I love credit cards so much! v3.0 (see first page for add'l details)

[snugglebug]

First, it is flipping FREEZING in Orlando. My kids were making fun of my chattering teeth today.

Thanks to @SouthFayetteFan for the RotR chart, I found it quite helpful and we had a great ride this morning, will make attempt #2 tomorrow. It has to be a great experience for this girl to willingly get up that early and in this weather. It's worth it. (Kind of like him, I only get up early for vacation or softball)

Back during our Hawaii trip my wonderful kids purchased a Disney canvas for us and somehow got it home and hid until Christmas. Best gift ever. I had been eyeing that exact one each day. Fast forward to Sunday and we were walking around Epcot Festival of the Arts and saw "our" canvas, DH asked the guy if he was the artist and he said yes! We chatted and grabbed a photo with him and I texted it to my older kids. How awesome! The artist is Walfrido Garcia and I'll try to include an upload of my canvas.



That Lyft Pink thing is actually pretty nice. Did you know if you leave something in a Lyft car, while you may or may not get it back, there is a $15 charge for returns. Well, Pink covers that charge. How do I know? Lost my cell phone battery charger thing Sunday night. Thankfully my driver had it and returned it to my hotel. First time using Lyft and well, I think we're overusing it lol, but with this cold it's quite convenient and way better than waiting outside for a bus.

Also, Lyft connects to the following for credits: Hilton, Delta, Samsung Rewards (which aren't that great) and Pei. Are there any others I may be missing (besides the obvious CSR)? When I request a ride it tells me I have a promo of $5 off 3 rides from Hilton, this may be an Aspire thing that I've ignored until now? I haven't looked yet. I'm totally not up to date on all the Lyft discounts, etc.

 

[wendow]

Like others, we're holding on to Legos and Brio trains (for some reason my kids never acquired Playmobile). But I do have a pile of things that I need to list on eBay. Over Christmas the kids went through their teen years books and we have a lot to donate but some of the sets, especially some manga sets, seem to be worth listing.

We are keeping all the Lego, Thomas trains, tracks and houses and our Playmobile. My boys still play with all that so it's not packed up yet but it won't be going anywhere but to the attic! We also saved all the Little People (we have tons!), the barbies, and of course, all the American Girl. Lots of stuff that could be sold for $$ but I'd much rather my grandkids enjoy one day.

 

[Haley R]

First, it is flipping FREEZING in Orlando. My kids were making fun of my chattering teeth today.

Thanks to @SouthFayetteFan for the RotR chart, I found it quite helpful and we had a great ride this morning, will make attempt #2 tomorrow. It has to be a great experience for this girl to willingly get up that early and in this weather. It's worth it. (Kind of like him, I only get up early for vacation or softball)

Back during our Hawaii trip my wonderful kids purchased a Disney canvas for us and somehow got it home and hid until Christmas. Best gift ever. I had been eyeing that exact one each day. Fast forward to Sunday and we were walking around Epcot Festival of the Arts and saw "our" canvas, DH asked the guy if he was the artist and he said yes! We chatted and grabbed a photo with him and I texted it to my older kids. How awesome! The artist is Walfrido Garcia and I'll try to include an upload of my canvas.

View attachment 466896

That Lyft Pink thing is actually pretty nice. Did you know if you leave something in a Lyft car, while you may or may not get it back, there is a $15 charge for returns. Well, Pink covers that charge. How do I know? Lost my cell phone battery charger thing Sunday night. Thankfully my driver had it and returned it to my hotel. First time using Lyft and well, I think we're overusing it lol, but with this cold it's quite convenient and way better than waiting outside for a bus.

Also, Lyft connects to the following for credits: Hilton, Delta, Samsung Rewards (which aren't that great) and Pei. Are there any others I may be missing (besides the obvious CSR)? When I request a ride it tells me I have a promo of $5 off 3 rides from Hilton, this may be an Aspire thing that I've ignored until now? I haven't looked yet. I'm totally not up to date on all the Lyft discounts, etc.

Yeah it’s freaking cold right now (at least for florida) lol. I went on a walk today and it was nice in the sun but if I got in the shade for a second it was really cold from the wind.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Yeah it’s freaking cold right now (at least for florida) lol. I went on a walk today and it was nice in the sun but if I got in the shade for a second it was really cold from the wind.

How quickly you become weak! What happened to those northern ties you once had!!

 

[Haley R]

How quickly you become weak! What happened to those northern ties you once had!!

I grew up in Georgia. I’m not sure I ever really became a northerner/Midwesterner

 

[Haley R]

Feels like Christmas!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I would not press your luck with Points Expiration policies...but I have a strange DP to share.

