I love credit cards so much!

[Alexle2007]

Does AmEx Next Day mail all of the charge cards? My PRG just arrived that I was approved for on Mon. Now to really decide on this DVC...

 

[amalone1013]

https://pizzainmotion.boardingarea....25.961423205.1536715449-1111428595.1447874623

4 bedroom Wyndham at WDW for 15,000 points.

Whoa, that could be perfect for next summer with the big family trip...

 

[chattadisser]

I agree...often check Amex Travel for fun (but then again I'm weird!). I would also never use MR points for statement credit BUT I have an Amex Plat Biz (oh and regular personal and MB personal...I love my Amex!) AND currently if you redeem with points and have the Biz 35% of your MR is returned which is awesome. The portal occasionally also has "special fare pricing" if you have enough MRs to cover the ticket-slightly less than their other prices so another potential savings.

So for me, to use the Amex Travel portal and redeems with my MRs are twofold: 1) 35% back (if this continues) thanks to Amex Plat Biz and 2) it's booked as a cash fare so when I fly Delta I earn MQMs/MQDs to maintain my status. Having status this year has saved me hundreds of dollars if not over a thousand.

MRs seem more intimidating than URs but they are awesome!

This is making MR's make so much more sense. I have no idea why but I have had a mental block to MR's and how though "I just can't have another program to figure out". Hmm...now to go formulate a plan for AmEx's.

 

[Albort]

Quick recommendation:

1) Generate a referral link from your CSP
2) Downgrade the card to an a Chase Freedom or Freedom unlimited
3) Wait a few days or a week (so that the system recognizes you don’t have a CSP anymore)
4) double dip a CSR and CSP (use a DISchurners link for CSR and your own link for CSP)
5) meet $8,000 in combined MSR (minimum spend requirement)
6) end up with about $1,800 in URs for travel

@ericf70 before u do this try this --> https://www.doctorofcredit.com/targ...l-fee-waived-24-month-language-bypasses-5-24/

 

[DisneyMandC]

Whoa, that could be perfect for next summer with the big family trip...

It would be good for mine too... and it is in a really convenient area. I guess downfall is no 60 day FP and no dining plan if you like that.

 

[amalone1013]

It would be good for mine too... and it is in a really convenient area. I guess downfall is no 60 day FP and no dining plan if you like that.

Yeah. We're looking at 1-3 nights, and 1-2 days at WDW, so we'd be okay I think. We'll probably just do MK/Epcot.

 

[platamama]

We are having our roof done in October. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can churn this? The contractor took a $500 deposit on a CC but he told us he won’t let us charge the whole thing.

The project is just under $15k. I do not have a new card to meet sign up bonus. DH just got the CSR but via PC so no bonus. I was still thinking of putting the spend on that card. We have CSP, CSR, Amex Spg Personal, CIC, CIP and Marriott. The contractor will take a check. Not sure about PayPal. Venmo is just like Plastiq right? I thought about Plastiq but I wasn’t sure the fee would offset the points earned.

ETA: I just remembered I lowered my CL to $5k on CIP and CIC and my CL is only $5k on Marriott.

I have to get my roof replaced too. (And windows and gutters and awning - thanks hailstorm)

My contractor will take money orders (they take CCs too but charge 3% convenience fee); I would ask yours if they would. I'm working on my MSR for Amex Biz Plat, and am buying $500 VGC at the grocery store, then going to WM to convert to MOs. I'm pretty chicken about doing it, so I just do one at a time and top it off with my Discover debit (gives 1% back on up to $3K debit charges/mo.) so that I'm maxing out my 88c MO fee for a $1k MO. Actually, now that CIP no longer gets 3x through Plastiq, I have to save some of the Discover debit 3K limit for my mortgage that I will return to billpaying at WM.

Also there's the US Bank MCGC via Venmo thing but that will take time to season the account and you're velocity limited.

I'm planning to do the same for my SPG Lux upgrade offer for 100k/$5K spend. Did you get a worthwhile upgrade offer for your SPG? Mine is showing up under the Amex Offers when I log into my account.

