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

[DisneyMandC]

Just checked our February SW flight from MCO to RIC and it dropped 3100 miles! Rebooked and got 6200 SW RR back in my account.

 

[bernina]

What did we do before packing cubes?!
I used gallon zip lock bags to pack my daughters stuff and would label for each day to make her daily dressing easy. For hubby and I when the roll vacuum seal bags came around I would use those for our bulky items to help compress.

The one where she tries to cram what normally fits into a large checked bag into a backpack and kids carryon bag.

I did a little test today. I dug out DD’s kids carryon which is about the size of the Away Carryon (not the bigger size). It’s a similar clamshell setup with similar interior dimensions too.

I grabbed 2 pairs of jeans, linen pants, leggings, pajama top and bottom, about 10 tops ranging from tees to tanks to silk shells, 2 bulky sweaters, a skirt, a casual dress, a weeks worth of unmentionables and socks, curling iron, lint brush, hair brush, 2 pairs of sneakers, ballet flats, and flip flops. I rolled and used every inch of space and it fit just fine! My (much condensed) toiletry and makeup bags would probably fit if I really crammed things in there but no need to make everything a wrinkled mess. Should be plenty of room in the motherlode junior that’s on its way for those and a yet to be purchased travel hairdryer. That will also carry electronics and cords, my smaller travel purse, snacks, travel documents, and maybe another pair of shoes because well, shoes!! Oh and perhaps a new cashmere wrap too

 

[Haley R]

No....Me either.....I carry the same bag at home and an old school Disney drawn string bag at Disney....

We are so basic (and I mean simple) with our stuff we use. My parents gave us our luggage and I’m sure we’ll use it for a long time until we absolutely have to get a new set. I don’t even know what brand it is lol. We have backpacks that we’ve kept for many years. My purse is a tiny purse from kohl’s. We use drawstring bags at Disney too, just adidas ones. I think we’re just very simple people.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

It looks like if you do the 5 nights with the one free night, you get the cheapest one free. So 12/23-28 is 210k with 12/23 (40k) being free.

[/QUOTE]
Yeah - unfortunately that’s how it’s supposed to work now. Bummer - but at least it’s right.

Can you only do flexible dates at certain hotels? Sometimes I see it and other times I look for it like crazy then wonder if I imagined it before.

I feel like I’ve always seen it on the website when I wanted to find it. I can’t say for sure that it’s always there though.

 

[elgerber]

Good grief people, now I am looking at travel blankets . Look what you do to me??
And I LOVED Gaga and Cooper in A Star is Born. Right now I am watching super hi class stuff, Poseidon. Love a good bad disaster flick with glass of wine.

 

[Lain]

I never joined Sam's Club with previous offers, but I am considering this if I can stack it with something else:

View attachment 435760

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/amex...tack-with-referral-savings-offer-portal-more/

 

[PolyRob]

I had mine stack with an offer of $45 towards an online purchase plus a Dosh offer when I did mine. So I came out way ahead! Plus I just a $45 GC from them because they thought something didn’t work.

https://www.doctorofcredit.com/amex...tack-with-referral-savings-offer-portal-more/

Thank you! I should have checked Doc ... I feel silly LOL

 

[Artygal90]

We are back from our Universal Studios trip so it's trip redemption report time!

We checked into the Hard Rock Hotel last Sunday and spent 5 full days at Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Volcano Bay. We also got Blue Man Group tickets through the UR portal (awesome show!) and paid for our flights with SW RR points and our CP. DH's Amex Plat airline credit covered our upgraded boarding at $40/pp and plane drinks so we got to fly out in style. The hotel was very stylish and very convenient to the parks. Crowds were low and we had the included unlimited Express passes, so we got to ride all the rides we wanted and re-ride most of our favorites at least once and still had time to relax in the evenings or midday.

