Our complete ACTUAL SPENT breakdown for a week at disney, universal, and seaworld

[loveysbydesign]

Love your report of your spending!!!
Just wondering..Can you pay to upgrade the 1 day park-to-park ticket once you get to Universal?
Also saw this: Points Don't Expire, Unlimited Reward Seats and No Blackout Dates
Points don't expire as long as you have flight or Partner earning activity every 24 months. No Blackout Dates and Unlimited Reward Seats apply to flights booked with points. Travel is subject to the government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $10 per roundtrip. So you have to fly or spend with a rewards partner 1 time every 24 months so your points don't expire??

 

[loveysbydesign]

Also what is the main difference between the plus and premier cards?

 

[WanderLuster]

I would LOVE to fly SWA as that is my fav but
can't justify the 3.5 hr drive when we can go
Airtran just 10 min from home for significantly less $

Air Tran and SouthWest are in the process of completing a merger.

It will take some time, but eventually it is expected that all AirTran flights will begin to operate under the WN name and the Rapid Rewards will be the program of the merged airline.

All this could change -- I've lived through the NWA/Delta merger and the UA/CO merger and nothing is final until it is final. Actually switched to AA this year to avoid dealing with the Unitednental mess. Loving AA, but now there are rumors of a merger with US....ARGH!

 

[NeverlandClub23]

OP, looks like you did a good job of using all the discounts you had available to you.

One word of caution about renting DVC - it's not that easy lately. You might think that it will only cost $689 to rent a studio at BWV for 6 nights but you will be hard-pressed to find availability. December is a popular month for DVC owners. BWV is popular. And right now, only DVC members who own at BWV can make reservations for December. Guess what they book up first? And even if you can find someone who will be able to get that hard-to-book studio, you have no guarantee that they will settle for $11/pt. Good Luck!

I agree with this. December is very popular among DVC owners (the entire month, not just the Christmas week). I wanted a studio at BWV or BLT for the week of December 9th-16th and started putting feelers out to rent points at the 11 1/2-12 month window. The two people I could find to rent from that one of those were their home resorts checked availability and there was no studio availability at either. I ended up going with a one bedroom at OKW at 11 months out. Still got a great deal, but the few times I've rented points through DVC owners, I've found you have to be pretty flexible with where you want to stay during certain times of the year.

 

[Marionnette]

Love your report of your spending!!!
Just wondering..Can you pay to upgrade the 1 day park-to-park ticket once you get to Universal?
Also saw this: Points Don't Expire, Unlimited Reward Seats and No Blackout Dates
Points don't expire as long as you have flight or Partner earning activity every 24 months. No Blackout Dates and Unlimited Reward Seats apply to flights booked with points. Travel is subject to the government-imposed September 11th Security Fee of up to $10 per roundtrip. So you have to fly or spend with a rewards partner 1 time every 24 months so your points don't expire??

Yes. You must have some sort of award activity during a 24-month period in order to keep your points from expiring.

Don't know anything about the Universal tickets. Since I consider it to be a poor return for your points, I didn't look into it.

Also what is the main difference between the plus and premier cards?

Annual fee for Plus card is $69. You get 3,000 RR points every anniversary. The Premier card has an annual fee of $99 and you get 6,000 RR points on your anniversary.

Other than that, the big plus for the Premier card is the A-list qualifying points that you get with each $10,000 in spending. It takes 35,000 points to qualify for A-list and the card caps out at 15,000 points. If you don't fly SWA a lot, then it really isn't worth the Premier card.

 

[loveysbydesign]

Yes. You must have some sort of award activity during a 24-month period in order to keep your points from expiring.

Don't know anything about the Universal tickets. Since I consider it to be a poor return for your points, I didn't look into it.


Annual fee for Plus card is $69. You get 3,000 RR points every anniversary. The Premier card has an annual fee of $99 and you get 6,000 RR points on your anniversary.

Other than that, the big plus for the Premier card is the A-list qualifying points that you get with each $10,000 in spending. It takes 35,000 points to qualify for A-list and the card caps out at 15,000 points. If you don't fly SWA a lot, then it really isn't worth the Premier card.

Thanks! We generally drive instead of fly to WDW, although we would like to go to DLR in CA next year. I'll have to check and see if SW flies there or not! Just checked and they do fly from Philly to there! Wondering if I should apply now or wait til next year as I know we will not be going til next summer or late Nov???