This is mostly an individual endeavor. I have not spoken to my DH about it, because he would most likely freak out. I can probably get a card or two in his name, but I will be responsible for the spend. I just sent him out SPECIFICALLY to put a small spend on our US Bank Visa just to keep activity on it and he managed to use the WRONG card! LOL! During the Economic Crash we had a few cards closed by the issuers due to lack of use.
Thanks in advance for the help. You all are so friendly and helpful here!
This is the best place for CC questions I think
I just wanted to weigh in on working with your DH.
My DH was super freaked out by this idea. I was trying to estimate our honeymoon cost, and had figured that 15-16 nights in a DVC rental (BWV standard studio, which at the time I didn't realize would be a miracle to get during F&W) plus flights and tickets (DW & USO) would be the majority of our budget. I started looking for ways to cut costs and stumbled on this stuff. We had all of this cash saved up for the wedding, so I thought, we can earn points to help cut costs!
I read for several months before I outlined my plan to DH. We started with the AMEX SPG cards and earned 6 free nights at the Dolphin. We also got the Disney cards for the $200 GCs (and referred several family members, because we got married in Orlando). It went so well and just like that we saved $1000 on hotels and had $400 in GCs, so that helped him a lot. I handle all the details and just tell him what cards to use, or sit with him to fill out an application when we open one in his name. I could just do that myself, but I don't ever remember his SSN. He's willing to use what cards I tell him to, but I have to label them so he knows which ones to use where. He spends quite a bit on gas and had a card that gets 3% back, so I got him to start using that. The other day he said, Wow, the points add up fast when you use the right card for what you're buying!
Here is my fancy label job
I found a deal on a USO hotel for 3 nights. We ended up with 7 free nights at the Dolphin, though I could have stretched that to 10... Your 5th night on points is free, so enough points for 8 nights = 10 nights. But I had already paid for my DVC rental and it was non-refundable. 5 nights at BLT, and 1 in Cocoa Beach. We spent just over $1000 on hotels for 15 nights.
For those that submitted earlier and maybe didn't see my 2 player comment (
@disneymagicgirl,
@amalone1013, any others?) if you know of any cards that you specifically missed because only your player 2 has or had them please let me know and I can try to add that to the data.
Player 2 had a BoA card (one of the 3%/2%/1% ones), Barclay Arrival Plus, and Capital One Venture.
I received some wonderful DLR hotel recs from many members here and I cannot find the post again, now that I am wanting to read back through
I haven't booked anything yet. Unlike when I used UR for WDW this past Sept, so many of the hotels that I find on UR do not have refundable rates (would have booked that waterpark Marriott by now if it did!).The Hyatts are coming up high, imo, on UR. So, I looked on Hyatt's site to see if there was rooms with award availability but nothing comes up?? Maybe I am doing it wrong...Wouldn't surprise me...Same for the IHG properties though the Indigo did have reward rooms recently.
Honestly, there are so many great choices around DLR and lots of options for redeeming points. I only have IHG and UR to use. I will have SPG in a few months but not many and I'd like to save those for the Swolphin
What are your DLR dates? I can't believe how many of us seem to be targeting the same timeframe. Hmm, sign it might be really busy??
My beloved Alpine Inn is not coming up on UR, Hotels.com, anything like that for our dates in April
I think they are just holding out on releasing rooms to third party places, because in the past I've see them as dates got closer.
I'm trying to debate what to do. We have SPG points but I thought when I looked before that Sheraton was 7k points, but it's coming up 10k now... maybe I'm just remembering wrong. But when I think 10k there vs 10k at the Dolphin, I definitely have a preference on where to use them
We've got just over $300 on an Arrival Plus card we could redeem. Could use UR points, though I haven't explored that too much.
I'm also struggling trying to decide which points to use where, since we now are planning to go to Vegas in April too.
