I love credit cards so much!

[Lain]

I have an AMEX question and need some help since I know NOTHING about AMEX!

DH has an older Delta Amex, maybe 5-6 years old I'd say. I think at one time it may have been a Delta Silver(?) Is that a thing? DH downgraded it from one card to the lowest level a couple years ago. We received a letter today that the current Delta card has been discontinued and will be converted to the Delta Gold card. I'm trying to figure out what to do with this. I've heard people say Delta has lifetime bonus language, but is that really "lifetime"? Can I cancel his current Delta card before it's upgraded to the Gold card and reapply for him for the Gold later? I have no immediate need for the Gold card, so I could wait a few. But I have no reason to get upgraded to a Delta Gold and pay a $95 on a card I don't really use. Alternatively, can I call to cancel the current card and ask for some sort of bonus miles in exchange for upgrading it to the gold?

My best guess would be that a forced conversion to Delta Gold would preclude DH from getting a bonus on another Delta Gold card later.

I don't have any Amex Delta cards, so this is just my guess based on my understanding of other forced conversions of Amex products. For example, recently, Amex announced that they would be ending the Mercedes-Benz Platinum card and cardholders will be converted to another product next year. People are guessing the card will be converted to a personal Platinum card, which means if you haven't gotten the bonus for the personal Platinum, getting the MB Plat and getting force converted to the personal Plat would preclude you from getting the bonus for the personal Plat separately.

I have seen on DoC that the Delta Gold occasionally has targeted signup bonus offers without the lifetime language so that might be a way back in if DH decides to keep the card.

 

[tink89]

Online approval is fairly easy and you don't have to talk to a person - I got approved for a cookie business that had ~$1,000 in revenue. That offer is 80,000 points for $5,000 spend.

In Branch, it's hard to give a read on how "easy" your experience will be. That offer can be 100,000 points for $5,000 spend. Most of us have not applied in branch, and it's really depending on the BRM (Business Relationship Manager) and their attitude. If your "business" doesn't do a lot of revenue, they may not be very interested in assisting, HOWEVER it seems that most just want to book a business credit card and get paid for that Of course 20,000 additional points is at stake and that's worth $200-$300...so it's your call on which route to go.

These points can be used for:

1. Cash out at $0.01 each meaning the 80,000 signup bonus + 5,000 points for spend is worth $850
2. Redeem for travel (hotels, flights, Disney packages, cruises, etc.) at $0.0125 each; 85k points = $1,062.50
3. IF you get a Chase Sapphire Reserve Card (CSR) you can transfer your points to that card and redeem at $0.015; 85k points = $1,275
4. Transfer to travel partners such as Southwest, United, British Airways, Marriott, Hyatt, etc.; value is harder to calculate there

Booking through the Ultimate Rewards (UR) portal is easy. You can also call in and do more complex bookings such as a Disney package with hotel, tickets and dining. They even have access to Disney discounts. Through the CIP card + another 2-3 cards you can actually pay for an entire Disney trip ($3,000-$3,500) with the points you'd earn!

IF you choose to apply online please consider joining our DISchurners group on Reddit and support a fellow DISer. IF you choose to apply in branch, good luck! We'll help coach you through it too either way!

Your application will probably go pending either way which is fairly normal. You can call 1-800-432-3117 (then hit #, 3, 1 or follow the prompts to check application status). This will give you an automated message on your status. If it says 30 days, 2 weeks (or approved ) then you just keep waiting it out. Some applications get approved within 24 hours, others can be up to a week.

That is a lot of great info. We do like both Marriott and Hyatt but do not fly sw or United.
I think I will apply for one of the options given in about a month. Since he last applied in April( I think I said March thinking we were in April)

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

That is a lot of great info. We do like both Marriott and Hyatt but do not fly sw or United.
I think I will apply for one of the options given in about a month. Since he last applied in April( I think I said March thinking we were in April)

I think a lot of people like the 1.5 travel thru the UR portal too. Transferring to Partners may actually be a worse value at times It depends on a lot of factors.

