I love credit cards so much!

[SouthFayetteFan]

So P2 applied for the CIP tonight. Some of the questions made us nervous, but we gave it a try. Got a 30 day message. I wonder if they hate us now because of that DD. If we don't get it, we will just move on.

Is 30 day message from the call-in status line?

 

[mmmears]

I feel like we missed out on the end of a REALLY great sentence here

Oops. I'll go fix it. Thanks!

 

[mmmears]

Is 30 day message from the call-in status line?

No, that's what it said in the email. Is he supposed to call?

 

[Haley R]

I am not the person to give advice on international travel...BUT I can say from following on this thread that you want to start thinking about award flights now. Somebody like @calypso726 and numerous others can probably give good advice.

Things people might want to know to give effective advice...

• What are your travel dates?
• What airport(s) could you fly out of and where are you flying into?
• Are you looking for economy seats or something better (first class, etc...)
• How many does your travel party consist of (adults & kids/ages)?
• Is the hotel choice flexible or will there be a specific hotel with the wedding?
• If the hotel is a Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt, it might make sense to focus on earning points in that program instead of using URs

The 1.50x sounds nice...BUT it could make more sense to transfer your points to a travel partner and book an award flight (again not my area of expertise). If you are going to use the 1.50x you might want to get that CSR quickly and start booking some things. This may feel stressful, it almost stresses me to type it, lol - but if you ask @Haley R about planning her int'l flights, the one thing she'd emphasize is start early!

I appreciate the questions and the help. I would like to use the points to defray the cost however I can. Airfare, hotel or both would be great.

Yes, you’ll definitely want to give yourself enough time to book the flights. In an ideal world, you would want the points about a year before you plan to fly. We weren’t able to get the city we wanted to fly out of (Chicago) because we had to accumulate points so we are flying out of LA instead and have to get a flight to and from there. We joined the game under a year before our trip. We were still able to get business class seats for free though so I can’t complain at all!

ETA: I wanted to add that we booked with Virgin Atlantic on an ANA flight. It was a lot of hoops to jump through but Virgin had such a good mileage amount compared to United. We ended up only using 180k for round trip for 2 to Japan in business class. With United it would’ve been at least 300k.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

No, that's what it said in the email. Is he supposed to call?

Try 1-800-432-3117. Follow the Prompts (I believe #, 3, 1) and then you'll enter an SSN and they'll give you the status of the application!

 

[miztressuz]

Shouldn't be, that's part of how we afford what we do. There's nowhere like that near me, but if it was stuff that's not noticeable I'd buy it. Not that different from TJ Max, Nordstrom Rack etc. Be impressed by my expensive thing but I probably saved 25-50% off by buying it where I did, making it so I can afford the quality. Now I do feel silly using my CSR for fast food, but thankfully I can use an app to do that

Same here, something just wrong about swiping a $450 luxury card for 1.79 chicken nuggets at BK - or a 99 cent Frosty at Wendy's.

Oh I love Gabe's - If you guys know me, I'm all about saving money!

The "embarrassing" part was having a card not work. The cashier assumed it was because my card was declined (they probably get A LOT of that at the store we were at, if you catch my drift )...She was very blunt about it while saying "Your card was declined, do you want me to try again or do you have one that will actually work"...Meanwhile my dad was laughing hysterically at me that I tried to use a Platinum Card at that store. I pulled out a Visa Gift Card and all was ok again, haha.

Dang, new slogan coming out ' by not giving any customer service training we pass the savings on to you. So come on back for more if we didn't completely alienate you the first time'
But you did remind me I need to make an Ollie's run, but I've got a VGC to use up so I might be ok there

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Oops. I'll go fix it. Thanks!

Woah...now you took out the part about "SouthFayetteFan's post is really good"...That was my favorite part of your comment!!

 

[mmmears]

Try 1-800-432-3117. Follow the Prompts (I believe #, 3, 1) and then you'll enter an SSN and they'll give you the status of the application!

The phone says the answer will come in writing in 2 weeks. What does that mean?

