I love credit cards so much!

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Back from my spring break travels - made a pretty lame attempt to catch up on this thread (I do, after all, have a job to catch up on too...) so I'm a little out of the loop.

The trip overall came in a little under budget (yay) so I put less of a dent in my SPG Biz spend than I had expected (boo). I still have plenty of time to hit the spend, so it is definitely more of a good thing than a bad thing to have under spent a little.

A couple of good upgrades on this trip - paid for a mid-size rental car, but got a minivan instead - not glamorous, but really nice to have the extra space all week. Also, got upgraded to a Family Suite at a Spring Hill Suites - had a king bed plus bunk beds, and a larger kitchenette area than the room I had reserved. It was really well laid out for family travel. We had a nice trip!
 
Ugh, I called the automated line and it changed to 7-10 days for my CIP application. I’m thinking this isn’t meant to be.
Try not to be discouraged. This could be some sort of ID verification thing and maybe you'll still be approved. Now, assuming it is a denial, once you get the letter with the reasoning we can work with you on Recon. As long as it's not a 5/24 issue (or another application name/ssn issue) there's still a chance you can get approved :)

It's easy to look around and see others getting approved and let that get you down. I take denials hard personally, so I definitely get it (and I've probable been hard denied 10+ times in this game). If this card isn't meant to be right now then you can just move on to another one. Luckily with numerous card issuers and dozens of awesome cards out there you'll definitely somebody that loves you :thumbsup2 haha!

EDIT: also embrace the fact that just by playing this game you're probably beating out 99% of folks in terms of your return on purchases ::yes::
 
Try not to be discouraged. This could be some sort of ID verification thing and maybe you'll still be approved. Now, assuming it is a denial, once you get the letter with the reasoning we can work with you on Recon. As long as it's not a 5/24 issue (or another application name/ssn issue) there's still a chance you can get approved :)

It's easy to look around and see others getting approved and let that get you down. I take denials hard personally, so I definitely get it (and I've probable been hard denied 10+ times in this game). If this card isn't meant to be right now then you can just move on to another one. Luckily with numerous card issuers and dozens of awesome cards out there you'll definitely somebody that loves you :thumbsup2 haha!

EDIT: also embrace the fact that just by playing this game you're probably beating out 99% of folks in terms of your return on purchases ::yes::

Thanks! I’ve never been denied before so I think that is why it stings. I am worried about how much credit I currently have with Chase, a Disney visa, a SW premier, CSP, CSR, and a freedom. I wonder if I need to lower some limits because some are high!
 
A question for the AmEx offer experts. For the ebags offer, I have read that you can "stack" offers across multiple AmEx cards by buying several gift cards; for example, if the offer is spend $75, get $15, you can buy one gift card for $75 with one AmEx card and then use that gift card and another AmEx card to buy a $90 gift card, thus making the deal spend $75, get $30. My question is, does this work with other retailers? I'm specifically looking at Crate & Barrel -- I have a spend $100, get $20 offer on several cards and I'm wondering if I could similarly stack the offer. So far as I can tell, the fine print only excludes e-gift cards, so it would take a little more time to order physical gift cards, but I'm not in a hurry. Has anyone ever used this method for a retailer other then ebags?
 


Thanks! I’ve never been denied before so I think that is why it stings. I am worried about how much credit I currently have with Chase, a Disney visa, a SW premier, CSP, CSR, and a freedom. I wonder if I need to lower some limits because some are high!
They say The first cut is the deepest...and with denials that was definitely the case to me. I was literally dumbfounded that first time they said no...like how is this possible. It still stings now but I deal with it a little better.

There definitely isn't a clear answer on whether you should adjust credit limits. What I do is consolidate all of my limit on my Freedom card and reduce all of the others to $1,000 (this is because they are all sock drawer cards). Then if I ever needed to move CL to get a card approved I have a ton of limit available on my Freedom. I will also reduce my freedom limit if I think it gets out of hand.
 
Have any of you planned a 2 week Hawaii trip - mostly on miles/points? Our plan is May/June 2019. I want to use miles/points for air and all hotel stays. Cloud we start a new thread on the Reddit DisChurners page for Hawaii/Aulani planning?
 
