I love credit cards so much!

[amalone1013]

Nothing like waiting around on this... but $156 later, we have two seats home on Fontier... on Monday instead of Sunday. That includes seat selection fees and one carry on bag charge. Going to go edit the Hilton reservation next, and do 2 nights at the Universal Doubletree and 2 nights at one of the Disney Springs Hiltons.

Also talked to DH about doing London/Paris/etc next year before my Platinum status expires and he is in. So time to start our strategy. Obviously too late for fancy pants flights but that's okay. Will be trying to up my game to cancel out travel costs as much as possible.

 

[DaveL]

Looking for Mint advice... How long does it take to set up for a churner? I’m thinking of blocking off a few hours next weekend to be able setup a dozen bank accounts & dozen cc’s?

(To my shame I lost track of one of my bank accounts this year in my excel spreadsheet- BoA- & ate $24 in fees over a couple months before I realized it. Apparently am not Churning Godess but normal churner...)

Hah! Mint! Wow. I have had an account now for well over 10 years with them. Maybe some stuff has changed over the years but I could not get past giving them logins that they store in decrypt-able formats for all my finical accounts. WAY back then all it would do is tell me I went over budget every month. Sorry it does not answer you question but just was a blast from the past.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Running to check all my AMEX offers...



... and I have none of these offers. There are 7 AMEX accts in this house and not ONE of these offers?

I think they were all grabbed up early. I got them on my PGR and when I checked DHs account they weren’t on there. Someone on Doc mentioned they were gone so I think amex might release so many of them and then the popular ones disappear. Could be totally wrong!

Btw do you have 7 cards or 7 separate accounts?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Looking for Mint advice... How long does it take to set up for a churner? I’m thinking of blocking off a few hours next weekend to be able setup a dozen bank accounts & dozen cc’s?

(To my shame I lost track of one of my bank accounts this year in my excel spreadsheet- BoA- & ate $24 in fees over a couple months before I realized it. Apparently am not Churning Godess but normal churner...)

With that many accounts...if you don't run into password/linking issues you could probably do that in an hour. I use it purely to monitor fraud activity (or ideally lack thereof ) It is nice to just login...see that I recognize all the transactions and that all my balances are correct.

 

[Ava]

All the talk about the FD deal earlier today made me go temporarily insane and book a trip for the end of Sept. I’ve been toying with the idea of a long weekend trip over Rosh Hashana (kids will have 2 days off school), but haven’t been ready to commit yet. I’m still not committed but I didn’t want FD to sell out and then regret not jumping on it, so I booked 4 nights at AS Music with 4-day PH tickets. It came to $2634 for the four of us, and I put the $200 deposit on my Disney Visa so I can think about it for 6 months without having to pay a cent. I’m not telling DW though because she already really wants to go this year. She texted me at work this morning to tell me about the FD deal, lol.

In other news, I’m 0/7 on the Staples & Loews AMEX offers and 0/5 on the Staples Chase offers. It’s probably for the best though, because we’re now in what I refer to as my “sad paycheck” months. New (always higher) insurance premium deductions are in effect but we don’t get our performance reviews/raises/bonuses until April. So those Jan/Feb/March checks are kind of a bummer. I shouldn’t complain too much though, at least I’m getting paid unlike some of my friends who are federal employees.

 

[Ava]

Also talked to DH about doing London/Paris/etc next year before my Platinum status expires and he is in. So time to start our strategy. Obviously too late for fancy pants flights but that's okay. Will be trying to up my game to cancel out travel costs as much as possible.

We’re going to London next August. I bought our flights with UR points; $575 per person RT JFK->LHR on British Airways in economy. Not fancy, but there’s 4 of us so it’s hard to accumulate enough points/find award seats in anything but economy.

 

[mmmears]

Nothing like waiting around on this... but $156 later, we have two seats home on Fontier... on Monday instead of Sunday. That includes seat selection fees and one carry on bag charge. Going to go edit the Hilton reservation next, and do 2 nights at the Universal Doubletree and 2 nights at one of the Disney Springs Hiltons.

Also talked to DH about doing London/Paris/etc next year before my Platinum status expires and he is in. So time to start our strategy. Obviously too late for fancy pants flights but that's okay. Will be trying to up my game to cancel out travel costs as much as possible.

Oh, how fun! And you never know, you might get a fancy flight since not all the seats book up right away.

I think they were all grabbed up early. I got them on my PGR and when I checked DHs account they weren’t on there. Someone on Doc mentioned they were gone so I think amex might release so many of them and then the popular ones disappear. Could be totally wrong!

Btw do you have 7 cards or 7 separate accounts?

I was thinking the same thing. It stinks, though. I didn't get to this board until this afternoon (my fault) but the first mention of it was at 4am my time... Not really when I should be up and reading. Not a great deal for those of us on the west coast if this is how they roll things out. I'll keep checking though. The Marriott deals took a few days to pop up on our accounts. As to the cards, 7 physical cards in the family, but only 5 actual accounts. 2 AU cards, but we get different offers on the AU cards sometimes, and can definitely still select offers on them. DD and I have long time AU cards on our original plat card that we've had for many years, long before we started playing this game a few months ago.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Hah! Mint! Wow. I have had an account now for well over 10 years with them. Maybe some stuff has changed over the years but I could not get past giving them logins that they store in decrypt-able formats for all my finical accounts. WAY back then all it would do is tell me I went over budget every month. Sorry it does not answer you question but just was a blast from the past.

...and I better take some time to get more familiar with their security...

