I love credit cards so much!

[magickingdomprincess]

My happy card purchase at Kroger did not automatically take $10 off $50. The cashier at self checkout did it manually. Then he hovered when I paid with four visa gift cards. Talk about living on the edge!

My Happy card didn't automatically take the $10 off either! Luckily the cashier did it manually pretty easily.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Churning fail... or maybe just one of those things where I will learn from my mistakes. Transferred some URs to Marriott, but the room we wanted at the hotel we wanted (which was not available at all, even for cash, at the time we did all of this) is now available through the Chase portal... A much better "deal" so we grabbed it. But sadly now have our URs stuck in our Marriott point stash where they are less flexible. Still, concierge room at a much better hotel and location and it's free, so I am not really complaining. Just wishing we hadn't booked the first one when we did I guess.

Well, this post prompted me to look at using URs instead of MRs and I can get our 2 rooms for 20k UR total instead of using up 70k MRs. so thank you!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Can someone advise me about hotels? I have a stash of Marriott points that I used for the first time last month. Paid 25,000 and 35,000 points per night for rooms that were selling for $300ish (college town on a football weekend--I actually couldn't find availability for two consecutive nights at the same hotel, but I really didn't mind as the hotels were across the street and I saved about $700).

Now I am looking at rooms at these same hotels for a room for next week--the points are still the same but the cash price is $95 and $135. So it appears that Marriott charges the same amount of points per room per hotel regardless of what the cash price is? IIRC this is different from Hilton . . .

My other question is how should I pay for a room? It seems that using points is a bad value. I also have about $50 in hotels.com GCs I could apply to a reservation, which would count towards a free night. Is there a reason I would want to book directly with Marriott as opposed to through hotels.com?

My general rule of thumb on Marriott points is if it's 0.8cpp or greater I book it. If it's 0.5cpp - 0.7cpp I'm on the fence. Under 0.5cpp and I call that a bad use of points... That's just how I operate with them. I always take an optimistic viewpoint though...the $95 and $135 isn't a poor points use, It's a GREAT cash deal!

Yeah, I don't like how the Hilton points keep changing, but I can see why now that I'm looking at Marriott. The hotel I booked was 25K points per night, but the hotel I prefer is now around $10 cheaper per night than the one I booked, but 5K more points. I don't want to pay $10K points more for a place that is charging less.

I wouldn't really compare properties like that. If you're sure you want to use points then just pick the one that works better, is more convenient, has better amenities (or insert whatever is important to you here). If the cpp is worth it (see my response above) then go with it. When we went to Sea World a couple of weeks ago, we booked a Homewood Suites at 30k pts per night because we love the property and the location. There were other properties available for 20k and 25k points per night that cost more in cash so oooooh my cpp would've been better but I didn't give it a 2nd thought because why would I settle for a lesser property (based on my criteria) just to brag about fake points value (cpp). LOL!

Churning fail... or maybe just one of those things where I will learn from my mistakes. Transferred some URs to Marriott, but the room we wanted at the hotel we wanted (which was not available at all, even for cash, at the time we did all of this) is now available through the Chase portal... A much better "deal" so we grabbed it. But sadly now have our URs stuck in our Marriott point stash where they are less flexible. Still, concierge room at a much better hotel and location and it's free, so I am not really complaining. Just wishing we hadn't booked the first one when we did I guess.

Just for those reading...Transferring URs to Marriott and IHG is rarely a good proposition. You'll typically find a value of < 1cpp for those points which means you'd be better off using the UR portal at 1.25x or 1.5x...OR CRAZY ENOUGH...just cashing out your URs and paying for the room with cash (and earning more points, and earning credit card rewards). It typically only makes sense to transfer URs to Marriott and IHG when you are topping off your points to meet a redemption (usually small amount of points) OR if somehow the 5th night free using hotel points swings things in your favor.

Hyatt...I don't have any experience personally, but its a whole different ballgame with them. I think transferring URs to Hyatt can often make sense

 

[magickingdomprincess]

Am I the only person who has problems adjusting their Southwest reservations when the rates drop? I noticed my July reservations dropped by a total of 3k points so I tried adjusting them online and got an error. Since it said something about my companion ticket I canceled the CP reservation and tried again, and got a different error. I called and even the SW person had problems. He had to cancel and rebook my ticket to get it to work, the whole process took about an hour. I guess it was worth it but man, I thought it was supposed to be easy!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Got SW drink coupons in the mail today. It has been years since we have received any.

I always sell ours for $10.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Totally off topic...but since you all know I am SouthFayetteFan and thus a huge fan of South Fayette...

2018 WPIAL Champions!! I attended an awesome game yesterday - down 21-7 late in Q2, 21-10 at the half...stormed back with a 21-3 3rd quarter and won the game 31-24!! Sorry I've been quiet yesterday and today but it was a big non-churning weekend for me Also updated the signature a bit to reflect on a decade of dominance

A few @SouthFayetteFan stats:
- I've attended 98 of the past 100 games they played
- Next weekend will be my 41st consecutive game
- Prior to that I had a streak of 43 consecutive...missed 1 game in the middle there when we went to Universal in 2015.
- The team is 120-11 over the past decade and I've been there for 126 of those 131 games

...Ok now back to your churning discussion

 

[Albort]

My Happy card didn't automatically take the $10 off either! Luckily the cashier did it manually pretty easily.