 

[DaveL]

Okay, so I would call and book with Disney and then transfer it, and at that time I could pay with URs? That would be awesome!

But if you transfer, can you apply URs to pay for it?

I have done this successfully with a World package, The forms are the same for DCL and others. See my DISchurners post for more info. Just has to be done within Disney's 30 day rule of making the reservation to transfer to a TA. You'll need to pay any deposits direct to Disney at the time of booking. Once transferred you can wait until Disney requires final payment to be made to pay in UR points. One note, I just made my final payment and had to remind them I paid $200 to Disney already, I guess it just showed them the total package amount. So she made a adjustment of the $200 and then used points for the rest of the package.

Also, Doing it both ways, booking on Chase and trying to get the res to show up in MDE vs making it with Disney and moving it over, the moving it over to Chase was so much easier. It took 4 calls to get my Chase made res to show up in MDE, I guess the system created 3 different accounts all under my name and they had to merge them all so the res could be loaded under my MDE account. While I 'owned' the reservation I called Disney and made my Magic Express changes (Extra tags ect) and room requests while they would talk to me then moved it to Chase. :-D

 

[ctinct]

Are there any recent data points that SW will still refund the annual fee (prorated, of course) if cancelled after paid? My fee is due May 11, and my anniversary points haven't posted yet. I plan on cancelling the card because I want to get the bonus again later this year. It will have been over 24 months by then.

Also, I think I may have to put a few charges on my Crapital One card. It's been sock drawered forever, although I did make one charge about a month and a half ago to keep it active. It's one of my oldest cards (probably 15 years +) so I don't want it closed. I don't know if my charge caused them to take a look at my card or what, but I recently got a mailer that said, " we noticed you haven't been using your card." They then offered me a super fabulous offer. Spend $3000 in three months and get....wait for it......$100. No thanks. I mean, I'd probably do it if I didn't have another MS to meet, but I think the offer is laughable.

I have about 20,000 points sitting on the card. I am going to redeem them for gift cards, I think. I just went to their site and it appears that both travel and gift cards redeem at .01 per point. Can anyone confirm that I've done the math correctly? I don't want to be suddenly shut down and lose my age AND my points. I will make one or two small charges again this month in hopes of keeping the card.

 

[pillow]

Has anyone booked DCL through the UR portal?

So if I am booking a $9000 cruise, is it 600,000 points with a CSR (in my world I call that $6k so a $3k savings!?!)?

If you assume you can get Disney gc's at a 20% discount (you can!) + booking with Costco saves about 8%(ish), your 9K price drops to $6,480. I've thought about doing this but since I can save on the cruise in other ways, I don't think its the best use of UR points necessarily. But then again, I'm spending 40K Marriott points on a $300 room this June, which is not the best redemption rate. Curious to know other's take on this. We love DCL!

 

[pillow]

Ok - brace yourselves...a strange thing is about to happen...I have a question!! LOL! Now that I have a CIP...I'm suddenly interested in Plastiq...

Here's my Question - that whole issue with Visa cards coding as cash advance on Plastiq...does that come into play when you pay a contractor? And if I was paying $10,000 bill on my CIP would I need to first pay them say $5 on an AMEX then pay the full bill on my Visa?

We're looking to get our retaining wall done and nobody accepts card, but now I'm thinking it's a way to essentially "purchase" some URs at a discount due to the 3x coding on CIP

EDIT: Guess I should clarify this too - does CIP earn 3x on ANY purchase that runs through Plastiq? (I sound like a newbie for once here, haha!)

I'm way behind here so this has probably been answered already . . . we paid a contractor with the CIP on Plastiq and did not have an issue with it coding as a cash advance. Everything comes through on the CIP as "plastiq bill payment," regardless of what type of bill I'm paying and earns the 3x.