I had 220 orphaned Hilton points. Last activity was 4/22/18 so those should have expired last year. I just logged in, and I still have 220 points...

Again, I wouldn't count on this, but just something worth noting. I keep track of all of my point expiration dates with a spreadsheet too! Luckily some don't expire now (notably or me - Southwest). But my large Marriott stash requires some babysitting because I wouldn't' want to lose a million of those, even if there's a 50% chance I'll be Bonvoyed when I go to use them!

 

[brownhaired_girl]

I guess the main question is what is his 5/24 count? And when will it change? If he is getting close to 5 are you done with Chase?

Take your iron with vitamin C. It helps absorption. Avoid calcium with it. (History of anemia both when pregnant and not).

@Haley R, I was going to mention the same thing. The dietitians in our group would have more knowledge than I have, but I think if you take your iron with a milk product the iron binds with something and makes it less available. And I’m pretty sure the iron does absorb better when taken with some firm of Vitamin C, even juice or such. I might also suggest that you take it at a different time if day as your prenatal since you can absorb only so much iron at a time.

 

[striker1064]

Can someone recommend a Hyatt Place in D.C... so many options. We are mostly interested in best location, we can get around without a car in DC? And which airport should we fly into? SW has a direct flight to BWI but I'm guessing that's too far away?

And I really hope Chase ups the Hyatt SUB in the next few months.

You've gotten some good advice already, I just wanted to point out you should specifically avoid the Hyatt Place Washington DC/US Capitol on New York Ave. While it too is close to a metro station, it's not the best area. The aforementioned Grand Hyatt is probably the best located downtown, right around the block from the Metro Center station.

 

[calypso726]

Saw this on one of the FB groups I'm in and thought it might be helpful to some here.

 

[disfanforlife]

Thanks for the link. I need to read it, and I sent it to DH. We got the Hogwarts Castle on clearance a few months ago and it really does help.



We kept all the trains, Legos, and Playmobil, too.

It will be nice to have them when the grandchildren start coming!

 

[disfanforlife]

My parents kept all of our Legos in a box like that. It's a huge box with pieces thrown everywhere. They dug it out for Christmas when my 4 and 2 year old nephews came to stay. They absolutely LOVED building with them (the 4 year old more than the 2 year old). The younger one just liked wrecking anything that was put together lol. It was fun for me to go back through and notice pieces that went with certain sets. I'm glad they kept them all this time. They kept a dollhouse that was mine and we have it now at our house. I also have a train track that you piece together with magnetic trains.

That’s great! Even though they are in one huge box, we do have a lot of the brochures/directions. So that should help when the time comes. Our oldest is 26, but still not sure if she wants kids or not. i have 2 other kids. When and or if I have grandchildren I will be happy but not anxious for it either.

 

[disfanforlife]

It is a little painful to see them go, although I had a harder time with the early reader books--my kids were not interested in saving any of those, but I did keep some that were their (and my) favorites. With the young adult books, the kids did each keep a dozen or so, plus I rescued a few classics like Black Beauty and Call of the Wild, but I have a harder time justifying keeping any more--it seems better to pass them on to kids who will read them now.

We saved a few books but donated many too. My oldest is an English major and a huge book lover. She has kept all of her books and has a nice collection. Her BF is an avid reader too and just gave her the Outlander series for her birthday.

 

[WVMomof3]

You've gotten some good advice already, I just wanted to point out you should specifically avoid the Hyatt Place Washington DC/US Capitol on New York Ave. While it too is close to a metro station, it's not the best area. The aforementioned Grand Hyatt is probably the best located downtown, right around the block from the Metro Center station.

The Metro Center stop is actually linked inside the Grand Hyatt building. This is probably the best location for proximity to a metro stop, you don't even have to go outside. The hotel itself was alright. No free breakfast and it was loud. I had rooms pretty high up and facing the outside and I couldn't believe how loud the street noise was. @DisneyMandC had atrium facing room and also said it was loud.

 

[njcarita]

Newbie here. Question about the biz cards. Both hubby and I are self-employed but very small businesses. I see a lot of business cc offers but honestly would never make the spend limits on business items. What can you charge on a business credit card?

 

[bernina]

I have paid for my last 4 cruises with UR's. Basically I find the cruise I want (Date/Cruiseline/Ship/Room Category etc). Then I call Chase Cruise Dept and they book it for me. I have the CSR so I get 1.5 times in Value. With the CSP you get 1.25 in value. So, a $3000 cruise cost me 200,000 points. It will cost you 240,000 points. I love using UR's for cruises. Can also use for gratuities if booked with the cruise. You only get 1 chance to use the UR's - usually at booking if you book direct with Chase. Any other questions let me know and I will see if I can answer.

