I love credit cards so much!

[GusGus16]

For 2 of my points reservations the number of points needed went down. The other reservation - the points went up. I booked all of these before 8/18 so I could lock in the low points required just in case points required went up. If points went down, I'd just rebook. But all my reservations had the points change to the new requirements automatically! Bummer!

I think the Marriott/Starwoods websites still are being updated, so I wouldn't be surprised if that changes. My reservation for December isn't even showing up at this time. I wouldn't worry about it and would give it a week to settle out.

I'm not sure what will happen with the certificates. Seems weird that the chart became available yesterday, when they could have released it earlier and now have a whole month black out period. The whole thing seems strange. I think it is possible that at the end of the month lock out period we may see a new conversion chart, at this point why would they release a chart like that when no one can do anything with these certs for a month. So strange...

 

[GusGus16]

@gottalovepluto and any other bank bonus masters, I'm still debating getting the Amex Business Starwood card, but the MS is going to be difficult, other than the PNC account which I plan to open shortly and fund with 2,000 with my CIP any other easy bank bonuses that I can fund with my CIP or the Business Starwood? Thanks!

 

[afan]

Thanks. Based on what I see on the webcams, it is hit or miss. A few days this week it looked like it was clearing up. Then on Saturday when my daughter and I were planning, the webcams looked very smoky. Glad your friends got some good days.


Right now, planning the first 2 weeks of July. You can never tell with Mother Nature but hopefully this is a higher probability of being fire-less. And gives me time to amass points. Maybe the Lake Louise Fairmont is possible.

Trying to make lemonade, I checked with my daughter who is my main travel partner. Gave her a choice of 1) Acadia NP in Maine, 2) NY City museums/Broadway, 3) Orlando - either Universal or Disney. She picked Acadia NP. I had looked for hotel openings before giving her choices. I never go anywhere spontaneous so planning in less than a week is terrifying for uber planner like me!

That will make one more NP off our bucket lists and 2 more states we haven't been to - Maine and NH (making a side trip to Mt Washington in the White Mountains). Off to complete all the reservations.

Glad you're able to make a quick change and still get a great vacation.

 

[gottalovepluto]

@gottalovepluto and any other bank bonus masters, I'm still debating getting the Amex Business Starwood card, but the MS is going to be difficult, other than the PNC account which I plan to open shortly and fund with 2,000 with my CIP any other easy bank bonuses that I can fund with my CIP or the Business Starwood? Thanks!

No easy ones off the top of my head right now. Check DoC’s best bank account bonus list, cc funding abilities are at the top of each page. BMO can easily knock out 3k on the CIP with a checking/savings/money market account trio and then setting up the appropriate auto saves for a few months until you can close the account is fairly simple. They do run bonuses sometimes but they are state specific now & can require pushing to get your bonus out of them. Idk about funding banks with Amex now, I think people were getting the bonus but not earning points on the transactions but I’m not sure that’s still accurate.

 

[Mopedmom1]

@Lain, my thoughts and prayers are with your family. My parents live in Alaska so I understand that with the distance, time spent with them is never enough. It is so fortunate you have been able to get your wife there twice without a financial burden. Thank you for all the inspiration you provide for us here.

 

[Haley R]

@Lain I’m sorry for your loss. You’ve helped me a bunch with my credit card journey. I hope you and your family are doing well.

 

[tink1970]

Okay, y'all so I went a little wild this weekend...

I had booked my favorite hotel in Edinburgh for what I thought was spring break. Apparently Friday the spg website was already going haywire so when I tried to change my dates it wasn't happening.

Frustrated, I threw up my hands, cancelled the rooms and then...started playing with Delta's website. I found a low (for them) one way route to Brussels (which I've always wanted to visit) from ATL, added PNS to ATL after that. Skymiles burned= ATL-BRU 86,000 + PNS-ATL 25,000. So far, 114,000 skymiles.

