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

[tink89]

With those goals in mind, here would be my suggestions:

*Assuming you've opened all those cards in the last 24 months, you are 4/24.*

If you can get business cards in any way, I'd HIGHLY suggest doing those before you make any other move. Those will get you UR points that can be used towards Disney hotels and I believe still the cruises. I used them to buy park tickets but I don't believe that's an option any longer.

If you are doing business.....plan for SW companion pass with personal/biz at the end of this year/early Jan.

If no business, my next best suggestion would be Capital One Venture or Barlcay Arrival Plus to "erase" travel costs.

At the end of this month I will be at 2/24 and P2 is at 3/24 plus 2 bus cards. He has an actual small business on the side i however have just a regular job lol.

I can't book Disney hotels with UR or can I? I have an AP and the family will have one soon so no tickets needed.
Can you choose your seat on SW? I always hear not great things but many people on here seem to like. We fly Alaska a a lot.

 

[havaneselover]

How do you get it almost free?

They keep having offers. The first one was three months free or for $0.99. So I canceled it and as soon as it expired I did the two months for $0.99. Find out about them on hip2save or slickdeals.

 

[speedyfishy]

Did anyone see the Theme Parks board post saying RnR and ToT are going to Tier One fast pass, as HS, beginning 8/29??

Yes. Saw that yesterday. So ridiculous.

So what rides will be tier 2? Only Star tours? The rest are shows so that doesn’t count.

 

[havaneselover]

I would book the SW flights on RR points....if the number of points goes down...you can change the flight online or call to get the points back in your account

Just did this today--was so easy. Now my tickets to go to Florida right after Christmas are under 40,000 RR points for the three of us. I'm concerned the nonstops from RIC to TPA are so cheap. I hope they don't discontinue them.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

If you are booked on SW soon....keep a close eye on your flight status....they are cancelling flights a day before...happened to us(MCO-ISP)...5 flights to ISP were cancelled on Sunday...received LUV vouchers since it was a mechanical issue
or in my daughters case when they landed in in BWI...yesterday....the plane was supposed to continue on to RDU... but they kicked everyone off the plane and used it for a flight to Vegas....she is also getting a voucher
We both had to tweet SW to get the vouchers
She is flying back to ISP today and so far her flight is fine, but others have been cancelled

 

[DisneyMandC]

Did anyone see the Theme Parks board post saying RnR and ToT are going to Tier One fast pass, as HS, beginning 8/29??

Of course they are, since my trip is 9/21

 

[elgerber]

So what rides will be tier 2? Only Star tours? The rest are shows so that doesn’t count.

According to that post yes.

 

[speedyfishy]

According to that post yes.

That’s awful. I have no desire to do their awful shows even fantasmic stinks at Hollywood studios lol

 

[castoral]

Bellagio is part of MGM and not Caesar's so that status won't help with the resort fees. I haven't seen a way yet to waive those at MGM, I don't see any status level in mLife that does it like Caesar's does.

@castoral did you get your Caesar's Diamond status alright from the matching? Did you get the MGM offer on any of your AmEx cards? I don't know if it actually works because we've been lucky to get the offers on the cards we want them so far, but DoC posted about a trick to try to add an offer to a AmEx card it's not showing.
AMEX Connect offer trick
The MGM offer is listed there so could be worth a try?

If you haven't signed up for an mLife account you may be able to match your Diamond status to mLife Gold when opening a new account at certain mLife properties. Reports from April of MGM Grand in Vegas doing it for new members only (don't know how long it'll stick around). Sometimes you hear of some of other properties outside of Vegas and Atlantic City matching but I'm not sure of any right now. You can always do Diamond to Gold in AC at the Borgata but it's not something I'd really make a special trip for if you're not from the area. It waives parking fees, and opens up room upgrades, but not really much else. Pearl status, one down from Gold, will get you complimentary self-parking if that's would be useful and looks like you can more easily get matched to that.

Yes, agreed. I have not found anything to waive MGM resort fees. That being said, I'm still okay with paying $302.73 for 3 nights there. I do have the MGM offer, but we are going in Nov. There may be another one by then. Although I wonder if there's a way to call and ask to pay in full now? Worse case, I have $42 and $67 leftover on my Capital One cards I could use towards that as well, so quite a bit still on Barclay ($836).

We were able to get Diamond status at Caesars. I just got Gold Status with Hilton myself this weekend, so I'll be matching it to Wyndham this week and then to Caesars as well. Even if it only gets us some players credit, so be it. We wont have a car there, and only plan on renting one for the day to see Valley of Fire/Hoover Dam, so no real use for the free parking either. We're in Ohio, so not close to AC. I've been researching what else I can match the status too, just for grins and giggles.

 

[LynnTH]

a friend of mine also uses his UR exclusively for cruises... but i could of sworn i heard a rumor that chase will only let u book up to 2019... im not 100% sure if this is correct or not.

It was for a while just 2019. But I just booked a December 2020 Cruise with UR Point last month. So, you can book later now.

 

[wanderlust7]

This is a really short trip, right? In that case I should use SNA to save transit time.