So here is our final cost breakdown for our Universal Studios trip for 2 adults -
Flight fees : ~$25
Upgraded boarding on SW: $0
Drinks on the plane: $0
3-Park 5-Day PTP tickets: $0
Blue Man Group tickets: $0
Hotel charges: $72 since I was short on UR
Airport Ubers: ~$75
Food/souvenirs/incidentals: ~$1100. I wince that we spent that much but we didn't skimp on ordering drinks/apps/'zerts and tried all the restaurants we wanted. This also includes odds and ends like the overpriced Advil we got at the hotel since DH's head hurt so much after too much sun at Volcano Bay.

Best of all is that I was able to bridge my ticket into an 3-park annual pass for just $133! DH works weekends so we figured it wouldn't make sense to upgrade his tickets too. I'm hoping to make the next trip with my friends to do HP stuff together. Maybe I will even get up the guts to go to HHN later this year or next.

So all in all, total cost for 2 people to spend 5 days/6 nights at USO, including flights, hotel, park tickets, Blue Man Group show tickets, food, transportation, souvenirs, and one annual pass = $1404. I haven't done all the math but I believe that flights/hotel/tickets alone would have cost around $2500 out of pocket, not including the annual pass.

In short, as I always say at the end of these redemption reports...this is the best hobby ever!

 

[speedyfishy]

just basically throw everything in, squish it down, and pray it zips.

This was me before packing cubes. I would do laundry before a trip and just put clothes in right out of the dryer.

 

[snugglebug]

I’m at Dave and Busters and thought of you!

For only 1100 tickets you can have a pillow that turns into a blanket!

I’m joking but honestly there is a DCL version that looks super similar.

View attachment 435758

I feel so special to be thought of lol I told my family I need a Cinderella fleece blanket for Christmas, or the Castle.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

.

 

[wendow]

At any rate - I booked a Rock Star room and now I'm a ROCK STAR DAD!!! I'm pretty pumped about this if you can't tell. I just needed to look in the mirror and realize that sometimes point optimization isn't the only factor! Sometimes you just gotta do something AWESOME!

I'm really so very proud of you! You are doing something totally awesome that will WOW your wife and dd's! I can't wait to hear how much they love it (and you for getting them this cool room!!!).

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I'm really so very proud of you! You are doing something totally awesome that will WOW your wife and dd's! I can't wait to hear how much they love it (and you for getting them this cool room!!!).

Thanks @wendow - I'm glad I have friends like you and others here who remind me that churning decisions don't ALWAYS have to be made solely on point optimization and dollars and cents.

Also WOW - I just checked and there was only 1 Rock Star suite available for that night!! Somebody must've cancelled opening it up. It's not available again for our nights on AAvacations and on the Universal direct website. Who knows why I randomly decided to check that at 11pm tonight...seriously, I had given up and hadn't checked in a couple weeks. WOW - super pumped now and feeling even better about the redemption since I know I snagged the LAST ONE!!!

 

[PolyRob]

Thanks @wendow - I'm glad I have friends like you and others here who remind me that churning decisions don't ALWAYS have to be made solely on point optimization and dollars and cents.

Also WOW - I just checked and there was only 1 Rock Star suite available for that night!! Somebody must've cancelled opening it up. It's not available again for our nights on AAvacations and on the Universal direct website. Who knows why I randomly decided to check that at 11pm tonight...seriously, I had given up and hadn't checked in a couple weeks. WOW - super pumped now and feeling even better about the redemption since I know I snagged the LAST ONE!!!

So is this room a complete surprise? Will your wife or either daughter know prior to arrival!?!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

So is this room a completely surprise? Will your wife or either daughter know prior to arrival!?!

My wife knows - but I'm not telling the girls. It will be a complete surprise to them! (I'm gonna earn that dad of the year award in their hearts over this one!!!)

I've had so many things line up for this trip. This is also the trip where I was originally only going to get 2 park days (with maybe a couple of hours on Sat) and then was able to move up to an earlier SW flight so we'll get all of Sat afternoon/evening and 2 full park days after that. My parents and sister & husband are coming. It's gonna be an awesome trip! (Hopefully all goes well with my wife and the flight...that's the only concern at this point).

 

[PolyRob]

My wife knows - but I'm not telling the girls. It will be a complete surprise to them! (I'm gonna earn that dad of the year award in their hearts over this one!!!)

