I love credit cards so much!

[palhockeymomof2]

Re quoting this thoughts @palhockeymomof2, @SouthFayetteFan or @Lain any Chase experts with insight. Would I be ok to try for CIU and then Hyatt one month later or should I take a 3 month break again after the CIU?

If you can wait the 60 days I’d do it...and wow thanks but I don’t consider myself in the same league as @SouthFayetteFan and @Lain

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

If you can wait the 60 days I’d do it...and wow thanks but I don’t consider myself in the same league as @SouthFayetteFan and @Lain

Ok sounds good!! Yes you have great Chase biz advice!!! Guru for sure!!

 

[vanjust14]

@MrPTato, @liloca, @schmass, @vanjust14 and the rest of the New Englanders I missed looks like 1-2 feet of snow for us this weekend. Ouch!!!

Don't remind me, ughhhh. I need to move to FL!

 

[miztressuz]

I booked my first Marriott room of the year yesterday and my son used it last night passing through Ohio.

It was a category 1 Fairfield Inn and Suites and he said the room was good but the breakfast is better at Holiday Inn Express. I agree with him on their breakfasts - they are pretty basic and the eggs are probably powdered.

So, since I have a credit card that will give me 15 nights, I now only need 34 nights to get platinum. I'm almost tempted to give it a go.

Didn't get Platinum this year as all my cards did not count - the annual fees were waived first year and then even if that was not a factor, I didn't do any more stays even though I was a short 7 days away from 50. They just never did credit me with the rollover or 'new' nights.

So, now I'm waiting to see if I get rollover nights this year. @miztressuz any idea? I made gold through credit card. That takes 25, and potentially I had 43 once my last card posted in December, not counting the SPG Biz with the waived fee or the did not happen rollover from 2017.

My one night credit is 'in progress' so I'm showing zero nights right now. Would love to see rollover, and the 15 credit card nights and then I could make some plans, as I have some gift cards to spend, plus the Amex offer to complete.

Unfortunately rollover nights are gone as are combining nights from multiple credit cards. So sometime before March we should be getting 15 elite nights only credited to the account. Rollover nights and the extra credit card are the only reason we made Platinum. I fully expect to never see it again, we just don't travel that much even if we stayed every night in one program. Our goal is Gold every year - we only need 10 nights on top of the CC nights and since points stays count we should be able to do that. I have fingers crossed for Lifetime Gold in 3-4 years. (need 90 more nights and 2 more years at Gold or higher)

I do find it interesting that we made Lifetime Silver, for which a benefit of any of the lifetime statuses is that your points never expire, but we still show in our account that we have to have activity by such and such date to keep our points. So far I'm chalking it up to poor QA/IT, and based on the crap show that was the merger I assume this is low on the priority list to look into And I'll be shocked if we see the 15 nights before Feb.

 

[castoral]

I opened my PNC acct this morning using my Barclay Arrival Plus. I knew someone had to call the fraud dept when they did the same so I wasn’t surprised to have to talk to them. I was surprised on having to answer a million question to which the lady was saying no, that’s not it.
Lady-When did you purchase your house?
Me- Dec 2016
Lady- Do you have a different answer bc that’s not right

Lady- what domain was an email you used 20 years ago?
Me- optonline.net
Lady- no

Continued on for about 60 questions
I also have an old unpromise Barclay card that I have had for like 15 years and she told me my mother’s maiden name didn’t match to this acct. OMG. My mother’s maiden name hasn’t changed.

This makes me a little nervous! I was planning on doing this bank bonus in the next week or two as well with my Barclay card. I feel like my security questions are always the same but I'm sure they'll have screwy info. Ugh!

 

[trstno1]

Uploading pics from WDW, part of which was solo, makes me realize even more than I knew when I was taking the pics, I've got to figure out what to do with my arms when I'm in the photo alone. As much as I'm glad to have not grown up in the age of social media and in a sorority chapter that wasn't all about the pose either being different would have helped. I can't keep doing hands on hips or one hand on hip because they all start to look the same with a different park icon behind me. Thank goodness for the rare railing to put an arm on or for the PP that had me sit in France. And Baymax has been the most awkward meet ever, he just stands there and the PP wasn't any help.

I hugged baymax too hard when I met him and made him deflate some

I really like baymax

This made me laugh out loud. It was just awkward cause he doesn't move or anything. I booped him in the stomach and nothing so I wasn't really sure what to do so I just stood there for the picture and moved on. Had I known I would have watched some people before I got in line since the set up there you can't see the interaction. It also didn't help that I'd just had the best time crying with Sadness while Joy watched, so to get no interaction was a bummer. I almost prefer not to meet face characters because it's easier to chat with the one's that can't talk. Mickey's during MVMCP was the best and I don't know that it can be topped by him but the pics bring it all back so it's good.

