I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[Haley R]

When he starts telling you that he's not flying in coach if the flight is over 3 hours, then you will know he is a plane princess.

I doubt PlanePrincess even knows that Allegiant is an airline

We will most likely always fly allegiant if we can help it. This is a different subject but I was looking at the new business class seats and it looks like all flights out of JFK have them but I can’t find any available flights out of there. It might be a harder airport to get

 

[StephPlum]

Of course it's back now. The only specific card offer I have planned for this year and I'm not eligible yet.

Chase Marriott 100k for 5k in 3 months.
https://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-marriott-bonvoy-boundless-100000-point-offer-returns/
So far support links are still the 3 FNCs for 3k offer.

I have this on my list too. But not eligible yet. I didn’t see an end date. Any guesses as to how long these limited offers last?

 

[mmmears]

Some ramblings and questions...

My extended family is wanting to plan a trip for this summer to include my family, my sister's family and my mom. We did this 3 years ago and flew to Hawaii - did two nights at waikiki beach, took NCL's 7 night cruise around the islands and then spend 5 nights at Aulini. It was a great trip and we thought it would be the only time we did it because of kids getting older, etc.

Anyway, my mom is wanting to try it again. The biggest issue is my girls - one graduated from college last May. She is still looking for "her job", so hopefully will be working somewhere different by July when we would most likely travel. Therefore, her vacation time is questionable. DD2 will graduate this May, so she also is very up in the air about her summer schedule possibilities.

To make it more complicated, everyone is looking into an Alaskan cruise this time. We Love cruises, but they are probably the most difficult type of vacation to change after you've booked (at least as far as I know). So, here in lies my questions:

1. Is there any type of trip insurance that could be purchased that would cover one of both of my DD's not being able to go after rooms are booked? I looked at the CSR insurance because we could pay with points/ charge the rest on that card, but it doesn't seem like it would apply.

2. Wondering what other trips anyone has taken that worked well for multiple generations.

My mom will be 76 when we travel and is in pretty good health, but not an overly active person, so can't walk long distances without tiring, etc. That's part of the reason we think cruising would be good because she's familiar with them and it's easy to do things at varying paces.

My sister has two girls who will be the youngest at 11 and 15 at the time of the trip, so they are old enough that they don't need to be entertained the entire time, but still want to have something fun to do sometimes.

If anyone has any advice / knowledge about this, I would love any input!

I can tell you what we've done in the hope that it will help. We did an Alaskan cruise when my DM was that age and it was perfect since we could get off the ship and have adventures that she wasn't interested in, but we still have breakfasts and dinners together as a family.

My DD is in a similar position (needs to find a job in the US once her overseas research is done) and we are planning a big trip this summer. Add to that that she has to look for a job for just one year (wants to go to school after that) and would like to join us this summer and it's not easy. This is what I did: booked flights for 2 on points (we will deal with her flights if/when she finds out if she can join us), booked hotels for 3 just in case, and booked the cruise for 3. We have a PIF date in April, so that gives her some time to try to figure things out. We also have "cancel for any reason" insurance that I was told would work for this, in case we do PIF and then she realizes she can't join us.

Also we have 8 nights on land (4 before and 4 after the cruise) which adds some flexibility in case she can only join us for part of the time.

 

[Haley R]

My DS didn’t wake as much but getting him to go to sleep was an issue from day 1. Still is and he’s almost 11.

My DSs first long trip was 12 hours, China to Chicago, so opposite of yours. He slept 8 hours and cried about 3 hours of the remainder. We brought a car seat which was great (but we were in economy plus, not biz) for sleeping and eating.

Jet lag after getting home was awful, lasted about a week for all of us.


Is he against it enough to say biz or stay home? I mean getting 3 biz seats is not always easy.

We will bring a car seat even if we’re in business class. I would think if we can’t get business he would consider other options. I don’t think he wants to consider them unless we have to. He wants to go back to japan pretty bad.

I’m not sure if you can book premium with virgin for ANA. The award chart I saw only showed economy, business, and first

 

[wisconsinmom]

DH was just auto approved for the SW Priority card. I think I'm going to try a MDD, I wait until morning to do that, correct?

 

[ski_mom]

My first thought on a cruise is the lack of flexibility (i.e. you can't really jump on and off the ship). I've gone on family trips that covered multiple generations (i.e. beach, theme park, etc.) and those worked well because nobody had to be there the whole time to make it work. I remember a trip where a bunch of us were there Sat-Sat but then my one sister-in-law and fiance came in the middle and my brother-in-law left early, and some others showed up late, but for a few days in the middle of the week we were all together! Just food for thought... in case your daughters can perhaps swing 3-4 days but not a full week off...

