I love credit cards so much! v2.0 (see first page for add'l details)

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Yes! Definitely not big enough. I need that song to physically push me back into my seat :rotfl:



Dolby I guess, I always buy whatever the cheapest movie ticket is lol.

It was same price at AMC Hoffman $15.19 for kids and seniors, and I've not been to a movie in awhile, so now with the rush of Disney movies out and y'all talking about them, I want to go!!

I have reconsidered taking the girls as I see that it is 1hr and 58 minutes. DGD #1 did okay at Lion King in Disney but about 3 minutes from the end announced 'I want to go'. I think I'll take my cue from that as that's only 30 minutes. Now, I have to go find a friend that likes movies.
 
I can't find the Serve MS discussion that I recently read on dischurners. Did it move? Possibly (probably) I just have no clue how to use reddit properly...

So the staples MCGC that are fee free this week I can use at walmart for serve or plastiq for mortgage. correct?
And VGC that may be on sale in the future I need to use at FD or DG?

Do I have that right? This is my first week for serve...whoop whoop!
My bad - I removed it but didn’t start a new one. Do people want to keep a MS Discussion thread on DISchurners? (I restored the old one for now which is past its 6 month window)
 
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Thank you all so much for your help a few months ago. After back and forth spouse and I decided that I should apply for the Chase Sapphire Reserve with him as an added user. I was approved and look forward to churning! First bill will be youngest daughter's fall school sixth grade tuition which will automatically get me the bonus points. :-) Then we'll set up the mortgage to come off that card every month.
 
Went on a Disney GC shopping spree this morning lol. Went to Staples and used one of the Amex offers there. Picked up a $50 Disney GC for $10 off. For some reason Staples didn't track through Dosh for me this time. It's worked with my CIP before but for some reason didn't work with my Amex. Didn't have DH's Hilton Biz so couldn't use his Staples offer. Then I went to BB&B and got $25 GCs on each of our Bonbon Biz. I even found an super old Rite Aid in my area and picked up a $40 Disney GC with the 10% off Chase offer! Finally, I stopped at Kroger and got a $100 Disney GC and $100 VGC with 4x fuel points on each plus 5% back with Dosh.

So, $240 worth of Disney GC for around $199 after I calculate fuel savings too. I'll stop at Walmart this week to liquidate the VGC to Serve- wasn't trying to stop in a Walmart on a Sunday!
Great job! And I didn't figure out until this post that I had Kroger access (near daughter's house!)
 


We can fly out of Toronto and I've been told that is the way to go w/ Europe. So I guess now I start to look into that. Who's got tips for traveling to Europe/Ireland. Which is the best way to go about booking the flights? Detroit is our airport, but Toronto is 4 hours away

If you want a nonstop flight to DUB, then Toronto (YYZ) does appear to have flights on Aer Lingus, Lufthansa and Air Canada. These are all Star Alliance members so searching through United's portal if you have United Miles/URs would work.

DTW does have nonstop flights to Europe but not to DUB and Delta is more expensive OOP and Skymiles/MR wise. I randomly did dates in Nov/Dec and miles/$ --both seem better out of YYZ with nonstop flights to DUB.

Since I don't have exact dates, this is just an approximation. If a direct flight is desired, I always start with skyscanner and check the box that says NO STOPS to get an idea of which airlines/alliances to check for flights.
 
Ca Academy of Science
Aquarium of the Bay
Exploratorium
SFMOMA (but I think the littles would be zoned out)

We'll have to visit again because I want to do Muir, Land's End, Fortune Cookie Factory.

We may have to fit in a visit to Amoeba and at least drive through The Castro and Haight Ashbury.

I don't know when your trip is, but if there's still some time, keep checking for Expedia "activities" deals. I bought CA Academy tickets a few months ago on there, and they were running a promo $25 off $75 (I think?). Also, if you have a BofA card (credit or debit), they have free museums on the 1st weekend of the month. You'll have to look up the most recent list, but I've used it for SF MOMA, Legion of Honor and De Young museums (last 2 are in GG park).
 
ca is tough but people say that about NYC too and I had had success msing there. I’d play around and try some places in your area. It may take you a few tries but once you find something that works it’s easy.
Thanks, I just need to carve some time and try it. There are no FD/DG here, so I would have to go to WM. That place scares me a bit. Lol.

I'm floating almost $1.5k in VGCs and working on multiple MSRs so I feel your pain. 😭 I not aware of any good ways to liquidate VGCs via MS in NorCal, so I just use them at Costco and other places that don't accept Amex.
Same, floating $1k from the last Safeway promo, $17k MSR (one of which is CIP and I've been using that for Costco runs). Maybe I'll hold off on any more apps until I work down these...
 


