I love credit cards so much!

[gottalovepluto]

Where do bars stay open until 4:30am? Not here.

From a quick glance at Wikipedia: NV, LA & NJ allow 24/7 bars under state law. Maybe some others that I didn’t see as well but the gist of it seems to be “is there a decent amount of legal gambling?” If so they keep the booze flowing... can’t imagine why

 

[wisconsinmom]

Did DH apply as a sole proprietor using his First and Last names only?

If he did, proof of ID should be all he needs. You could hang up, call again, to see if you can get a new rep, and see how you might satisfy verification.

You could also decide to withdraw the CIP. Personal applications are 2/30, meaning you can be approved if you’ve had less than 2 Chase applications in the past 30 days.

Yes to Sole Proprietor, but he might have put the ebay name under business name. That was probably a mistake :-(

I wonder if he should just withdraw it...

I'm not sure what personal card with a good bonus. He already has a SW plus and a CSP.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Cousin is getting married in Phoenix in November. The hotel block is at Embassy Suites. We have 0 points with Hilton. I am thinking I might use points to stay at the Holiday Inn Express a few miles away for 50k points. Other option is to pay for ES with UR points. It was around $300 for two nights for a refundable room. Another option is transferring our 28k MR to Hilton, but we would be short about 14k points. Not sure how much it would cost to buy those or what a cash/points reservation might look like. It won't show me those on the website for some reason (maybe because I have 0 points?).

There is a shuttle from the airport to the ES and they are providing transportation to the wedding venue which is about an hour away (no hotels close by) from the hotel, but I am thinking with a 13 month old, maybe it is better to drive there ourselves if we need to leave earlier than when the transportation is set to go back. So might look into rental cars.

The cheapest flights from DTW are showing up at $400 via American. We only have Delta points, but they want an insane number per ticket and we need 3 of them. I was planning to use Delta points for our WDW trip in March 2019. Not sure I would have enough for both. Southwest doesn't go that far into November, but might be a better option to wait and see.

Not really planning to get any new cards to make this trip happen, since we just got 3 new cards between DH and I. Appreciate any thoughts you all might have. Thanks.

I can look up the info on Hilton’s site if you want to shoot me the dates. We have points so maybe it will show me what you couldn’t see?

 

[Lain]

Yes to Sole Proprietor, but he might have put the ebay name under business name. That was probably a mistake :-(

I wonder if he should just withdraw it...

I'm not sure what personal card with a good bonus. He already has a SW plus and a CSP.

Yeah... for a sole proprietorship, he should have used only his First and Last name. Anything else tends to trip up Chase’s system.

If you still want to pursue the CIP application, I agree with @disneymagicgirl that your DH could submit a printout of his eBay profile page with his username and PayPal can print up a sales activity page that shows gross receipts for any time period (e.g. 2017).

 

[babyready]

Cousin is getting married in Phoenix in November. The hotel block is at Embassy Suites. We have 0 points with Hilton. I am thinking I might use points to stay at the Holiday Inn Express a few miles away for 50k points. Other option is to pay for ES with UR points. It was around $300 for two nights for a refundable room. Another option is transferring our 28k MR to Hilton, but we would be short about 14k points. Not sure how much it would cost to buy those or what a cash/points reservation might look like. It won't show me those on the website for some reason (maybe because I have 0 points?).

There is a shuttle from the airport to the ES and they are providing transportation to the wedding venue which is about an hour away (no hotels close by) from the hotel, but I am thinking with a 13 month old, maybe it is better to drive there ourselves if we need to leave earlier than when the transportation is set to go back. So might look into rental cars.

The cheapest flights from DTW are showing up at $400 via American. We only have Delta points, but they want an insane number per ticket and we need 3 of them. I was planning to use Delta points for our WDW trip in March 2019. Not sure I would have enough for both. Southwest doesn't go that far into November, but might be a better option to wait and see.

Not really planning to get any new cards to make this trip happen, since we just got 3 new cards between DH and I. Appreciate any thoughts you all might have. Thanks.

In these situations, I usually just book through UR. Do you have some UR? You said book with UR but $300 so I wasn't sure.

Anyway, I usually book through UR and then watch and see if the rate ever goes down. Sometimes they do. I am usually just happier to be where everyone else is and it sounds like it would logistically be the best option for you guys.

I would probably wait and see what happen with Southwest, especially if you have a pile of points. It does seem like you would have time to earn more Delta points before your WDW trip, if you wanted to use some now. But I am not an airfare expert, so I won't give advice there.

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

I can look up the info on Hilton’s site if you want to shoot me the dates. We have points so maybe it will show me what you couldn’t see?

Nov. 16-18

 

[Jen and Ashwin]

In these situations, I usually just book through UR. Do you have some UR? You said book with UR but $300 so I wasn't sure.