I'll be flying out Tuesday and landing in Brussels Weds. DH's mother's birthday is Saturday of that week so I'm waiting for my UR points to post so I'll fly BRU-SFO on United. Used Skypesos for him to fly back to his work airport (he works out of town M-F) and for me to fly back to PNS Sunday night. I'm going to be jet lagged as heck but excited to see Brussels and try out the United Polaris seats on the MUC-SFO route.

Skymiles burned= 35,000 (C+) for DH; 100,000 (me first). He's flying out at later time so I figured I'd splash out since he wouldn't be on the same flight (that would be...bad if I were in first and he was not!). Skymiles burned for this leg= 135,000. Total so far= 249,000.

Just in case...I can't accrue the 155,000 United miles (this makes people blanch but since I'm accustomed to Skymiles I'm not so shocked by it) in the next few weeks to book BRU-MUC-SFO (economy on Lufthansa, then United Business on new-ish Polaris); I do have AMS-LHR-SFO booked on klm/Virgin Upper Class for 75,000 skymiles. I really don't want to deal with getting to AMS and transferring through LHR. Fortunately as a Delta Platinum Medallion I can cancel the award ticket and redeposit the miles.

Made reservations for one night at SFO Marriott and another in DH's hometown. I couldn't decide between SFO Hyatt or Marriott so if anyone has information/opinions on either I'd welcome the input.

So, in about 2 hours I burned through 324,000 skymiles! I still need to make hotel reservations but waiting on that to see whether I'll be spending one night or two in Brussels. This entire first/business class jaunt is to bribe myself to go to DH's mother's birthday party which I absolutely do not want to do. I figure a couple of days visiting chocolate shops and flying in business/first should be bribery enough!

And wow, are Skymiles easy to use up! Back to charging on my delta skymiles platinum

 

[GusGus16]

No easy ones off the top of my head right now. Check DoC’s best bank account bonus list, cc funding abilities are at the top of each page. BMO can easily knock out 3k on the CIP with a checking/savings/money market account trio and then setting up the appropriate auto saves for a few months until you can close the account is fairly simple. They do run bonuses sometimes but they are state specific now & can require pushing to get your bonus out of them. Idk about funding banks with Amex now, I think people were getting the bonus but not earning points on the transactions but I’m not sure that’s still accurate.

Thanks! I checked Doc and didn't see much of anything other than PNC, I'll take a look at BMO. I'll have to look into different options to meet the AMEX MS, I don't want to sign up for the card unless I'm sure I can meet the MS...but hate to miss out on the bonus points knowing I'm going to be locked out for almost another year.

 

[calypso726]

@gottalovepluto and any other bank bonus masters, I'm still debating getting the Amex Business Starwood card, but the MS is going to be difficult, other than the PNC account which I plan to open shortly and fund with 2,000 with my CIP any other easy bank bonuses that I can fund with my CIP or the Business Starwood? Thanks!

By no means am I an expert on the bank bonuses but I also wanted to see what I might be able to fund with an Amex. I pulled up Doc's bank bonus page and did a search for "american Express" and wrote down about 10 banks that did not seem to exclude Amex. This of course is assuming the the DPs and information is current.

Eastern Bank $2k
Fidelity (PA) $500
First Midwest $2500
Great Western $1k
Memory $500
My Northerst Savings $1k
Rockland Trust $2500
Star One $1k
TruMark Financial $1k
Union Bank & Trust $2k

 

[wendow]

Did people get an email from Marriott about the travel certs or is it posted somewhere? I would be lost without this thread.

My dh received the email a few days ago saying to attach the cert before 8/18 or wait a month. That's it. This new chart that has been released has not been emailed to him. I was on speaker phone with him when we called to buy the cert and they never, ever said anything about making sure to attach the cert for max value. I know starwood lurker posted that on r/churning but the average person isn't reading r/churning.

 

[afan]

Made reservations for one night at SFO Marriott and another in DH's hometown. I couldn't decide between SFO Hyatt or Marriott so if anyone has information/opinions on either I'd welcome the input.