That is true - there is no going for a partial week with a cruise! My sister also mentioned wanting to do Niagara Falls, but I'm not sure what we could do in that area for an entire week. I know Toronto is close, but I need to check it out some more. That would definitely be more flexible.

How last minute would you need to cancel? There's cancel for any reason insurance, but it would only cover 50-75% (depending on the coverage). You would need to buy it soon after booking the cruise.

Unless you get a nonrefundable deposit rate, most can be canceled for a full refund 4 months before sailing. Are you looking at NCL again? Here's their refund schedule (for non-suites, 7 days or more):

119 - 91 days	25%*
90 - 61 days	50%*
60 - 31 days	75%*
30 days or less	100%

Another thought is if someone can take their place if they can't go, you can usually do a name change for no fee or very low fee (like $50).

Good question - I'm not really sure how soon we'd know for sure. I didn't know that you could do a name change though. If only one of the girls couldn't go, possibly the other would have a friend that could go or maybe DS would. I'm not entirely sure how my mom would feel about that though. She's funny about some things lol!

I know the insurance DCL offers (which I believe is Allianz) has cancel for any reason. I believe you only get 75% back now (used to be more). I personally think cruises are great for multi-generation trips and offer a ton of options. Everyone can do what they want during the day and meet up at dinner. I've done Alaska in 2018 with my then 13 and 14 year olds and will do it again this year. It was amazing (even with Disney's itinerary--I'm sure on Princess or one of the other lines that go to Glacier Bay it's really incredible).

Glad to hear that your kids liked it. my sister is a little nervous that her girls are too young for it, but I think they will be fine.

I can tell you what we've done in the hope that it will help. We did an Alaskan cruise when my DM was that age and it was perfect since we could get off the ship and have adventures that she wasn't interested in, but we still have breakfasts and dinners together as a family.

My DD is in a similar position (needs to find a job in the US once her overseas research is done) and we are planning a big trip this summer. Add to that that she has to look for a job for just one year (wants to go to school after that) and would like to join us this summer and it's not easy. This is what I did: booked flights for 2 on points (we will deal with her flights if/when she finds out if she can join us), booked hotels for 3 just in case, and booked the cruise for 3. We have a PIF date in April, so that gives her some time to try to figure things out. We also have "cancel for any reason" insurance that I was told would work for this, in case we do PIF and then she realizes she can't join us.

Also we have 8 nights on land (4 before and 4 after the cruise) which adds some flexibility in case she can only join us for part of the time.

That's a good ideas as well. I didn't know that had cancel for any reason insurance. I need to look into that a little.


Thanks for all the advice! I really appreciate it!

 

[mmmears]

I wonder if the plane has free (and reliable) wifi. Then we'll just text each other the whole trip...

My friend flew ANA first a few months ago and was texting me during the flight, so I'd say it's a definite possibility.

Happened to me with Chipotle a couple weeks ago and is a known problem with DoorDash. They desperately need better tracking and stricter rules on their drivers.

Last night I ordered Panda Express and it came straight from the restaurant but the little side box of Kung Pao Chicken was mysteriously missing... They refunded via app right away for it but I would have preferred to have actually gotten it!

And this is why we pretty much never bother with these delivery services anymore. I don't want them going through my food and deciding to eat some of it.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

DH was just auto approved for the SW Priority card. I think I'm going to try a MDD, I wait until morning to do that, correct?

Yes next day

 

[DisneyMandC]

I forgot to share the good work/time off news I got last week!

Our office has always had these weird “floating holidays” where we’re off Presidents Day and Columbus Day, but we’re REQUIRED to take PTO for them. Every time I tried to get an explanation for it I was I told that a certain fraction of additional PTO was added to all of our time so that we weren’t actually “using” our PTO for this. I never saw that reflected anywhere and could never get a straight answer for it. So, unfortunately, I’ve been burning 16 hours of PTO every year to take off two days that I don’t want to take off to begin with.

Well, apparently my new boss also found this policy to be ridiculous, so she’s canceled that effectively immediately! Now I don’t have to take Presidents Day off, which means I’ll only be using 24 hours of PTO that week since I leave for FL that Tuesday night! I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to go to work But I effectively have two vacation days back now!!

 

[disneedee]

Some ramblings and questions...

My extended family is wanting to plan a trip for this summer to include my family, my sister's family and my mom. We did this 3 years ago and flew to Hawaii - did two nights at waikiki beach, took NCL's 7 night cruise around the islands and then spend 5 nights at Aulini. It was a great trip and we thought it would be the only time we did it because of kids getting older, etc.

Anyway, my mom is wanting to try it again. The biggest issue is my girls - one graduated from college last May. She is still looking for "her job", so hopefully will be working somewhere different by July when we would most likely travel. Therefore, her vacation time is questionable. DD2 will graduate this May, so she also is very up in the air about her summer schedule possibilities.