Woah...now you took out the part about "SouthFayetteFan's post is really good"...That was my favorite part of your comment!!

Awww. I'm sorry. I was going to say that your post was really good, but to try to book the flights asap since the awards seats fill up. But then my page updated and he posted again and I started fresh. I struggle to keep up with this board.

 

[Albort]

Tagging @Calfan, @Albort, @Lain, @calypso726, @gottalovepluto (sorry if I left any Int'l flight experts out)...

Can you guys give @DrFacilier some advice on how to start to figure out these flights...

I know the airline transfer partners are:

• United MileagePlus Miles
• Southwest Rapid Rewards
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• British Airway Avios
• Air France Flying Blue
• Singapore KrisFlyer
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• Iberia Plus
• Aer Lingus AerClub

BUT as you might imagine...I don't know anything about any of these other than Southwest, HAHAHA!

@DrFacilier

AwardHacker suggests flying BA on Iberia Metal Direct BOS--MAD nonstop.
BA.com resulted nothing. So...
Pulling up Iberia.com, i plugged in those dates and it pops up 40k RT. Say I had to login which i dont have an account so i dont know what is available after that screen. (Iberia is a Chase Partner and will transfer 1:1 from UR points).
Other routes to consider is BOS-->JFK--> MAD (Iberia), BOS-->LHR-->MAD(BA/Iberia)
Edit: ExpertFlyer is showing 9 award tickets available(T class) for 6/18
ExpertFlyer is showing 9 award tickets available(T class) for 6/26


*A wise, SQ can save u 5k(UA is 5k more). Most likely easier to search on United.
routes are BOS-->LIS-->MAD on TAP Portugal...
BOS-->EWR --> MAD on UA... I found this route at 30k one way. 60k RT.

 

[Albort]

Some of the more hidden stuff that @Albort references is beyond bizarre. Some people would think that these things may "cross a line". Some of it is stuff we could probably all benefit from too. The big thing here is that once a blog picks something up...anything...the days are numbered. There are too many people in this game who take things to extremes and abuse and squeeze every ounce of value out of loopholes.

i know a few MSers who really know how to MS in large scales... they also seem to find ways to make those credit card miles... a lot of their methods are kept secret... even some i dont know. I know a few of the methods, its quite interesting...

 

[Livelovedance]

Can someone explain Global Entry in simple terms?

I know nothing about international travel (literally nothing), but I’m looking to do the ABD Japan trip in the summer of 2021 with a friend! It’s a long time from now, but it’s a time that works for both of us. I’m just curious if GE is something I/we should be looking into before the trip. It sounds like precheck for international flights. I haven’t applied for precheck because I don’t fly very often and sometimes I luck out and get precheck anyway. If not, I haven’t really had too long of waits in the regular security lines anyway. I’m sure international travel is a whole different story though.

I’ve had the CSP for a little over a year now. If GE is worth it I would upgrade it to the CSR so I could get the credit. Or, would it be possible or worthwhile to cancel my CSP and apply for the CSR and get a new sign on bonus? I don’t remember what the bonus language is lately.

 

[afan]

i know a few MSers who really know how to MS in large scales... they also seem to find ways to make those credit card miles... a lot of their methods are kept secret... even some i dont know. I know a few of the methods, its quite interesting...

I totally get keeping that stuff quiet and while it's part of churning, I don't really considering it part of churning which is why I was intrigued. I thought it had more to do with getting cards or something, not ways to meet spend/generate points "organically" rather than through sign ups.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

@DrFacilier

AwardHacker suggests flying BA on Iberia Metal Direct BOS--MAD nonstop.
BA.com resulted nothing. So...
Pulling up Iberia.com, i plugged in those dates and it pops up 40k RT. Say I had to login which i dont have an account so i dont know what is available after that screen. (Iberia is a Chase Partner and will transfer 1:1 from UR points).
Other routes to consider is BOS-->JFK--> MAD (Iberia), BOS-->LHR-->MAD(BA/Iberia)

*A wise, SQ can save u 5k(UA is 5k more). Most likely easier to search on United.
routes are BOS-->LIS-->MAD on TAP Portugal...
BOS-->EWR --> MAD on UA... I found this route at 30k one way. 60k RT.