 

[Disneyonmymind]

If you assume you can get Disney gc's at a 20% discount (you can!) + booking with Costco saves about 8%(ish), your 9K price drops to $6,480. I've thought about doing this but since I can save on the cruise in other ways, I don't think its the best use of UR points necessarily. But then again, I'm spending 40K Marriott points on a $300 room this June, which is not the best redemption rate. Curious to know other's take on this. We love DCL!

How do you get Disney gcs at a 20% discount?

 

[GlamMistress]

Sorry to repost this, but anywhere here have any ideas before I ask the scary people at Reddit?

Also, how would I tell if Plastiq is ACH or anything else on my CIP? I made a $20 Plastiq payment last month and it just shows up on regular statements and doesn't say anything about it showing up elsewhere or under my cash access line or anything. I was planning on playing off a large portion of my student loan with my new CIP, but I'm not going to do it if it won't count towards my MSR.

If you want a credit pull/meet spend/new points now, have your husband apply for a Delta Gold outright so he gets the bonus. Once he's upgraded, he can't get it.
If you don't want a pull but do want to keep the line open for history, refuse the gold upgrade, call Amex and tell them to product change to the new no fee BLUE delta amex (which actually earns 2pts per dollar on restaurants, fyi).

 

[Psychodisney]

Are there any recent data points that SW will still refund the annual fee (prorated, of course) if cancelled after paid? My fee is due May 11, and my anniversary points haven't posted yet. I plan on cancelling the card because I want to get the bonus again later this year. It will have been over 24 months by then.

Also, I think I may have to put a few charges on my Crapital One card. It's been sock drawered forever, although I did make one charge about a month and a half ago to keep it active. It's one of my oldest cards (probably 15 years +) so I don't want it closed. I don't know if my charge caused them to take a look at my card or what, but I recently got a mailer that said, " we noticed you haven't been using your card." They then offered me a super fabulous offer. Spend $3000 in three months and get....wait for it......$100. No thanks. I mean, I'd probably do it if I didn't have another MS to meet, but I think the offer is laughable.

I have about 20,000 points sitting on the card. I am going to redeem them for gift cards, I think. I just went to their site and it appears that both travel and gift cards redeem at .01 per point. Can anyone confirm that I've done the math correctly? I don't want to be suddenly shut down and lose my age AND my points. I will make one or two small charges again this month in hopes of keeping the card.

IMO, I don't think the $100 offer is that bad. That's 10,000 points for spending $3,000. Which capital one card do you have? If it's Venture, you would normally get 6,000 points for $3 k spend.
As far as your math, just move the decimal point over 2 spaces. So 20,000 points should be worth $200.

 

[linzjane88]

Just saw this bundle on SD and thought of your Cricut purchase. I hope you got a good deal.

I did! I ordered directly from the Cricut website and I didn't get the newest machine. I figured if I ended up using it *that much* I could upgrade at some later date. I am not the worlds biggest crafter so I could justify an extra 60$ for a machine that cuts my design out in 1 minutes and 36 seconds vs 2:12 . I paid about $160 for it after a 10% coupon code. I was pretty happy with that. Plus I had it shipped to my coworkers house in OR to avoid sales tax (she lives about 20 minutes away).

I just took everything out of my travel wallet and put it back in my normal wallet. I have all this cash in there! Where the heck did that come from? I mean there's the $20 FIL chased me down with, and the $35 I won in the slots... but I've got another $100 there! I don't use cash

But really, I do creative accounting in YNAB to hide DH's presents when I buy them, because I still want to earn points!

ETA: The worst part with cash is, if I want to earn points, I have to actually go into the bank in person, the horror!!

I will literally spend a stupid amount of time thinking of ways to avoid going to the bank to get cash out. It *feels* so inconvenient. I finally have to break it down mentally into how long it will take me to get there and get my cash. When I realize it adds only about 4 minutes to drive through the ATM I finally make myself do it. Haha!