ETA: I’m not really worried but I ought to do my due diligence before trusting any company with that much info so thank you for the reminder

 

[gottalovepluto]

...I’m not telling DW though because she already really wants to go this year. She texted me at work this morning to tell me about the FD deal, lol...

Fyi, you’re totally going to WDW this fall...

 

[wendow]

I booked a couple of WDW rooms that I will be cancelling but I used my CSR to pay the deposit. I forgot the travel credit had already reset. When I cancel the rooms, will Chase claw back the travel credit and then I can use it again? I was planning to buy a SW GC and then, sadly, considering PC'ing the CSR.

 

[wendow]

Removing Disney from the Chase Portal is the single reason of my upcoming CSR->CF PC. Even tho I didn't have plans for a Disney trip this year I had just planned on keeping the card until they did that.

I'm having trouble justifying the AF now on the CSR as well. We just don't travel or dine out that much to earn that many points from the 3x categories. And I think I'll end up slowly cashing out my points to pay for discounted Disney GC's. I've held on to it hoping that Disney would come back to the UR portal but I'm about all out of hope for that.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I booked a couple of WDW rooms that I will be cancelling but I used my CSR to pay the deposit. I forgot the travel credit had already reset. When I cancel the rooms, will Chase claw back the travel credit and then I can use it again? I was planning to buy a SW GC and then, sadly, considering PC'ing the CSR.

I've seen no evidence of Chase ever clawing back a Travel Credit. When you cancel those rooms you'll get your $300 refunded and happily keep your travel credit too. We haven't discussed this widely here (although I obviously just blew the doors wide open on it with my comment to @DaveL, LOL!) We probably shouldn't go around widely advocating this. My strategy and private advice to people is attempt to use the TC legitimately in year 1, and don't be afraid to snag the TC in year 2 via something refundable and then downgrade quickly. I think you'll be fine

 

[Haley R]

My son is 11 so this strikes home. I can’t imagine life without him. I would be devastated. So tragic for that family.

It definitely gets you thinking. Not the same thing but my grandma just turned 93 on Christmas Day and I’m so grateful how happy and healthy she is.

 

[wendow]

I've seen no evidence of Chase ever clawing back a Travel Credit. When you cancel those rooms you'll get your $300 refunded and happily keep your travel credit too. We haven't discussed this widely here (although I obviously just blew the doors wide open on it with my comment to @DaveL, LOL!) We probably shouldn't go around widely advocating this. My strategy and private advice to people is attempt to use the TC legitimately in year 1, and don't be afraid to snag the TC in year 2 via something refundable and then downgrade quickly. I think you'll be fine

I definitely would not advocate this and it wasn't my intention. I booked the rooms at the very end of 2018 (like NYE!) and sat here debating which card to use. If I had remembered the benefits of the Disney visa, I would have used that...It wasn't until I saw the travel credit post, that I was like, 'oh no'. Just was hoping if Chase clawed it back, I would get it to use again!

 

[Haley R]

I've seen no evidence of Chase ever clawing back a Travel Credit. When you cancel those rooms you'll get your $300 refunded and happily keep your travel credit too. We haven't discussed this widely here (although I obviously just blew the doors wide open on it with my comment to @DaveL, LOL!) We probably shouldn't go around widely advocating this. My strategy and private advice to people is attempt to use the TC legitimately in year 1, and don't be afraid to snag the TC in year 2 via something refundable and then downgrade quickly. I think you'll be fine

This is interesting. I think we’ll be doing this when our CSR hits 1 year.

 

[Haley R]

I would think if you are buying directly from the rail company, it will count as travel.
As, I’m typing I just rembered about the BPA Premium travel card. That one allows using statement credits on anything. I’m not sure what a PASMO card is, but if you are using a credit card for it, maybe you could use a card that does a statement credit for any category.

JTBUSA is more of a travel agency so I wasn’t sure if it would still count with them. A PASMO card is a card you load money onto. It’s easier than carrying a bunch of yen and coins around when going on trains in Japan. You just scan your PASMO card and get on whichever train you need. I do think when you load money onto them you have to use yen though instead of a cc.

ETA: Actually I just found online you can set up automatic refills to your PASMO card via a cc. Sounds like a lot of work though. I may just plan on using a new cc to purchase our rail passes and metro passes.

 

[Haley R]

@Haley R You mentioned a few pages back about looking for Airbnb gift cards at Staples I think?... I found $50 ones at a Staples yesterday. Maybe another store would have them in stock for you?

We could get them online. I’m just not sure if we need to jump on this deal since it says it’s available until June. Is it possible for it to go away before then?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

FYI - I have updated the Hotel Reviews Index from that thread. We now have over 40 properties reviewed by our own members of this thread. If you're thinking of an upcoming trip and unsure where to go...maybe check it out for some ideas

https://www.disboards.com/threads/d...ve-credit-cards-so-much-thread.3680669/page-4

 

[Haley R]

FYI - I have updated the Hotel Reviews Index from that thread. We now have over 40 properties reviewed by our own members of this thread. If you're thinking of an upcoming trip and unsure where to go...maybe check it out for some ideas

https://www.disboards.com/threads/d...ve-credit-cards-so-much-thread.3680669/page-4

Well that’s awesome! Didn’t know that existed. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Judique]

Spent the afternoon kicking myself in the butt! Just bought DW a new car and the finance guy asked if we wanted to pay the $5k we were putting down with a check or CC... So I asked if there was a fee for CC and he said not for you! Just felt very wrong to be putting it on a non-new CC. Well at least got $50 for it.

Amex may have approved you and gave you a number right on the spot! I did the Rose Gold card while the AAA guy was replacing my battery in the front yard.