Anyway, I usually book through UR and then watch and see if the rate ever goes down. Sometimes they do. I am usually just happier to be where everyone else is and it sounds like it would logistically be the best option for you guys.

I would probably wait and see what happen with Southwest, especially if you have a pile of points. It does seem like you would have time to earn more Delta points before your WDW trip, if you wanted to use some now. But I am not an airfare expert, so I won't give advice there.

Pay with UR so $300 is 20k UR. And not many SW points but willing to pay cash if the price is much better from SW. Delta wants $600 pp which is stupid. Only downside is SW has just one nonstop each day, so times aren’t great (6am departure) but we could survive.

 

[miztressuz]

I had to go back and skim through the last 2 days as my notifications were missing posts. (@SouthFayetteFan thread moving fast enough for ya again? hehe)
So I reached back a bit for a couple topics.

I decided to apply for the old IHG card before it went away. The point level for the free night is fine with me as I wanted to use it to supplement hotels on drives to Disney (19 hours so we spend one night in the middle of nowhere). After staying at a sketchy Quality Inn in Georgia last Friday, I told my husband I want Marriott or Holiday Inns, so this works. I also wanted a card to add an authorized user to with a bonus because I need to give a card to my mom for when she has expenses with my kids. Because her credit stinks, I wanted something I can watch.

Anyway...I can confirm it is not considered in 5/24 for applying. I am over that at this point and, while got the 30 day notice online, the card is showing in my portal.

Car rental - I used Costco the last few times and have been matched with Avis and Alamo. Both great rates and cheaper than I have ever gotten.

DH plans to start doing his part of this at the end of the year to get the companion pass again (I earned it early in 17, so have it all year). I am keeping on him because he also got an AA card for the bonus so we can fly to Europe in 19. I don't want him to apply willy nilly. I need to pull his credit report to see the exact number he is at. I think he is at 2/24.

Now I need to look forward. Between business expenses and personal stuff, I can easily meet the minimum spends (I have over $5000 in business expenses in the next 3 months). I will also need to pay about $3000 in June for an ortho visit. I hate to not get rewards for that. Suggestions? I am above 5/24 so chase is out. I have CSR, SW, Disney, Costco, Citi AA, Amazon, IHG, ULTA (they sucked me in with 20% off). I'm not opposed to business cards (had the SW business but have cancelled it.) I am also sick of paying for groceries and getting 1%, so advice there would be good.

Ultimate goal is free to low cost travel. I have 2 kids, so we fly Southwest when possible (cheaper), but I live near both OHare and Midway. We do Disney (alot - DVC and annual passes). We are also doing a cruise this year (ok, 2). We also love just small weekends away and I would love to expose the kids to more places. I would also take GOOD cash back since it will go into an account for travel, which I am planning to set up.

Also, primer on Plastiq? I realize I am paying mortgage, association dues, etc straight from my bank account. It's time to step up my game.

Thanks everyone. This thread is an obsession and my husband just rolls his eyes at me. You guys are so smart.

Just focusing on groceries I think @platamama and @wendow make good cases for the BCP card. If you spend at least $1600 per year at grocery stores that will cover the AF, so then anything else is profit. Throw in 3% at gas stations and some dept stores and that should be a good card to hang on to. If the AF still seems high given your anticipated spend the BCE does 3% at grocery and 2% at gas / some dept stores for no fee. 3% on up to 6k per year is still pretty good.
Since you're out on Chase, so no Freedom, next closest is Discover it. They changed the sign up bonus to a statement credit rather than cashback, but since all your cashback is doubled in the first year from the cashback match, if you can max out the 5% categories that's still $600 just from the categories. I've been throwing everything onto it that doesn't have a category on another card since I'm in my first year, so I have a 2% on everything card for now. Gas and Restaurants seem pretty consistent as quarterly categories for them. Grocery may come and go but since it's this quarter's category you could take advantage.
You mentioned business expenses, and if you want to get back into Chase cards, business cards may be a good avenue; but probably won't help with the grocery dilemma. Most AmEx business cards do MR points or are Hotel/Airline cards. If you have a use for MR points They have a cash option but since there's no sign up bonus and I never see it mentioned anywhere, and no experience myself, I'm not really recommending it just pointing it out Since they automatically give you the stmt credit each month there's more accounting involved to the savings with that one.
I'm not familiar with anyone else because of bad experiences in the past we stay away from Citi, BoA and Cap1 But the math presented already by @platamama seems compelling and may be worth a Chase slot.

To start with, we need a room near Cape Canaveral for a Disney Cruise (and hopefully annually if the Wife enjoys the trip). I'll dig around otherwise.