If you can get a 100K Amex Plat offer (personal or biz), you could be getting some nice bonus points for your roof spend.

 

[SBWB48]

Phew, you guys were chatty yesterday afternoon-evening after I couldn't check this thread until this am. Ended up 10 pages behind...

I don’t think the Vanillas work with Venmo. I feel bad, because I think I suggested you pick up some MCGCs from Walgreens, which happens to be Vanillas. You could liquidate the MCGCs on Plastiq’s Masterpass promo if you have bills to pay, or feel ballsy pay ... um ... your landlady?

Also tagging @SBWB48 for her thoughts.

@SouthFayetteFan I've only had success with the mcgc by U.S. Bank on Venmo. No success with the Vanilla vgcs. The Walgreens in my area only carry the Vanilla.

@SouthFayetteFan So @Lain and @Gwmw1210 covered the bases well already. Vanillas for any issuer won't work via Venmo. Only US Bank MCGCs are working in terms of liquidation at the moment, specifically, the yellow-ish packaging with a purple present on it; I usually find them at grocery stores and have not seen them at my local Walgreens. Should you ever need to top off an MSR, it's very easy and seems like you are familiar with the ins and outs of liquidating via Venmo

As for the MCGC you have in hand, @Lain's suggestion to liquidate via the Plastiq/MasterPass promo is what I would have suggested. I've been paying my "landlord" recently and have gone through $2K already. Some have reported in the past that they have been able to source US Bank MCGCs at select gas stations.

 

[ericf70]

Quick recommendation:

1) Generate a referral link from your CSP
2) Downgrade the card to an a Chase Freedom or Freedom unlimited
3) Wait a few days or a week (so that the system recognizes you don’t have a CSP anymore)
4) double dip a CSR and CSP (use a DISchurners link for CSR and your own link for CSP)
5) meet $8,000 in combined MSR (minimum spend requirement)
6) end up with about $1,800 in URs for travel

Thanks, reading up on this.

Hi @ericf70 and welcome!

Do you know which airline you will be flying to Europe? Is your airport a hub for any particular airlines? Also what class of service do you think you will be booking? If not, start by making some mock bookings close to the time of year you will be traveling to get an idea which airlines fly from your airport and on which routes. You can google flights or Momondo. Once you know what airline you may need to fly, make a frequent flatter account for that airline. Then search for award flights to get an idea of how many miles you will need in each direction. Also, let us know here so we can point you in the right direction.

I'll probably be flying coach out of NY. Wow, there are a ton of airline choices, I haven't even heard of some of these airlines. I've never travelled out of the US.

 

[mhartman09]

Just make sure you are careful not to hit the spend early. You’ll want to keep very close track of it.
I haven’t tried for a 3rd biz but many people here have gotten them. Just make sure your total chase CL is not high ahead of time to make the approvals go quicker.
If you don’t need it right away in Jan, maybe do the biz in Oct and the personal in jan. I’m sure you could go quicker than that, I’m just a timid churner.

So others can better advise re going for the SW CP and in-flight offers. @wendow just came back from TX yesterday and was on the lookout for the 50k in-flight offers. There was a lot of chatter about the 50k offer on the different cards yesterday, but I believe @wendow only saw the 50k offer on the new Priority card.

One thing you might have missed is a lot of discussion about how much longer it's taking for signup bonuses to post on both Chase branded and co-branded cards, including the SW cards. Typically, Chase gives you 115 days from approval to meet MSR. Historically, if you meet MSR at least a week before your statement closes, the signup bonus will post following the close of the statement. However, in the past month, people have not been seeing their signup bonus points post (or even go pending) even though they met MSR well before close of statement. There are a lot of theories why this is happening, from some kind of technical glitch affecting bonuses posting, to Chase purposely delaying the posting of bonuses to slow redemptions and fluff up their quarterly numbers. So rather than worrying about posting too early, the concern now is how long it's taking for the bonuses to post. Remember, though, Chase is counting spend only when counting whether you've hit MSR; they don't deduct for refunds or credits -- so keep track of how much spend you're putting on the cards so you don't trigger MSR too early, and don't expect a refund to drop your MSR back down.