@havaneselover
did u guys input phone # with the offer added via mobile?
did the cashier hit total?

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Checked my DL amex biz today to see if the AT&T offer had been adjusted since they escalated it last Sunday and they said 5-7 days. It finally showed the $200 credit today! So if you have and offer that doesn't work it's worth having them look into it, worst thing is they say no but I'm glad it worked this time. I wouldn't have tried to do it a second time to see if it worked.

Was it legit wireless or like me a internet/directv charge?

 

[disneymagicgirl]

We flew JetBlue. We used the club At bwi. Food options were cut veggies, crackers and cheese. Terrible to be honest.
The pp restaurant in Tampa was way better.. got $28 credit times three on the CSR..

I need to look this up. We are flying home from TPA next month.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

View attachment 366000
Am I looking in wrong spot? Still don’t see.

On the app, I have to go to redeem rewards section, then the bars on the left to open a menu

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Am I the only person who has problems adjusting their Southwest reservations when the rates drop? I noticed my July reservations dropped by a total of 3k points so I tried adjusting them online and got an error. Since it said something about my companion ticket I canceled the CP reservation and tried again, and got a different error. I called and even the SW person had problems. He had to cancel and rebook my ticket to get it to work, the whole process took about an hour. I guess it was worth it but man, I thought it was supposed to be easy!

There is a process. Cancel Companion. Log out. Log back in. Make change to other ticket. Log out. Log back in. Add companion again.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Where exactly are the Chase offers? Is it just the percent off gift cards?

This is what I have thought the offers were this whole time. I thought that was really lame. Glad to see I was wrong!

If you are in the app, I clicked on CSR and they are all the way on the bottom. They were similar to AmEx. $5 off StitchFix, 10% off at Ruby Tuesday, 10% PBKids, etc. You just click on it and it gets added. Our Marriott cards only had 3 or 4 offers on them while my CSR had probably 20 or so.

i was told its not available for everyone yet... its getting released by bricks.

Mine are right under the Apple Pay.

Thx for the help on this. I was confused too!

 

[Mopedmom1]

My CSR bill shows a $25 credit of "Samsung Pay Chase Pay Bonus". Any idea what this is for? I have used Samsung Pay on my phone, but never Chase pay. Also I thought the bonus for using Chase Pay 5 times was 1500 UR points. ???

 

[CyndiLouWho]

My happy card purchase at Kroger did not automatically take $10 off $50. The cashier at self checkout did it manually. Then he hovered when I paid with four visa gift cards. Talk about living on the edge!

At Jewel (Albertsons) you can’t buy GCs in self checkout. I tried last week and the cashier had me ring up my other items then he had to ring up the GCs separately. Then he had to cancel the transaction BC he didn’t let me put in my rewards number first.

 

[amalone1013]

My CSR bill shows a $25 credit of "Samsung Pay Chase Pay Bonus". Any idea what this is for? I have used Samsung Pay on my phone, but never Chase pay. Also I thought the bonus for using Chase Pay 5 times was 1500 UR points. ???

There was an offer that went out early October, use Samsung pay 5 times before Oct 13th and get a $25 credit. No minimum amount to the transactions. Maybe it was that? Mine just credited a couple days ago

 

[trenty]

Am I the only person who has problems adjusting their Southwest reservations when the rates drop? I noticed my July reservations dropped by a total of 3k points so I tried adjusting them online and got an error. Since it said something about my companion ticket I canceled the CP reservation and tried again, and got a different error. I called and even the SW person had problems. He had to cancel and rebook my ticket to get it to work, the whole process took about an hour. I guess it was worth it but man, I thought it was supposed to be easy!

I almost always book new flight and then immediately cancel old flight.

With CP, I cancel CP first, then maIn flight.

 

[mmmears]

Well, this post prompted me to look at using URs instead of MRs and I can get our 2 rooms for 20k UR total instead of using up 70k MRs. so thank you!

I'm so glad I could help someone out. I figured if I posted my mistake it could save someone else from making the same one. And wow, that's a great rate for your hotel!

 

[afan]

Was it legit wireless or like me a internet/directv charge?

It's both but it posted as AT&T Phone so there's nothing showing directv is bundled and it's bundled with our cell phone. When we check for a better price on our cell plan we do the same with directv at the same time with the guy at the AT&T store. Not sure if they are bundled the same or not.

 

[amalone1013]

Went to dinner for FILs birthday and split the bill with BIL. I had a moment where I was sad because it was way more than we need for SPG Lux but I haven't grabbed the SW biz yet to start... then I realized because it was a ziosk I could do chase pay via samsing pay

 

[magickingdomprincess]

There is a process. Cancel Companion. Log out. Log back in. Make change to other ticket. Log out. Log back in. Add companion again.

Thank you! I asked the SW rep but he didn't know what the issue was. I'll remember that for next time!

I almost always book new flight and then immediately cancel old flight.

With CP, I cancel CP first, then maIn flight.

Thanks, I could have done that too, but I know I've read others being able to adjust it so I knew there was a way. Just couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it to work.