We stayed at Holiday Inn Express & Suites Cocoa on Tucker Ln. We got upgraded because of the IHG card platinum status so I can't speak to a regular room but the jacuzzi suite was nice But I realize time flies, this was our 2014 cruise. We did the Budget one way rental from WDW to get there and back to MCO.

Piggybacking off of this question, my dd is flying emirates this summer. Anyone know anything about that? I don't forsee her flying it again, but I didn't forsee her flying it in the first place, so what do I know? lol Should she sign up for emirate account?

I think someone touched on this already, but I now try to find a domestic partner to use a FF account. Otherwise you wind up with bits and bobs of miles in random airlines that will probably expire before you can figure out how to use them. Even if the earn rate is worse, if you can't use them again the better earn rate still doesn't get you anywhere. We bought tickets from BA once for a AA flight. This was around the time of the AA/US Air merger. I did have a BA account so being dopey I added my BA account to the booking instead of making a AA account. (Totally wasn't thinking) That account would have eventually merged with my US Air account and I may have actually had enough points to do something... but instead I had two accounts with piddly balances.

Oh, good suggestion. I feel like Barclays is tougher to get approval with than BoA, and their credit limits are super stingy. But Barclays credit cards also are Chip & PIN which can come in handy at unmanned kiosks. As an overall card, the Uber card is really attractive, maybe not so much on the signup bonus, but otherwise a really solid cash back card. Good choice.

This is an excellent point about Chip & Pin. So far my only Chip & Pin card is my Target MC, which while it would work internationally, I think I'd be missing out on a bunch of rewards by using it. I thought everyone was supposed to hop on board the Pin train but it's been very slow out of the station still. Definitely something to consider.

This is beginning to sound like one of those situations where a person is stuck in their ways, and it could get ugly if they feel you "forced" them to do something and for some reason things go sideways and they blame you. Just let her pay more in fees. And then you go on awesome vacations that have her going, "How on earth do you manage all THAT?"

This was kind of my first thought when @CyndiLouWho mentioned it, I was thinking "well that'll learn them real fast". While I dig my Discover cards I don't think I'll be meme-ing "Discover and Debit FTW!" any time soon.

$3.10. I had to do the math, lol. I still have VGCs from the Staples $20 rebate deal months ago. I used some of the balance to pay for DD's spring soccer fee (since it was a round $ amount) but I don't want to end up with random cents left on cards and have a hard time using them up. And now I'm working on that $7K MSR so every cent is getting charged to my SPG Biz.

I was going to mention the Amazon reload but I think @Lain beat my .26 reload after our last WDW trip was done. But I think the minimum amount now is 50 cents. So for really small balances might have to try a retail store. I know I've done 2 VGC's plus a real credit card at Target without an issue.

 

[mom2elal]

So, my dh called recon about the SW app and it WAS his credit being frozen. They wanted Equifax, so I just unfroze that and when he calls back, hopefully he'll be good to go!

Of course, now that we can't get CP's, I'm rethinking my churning plans over the next year and I have a feeling that we won't be able to use SW points to get to Hawaii in 2020, so I need to figure out which airline to target for that.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Nov. 16-18

Is it the embassy suites Phoenix north? It shows me 50k points a night. How points plus money works is you choose how many of each to use with a slider. So if you did 28k points hat you transferred, the cash cost leftover is $381.60.

As far as southwest...I would check on SW next flight release date, which is not until 5/31. Get on super early in the morning. The other great time to buy SW is about 3 weeks out.


ETA: sorry, balance would be $233.20. I didn’t realize 28k MR is 56k Hilton points.

 

[Albort]

So, my dh called recon about the SW app and it WAS his credit being frozen. They wanted Equifax, so I just unfroze that and when he calls back, hopefully he'll be good to go!

Of course, now that we can't get CP's, I'm rethinking my churning plans over the next year and I have a feeling that we won't be able to use SW points to get to Hawaii in 2020, so I need to figure out which airline to target for that.

have some hope. There is suppose to be a premium card coming out(rumored). the guess is a high bonus(70k+). so it isnt too far off.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

have some hope. There is suppose to be a premium card coming out(rumored). the guess is a high bonus(70k+). so it isnt too far off.

Interesting follow up thought here. DoC's post seems to indicate this new premium card would have the language about holding a SW card or earning a bonus in the past 24 months. So now the dilemma to me is...should people hold off on getting any SW personal card right now? You could potentially lock yourself out of this new premium card... Obviously none of us know enough to give good advice on that but it's probably something that warrants consideration moving forward this year...

 

[mom2elal]

have some hope. There is suppose to be a premium card coming out(rumored). the guess is a high bonus(70k+). so it isnt too far off.

Yeah, I am planning to hold out for that one, but even with that 70k points, we have 4 people in our family, and plans to use SW to go to WDW and the Grand Canyon at least, so I don't think we'll have enough points without the companion pass and two SW cards each. KWIM?