Have you booked a cruise on RCCL using URs? Do you call Chase and pay deposit on credit card (CSR in this case) and then close to paid in full date you call and make final payment using URs? I'm thinking of asking for refundable deposit and just paying it all off in URs including deposit.Deposit is $1000 so I'd like the benefit of redeeming at 1.5x points on that too.

 

[striker1064]

The Metro Center stop is actually linked inside the Grand Hyatt building. This is probably the best location for proximity to a metro stop, you don't even have to go outside. The hotel itself was alright. No free breakfast and it was loud. I had rooms pretty high up and facing the outside and I couldn't believe how loud the street noise was. @DisneyMandC had atrium facing room and also said it was loud.

Huh, I never knew that. I knew Macy's directly connects to Metro Center, but not the Grand. Good to know.

 

[Lain]

Hey all. My kiddo woke me up way too early so I thought I’d use this time to (try to) catch up.

I haven’t been around much because I’ve been busy, but also so exhausted. The long weekend didn’t really help, despite staying local, what with spending time with the kiddo and trying (finally) to get our home in order for the new year. Is it still only January?

The churn goes on!

I finished my CS Platinum and Hilton Aspire MSRs way too quickly, and both SUBs posted promptly. I got a 15k MR/$2k MSR retention offer on my Gold, despite spending over $30k on its 4x categories last year. Not great, but not bad considering it’s a card I’m keeping anyway. I guess the takeaway is spend, but don’t spend too much on only the bonus categories? I’m taking the MSR on my Biz Platinum a little more slowly, and spending organically where it makes sense on the rest of my Amex cards to keep the pop ups away. Meanwhile, DW is on her way to building up her MR balance. She finished the MSR on her 45k MR Green and we used the Away credit to get a blush pink carry on for DD that she happily wheeled around on our trip to Hawaii. DW also finished up her 25k MR Biz Green and picked up the tiered 75k MR Biz Gold recently. DW also got the Hyatt card, and I plan to get my own sometime after I get back under 5/24. It’ll be a long couple of months until then.

On redemptions, I don’t know if it’s premature to say, but we bought DVC at Aulani — with points. We’re still doing the paperwork and the balance isn’t due for a few weeks, but yeah, we've got our DVC account and points and – it’s happening!

This is something DW and I had thought about for years, but the timing or budget never seemed right. Meanwhile, we’ve spent some part of our last four holidays at Aulani as well as an impromptu trip there last October, and too many thousands of dollars on Disney Gift Cards. And we’ll likely keep returning to Aulani as long as we continue to visit family in Hawaii. It just made sense. And it really is our happy place. We looked into resale, and we took a tour while at Aulani (and scored $150 in Disney Gift Cards), and in the end we felt more comfortable buying direct and adding on via resale later. And hey, we'll get a "blue card"! Although we’re probably getting a little more than half the value going direct vs. resale, being comfortable with the purchase was important, and we’ll get the 2019 UY points that we've noticed are [along with 2020 UY] often stripped from a lot of contracts on the resale market, and that gives us some time to find a resale contract that’ll work as an add-on. We just had to make the money work. So I’ve cashed out 1.2 million MR and 500k UR to fund our purchase, and we don’t have to worry about anything out of pocket or when we'll "break even." We’ll hit several MSRs with this purchase, and pay for it with cash from points. It’s a tidy circle.

I never thought about using credit card rewards to buy DVC, but then @hulagirl put the thought into my head. Thank you for the inception, @hulagirl.

And special thanks to @calypso726, @3 DD love princesses, @PolyRob, @speedyfishy, @wendow, @kmc8826, @striker1064, @vanjust14, @bernina, and anyone else I might’ve missed for all the encouragement and advice along the way.

I was looking at award space on United for next Christmas over the weekend, and wow dynamic pricing is really in effect. Last year, I was able to book saver award seats to HNL for 22.5k miles per person, each way. This year, economy saver awards are running 45k miles per person, each way. I think I’m going to have to try a different approach this year.