I went to a conference at the Hyatt in 2014 (back when I was an advisor for a collegiate chapter of my sorority). It's in Burlingame I think, has a shuttle if you need it. It was nice, it's big. The rooms were quiet and the meeting rooms typical. There's a couple of nice bars off the lobby. If it's just for a night after getting in or before flying out I would use it again if the points are right. I say that because it's not a hotel that's convenient for touring in SF which is also because the airport isn't actually in SF. We did walk to a benihana's for lunch before flying out Sunday and we did it along the water, so you might get a water view.

 

[disneybirds]

I just put through a small test payment to hopefully help as a DP before myself and others have larger payment process in the next couple days.

I had a rent payment for my DD processed today, so I will let you know. Wouldn't you know that this was my first payment going through Plastiq! At least it is slightly cheaper than through the rental company.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

My dh received the email a few days ago saying to attach the cert before 8/18 or wait a month. That's it. This new chart that has been released has not been emailed to him. I was on speaker phone with him when we called to buy the cert and they never, ever said anything about making sure to attach the cert for max value. I know starwood lurker posted that on r/churning but the average person isn't reading r/churning.

That was the basis of me not randomly choosing a cat to upgrade my cert to at the last minute for my unknown future stay. I decided to throw out the speculation from forums and blogs and go with the black and white info directly from marriott.

On a positive note, had I chosen a category to upgrade to at the last minute, it would have been a cat 8 and I still would have wasted 30k points.

 

[tink1970]

@afan-- thanks! I have no need to go into SF- we'll sleep, get up, get to the BART, take it to his brother's. Actually, out of the city is preferable since hopefully it will be quieter and less chaotic (country mouse here!).

 

[Lain]

I meant to post this comment last night, but ... things came up.

Apparently the Tesla story made its way into JPMorgan Chase’s internal briefs: https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/98dztw/comment/e4fvrxi?st=JL1BS40Y&sh=7b945e05

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I was just hoping for a fair deal, and I guess, naively, believed Marriott would be fair. There is no way Marriott just figured this out. To sell these certs at a higher value knowing they would actually have no more value than the category below is pretty stinky.

Like @disneymagicgirl , if they had released the chart beforehand, I would have upgraded my cert accordingly but with no info, it was rather difficult to know what to do.

yes it is crappy the way they did it. No doubt not a last minute decision on their part

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

I'm not sure what is going on with my Marriott bonus points. I went to pay my Marriott credit card bill. We hit the $5000 spend required for the 100,000 bonus points. The statement closed two days ago. So I checked my Marriott Rewards accounts. A bonus of 10,005 posted on 8/19, two days after my statement closed. That bonus is missing a ZERO!!!!

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I'm not sure what is going on with my Marriott bonus points. I went to pay my Marriott credit card bill. We hit the $5000 spend required for the 100,000 bonus points. The statement closed two days ago. So I checked my Marriott Rewards accounts. A bonus of 10,005 posted on 8/19, two days after my statement closed. That bonus is missing a ZERO!!!!

The Marriott and SPG sites are messed up. Neither my points or reservations are showing. Give it a couple days.

 

[tink1970]

I'm not sure what is going on with my Marriott bonus points. I went to pay my Marriott credit card bill. We hit the $5000 spend required for the 100,000 bonus points. The statement closed two days ago. So I checked my Marriott Rewards accounts. A bonus of 10,005 posted on 8/19, two days after my statement closed. That bonus is missing a ZERO!!!!

Ack!

Hopefully it's a continuation of the integration/crossover. I know I've lost 11,000 spg points (spg is now just showing my Marriott points ). I've read it may take 48-72 hours after Aug 18th for things to correct so fingers crossed that's the case for you!

 

[Alexle2007]

Ack!

Hopefully it's a continuation of the integration/crossover. I know I've lost 11,000 spg points (spg is now just showing my Marriott points ). I've read it may take 48-72 hours after Aug 18th for things to correct so fingers crossed that's the case for you!

I jokingly put something on my FB to DH’s cousin who works for Marriott to ask if he could please get my SPG and Marriott accounts corrected. I’ll keep checking for a response.