I love credit cards so much!

[Judique]

Hi! Not keeping up with the thread but did pop in and saw the tag. If memory serves, Avios flights can be cancelled and points redeposited for up to $55 in taxes and fees. Theoretically if the taxes were $5.60 like on a domestic flight then that’s the penalty. The flight must be cancelled more than 24 hours in advance of departure.

We’ve survived the Drake passage and were lucky it was mild. I heard that it was so rough a couple of weeks ago that three windows were blown out! Hopefully we will make our first landing tomorrow!

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Love the penguin picture!

Thanks so much for the good wishes.

She booked award flights with her Avios. Is that the same for refund or are award flights treated differently?

 

[Calfan]

So, DH applied and got the SW plus while on-board a SW flight earlier this month. We just got the card but no promotional material came with it. Would you recommend he call to make sure the bonus is 50,000 pts or do you think thats overkill? Also, the MS is $1,000 in 3 months correct? That's what I'm finding on the Chase site. I wish this info was included in the material sent with the card.

I believe it is $2k.

 

[Psychodisney]

I believe it is $2k.

Agreed. The public offer for 40K points might have been $1,000 spend in 3 mos, but my in flight deal was $2,000 for 50K points.

 

[MrsAlexis]

No, I don't believe it is excluded. I just went through all our stays for the last year and they have all credited with points. Not sure which ones used that rate, but I have used it several times. It isn't a 3rd party booking, so should be fine, like a AAA rate.

ETA: I'd calculate the price per point based on the cash rate ($320) you'd otherwise be paying. In this case, unless I wanted the trip to be free specifically, I'd go with the cash rate. With hilton I try to reserve my point redemptions for 5+ nights to get the free 5th night. That can be alot of added value.

Quick reminder on this: you have to have points available for all 5 nights, but then you get the 5th night free right?

 

[wendow]

Totally this!! Such a love/hate relationship with those offers. I am trying to simplify the number of cards we pay each month as well. Is it bad that I was secretly hoping that offers wouldn’t be as good for a little bit after Christmas so that I could decrease the number of actively used cards we have, just for a bit??!!

I honestly had the same thought! I just wrote out all the payments I have to make in Jan and I have 19 cards with payments due It's really hard to keep track of all these payments. I'm actually excited to get to close quite a few cards this year.

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

I'm going to assume all of you with multiple cards have a billtracker app. If not I recommend getting one. For nearly 22 years my ex handled all the finances. Then I had to put my big girl undies on and do it. I got an app and it saves me! I also had to figure out how to balance due dates. Gone were the days of one of us getting paid every week. So I wrote down every pay day I had for the next year so I could balance when my CC's we due vs my mortgage, etc.

Adulting is fun, LOL.

 

[PolyRob]

Here is a DP for Chase offers:

12/20: Made a qualifying Starbucks purchase
12/24: Received Chase e-mail alerting me that I redeemed my offer (10% back up to $3.00)
12/29: Credit posted to my account with a 12/27 date

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Sorry - been super quiet lately. Just a great week with the family! I checked a couple of comments where I was mentioned but largely I'll just have to catch up next week

Hope everybody is having a great holiday week!!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

There’s still a back door method to get SM and it works with both matches and cancelling of cards.
Click on “Services” then “Credit Card Services” then “Request a credit limit increase” then “Request your Card agreement” and SM away.

I cancelled a card a couple days ago and matched maybe a week ago. Didn’t get a response on the cancellation but did on the match; however, the cancellation cancelled in about 10 hrs.

Thanks for posting this Andy - just sent my first Citi backdoor SM requesting a match on my CitiBiz card

 

[GlamMistress]

Woooo... 0.4cpp and that's if I switch to the non-view room to save 3k points per night Paying I'd earn almost 11k points between Gold status, Hilton CC, and their new promo. One one hand, I like free and had no idea what I'd use these Hilton points for when I got the Hilton Biz, on the other it does make me a bit sad to use them for that... it's like my $3k spend got me a $320 room plus 25k Hilton Points

Be careful not to fall into the "not valuable enough" trap. It's happened to me too many times, especially back in the days when I was reading The Points Guy or FlyerTalk too much. Now I try to use points pretty much always if I can for whatever I can. Actual money in my bank account is more important than giving a big company like Hilton more cash. #FrugalGirl

 

[GlamMistress]

I'm going to assume all of you with multiple cards have a billtracker app.