Haha I’m guessing it would be cold then? I didn’t even look up the temps. I just looked it up and it says it could be 40 F so yeah that’s not happening lol. That’s probably better as a summer trip.

I’ve seen talk about using southwest to get to Hawaii. Are there any other options using chase points? I’ve always been told that when going to Hawaii we need to do more than one island but for a week I don’t know if that’s possible. What do you think?
I really like one week, adults only trips to Europe. The flights tend to get you in early in the day so if you power through and get to bed early, you can get over jet lag pretty early. Hawaii is more hours of flying and jet lag might impact more days.
The key to a one week trip is to limit to one or two places. So if you were to go to UK, maybe do London and one other base. As a traveler, you will always have more stuff to see and will always have plans for another trip (and another and another...) in mind. Especially a place like Europe that is relatively easy to get to, not that far, and easy to plan for. In Florida, you can also drive to Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale for the cheapest flights.
 
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I cannot pull up a support link for the CIP and for the SW cards. I was able to for other cards which is frustrating. I get this message "Thank you for visiting Chase. Our systems indicate that you already have the (Support)-A-Friend website open. Please close all browser sessions and try again." It happens even after I close everything and when I use a different browser. Has this happened to anyone else?

:badpc::badpc::badpc:
 
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I really like one week, adults only trips to Europe. The flights tend to get you in early in the day so if you power through and get to bed early, you can get over jet lag pretty early. Hawaii is more hours of flying and jet lag might impact more days.
The key to a one week trip is to limit to one or two places. So if you were to go to UK, maybe do London and one other base. As a traveler, you will always have more stuff to see and will always have plans for another trip (and another and another...) in mind. Especially a place like Europe that is relatively easy to get to, not that far, and easy to plan for. In Florida, you can also drive to Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale for the cheapest flights.
Yeah, we're going to Rome for a week :) We land at 9:30 am and are hoping to make it through to 8 or 9pm before crashing. I'd love to see more places than Rome but (1) transit between cities takes time that we really don't have and (2) we'll get to Venice some other time!
 
Thanks for the info! I’m actually leaning towards a disney cruise. We could use something pretty relaxing. We don’t have any discounted gcs stocked up so we would maybe just have to cash out some chase points or pay OOP.

DCL would be nice since you wouldn't waste any time actually getting to your vacation spot. ;) And it's a fabulous product. I really enjoy Disney cruises.

Any serve users in Norcal? I've been reading back through the pages of success offloading these to serve, but have always heard of Norcal as a ms wasteland. I still have the $500 cards from the last promotion, and with all the MSRs I'm currently working on, it seems too difficult to spend down these organically.

Reading along since I'd love to try it but keep reading the same thing.

I'm floating almost $1.5k in VGCs and working on multiple MSRs so I feel your pain. 😭 I not aware of any good ways to liquidate VGCs via MS in NorCal, so I just use them at Costco and other places that don't accept Amex.

Yikes. That's why I haven't tried to get any at this point. :(

My bad - I removed it but didn’t start a new one. Do people want to keep a MS Discussion thread on DISchurners? (I restored the old one for now which is past its 6 month window)

Yes, please, just in case I find a way (and some bravery) in the next few months. ;)

Thanks, I just need to carve some time and try it. There are no FD/DG here, so I would have to go to WM. That place scares me a bit. Lol.

Same, floating $1k from the last Safeway promo, $17k MSR (one of which is CIP and I've been using that for Costco runs). Maybe I'll hold off on any more apps until I work down these...

I hate WM, too, so I haven't ever tried it. Plus since I don't really know what I'm doing I'd blunder it somehow.
 
Well went to staples. Now they are enforcing 1 per customer :-( luckily had the whole family so got 5. Hoping to be able to get some more later this week. Ebates in store credited on 4/5 transactions.
Downfall I forgot to grab DH’s Amex only had the old purple card and that doesn’t work anymore. So will nabe to try again.
 
Our first trip to Iceland was with DCL for a Norway, Iceland, Scotland, England cruise. @Calfan and @CaliforniaGirl09 were on the same cruise. This was the summer of 2015 and Iceland was beautiful! We loved it and wanted to come back and see what it was like in the winter. So, we went again for Thanksgiving 2017 and I did post some pics on the old thread. I have linked those below.