LAX is fairly mild in the day time, it does get pretty intense at night though. LAX also probably will be cheaper to fly into in terms of cost vs SNA.
both have Disneyland express shuttles running every hour.



yeah, i saw a town just around the other side with reasonable prices. might stay there first before going into Teton NP.
im a huge cave lover. i found some are located by Bear Lake. so that will delay my trip into yellowstone more so that i can hit old faithful correctly on monday! lol
The holiday inn u were at, u just drove back and forth from there? yikes, $360 a night, but it seems like the average price for all the hotels there. think ill book the remaining nights there after my Old Faithful inn stay

I actually just switched my flight to the EVEN smaller airport at Long Beach LGB. Their flight time worked better for my schedule, points required similar to SNA, and LYFT pricing comparable.

We're flying into LGB.

Flying out, I was looking at Southwest SNA for $116, LGB $100, LAX $125. Ended up deciding on SNA since it's an evening flight on a weekday, so afraid of traffic. Was tempted to go LGB, but was a little worried it's the last flight of the day. Plus I'd have $6 left on my Southwest gift card, which would likely get forgotten, lol.

Used up both my gift cards from the plat and biz plat! Yay for not having to bother selling them!

Sad we won't get free food at LAX. But it makes sense logistically. We're flying out of OAK on the way there, so hoping to make it to the Escape Lounge! Going directly from the kids swimming class, so won't have a whole bunch of extra time.... But only me and DS, so no worries about getting 4 people in!

 

[LynnTH]

Yes, I think so. Disney and Royal Caribbean are our main vacations so I don't think it will be useful to us. I really like my Barclay card because I can redeem it on any sort of travel. It will be for my husband who is an authorized user on my card, so I don't even know if he can get his own card. Also, preferably it should be in the company name, which I don't know if I can do on a Barclay card. I will keep looking

I just booked a RCCL Cruise with my Chase UR's. (and had a cruise in March on Carnival that was also booked with UR's). I have the CSR so I got to book at 1.5 value. So cruise was $3,000 and with the CSR I was able to use 200,000 UR's and pay for the entire cruise. With the CIP it is 1.25 value so you would need 240,000 UR's (for the same $3000 cruise) - still a really good deal. Or you can just cash out 1:1 and use for whatever you want. These are some of the best points out there.

 

[LynnTH]

You have to call Chase Travel and Cruises and complete the transfer form on the RCCL site to move it.

Or if you have enough points when booking - just book directly with Chase Travel & Cruise department. That is what I did on my most recent booking.

 

[castoral]

Flights booked with SW for just under 34,000 points CVG to Vegas.....11/2 to 11/6. Now the issue though.....the email say Bellagio to the 6th....yeah, it was actually 11/4-11/7 when I went into Hyatt.com. Sooooo I tried modifying the reservation and of course they want $450/night. Nope. I'll call and see if they can just drop off 11/7.

That leaves me now with 2 nights to find a cheap/free hotel. Our flight would get in late 11/2 (9:10 Vegas time, so like 11:10 our time). DH will have been up since 3am that day for work so he'll be tired. We'll get a hotel that night, but I'm thinking 11/3 maybe we could rent a car, drive out to the Grand Canyon and stay out there. He's always wanted to see it. Then 11/4 come back via Valley of Fire, then Hoover dam and still be checking in by 4pm-ish.

That would give us all day the 4th and 5th in Vegas. We aren't big gamblers and I'm reading it'll likely be too cold by then to enjoy the pools, so really that may be plenty of time.

 

[GZanta77]

That’s awful. I have no desire to do their awful shows even fantasmic stinks at Hollywood studios lol

Whhhaaaaatttttt??? Do my eyes deceive me......

 

[miztressuz]

Yes, agreed. I have not found anything to waive MGM resort fees. That being said, I'm still okay with paying $302.73 for 3 nights there. I do have the MGM offer, but we are going in Nov. There may be another one by then. Although I wonder if there's a way to call and ask to pay in full now? Worse case, I have $42 and $67 leftover on my Capital One cards I could use towards that as well, so quite a bit still on Barclay ($836).

We were able to get Diamond status at Caesars. I just got Gold Status with Hilton myself this weekend, so I'll be matching it to Wyndham this week and then to Caesars as well. Even if it only gets us some players credit, so be it. We wont have a car there, and only plan on renting one for the day to see Valley of Fire/Hoover Dam, so no real use for the free parking either. We're in Ohio, so not close to AC. I've been researching what else I can match the status too, just for grins and giggles.

Yeah I wondered if you could ask them to prepay but the LV destinations one was spend $500 so I'm not sure that would work. Well poo for that. Still a deal though for the Bellagio!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

That’s awful. I have no desire to do their awful shows even fantasmic stinks at Hollywood studios lol

I have to admit...DH and I watch the frozen singalong....each trip now....we ever use to....but went last May when we had 4 littles ones with us....really enjoyed it...the narrators are funny and their dialogue is different every time

 

[pinkxray]

I sent a message to Chase this morning to lower my credit lines. They have all been lowered today.
When can I apply for my CIP? Tomorrow?

 

[amalone1013]

I have to admit...DH and I watch the frozen singalong....each trip now....we ever use to....but went last May when we had 4 littles ones with us....really enjoyed it...the narrators are funny and their dialogue is different every time

The one guy is great! I follow him on instagram

 

[afan]

Check your Chase offers for Lowes. I am not sure if these are new but they are new to me. This morning I had 10% off up to $13 credit on my CSR, IHG, and Hyatt cards. (Pretty much the worst cards to get the offer on but oh well). They have worked in the past on gift cards.

Really want that deal but didn't have it. Used the last Lowe's offer. Have the rite aid on both cards but it's really not worth the hassle for only 5%.