Adulting is fun, LOL.

Yes Mint FTW and never paperless. I'm simply too scared to drop paper bank statements for fear I would miss a random charge some month (but every account I have is on auto pay just in case).

 

[magickingdomprincess]

Yes debit for sure. Are you sure there was no pin? Do you still have the packaging? Try calling the number on the back of your card and see if they give you the option to set a pin number.

Well I could have sworn I had the card and packaging still, but I can't find it now of course. I'll probably try again and look for a visa with debit on it. Thanks for the help!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Think I could go for a magical third Chase Biz card? I'm leaning towards the CIC as a keeper because I want the 5x URs on GCs at office stores...

5/17 SW Plus, SW Biz
9/17 Marriott Personal, CFU
10/18 CIP

Plus 2 AMEX Biz cards 10/17, 7/18

I was:

9/17- CSP
10/17- CF
1/18- Marriott Biz
5/18- CIP
11/18- CIU

I also had some Amex and Citi AA Biz in there. No issues for me.

 

[Judique]

I honestly had the same thought! I just wrote out all the payments I have to make in Jan and I have 19 cards with payments due It's really hard to keep track of all these payments. I'm actually excited to get to close quite a few cards this year.

OMG!!! I have a lot of cards but usually I'm only spending on 3 or 4 at any one time. You are amazing to keep that all straight, as in remembering what card to charge on and why.

I have all cards in my bill pay so just go down that list to see if a payment is due, or use that list to switch to the account to see what has posted. My Navy Federal bill pay keeps me sane. I also have other records but the bill pay is the most valuable resource for me as I can also look back in it.

 

[calypso726]

Love the penguin picture!

Thanks so much for the good wishes.

She booked award flights with her Avios. Is that the same for refund or are award flights treated differently?

I was recalling an article on award cancellations. I think either TPG or Lucky at OMAAT wrote it. I read it recently while looking up the ins and outs of the BA travel together ticket. We have one that will expire November 2020 and didn’t have plans for it yet. While trying to figure out if there was creative way to extend it I came across cancelling BA Avios award flights. Hope that helps.

 

[Judique]

Quick reminder on this: you have to have points available for all 5 nights, but then you get the 5th night free right?

I haven't a clue with Hilton, but I know that with SPG we used to just enter the 5 day reservation and the website automatically adjusted the points per night so that if 4 nights were 40K points @10K per night, then 5 nights would show as a total 40K but as 8K per night.

 

[Judique]

I was recalling an article on award cancellations. I think either TPG or Lucky at OMAAT wrote it. I read it recently while looking up the ins and outs of the BA travel together ticket. We have one that will expire November 2020 and didn’t have plans for it yet. While trying to figure out if there was creative way to extend it I came across cancelling BA Avios award flights. Hope that helps.

That helps a lot! I can try and find those articles for her.

She's got time. The flights aren't until mid march, but - she has 4 flights so its quite a lot of points. She can easily get the hotel points refunded.

Thank you and I can't wait for more ice and penguin pics and reports! My cousin once went to the geographical North Pole as an engineer during his job at the time, but you are my only South Pole visitor!

 

[Judique]

Be careful not to fall into the "not valuable enough" trap. It's happened to me too many times, especially back in the days when I was reading The Points Guy or FlyerTalk too much. Now I try to use points pretty much always if I can for whatever I can. Actual money in my bank account is more important than giving a big company like Hilton more cash. #FrugalGirl

Absolutely agree!! this goes along with earn and burn for me. But occasionally I will balance out and use cash to buy 'within my budget' meaning that I'm not putting out money that I wouldn't otherwise put out.

 

[pillow]

@speedyfishy

Just popping in to mention that my points finally posted today for the saga of the holiday bonus spending promotion the other month. I didn’t MO the gcs like I assume that you did which would have been even better (I’m not that brave yet) but in the end I think I got about 8-9pts/$ for spend from those gcs that would normally have gotten me only 1pt/$. So overall a success in my book. Thank you again for your help on it!

Which airline portals did you use? I received my United bonus, but not Southwest or Alaska yet.

 

[hsmamato2]

I just noticed this- my swa AF is due in a couple of days(was gonna call to cancel) saw in my acct on 12/5 I got 3k points for 'credit card' and then on 12/11 got another 3k points for 'action based bonus'..... what is the 2nd 3k? (I'll keep another year if I get another retention offer tho)