To make it more complicated, everyone is looking into an Alaskan cruise this time. We Love cruises, but they are probably the most difficult type of vacation to change after you've booked (at least as far as I know). So, here in lies my questions:

1. Is there any type of trip insurance that could be purchased that would cover one of both of my DD's not being able to go after rooms are booked? I looked at the CSR insurance because we could pay with points/ charge the rest on that card, but it doesn't seem like it would apply.

2. Wondering what other trips anyone has taken that worked well for multiple generations.

My mom will be 76 when we travel and is in pretty good health, but not an overly active person, so can't walk long distances without tiring, etc. That's part of the reason we think cruising would be good because she's familiar with them and it's easy to do things at varying paces.

My sister has two girls who will be the youngest at 11 and 15 at the time of the trip, so they are old enough that they don't need to be entertained the entire time, but still want to have something fun to do sometimes.

If anyone has any advice / knowledge about this, I would love any input!

i do think the cruise is an easy generational trip. we have also done Disneyland several times with 4 generations. It is more laid back than wdw, we all get together for dinner, different groups split up during the day. My parents, my kids, my grands stay in a 3 bdrm at dlh. My siblings and their kids &grands stay else where >$. Some even live in the area. We rent a scooter for my dad who walks with a cane. dont ever get everyone to participate but still love those trips. I do get better participation at DL then I do cruises. We have tried the cruises 3 times. Have done the DL closer to 10 times (Even before grandkids).

 

[shairpdrh]

I like to say with little kids it's not vacation - it's just parenting in a new location.

Even at 10 and 14 we don't call them family vacations, they're "family experiences" because there's still not much relaxing going on. We have fun, but there's no laying on the beach drifting off to sleep type of relaxation. I guess that will come when they're out of the house. Maybe???

We go with "family trip" instead of vacation. They vary from amazing to meh, but so do parenting days.

 

[PolyRob]

I forgot to share the good work/time off news I got last week!

Our office has always had these weird “floating holidays” where we’re off Presidents Day and Columbus Day, but we’re REQUIRED to take PTO for them. Every time I tried to get an explanation for it I was I told that a certain fraction of additional PTO was added to all of our time so that we weren’t actually “using” our PTO for this. I never saw that reflected anywhere and could never get a straight answer for it. So, unfortunately, I’ve been burning 16 hours of PTO every year to take off two days that I don’t want to take off to begin with.

Well, apparently my new boss also found this policy to be ridiculous, so she’s canceled that effectively immediately! Now I don’t have to take Presidents Day off, which means I’ll only be using 24 hours of PTO that week since I leave for FL that Tuesday night! I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to go to work But I effectively have two vacation days back now!!

That is great! Props to the new boss for making logical sense! You don't see that everyday

 

[CyndiLouWho]

We will bring a car seat even if we’re in business class. I would think if we can’t get business he would consider other options. I don’t think he wants to consider them unless we have to. He wants to go back to japan pretty bad.

I’m not sure if you can book premium with virgin for ANA. The award chart I saw only showed economy, business, and first

Good to be flexible. I would definitely prefer Biz if we go back to China. The first time we flew it was before points and we flew United so it was whatever their upgraded economy was at the time. I mean we didn’t die but it wasn’t great. I can’t imagine the people in economy with a kid on their lap 12 hours. My kid was 20 lbs at that age, I couldn’t do it. Plus I’m not sure how you can eat or even have a drink. I couldn’t put the tray table down at all with DS in my lap.

Glad to hear that your kids liked it. my sister is a little nervous that her girls are too young for it, but I think they will be fine.

We did an Alaska cruise last summer (Disney) and DS enjoyed it at 10. Lots of stuff to do on and off the ship. He especially enjoyed the dog sled ride and whale watching
ETA We left from Vancouver and found lots of stuff to do there. So if someone couldn’t make the cruise but could do a few days before or after in Seattle or Vancouver, that’s another option.

 

[georgina]

Dh applied for a CIP on Tuesday last week, was approved Wednesday, card arrived in mail Monday! (not expedited. )That was fast.

We did Ka Moana Luau at Sea Life Park. We very much enjoyed it, not that we have anything to compare it to though. We had purchased Go Oahu cards to cover all of our activities and it completely covered Luau.

We did a luau at Sea Life Park 4 years ago, back then it was called The Chief's Luau. I wonder if he is still there? We did find it entertaining, but like you don't have anything to compare it to.