One good thing about my current employer... I can easily change my direct deposit and it will go through within a pay period. I can also direct just a certain amount to each account. I've been thinking of looking for a new job, would it be inappropriate to ask how quickly a new employer how quickly they can change my direct deposit?

Also, DH doesn't understand why I keep buying things online instead of running to the store. Because there are portal points, duh! You need socks! Let's buy them online! He's like, why can't we just go get them? Because I just bought gym shorts online and because I took a moment to do it online, I saved 50 cents on the OOP cost and earned $1.71 with TopCashBack and 22 UR points! And he just looks like

When I bought my Cricut the ExtraBux portal was at 10% but it didn't track for some reason--in fact it didn't even show I had an account. I think with all my comparing portals/websites/etc I must have gotten mixed up. I have been mourning the loss of that $16 for two days . My husband very rarely buys anything but if he does it's online--with no coupon code or portal of any kind. It kills my soul a tiny bit every time. I am so close to making him tell me before any purchase so I can find it cheaper but I haven't said that out loud because it makes me sound craazy.

I’m kind of disgusted that I could spend $6K on the SPG Biz in a little over a month

This is me too, friend. I seriously do not know how in the world I meet these MSR's so easily. I've put about 5k on my spg biz in right at a month.

Ummm, yeah. SPG Biz MSR x2 was stressing me out. On paper it was like 'It's going to be tight but maybe if we prepay some bills...' and then in real life we did it in 30 days of opening each card. We have a couple big gifts coming up + Hawaii so we got there much faster than anticipated. Although I did get a little impatient and did a couple rounds of MS to keep it moving.

 

[linzjane88]

Thinking out loud here:
I just can't leave the idea of the CIC alone. I have a bad case of FOMO and the deal isn't even over yet! I am re-evaluating my plan for the next few cards. DH just referred me to the CIP (from his CI+, his only Chase biz) which I was approved for yesterday (my only Chase biz). His AF should hit 6/1. I am thinking he could apply for the CIC in the next few days and then cancel his CI+. In another 11ish months I will refer him back to the CIP and cancel mine.

Questions:
1) Do I need to wait for the referral bonus to hit before cancelling (I assume yes), if so, how long will that take? I should have timed it better so I wasn't getting hit with the AF in the same time frame as the referral bonus. You usually have about a month or so to get the fee reversed, right?
2) Would it be too bold for me to try for a CIC in the same month as the CIP? (again, I assume yes ).

Man, I did some light churning a few years ago then floated on the points once I hit 5/24. Now I am back in it and we've awakened the beast. Plus if I can hit 14k in MSR in two months....well I can do anything! I WANT ALL OF THE POINTS!!

 

[Disneyonmymind]

Bank Account Bonus questions here. When transferring money from an existing bank or credit union to the new bank, do you run into any fees for this? Also, dh can go online and redirect his paycheck to his new account, so I’m guessing this is preferable, for him correct? Any downsides to that? Can he direct his pay to my account too or is that not good since names/owner won’t match? Also, is there a speed limit on these activities? Like 1 account per month or something similar? Finally, regarding those that allow cc funding, is it fine to do for any card, Chase, Amex, biz, personal?

 

[DisneyMandC]

Yes, you can transfer after it’s been book directly from DCL. You can pay with URs only once and it doesn’t have to be immediately after you transfer, you can keep collecting URs.

Yes! See above response.

I’ve been told twice by Chase now that you can only pay with URs at the time of booking. You cannot apply additional URs later. I called and modified by WDW reservation with Chase this past Wednesday and asked again if I could apply any URs since I had modified the reservation and she told me that the only way to pay with URs would be to cancel the entire reservation and rebook it.

ETA: I did not originally pay with URs, I paid with cash the first time.

 

[DisneyMandC]

If you want a credit pull/meet spend/new points now, have your husband apply for a Delta Gold outright so he gets the bonus. Once he's upgraded, he can't get it.
If you don't want a pull but do want to keep the line open for history, refuse the gold upgrade, call Amex and tell them to product change to the new no fee BLUE delta amex (which actually earns 2pts per dollar on restaurants, fyi).