I always like the Baymax fist bump: Balalala

 

[castoral]

Anyone have any amazing beachfront hotels in Florida (preferably gulf side) they've stayed at/dream of staying at with points? Looking for our 15 yr anniversary...

 

[liloca]

I still have ptsd from snowmageddon in 2014

We actually were at Disney in 2013 when Nemo closed most of east coast. We we’re so dumb and though we should leave a day early, but all flights were either cancelled or booked. We took a flight to DC and drove from there to Boston. Worse decision ever. It really look like was the end of the world, one in the highway you could not get out because the exits were not plowed and there were car abandoned under the snow everywhere in the highway!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Anyone have any amazing beachfront hotels in Florida (preferably gulf side) they've stayed at/dream of staying at with points? Looking for our 15 yr anniversary...

We visited friends and stayed for the day at the Marriott Beach Resort on Marco Island it was really nice

 

[tink1970]

Anyone have any amazing beachfront hotels in Florida (preferably gulf side) they've stayed at/dream of staying at with points? Looking for our 15 yr anniversary...

R-C at St Petersburg or Naples. If I were paying cash (I know...) Don Cesar on St Pete Beach (it's pink!).

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

We actually were at Disney in 2013 when Nemo closed most of east coast. We we’re so dumb and though we should leave a day early, but all flights were either cancelled or booked. We took a flight to DC and drove from there to Boston. Worse decision ever. It really look like was the end of the world, one in the highway you could not get out because the exits were not plowed and there were car abandoned under the snow everywhere in the highway!

Omg crazy! I remember leaving work t once and the snow was out of control took us 8 hours to get home! I think it was 2007. I work in the medical area and ambulances were stuck, cars everywhere it was like the Apacolypse

 

[miztressuz]

Made my first Hilton points redemption. Yikes! Most points I've ever shelled out at once, and it's only for one night. But the plus side is when they finally released availability the Embassy Suites made a 2 rm King bed suite available for a std redemption. When I was looking at the last dates they had open, they only had a Studio Queen Murphy bed available for an award night and that would have hurt to spend 70k points on that. At least we're getting a real bed for the same price (the kicker is it's less than $20 to book the real bed anyway over the murphy bed)

It's not a terrible Hilton redemption, it's about .43 cpp and that's about the same amount that the points+cash was going for. I could buy 1000 pts off the night for $4.38 each, but I'm trying for no cash out of pocket for these nights. Plus I could pick up the no fee CC to replenish the stash so we gave them their points back.

So now I have my 3 nights pre-cruise lined up, but I think I'm rethinking my strategy. I currently have the two nights in Vancouver booked separately as I was going to use our free night certs on them, but we have a decent Marriott stash of points so I might see if I can rebook the one night on hubby's account instead and just use all points. If I do that I don't have to worry about getting the status perks on both ressies (since one is on my account and I have no status), would stick with no cash OOP, and both nights will count towards renewing his status. That seems reasonable, right? I can use the free night certs on something else in 2020 so they won't go to waste.

 

[liloca]

Omg crazy! I remember leaving work t once and the snow was out of control took us 8 hours to get home! I think it was 2007. I work in the medical area and ambulances were stuck, cars everywhere it was like the Apacolypse

Yes I remember that! 93 was a parking lot! My husband worked in Somerville and he drove 2 blocks in 2 hours and was lucky to get the last room at a hotel a few blocks away from work. I think it took him 4-5 hours to get there

 

[DisneyMandC]

In light of recent Amex troubles, I'm really considering getting the Marriott personal card for myself with Chase. I'm 3/24, will be 2/24 in June. I'd like to bump up our Marriott points for our trip to Japan next year, so why not? Anyone see any issues? I currently have Marriott biz (will cancel in a couple weeks) and have the SPG biz, which I will keep long-term.

 

[Lain]

Interesting thing about this DP is spending like crazy to hit MSR. I wonder if with AMEX it would be better to space out hitting your MSR instead of attacking it right away (which we are all inclined to do) to get the SUB (like that @SouthFayetteFan)??

I’ve adopted this exact strategy with my BGR. I could have easily hit the $5k MSR in one month, but I’ve distributed that spend across my other Amex cards, and added Amex Offers to use on my lesser used cards, to even out my spend on the MSR card and across my Amex portfolio. (I’ve got 9 open Amex cards, and I’m putting some spend on my wife’s 2 Amexes too. It’s become a real pain managing all these cards, being careful not to overspend on any, and it kills me a little to use an Amex for something when there’s a better bonus category on one of our Chase cards.) So instead of my BGR statements looking like $5k in a month with a steep drop off, it’s more like $800, $2,100, $1,400, $700+... Of course this means putting off the bonus posting, if it does at all because you never know these days. I’m a bit nervous. When I finally hit MSR on my BGR later this month, I should have at least put several thousand $ of spend on my other non-MSR Amexes. Fingers crossed that’s enough to keep Amex happy and get me the 50k MR.