Thanks for the responses.
I would prefer to have the CP early as I do have flights to book for March. Will just book with DH's points for now and get those back once I earn CP. I just saw the Priority 50K offer in-flight on both legs of my trip for Labor Day weekend. The only other flights I have booked right now are for my October trip, so I figured I'd be best applying in-flight on my return on 10/9. I would wait until January for the personal, but I'd miss out on the extra 10K bonus since I won't be on a flight then.

I did see some of the chatter about Chase bonuses taking a while to post. This definitely makes timing even more important as I'd like to have CP as early in the year as possible. Currently I only have the March trip planned, but I have been looking at other possibilities.

 

[hsmamato2]

Ok expert advice from you big travelers here please.... on our return flight home from HI,we land in LAX at 12:24 a.m.- our flight to east coast leaves at 6:15(ish) a.m.- wwyd? I'm considering a hotel room,but it would be for about 4 hours tops and we prob won't sleep anyway...or just hang out and wait. I don't think any PP lounges are open that early..... what to do? I can easily book a free night at the IHG next door to airport.... but I feel like its a waste of points

 

[Calfan]

I'm seriously considering signing up for expert flyer. I have no experience with it, but a tool to help me stalk upgrades for our Emirates flights home from Africa next summer and also to help with booking award flights to/from Japan for 2020 is really appealing. Does anyone know if the expert flyer fees would code as travel if I put them on my CSR? If not, I'll use a card I'm trying to meet MSR on (yes, I still try to meet MSR without sacrificing any other 3x or 5x return, lol).

 

[amalone1013]

So an interesting thing with that Wyndham Property (Magic Village Resort)... I searched my dates for next summer that I'd need. A Thurs - Sat, 4 bedroom 2 level Villa, lowest price

• 30k Wyndham pts; 15k pts/night
• AAA rate on Wyndham's site - $907 total (I'm not part of their rewards program so I didn't check that)
• UR Portal - $784 or 52,260 pts total

I'd probably consider URs for this. It would be easy to cover our portion with URs and BILs could give their share in cash... or, it's only 9k more points total in URs than 2 rack rate rooms at Pop, which is what I based the budget off of for us and ILs, so we could offer to BILs to just cover it

 

[Lain]

can someone help with pooling hilton points? I did it once but having trouble now... to generate the pool invite, do I go from my acct and send to dh's acct?( I want the points in mine) and I tried to do that but click the email link and it says something went wrong....help!

Hilton lets you do Points Pooling, where several members contribute points to a pool, or direct person-to-person transfers. Both are subject to a limit of 500k points sent and 2 million points received per calendar year.

When you log into DH's Hilton account, in the side menu under My Points, click More Ways to Use Points, then click Transfer Your Points. Select the number of points you want to transfer, in 1,000 points increments, up to 500k, enter your DH's first name, last name, HH number, and email. That's it.

Here's the fine print:

Hilton Honors Members can transfer Hilton Honors Points to another Hilton Honors Member through Points Pooling or 1-to-1 transfer in increments of 1,000 Points and up to 500,000 Points. Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to sending no more than five hundred thousand (500,000) Points and receiving two million (2,000,000) Points via Points Pooling or Transfers combined per calendar year. Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to making six (6) transfers to other member accounts and six (6) Hilton Points Pooling transactions per calendar year. Invitations to join a Points Pool is not considered transactional. Transactions refer to the transfer of Points to another member account either through 1-to-1 account transfers or through Points Pooling.

Any points beyond these limits will not be posted to any Member's account. Limits are at the sole discretion of Hilton Honors Worldwide L.L.C., subject to change.