This page has an excursion we did plus further down northern lights
https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-love-credit-cards-so-much.3528202/page-495
Pics from Reykjavik
https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-love-credit-cards-so-much.3528202/page-499
Icelandic ponies, and frozen waterfalls
https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-love-credit-cards-so-much.3528202/page-501
Blue Lagoon and ice cave
https://www.disboards.com/threads/i-love-credit-cards-so-much.3528202/page-502

I'm not gonna lie, it was bloody COLD!!!! Mind you we did Winter in Wyoming with ABD and had temps below zero which felt less cold than Iceland in the 20s. Yes, it was 20 something in November. I wasn't using Instagram back then so I don't have pics from the Iceland trip there. They are all on FB. One of these days I'll get around to posting some latergrams LOL While Iceland in the winter is lovely and worth braving the cold to see the northern lights, you'd be doing yourself a disservice by not seeing it in the summer. That said, I think it's an easy trip to plan. We stayed at a Hilton in Reykjavik and were upgraded to club level since we were gold at the time. The Aspire card didn't exist back then. We ate most of our meals in the club lounge which was perfect! Food is expensive in Iceland. There are plenty of tour operators and lots to do.

I think you could knock out 2 birds with one stone and do both Hawaii and DLR. This is what we are doing with my family next summer. I've only got a week to work with. The plan is roughly to fly out on a Friday after work, arrive in LAX and transfer to DLR. Spend the weekend at DLR, fly out to HNL on Monday morning, stay 4 or maybe 5 nights at Aulani. Fly back to LAX on Friday stay one night fly out to Florida on Saturday so we have Sunday to recuperate. I'm only doing this because none of them are well traveled and I think putting them through 11 hours of flying all in one shot would be too much. So. I'm breaking it up a bit on each end. If it were just DH and I, we'd fly out straight to HNL and then back to LAX on Wed and stay 3 nights for DLR and then fly home.
Wow those pictures are awesome! I think we’ll wait until summer sometime and visit Iceland. I don’t want to go when it’s that cold lol.

Thanks for the info about doing DL and Hawaii in a week. I didn’t even think to do it all in one week. I think we decided we’re probably gonna do a Disney cruise and hope for a good Florida resident discount. I did save your info though to my google doc so I can look at it later.
 
Another thank you to @Lain and @SouthFayetteFan. I am stopping at CIP3 but understand the risks I have taken so far. I haven't had a clawback from Amex yet, but I have mentally written off the 15,000 MRs that they would take. It will change my plan in the future, but I'm not upset as I knew I was taking my chances. Wish my P2 was open to business cards, but I will work with what I have and get him an Amex so we can do P2->P1 referrals going forward.

:offtopic:

There's been quite a few events going on this weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Last night I braved the crowds and unbearable heat on the National Mall for a show. They projected the rocket onto the Washington Monument, accompanied by a 17-minute show featuring clips of JFK ("We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard."), mission control, the Moon landing itself, and audio of the astronauts talking back and forth with mission control. Truly one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. The applause from the crowd when the craft landed on the Moon (projected onto the monument!) warmed my heart. I love living in DC.

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That looks so fun! We tried to do a 5K at a local museum in honor of the anniversary, but we had a big storm come through the Twin Cities at the start time. I would have been very excited to attend the events in DC if we were in that area!
 
By this point it's just a given that if I'm going to try something new I'm going to mess it up. :laughing: I wanted to order a serve card and somehow ordered a blue one. So I also ordered a green one. Can I cancel the blue when it gets here, or do I just not activate it?
 
Saw lion king yesterday. We loved it! I missed the regular version of ‘Be Prepared’ and didn’t care for ‘Circle of Life’ but overall, it was well done and very intense.

Biggest issue for us was the theater was filled with families with very little ones. They were all super restless and crying, up and down constantly, running around, talking , etc. We see every Disney movie plus other kid movies and we’d never had an experience like this. It was ridiculous!
We had a family behind us yesterday that were pretty annoying. We picked our seats in a spot where no one would be behind us and they were clearly in the wrong seats. Their seats on the screen showed them being more towards the middle, not right behind us. The girl behind me kept kicking my chair and putting her feet up. One of the other kids kept slurping his drink nonstop when obviously nothing was coming out lol. The mom just sat and said nothing
 
Yeah—I’ve seen Fl rates out of FL and I think TX rates out of Galveston. Don’t think I’ve seen FL rates for Europe or AK. Sort of like how I don’t think there are FL rates for DL.
I actually went back and saw FL rates for a European cruise for August 8. It’s the 10 night Northern European cruise. So maybe they’ll have some for the fall?
 
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