Have any of you planned a 2 week Hawaii trip - mostly on miles/points? Our plan is May/June 2019. I want to use miles/points for air and all hotel stays. Cloud we start a new thread on the Reddit DisChurners page for Hawaii/Aulani planning?
I think a Hawaii tips page makes sense. It seems that a lot of folks are discussing it here and it's probably hard to go back and find the helpful comments :)
 


Have any of you planned a 2 week Hawaii trip - mostly on miles/points? Our plan is May/June 2019. I want to use miles/points for air and all hotel stays. Cloud we start a new thread on the Reddit DisChurners page for Hawaii/Aulani planning?
DISchurners Hawaii Tips Thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/DISchurners/comments/8copbs/churning_for_hawaii_tips_from_our_disboards/

If you have shared helpful Hawaii tips here on the DIS please consider finding those comments and copying and pasting them into this DISchurners page. This would include tips on flights, hotels, travel planning, agenda, how to earn points to pay for the trip, etc.
 
A question for the AmEx offer experts. For the ebags offer, I have read that you can "stack" offers across multiple AmEx cards by buying several gift cards; for example, if the offer is spend $75, get $15, you can buy one gift card for $75 with one AmEx card and then use that gift card and another AmEx card to buy a $90 gift card, thus making the deal spend $75, get $30. My question is, does this work with other retailers? I'm specifically looking at Crate & Barrel -- I have a spend $100, get $20 offer on several cards and I'm wondering if I could similarly stack the offer. So far as I can tell, the fine print only excludes e-gift cards, so it would take a little more time to order physical gift cards, but I'm not in a hurry. Has anyone ever used this method for a retailer other then ebags?

I was curious, so went and tried this out on a dummy Crate & Barrel gift card purchase, and there is a spot to enter a gift card to apply toward the purchase and the field says you can apply more than one gift card. I don't have a gift card so I can't test this out to see just how many you can apply. But if you can buy the gift cards thru the C&B website, why not just purchase $100 gcs with your AMEXs that have the offer (I'm jealous, btw). I would also call C&B and find out if you can combine multiple gift cards onto one. Hotels . com allows this, Ebags specifically does not.

In your example using Ebags, I don't think you would get $30 off of $75, because it has to be a $75 charge on the AMEX. If you apply a $75 Ebags gift card to a $90 gift card purchase, your AMEX charge would only be $15 thus not triggering the AMEX offer. Ebags specifically no longer allows consolidation of gift cards, so to stack the Ebags offer, you would buy a $75 Ebags gift card (get $15 credit), use that toward an Ebags purchase that was $150+ so that you would get the second $75 purchase on another AMEX with the offer (and a second $15 credit).
 
I was curious, so went and tried this out on a dummy Crate & Barrel gift card purchase, and there is a spot to enter a gift card to apply toward the purchase and the field says you can apply more than one gift card. I don't have a gift card so I can't test this out to see just how many you can apply. But if you can buy the gift cards thru the C&B website, why not just purchase $100 gcs with your AMEXs that have the offer (I'm jealous, btw). I would also call C&B and find out if you can combine multiple gift cards onto one. Hotels . com allows this, Ebags specifically does not.

In your example using Ebags, I don't think you would get $30 off of $75, because it has to be a $75 charge on the AMEX. If you apply a $75 Ebags gift card to a $90 gift card purchase, your AMEX charge would only be $15 thus not triggering the AMEX offer. Ebags specifically no longer allows consolidation of gift cards, so to stack the Ebags offer, you would buy a $75 Ebags gift card (get $15 credit), use that toward an Ebags purchase that was $150+ so that you would get the second $75 purchase on another AMEX with the offer (and a second $15 credit).

Thanks for fixing my thinking on the ebags deal -- you are correct that there has to be a $75 charge on the AmEx. And I had forgotten that the reason for the complex method is because ebags doesn't allow combining gift cards -- you are correct that simply purchasing $100 gift cards using the different AmEx cards would achieve the same result.
 
A question for the AmEx offer experts. For the ebags offer, I have read that you can "stack" offers across multiple AmEx cards by buying several gift cards; for example, if the offer is spend $75, get $15, you can buy one gift card for $75 with one AmEx card and then use that gift card and another AmEx card to buy a $90 gift card, thus making the deal spend $75, get $30. My question is, does this work with other retailers? I'm specifically looking at Crate & Barrel -- I have a spend $100, get $20 offer on several cards and I'm wondering if I could similarly stack the offer. So far as I can tell, the fine print only excludes e-gift cards, so it would take a little more time to order physical gift cards, but I'm not in a hurry. Has anyone ever used this method for a retailer other then ebags?

Unless I've been doing this wrong, I'm a little confused on your math, wouldn't you need to buy a $150 GC in order to use the offer on 2 cards? Card #1 spends $75 on one GC, gets $15 back. Card #2 spends $75 + the $75 GC, to now get $15 back and have a $150 GC to spend on a larger purchase? So it's still $30 back on $150 (assuming they'd let you buy a GC with GC) for the eBags example?