 

[ski_mom]

i do think the cruise is an easy generational trip. we have also done Disneyland several times with 4 generations. It is more laid back than wdw, we all get together for dinner, different groups split up during the day. My parents, my kids, my grands stay in a 3 bdrm at dlh. My siblings and their kids &grands stay else where >$. Some even live in the area. We rent a scooter for my dad who walks with a cane. dont ever get everyone to participate but still love those trips. I do get better participation at DL then I do cruises. We have tried the cruises 3 times. Have done the DL closer to 10 times (Even before grandkids).

That's great that you've been able to do so many trips! ' With us, it's just our two families and my mom. We all live in the same town and actually all eat lunch together every Sunday after church at my mom's, so we see each other often, but it's so fun to travel together! I hope we can get something worked out. My family did DL with my mom about six years ago. We actually flew into San Francisco for a bit, then drove down the coast to DL. It was a great trip, but I"m not sure my mom would enjoy DL too much anymore. I don't think she would use a scooter, even though she would really need to. Definitely something to look at though - my sister's family has never been to DL (or California in general).

 

[mmmears]

We had great family vacations even when DD was really small, but it helped that my DM joined us and with a 3:1 ratio we all got plenty of time to relax.

When he starts telling you that he's not flying in coach if the flight is over 3 hours, then you will know he is a plane princess.

I doubt PlanePrincess even knows that Allegiant is an airline

I have a PlanePrincess in the house, too, but I don't want to take away from your DH's title. He would rather not travel than sit in economy on long flights. I think he will do 5 hours in coach if pushed, but not without lots of complaining. I'm pretty much the same way at this point.

 

[Haley R]

Good to be flexible. I would definitely prefer Biz if we go back to China. The first time we flew it was before points and we flew United so it was whatever their upgraded economy was at the time. I mean we didn’t die but it wasn’t great. I can’t imagine the people in economy with a kid on their lap 12 hours. My kid was 20 lbs at that age, I couldn’t do it. Plus I’m not sure how you can eat or even have a drink. I couldn’t put the tray table down at all with DS in my lap.

We did an Alaska cruise last summer (Disney) and DS enjoyed it at 10. Lots of stuff to do on and off the ship. He especially enjoyed the dog sled ride and whale watching
ETA We left from Vancouver and found lots of stuff to do there. So if someone couldn’t make the cruise but could do a few days before or after in Seattle or Vancouver, that’s another option.

I can't imagine a 20 lb. child on my lap for 12+ hours. That just sounds miserable and that's why he'll be getting his own seat lol. Plus like you said, it'll be hard to eat or do anything if he doesn't have his own space. I'm hoping we're able to get flights easily.

 

[bernina]

Has anyone purchased tickets using aavacations? I'm considering booking a throwaway hotel and car rental to purchase Universal tickets. I would lose 10,400 AA points for the hotel and car rental, so that would bring the price for 3 day park to park tickets to 31,900 each. My original plan was to use URs, price using the CSR would be 22,364 points. With no longer being able to accumulate AA points I would rather use them and save my URs. I would think that the tickets would come electronically and I would be okay not using the car or hotel, but want to check. Thanks

Me! I booked 2 day 2 park base Universal tickets for the 3 of us, 1 night at Portofino, and a throw away rental car. I got just slightly better than 1 cpp redemption even with the throwaway car.

Here's how it worked for me. I made the booking and received email confirmation. It said that 35 days prior to travel I would revive a voucher for the universal tickets. Exactly 35 days before I received a call and they asked to clarify that I wanted only 3 park tickets even though I had 4 people listed on my hotel reservation. I confirmed that was correct. 2 days later I had an email with ticket vouchers. They were a pdf attachment with barcodes that I was able to add to the Universal app (they could also just be scanned at the gates, no will call needed).

They expired 1 year from the date I received the phone call. Names were assigned to each ticket so make sure to get those correct as it indicated they're non transferable (they never checked ID for us though).

You are correct that you don't need to check into hotel or pick up car. I was also never charged any taxes or fees for the rental car. I've read that some folks have been charged.

I'm not sure how many points you have or when you're going but I'll throw in there that staying at a deluxe universal hotel is the only way I'll do those parks now. You might want to price out a room at the cheapest deluxe to see if that could be an option. Free express pass on check in and check out day was amazing and worth every penny of that expensive hotel room. The best part was not having to pay cash.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[LB002]

Just some random unsolicited information. I canceled both my personal SW cards back in Oct/Nov and up until two days ago both showed in my account, both were a zero balance when closed. One has since gone to "NA" and when you select it says something about they are having trouble loading the account, and the other still shows but listed as closed.

Interesting. I closed my old SW card 2+ years ago and it still shows in my Chase account. I'd love to make ir go away!

 

[GlamMistress]

I updated my links on the new Dischurners support threads and this is my biggest accomplishment of the day. #Monday