With everything we’re learning about Amex, I’ve become very reluctant to recommend their cards to anyone who isn’t planning to continue spending on their Amex, even if there are better bonus categories on other cards and big signup bonuses on new cards; or is planning to cancel the card after just one year to avoid AFs.

I’m really feeling @GlamMistress’s earlier post, almost like I’m a captive in Amex’s ecosystem. There are several more Amex bonuses that I want, so I’ll play their game a little while longer. I’m putting most of our spend on our Amex cards when not working on MSR. There could be worse currencies to be earning than MRs, Marriott, and Hilton, all of which I have plans to use, but there are so many opportunities lost if you want to keep on Amex’s good list.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I’ve adopted this exact strategy with my BGR. I could have easily hit the $5k MSR in one month, but I’ve distributed that spend across my other Amex cards, and added Amex Offers to use on my lesser used cards, to even out my spend on the MSR card and across my Amex portfolio. (I’ve got 9 open Amex cards, and I’m putting some spend on my wife’s 2 Amexes too. It’s become a real pain managing all these cards, being careful not to overspend on any, and it kills me a little to use an Amex for something when there’s a better bonus category on one of our Chase cards.) So instead of my BGR statements looking like $5k in a month with a steep drop off, it’s more like $800, $2,100, $1,400, $700+... Of course this means putting off the bonus posting, if it does at all because you never know these days. I’m a bit nervous. When I finally hit MSR on my BGR later this month, I should have at least put several thousand $ of spend on my other non-MSR Amexes. Fingers crossed that’s enough to keep Amex happy and get me the 50k MR.

With everything we’re learning about Amex, I’ve become very reluctant to recommend their cards to anyone who isn’t planning to continue spending on their Amex, even if there are better bonus categories on other cards and big signup bonuses on new cards; or is planning to cancel the card after just one year to avoid AFs.

I’m really feeling @GlamMistress’s earlier post, almost like I’m a captive in Amex’s ecosystem. There are several more Amex bonuses that I want, so I’ll play their game a little while longer. I’m putting most of our spend on our Amex cards when not working on MSR. There could be worse currencies to be earning than MRs, Marriott, and Hilton, all of which I have plans to use, but there are so many opportunities lost if you want to keep on Amex’s good list.

See the problem for me is that a $5000 MSR took me up until the very last day of both of my 90 days periods to make! I don't know if I should just avoid 5k MSR with Amex in the future or what...

 

[wendow]

@wendow I got notice today that my Staples RMN went pending! Woohoo, didn’t think it would track. Fingers crossed it goes final. Did yours ever go pending?

I got an email this morning also that mine is pending!! I definitely didn't expect it to work but yay! Now hoping my Chase offer worked too

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

In light of recent Amex troubles, I'm really considering getting the Marriott personal card for myself with Chase. I'm 3/24, will be 2/24 in June. I'd like to bump up our Marriott points for our trip to Japan next year, so why not? Anyone see any issues? I currently have Marriott biz (will cancel in a couple weeks) and have the SPG biz, which I will keep long-term.

I have the Chase Marriott. It’s a solid sign up bonus and card. Though I think I got 100K. I’ll prob keep it for a year for the free night. But IMO the Spg ones are better (biz and lux) because of the bonus categories. It would be on the chopping block first. I’d prefer the Hyatt actually because I feel those points go further and you can transfer URs too. But if you have a specific redemption in mind it’s a good one plus there is more opportunities to get more miles unless you fall into that crazy algorithm (I do I can’t get anymore starriott sign ups for a while).

 

[GlamMistress]

It’s become a real pain managing all these cards, being careful not to overspend on any, and it kills me a little to use an Amex for something when there’s a better bonus category on one of our Chase cards.)

Goes back to my conversation starter about diluting earning too.

1. A point is worth nothing if it isn't redeemed.
2. You need enough points for a good redemption.
3. Often average spenders do best focusing on smaller buckets of points.

This is what I've decided after doing this for nearly 6 years now. Churning is harder the longer you're in the game. Perhaps I'm moving toward quality (MR and UR) and maybe less quantity (single program currencies).

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

See the problem for me is that a $5000 MSR took me up until the very last day of both of my 90 days periods to make! I don't know if I should just avoid 5k MSR with Amex in the future or what...

I honestly think your problem was going for the Gold and Amex wanting more history for that card. I think if you went for a lesser card (say BBP) you’d be ok....