I don't know about Crate and Barrel, probably have to search their site a bit to see if you can either combine GC's or use multiple on one order. If that's the case you may not need to stack much. My understanding of the problem with eBags is that they limited it to one GC per transaction and you can't combine gift cards anymore, so now folks have to get creative to get a better discount on higher priced items.
 
Have any of you planned a 2 week Hawaii trip - mostly on miles/points? Our plan is May/June 2019. I want to use miles/points for air and all hotel stays. Cloud we start a new thread on the Reddit DisChurners page for Hawaii/Aulani planning?

Great idea!

I have tried but I get discouraged every time. It is a challenge to match up flights and hotels...all based on award availability. And I am so accustomed to southwest and being able to make changes, that I have a hard time committing to another line/dates/price. Once I transfer those rewards points to an airline or hotel that’s it. They are stuck there even if something goes wrong in the booking process. I haven’t made the plunge.
 
I haven't changed anything on this ticket that I just bought. I paid way too many UR s for it but I don't think there's anything I can do about that now.
This discovery was from our trip to Hawaii last May. That ticket I used the avois for and that's the one that they never deducted my miles from my account or charged me the phone booking fee. I just logged in for the first time since making the booking over a year ago to find the 25k avois still sitting in there.

I'm so bummed about this! You know I love this feature. I also rely on the insurance on my CSR so that better not change. I retweeted the doctor of credit shame on chase tweet. Hope they get enough pushback to reconsider!



You know me and math so I won't comment on that, but I've started to value Alaska miles a lot higher than United mostly because of Hawaii. They seem to have better award space and award pricing than United. Guess I'm just thinking that it might not be bad for you to have them in Alaska as URs seem easier to get than Alaska miles. Don't know your new routing to Hawaii though...maybe you are thinking Southwest in the future?

Happily I don’t pay for our Hawaii air, since my dad covers that for our bi-annual trips, and we have very little interest in Hawaii beyond that. So for us, United still makes a lot more sense, particularly thinking ahead to air for two big international trips in 2019 and 2020.

I had no plans to go to Hawaii this year when we got the offer for the Westin Maui Resort & Spa, Ka'anapali. However the pricing for the stay was a no brainer. I decided if we could get the flights and dates we wanted then we'd go for it. It was a near thing but all worked out in the end. If it is somewhere you wanted to visit anyhow, I'd go for it.

I also had no plans to go to Hawaii when i received an offer. Changed all my plans and booked Hawaii which resulted in me having
bunch of air credits and a companion pass to burn since I chose Hawaiian air.

I love this thread but reading other folks exciting travel plans has me changed from booking WdW to San Fran to Canada to Grand
Cayman now thinking Costa Rica. LoL Life was so much simpler when we just booked WDW and forget. Who knew coming
to a DISBOARDS thread made me want to explore rest of the world?:smooth:

With so many people hedging their Starpoints against what Marriott might announce on Monday, I put some pressure on my wife to finalize our Holidays in Hawaii plans this week.

The plan is to spend 100k SPG for 5 nights at the Royal Hawaiian over Christmas and 65k SPG for 3 nights at the Sheraton Waikiki over New Year's, with 2 nights at Aulani in between. By my math, that works out to 3.9 cpp for the Royal Hawaiian (the 5th night free really boosts the redemption value) and 3.1 cpp for the Sheraton Waikiki. I say that's a fair return on some of the Starpoints I purchased at 2.1 cpp, and of course bonuses. With rumors that Marriott may be moving towards dynamic pricing, I'm a little nervous that I might not see this kind of valuation again.

Quoting all of these posts that recently mentioned people working on Hawaii plans or who have been to Hawaii. Please consider sharing some of your best tips in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/DISchurners/comments/8copbs/churning_for_hawaii_tips_from_our_disboards/

Thanks!!
 
Have any of you planned a 2 week Hawaii trip - mostly on miles/points? Our plan is May/June 2019. I want to use miles/points for air and all hotel stays. Cloud we start a new thread on the Reddit DisChurners page for Hawaii/Aulani planning?

We did 10 nights for Aulani last March. I will post most of what I did and why here, then copy and paste over on the Dischurner group so it is easier to find in the future.