Do you know how any of these compare to just using URs at the 1.50x through CSR? Is transferring to a partner the better way to go here?

(look at me actually trying to learn about international flights for once...hahaha!)

 

[mmmears]

Can someone explain Global Entry in simple terms?

I know nothing about international travel (literally nothing), but I’m looking to do the ABD Japan trip in the summer of 2021 with a friend! It’s a long time from now, but it’s a time that works for both of us. I’m just curious if GE is something I/we should be looking into before the trip. It sounds like precheck for international flights. I haven’t applied for precheck because I don’t fly very often and sometimes I luck out and get precheck anyway. If not, I haven’t really had too long of waits in the regular security lines anyway. I’m sure international travel is a whole different story though.

I’ve had the CSP for a little over a year now. If GE is worth it I would upgrade it to the CSR so I could get the credit. Or, would it be possible or worthwhile to cancel my CSP and apply for the CSR and get a new sign on bonus? I don’t remember what the bonus language is lately.

It's precheck for both domestic and international flights.
It also means that you don't have to fill out the customs form they hand you on the airplane before returning to the US.
And that you do a quick scan of your passport when returning to the US instead of standing in the sometimes very long line.
My family has had it for a few years now and we are glad we do (esp. after an 11 hour flight when the line at customs looks like a line for a popular Disney ride during peak season).

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

The phone says the answer will come in writing in 2 weeks. What does that mean?





Awww. I'm sorry. I was going to say that your post was really good, but to try to book the flights asap since the awards seats fill up. But then my page updated and he posted again and I started fresh. I struggle to keep up with this board.

2 weeks is a good sign. The only bad sign would be 7-10 days. You can call that line to check as often as you want...some of us call every hour when we have an application pending, LOL! A CIP app could stay pending for a week so don't be discouraged if it keeps saying 2 weeks.

 

[mmmears]

2 weeks is a good sign. The only bad sign would be 7-10 days. You can call that line to check as often as you want...some of us call every hour when we have an application pending, LOL! A CIP app could stay pending for a week so don't be discouraged if it keeps saying 2 weeks.

Thank you for explaining. I was wondering if we got the bad message.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Thank you for explaining. I was wondering if we got the bad message.

The other message people here sometimes that isn't bad news is 30 days. And of course Approved is the best message. 7-10 is the only one we don't like.

 

[wendow]

@mmmears A two-week message is usually a very good sign of approval. I am one of the very rare exceptions where that later changed to 7-10 days and was denied but that is not the norm at all. Good luck! I think you are on the way to approval!

 

[mmmears]

The other message people here sometimes that isn't bad news is 30 days. And of course Approved is the best message. 7-10 is the only one we don't like.

Thank you.

@mmmears A two-week message is usually a very good sign of approval. I am one of the very rare exceptions where that later changed to 7-10 days and was denied but that is not the norm at all. Good luck! I think you are on the way to approval!

Thanks. And if not then we will just move on. I'm trying not to get too disappointed when we hit a wall.

 

[miztressuz]

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/9mygi3/comment/e7ip3vy?st=JN3YZVL8&sh=ab47125c

So I think I have 2 thoughts on this -

1. On one hand - If he made it a post on his own user and referenced the link to answer questions, that's not as visible and hopefully curbs all the public discussion over and over and over on the daily threads. I've only been following the threads there regularly for a month or two and I'm sick of it already, can't imagine how long time users feel. It feels like half the questions on the daily question thread are about that topic (and the same ones just hours apart... Does no one know Ctrl+f ?) Probably get more folks to answer questions if they didn't have to wade through 600 comments on one topic, it's a slog skimming that thread. (I missed all today on here and only had to get through 200 some I think, but all fun different topics and questions to keep it interesting I don't mind catching up here. ) But I can't help but to connect his guide to the double dip followed by Tesla douche with downfall of Chase so...

2. On the other hand - What's the first rule of fight club???????????!
(Dude should totally know better)