A new Hilton Honors Member can pool, transfer, or receive Points 30 days after enrollment providing they have activity on their account. After 90 days of enrollment, a new Member is eligible to pool, transfer, or receive Points regardless of their account activity.​

 

[Natgridenergy]

Chase $300 checking bonus posted yesterday after a $501 push from my credit union, roughly 2 weeks after opening the account. That was stupid easy. Time to sign up P2.

Tell me more. Just open the account, fund it from your credit union and they post the bonus?

 

[Lain]

I didn't notice anyone else mention this, but if you have UberEats in your area, the credits work for that too.

I know I suggest UberEATs as an option to use those Plat Uber credits, but it's a terrible value. Here in SF, every restaurant -- except for promos that run now and then -- has a booking fee of $4.99, and then I'll tip my delivery driver. That's almost $10 of the $15 monthly credit used up on things that are not my food. It's terrible, but I don't ride Uber otherwise so the credits would just go to waste every month.

 

[Albort]

I'm seriously considering signing up for expert flyer. I have no experience with it, but a tool to help me stalk upgrades for our Emirates flights home from Africa next summer and also to help with booking award flights to/from Japan for 2020 is really appealing. Does anyone know if the expert flyer fees would code as travel if I put them on my CSR? If not, I'll use a card I'm trying to meet MSR on (yes, I still try to meet MSR without sacrificing any other 3x or 5x return, lol).

i think it does... i know it was confirmed on reddit. ill have to dig that up on a different time.
expert flyer is a bit complicated to use though. try the trial period to mess around with it before u go through with it. haha. its one reason why i bug my friend cuz he knows how to read it and etc.

 

[Lain]

so if I'm going to try this, I would need to get the biz at least 30 days prior to flying and going for the pers. offer in flight?

Get the Biz first. For Chase business cards, you need to have no other Chase applications in the last 30 days. When approved for the Biz, you can get one other personal card in the next 30 days. Chase personal cards are subject to a more lenient 2/30 rule, which means that to be approved, you cannot apply for more than two Chase cards in a 30 day period.

 

[hsmamato2]

Hilton lets you do Points Pooling, where several members contribute points to a pool, or direct person-to-person transfers. Both are subject to a limit of 500k points sent and 2 million points received per calendar year.

When you log into DH's Hilton account, in the side menu under My Points, click More Ways to Use Points, then click Transfer Your Points. Select the number of points you want to transfer, in 1,000 points increments, up to 500k, enter your DH's first name, last name, HH number, and email. That's it.

Here's the fine print:

Hilton Honors Members can transfer Hilton Honors Points to another Hilton Honors Member through Points Pooling or 1-to-1 transfer in increments of 1,000 Points and up to 500,000 Points. Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to sending no more than five hundred thousand (500,000) Points and receiving two million (2,000,000) Points via Points Pooling or Transfers combined per calendar year. Each Hilton Honors Member is limited to making six (6) transfers to other member accounts and six (6) Hilton Points Pooling transactions per calendar year. Invitations to join a Points Pool is not considered transactional. Transactions refer to the transfer of Points to another member account either through 1-to-1 account transfers or through Points Pooling.

Any points beyond these limits will not be posted to any Member's account. Limits are at the sole discretion of Hilton Honors Worldwide L.L.C., subject to change.

A new Hilton Honors Member can pool, transfer, or receive Points 30 days after enrollment providing they have activity on their account. After 90 days of enrollment, a new Member is eligible to pool, transfer, or receive Points regardless of their account activity.​

so if I already initiated pooling option, but nothing else,(emails not clicking thru) can I go back in and do the transfer?

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Wow. Never knew about this hotel. Not as convenient to WDW as Disney Springs hotels, but close to I-4.

Just searched with my Wyndham rewards and yep, available for 15k points per night, or $516.75 + 3k points per night (lol). Gonna keep this one in mind for off-property stays.

This resort is right across the street from my office. It is super close to DAK, just about as close as DAK Lodge is to DAK. They've been building this resort the entire 3.5 years I have been at this office and they are still not done. I've always thought it looked like a nice place.
Maybe I'll rent a 4 bedroom villa for a night and throw a party lol.