I've had so many things line up for this trip. This is also the trip where I was originally only going to get 2 park days (with maybe a couple of hours on Sat) and then was able to move up to an earlier SW flight so we'll get all of Sat afternoon/evening and 2 full park days after that. My parents and sister & husband are coming. It's gonna be an awesome trip! (Hopefully all goes well with my wife and the flight...that's the only concern at this point).

WOW! I can only imagine how excited they will be. The looks on their faces will be priceless

 

[Artygal90]

So I did a little thing tonight ... I changed my November Universal Hotel booking to AA miles (was previously with URs).

Special Shout-out to @wendow who has been super patient with what had to be my tremendously annoying musings and constant over-analyzing! So back in August I discovered that the Hard Rock had a "Future Rock Star" suite - and it was available with AA miles. (But for some reason it does not show with URs...and never did).

If you haven't checked it out before, here's a room tour I watched when I initially got interested in this room. I TOTALLY didn't realize it at the time but it's by that Tim Tracker dude!

At any rate - it's an AWESOME room (especially for a guy who has a daughter who's current career ambition is "pop star"). So I was back and forth on whether to change my UR 2queen room to this awesome suite with my AA miles. It was substantially more expensive so that's why I was pausing, and analyzing, and calculating, and over-analyzing (you get the picture). Well I finally decided in mid-August that if AA miles didn't come for Disney in the next week or so that I'd probably book the room. Well, while I was waiting Disney out...the room sells out for Sunday night less than a week later. I was CRUSHED - it was only then that I realized how badly I wanted that room for my daughters. (And let's face it - for me and my wife too, it's a freakin' awesome room at 800sq. feet - seriously, watch the video!)...

Well...IT CAME BACK tonight! And after being gently nudged...ok ok, STRONGLY PUSHED by @wendow I jumped on it with my wife's AA miles. 130k AA miles has us locked into that awesome room and I can cancel the UR booking and get back 54k URs from that.

This also means that I'm not using AA miles for the 1st portion of my Disney split stay. I'm hoping to book on a Disney Visa discount in a week or 2. I'll look to use a TA to get one of those $100 gift card offers or something like that for booking an expensive package. The nice part about this is that I really wanted the dining plan for the first part of our trip since we have a bunch of super expensive meals planned (it actually will save us $200 believe it or not).

At any rate - I booked a Rock Star room and now I'm a ROCK STAR DAD!!! I'm pretty pumped about this if you can't tell. I just needed to look in the mirror and realize that sometimes point optimization isn't the only factor! Sometimes you just gotta do something AWESOME!

EDIT: I also put $9.90 on my CSR just because... even though I'm fairly certain on a hotel only booking with AA miles, that CSR doesn't give you any protection based on how it's worded, lol.

Those rooms look so awesome! We felt like a million bucks even in just a standard room but the suites look

....You know they will also let you borrow a guitar for your daughter to play on for free

 

[amalone1013]

I can see my ebags purchase pending from yesterday

Also, hallelujah, I think Chrome is finally working again at work!!

Somehow this restaurant near us always holds their new menu tasting events when we're traveling. It makes me sad because it sounds fun and also seems like a pretty good deal - the newest one is a cocktail for each person, an appetizer sampler with 3 new apps, an entrée per person, and a shared dessert, for $45 plus tip.

 

[havaneselover]

You made me look and I fell in love with this!

View attachment 435762

Garnet Hill is dangerous for me. But everything I get I love.

 

[amalone1013]

In a bizarre turn of events, I now know what’s beyond the locked double doors at the end of the hotel hallway.

It’s... a wedding reception??

And they are all alive...right? Nobody is eating other people?

@DisneyMandC @SouthFayetteFan Zombie Wedding...

They appear to be alive... those are not blood spots pictured below on the floor, just rose petals.

View attachment 435775

Sure, sure... that's what they want you to think!

DH's Amex Plat airline credit covered our upgraded boarding at $40/pp

Yay! I always love reading reports anyways, but I'm also excited that this worked because I was hoping it would (and thinking it should count anyways)