorized users on each other's accounts can we somehow merge all the rewards into one account? I want to keep it simple, but spreading the credit inquiries between us is appealing. Thanks!

Here at the Calypso household we don't do authorized use cards. Hubby and I each get our own card so we have double the points. I'd much rather we get 200,000 UR points to play with than 100,000. We each have our own Ink+, Sapphire Reserve and Freedom cards. Neither of cares about credit inquiries since they fall off the report pretty quickly. You may get a few points knocked off for the inquiry but once you have the new card your score goes back up because of the new line of credit which reduce your overall utilization and that is weighted heavier than the inquiry. Don't forget Chase will only allow you to get two cards within a 30 day period.

When we do pool points we transfer our Ink+ and Freedom points into our own Sapphire Reserve accounts first. Then if we need to pool we will transfer from one Sapphire Reserve to the other. Most of the time we just take turns on whose points we are using and avoid the hassle of pooling points if possible.

It's TIME! It's TIME! My dates are now open for booking. How can I figure out if the flight I want has reward seats? We want to do DTW to OGG. I'm trying through the sky alliance on Korean, as it has the lowest points. But it's coming up w/ nothing available. HELP!

Here is TPG guide to booking Korean awards on partner airlines http://thepointsguy.com/2016/06/how-to-book-award-flights-with-korean-air-skypass/

 

[tink1970]

The only AUs I find helpful are on my AmExp-if I use one of their coupons (for instance $10 back on a $50 purchase at PetCo), then I run to DD and DHs account (that I set up ) and add the offer to theirs. In our dog loving famiy, that adds up (I occasionally use some of their other coupons too but for some reason AmExp thinks I'm into fashion, makeup and wine... ).

I wouldn't have an AU for Chase cards b/c I haven't found it to have the same kind of benefit.