We chose American Airlines for a number of reasons. First, Miami is a hub for AA and we are in South Florida. Second, I knew I might need to switch flight dates depending on Aulani availability. AA allows you to change award bookings for no fee as long as your departure and arrival city remain the same and the same class and award type are available for the new date. Third, DH wanted lie flat seats and I saw AA had a connection we could do that would get us lie flat seats for the second and longer leg of the flight.

We made sure to have the miles we would need in place well before 331 days of departure. This way, we could grab award space as soon as it was released. Our miles were earned through a few Citi AA cards, Barclay Aviator cards, AA shopping portal points and AA dining rewards network points and a couple of Citi Gold banking offer for AA miles.

We made sure to have a back up plan in case there was no award availability. The back up plan included paying for the flights with Citi Thank You Points earned from Prestige and Premier cards which we both picked up. At the time TYP on the Prestige were worth 1.6 for AA flights. They are worth 1.25 now. We also had a number of AA gift cards that we stock piled from airline credits earned from various Amex Platinum cards, the Citi Prestige cards and a couple of others that escape me at the moment. In the end we wound up utilizing both plan A and plan B. We were able to get saver award flights to Hawaii but not on the way back.

Personally, I think it is critical to get award bookings the moment they are released which means having your miles in place about 330~ days out depending on the airline.

We are now planning to take a family Hawaii trip in 2020 and I need to get 6 of us there. We each picked up the Alaska airline card since it comes with a companion pass for card holders. I would rather pay for 2 family members to fly, have the other two fly on the CP for taxes and fees than stress over accumulating all the miles it will take. DH and I will likely use the next stock pile of gift cards for ourselves on that trip. We are also planning Bora Bora that year which is mind boggling enough for me to try and figure out so I don’t need additional planning headaches and I’m taking the lazy way out.

As DVC members, we have 1300 DVC points to play with so I have enough to book a 2 bedroom ocean view room which was amazing! We don’t own at Aulani so we chose to go during a time that would not be as busy. This gave us a greater chance of finding availability for our dates at the 7 month window. If that had not worked out, I was prepared to rent out our Grand Floridian DVC points which I knew would go fast and then book a cash reservation and use the money to pay for the accommodations. Fortunately, I did not need to do that.

This year, we taking advantage of a Westin timeshare presentation offer to visit Maui. The offer was for 5 nights, 5000 AA miles and a rental for about $600. We are flying on AA miles again.

If we had the vacation time, I’d extend this year’s Hawaii trip to another week with the Marriott 7 night certificate which we got by transferring 90,000 SPG points. This gave us 270,000 Marriott points which we traded for 120,000 Alaska Air miles, and a 7 night cat 1-5 certificate. I’d kick in the additional 90k required to bump it up to a cat 8 certificate and go to the Big Island.

DH and I each did the Marriott hotel and flights transfer, so we have two of those 7 night certificates. We’ve been going back and forth on where to go and what to do. Venice is a romantic idea we’re mulling over and Edinburgh during the fringe festival is also high on the list. We are also considering the Big Island with their cat 8 resort or maybe Fiji, who knows.

So there is what we did and what we plan to do next. I hope this helps.
 
What does everyone do with their online banking accounts that you open for bonuses? Just wait a few months and then close them?
I wait until the required time for keeping the account opened has passed (there are sometimes fees for closing within X number of days listed in the fee schedule and/or you can lose your bonus depending on the bonus fine print). If there are no fees I usually keep it open for a couple months and then close it. I make sure the statement has just closed, I then ACH all the money out of the account and a couple business days after my hub bank has received the funds I close the bonus bank's account.
 
Hey Y'all! I applied for CIP saturday night and got the 30 day message. I thought I was denied and didn't think much of it. @SouthFayetteFan suggested I call and check status. Turns out I was approved and they are rushing the card so I can use it at WDW this weekend! I wanted to thank all of y'all for being so helpful! :love:
Now to find a way to spend 5K at Disney :rolleyes1
 
Hey Y'all! I applied for CIP saturday night and got the 30 day message. I thought I was denied and didn't think much of it. @SouthFayetteFan suggested I call and check status. Turns out I was approved and they are rushing the card so I can use it at WDW this weekend! I wanted to thank all of y'all for being so helpful! :love:
Now to find a way to spend 5K at Disney :rolleyes1
So happy for you! :jumping1:

You will not be disappointed with the value you get out of that signup bonus! It's the best one around!! Keep in mind that you don't want to use any of those points now (once they start posting) if you plan to get a CSR card later. The CSR will make those points worth an additional 20% (1.50x vs 1.25x) if you're redeeming for travel through the UR portal. ::yes:::thumbsup2
 
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