Thank you! I wouldn’t mind that Delta Gold card but not right now with getting ready to double dip Chase for him. I’ll call and see about moving to that card.

 

[Albort]

Exactly how do the ACH transfers work?

ACH is like the transfer center of a bus terminal. or a bank for the bank to do transaction with other banks. This is where they process bank transfers, debits, credit, etc. More here

 

[pillow]

How do you get Disney gcs at a 20% discount?

Two different ways primarily for me -

#1 - Buy gift cards at Kroger during the 4x fuel promo. The savings is on gas, and will depend on your strategy. Biggest return is to buy a $100 Visa gc for 4x and then use that to buy Disney at another 4x. You'll incur the fee on the $100 Visa, but worth it. I pay with my Blue Cash Preferred card for 6% back. Or you can use something that gives you a high cash back % at grocery stores - right now, either Discover or Chase Freedom. Best way to maximize is if you get the full 35 gallons on fill ups (we take gas cans for the excess).

#2 - Use Amex offers. For example, there is currently $10 back on a $50 purchase in store at Lowes. Lowe's sells Disney gift cards. We have this on every Amex card, including the kids' auth user cards, so I'll use multiple times.

See the gift card thread for more - https://www.disboards.com/threads/disney-gift-card-deals.2941964/page-1595

 

[disneedee]

FYI - I updated the index on the Hotel Reviews thread I will keep that updated ongoing so we can find properties at cities that interest us.

@calypso726 we'd also be happy to have insane reviews of things like suites on planes!

How do I find this thread without following a link?
Is it hiding from me?

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Thinking out loud here:
I just can't leave the idea of the CIC alone. I have a bad case of FOMO and the deal isn't even over yet! I am re-evaluating my plan for the next few cards. DH just referred me to the CIP (from his CI+, his only Chase biz) which I was approved for yesterday (my only Chase biz). His AF should hit 6/1. I am thinking he could apply for the CIC in the next few days and then cancel his CI+. In another 11ish months I will refer him back to the CIP and cancel mine.

Questions:
1) Do I need to wait for the referral bonus to hit before cancelling (I assume yes), if so, how long will that take? I should have timed it better so I wasn't getting hit with the AF in the same time frame as the referral bonus. You usually have about a month or so to get the fee reversed, right?
2) Would it be too bold for me to try for a CIC in the same month as the CIP? (again, I assume yes ).

Man, I did some light churning a few years ago then floated on the points once I hit 5/24. Now I am back in it and we've awakened the beast. Plus if I can hit 14k in MSR in two months....well I can do anything! I WANT ALL OF THE POINTS!!

There is a 0/30 rule for business cards, so you will probably get denied.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

Bank Account Bonus questions here. When transferring money from an existing bank or credit union to the new bank, do you run into any fees for this? Also, dh can go online and redirect his paycheck to his new account, so I’m guessing this is preferable, for him correct? Any downsides to that? Can he direct his pay to my account too or is that not good since names/owner won’t match? Also, is there a speed limit on these activities? Like 1 account per month or something similar? Finally, regarding those that allow cc funding, is it fine to do for any card, Chase, Amex, biz, personal?

Generally there are no fees for transfer between accounts. But with online savings accounts, they are generally limited to 6 transactions per month. If you go over 6 transactions, then you will incur fees.

You can usually set up a paycheck direct deposit to any account that you want. I would make sure that you can easily access those funds so that you can pay bills. Some banks are easier than others because processing times can be slow.

As for timing, there isn't really a limit to bank bonuses like there is with credit cards. You might want to read more about it on Doctor of Credit. He gives a good review. He also lists DPs for which cards work for CC funding for certain bank bonuses. Some will post as a purchase and some might post as a cash advance, which is bad.