 

[GusGus16]

Today has been an awful day for MSing. First buying 1500 in giftcards at Safeway resulted in a fraud alert from Discover. I’m trying to make $75 by maxing the category. I responded to their text that it was ok, but still had to call and the Cashier didn’t know how to void the transaction so I was holding up the line. I was so embarrassed. Then I go to Shoppers to get an MO it’s the lady that asks to see the card so I leave. I go to Harris Teeter and the lady wants to see the card too. I have never had Harris Teeter ask to see the card before. Then I go to Giant and the guy runs it without seeing my card first it went through. he then asked to see ID and the card so I give him a different debit card. I’m awful Ik but it already went through and I was not in the mood to fight for my $500 back. I then went to Walmart to try again and the line was insane and not moving so I left. Hopefully, I have more success in a few days. I have 5k left on SO’s SPG. I think I’m staying away from Amex for a bit. Chase it is so easy to MS.

I thought the DiscoverIt 5% cashback for gas stations ended 3/31 at the end of the quarter, am I missing something? This quarter is 5% cash back at grocery stores.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Interesting follow up thought here. DoC's post seems to indicate this new premium card would have the language about holding a SW card or earning a bonus in the past 24 months. So now the dilemma to me is...should people hold off on getting any SW personal card right now? You could potentially lock yourself out of this new premium card... Obviously none of us know enough to give good advice on that but it's probably something that warrants consideration moving forward this year...

Yeah, I’m not touching anything Southwest til we have more info. I am also now saving my 2nd chase “business” slot for a sw biz.

 

[GlamMistress]

Pay with UR so $300 is 20k UR. And not many SW points but willing to pay cash if the price is much better from SW. Delta wants $600 pp which is stupid. Only downside is SW has just one nonstop each day, so times aren’t great (6am departure) but we could survive.

You could roll the dice and wait for Frontier to extend its schedule some more. Right now the schedule stops at November 14. For flights earlier in the week, Frontier is pricing at $129 / or $516 for 2 adults and a lap infant.

 

[miztressuz]

I thought the DiscoverIt 5% cashback for gas stations ended 3/31 at the end of the quarter, am I missing something? This quarter is 5% cash back at grocery stores.

Safeway is a grocery store. (they do have gas pumps too, but primarily grocery)

 

[gottalovepluto]

A question for Disneyland people...

We are choosing between the Springhill Suites and Residence Inn (both on the corner of Harbor and Katella) for our July DL trip. They're both the same number of points, both suites, both have hot breakfast. The Residence Inn is bigger but a lot of that extra space is in the full kitchen, which we don't need. Does anybody have experience with these, who can offer an opinion of which we should pick? I guess another thing I need to look up is the parking charges for each.

One night at springhill when they first opened, rooms were nice. Did the bunk bed and 2 queen bed option so lots of space but just one bathroom. Breakfast was included. No spa/hot tub with their rooftop pool.

 

[speedyfishy]

I thought the DiscoverIt 5% cashback for gas stations ended 3/31 at the end of the quarter, am I missing something? This quarter is 5% cash back at grocery stores.

Safeway is a grocery store. (they do have gas pumps too, but primarily grocery)

Yeah, I went into a grocery store. I had no idea they had gas stations too.

 

[Ava]

Cousin is getting married in Phoenix in November. The hotel block is at Embassy Suites. We have 0 points with Hilton. I am thinking I might use points to stay at the Holiday Inn Express a few miles away for 50k points. Other option is to pay for ES with UR points. It was around $300 for two nights for a refundable room. Another option is transferring our 28k MR to Hilton, but we would be short about 14k points. Not sure how much it would cost to buy those or what a cash/points reservation might look like. It won't show me those on the website for some reason (maybe because I have 0 points?).

There is a shuttle from the airport to the ES and they are providing transportation to the wedding venue which is about an hour away (no hotels close by) from the hotel, but I am thinking with a 13 month old, maybe it is better to drive there ourselves if we need to leave earlier than when the transportation is set to go back. So might look into rental cars.

The cheapest flights from DTW are showing up at $400 via American. We only have Delta points, but they want an insane number per ticket and we need 3 of them. I was planning to use Delta points for our WDW trip in March 2019. Not sure I would have enough for both. Southwest doesn't go that far into November, but might be a better option to wait and see.

Not really planning to get any new cards to make this trip happen, since we just got 3 new cards between DH and I. Appreciate any thoughts you all might have. Thanks.

Hilton points is the Daily Getaways deal for 4/16. The smallest quantity available is 30K points for $150. I don’t know anything about Hilton points or if that’s a good value, but it may be cheaper to buy the rest of the points you’d need instead of doing a points + cash booking.