But hey, while I was clicking around United’s schedule, I noticed I could fly my family to Japan over Thanksgiving week for 35k miles per person, each way. So I’m going to! (I think we’re going to be in Japan while @ten6mom is still there!) It’s crazy to think United will fly us all the way to Japan for fewer miles than it would take to fly to Hawaii. But here we are. So a little past midnight, with my ladies asleep, I made a snap decision to forego our family tradition of spending Thanksgiving at Disneyland and taking the family to Tokyo instead. If we spend Thanksgiving Day at Tokyo Disneyland, that still counts right? Anyway, I booked our flights using United miles. Sadly, no lie flat seats for us. I’m flying a family of 3 and have a little redshirt who’s not in the game yet, so I need to budget our points and miles. I’ll be using my airline fee credits to bump us up to Economy+. I transferred some UR over to Hyatt and booked three nights at the Andaz Toranomon Hills for 30k/night. I used Hilton points, and booked three more nights at the Hilton Tokyo Bay for 80k/night. I need to math that last one out. Anyway, it’s an amazing feeling to have planned all this out in less than two hours, and very humbling to realize I have the points and miles to do all of this. I ran all this by DW in the morning, and she eagerly agreed it was a good change of pace. But before then, it was 2 a.m., and like my man Ted Mosby said,

Keep on churning on!

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Newbie here. Question about the biz cards. Both hubby and I are self-employed but very small businesses. I see a lot of business cc offers but honestly would never make the spend limits on business items. What can you charge on a business credit card?

...you can put any expense on a business credit card

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Hey all. My kiddo woke me up way too early so I thought I’d use this time to (try to) catch up.

I haven’t been around much because I’ve been busy, but also so exhausted. The long weekend didn’t really help, despite staying local, what with spending time with the kiddo and trying (finally) to get our home in order for the new year. Is it still only January?

The churn goes on!

I finished my CS Platinum and Hilton Aspire MSRs way too quickly, and both SUBs posted promptly. I got a 20k MR/$2k MSR retention offer on my Gold, despite spending over $30k on its 4x categories last year. Not great, but not bad considering it’s a card I’m keeping anyway. I guess the takeaway is spend, but don’t spend too much on only the bonus categories? I’m taking the MSR on my Biz Platinum a little more slowly, and spending organically where it makes sense on the rest of my Amex cards to keep the pop ups away. Meanwhile, DW is on her way to building up her MR balance. She finished the MSR on her 45k MR Green and we used the Away credit to get a blush pink carry on for DD that she happily wheeled around on our trip to Hawaii. DW also finished up her 25k MR Biz Green and picked up the tiered 75k MR Biz Gold recently. DW also got the Hyatt card, and I plan to get my own sometime after I get back under 5/24. It’ll be a long couple of months until then.

On redemptions, I don’t know if it’s premature to say, but we bought DVC at Aulani. We’re still doing the paperwork and the balance isn’t due for a few weeks, but yeah, we've got our DVC account and points and – it’s happening!

This is something DW and I had thought about for years, but the timing or budget never seemed right. Meanwhile, we’ve spent some part of our last four holidays at Aulani as well as an impromptu trip there last October, and too many thousands of dollars on Disney Gift Cards. And we’ll likely keep returning to Aulani as long as we continue to visit family in Hawaii. It just made sense. And it really is our happy place. We looked into resale, and we took a tour while at Aulani (and scored $150 in Disney Gift Cards), and in the end we felt more comfortable buying direct and adding on via resale later. And hey, we'll get a "blue card"! Although we’re probably getting a little more than half the value going direct vs. resale, we’ll get the 2019 UY points that we've noticed are [along with 2020 UY] often stripped from a lot of contracts on the resale market, and that gives us some time to find a resale contract that’ll work as an add-on. We just had to make the money work. So I’ve cashed out 1.2 million MR and 500k UR to fund our purchase, and we don’t have to worry about anything out of pocket or when we'll "break even." We’ll hit several MSRs with this purchase, and pay for it with cash from points. It’s a tidy circle.

I never thought about using credit card rewards to buy DVC, but then @hulagirl put the thought into my head. Thank you for the inception, @hulagirl.

And special thanks to @calypso726, @3 DD love princesses, @PolyRob, @speedyfishy, @wendow, @kmc8826, @striker1064, @vanjust14, @bernina, and anyone else I might’ve missed for the encouragement and advice along the way.

I was looking at award space on United for next Christmas over the weekend, and wow dynamic pricing is really in effect. Last year, I was able to book saver award seats to HNL for 22.5k miles per person, each way. This year, economy saver awards are running 45k miles per person, each way. I think I’m going to have to try a different approach this year.

But hey, while I was clicking around United’s schedule, I noticed I could fly my family to Japan over Thanksgiving week for 35k miles per person, each way. So I’m going to! (I think we’re going to be in Japan while @ten6mom is still there!) It’s crazy to think United will fly us all the way to Japan for fewer miles than it would take to fly to Hawaii. But here we are. So a little past midnight, with my ladies asleep, I made a snap decision to forego our family tradition of spending Thanksgiving at Disneyland and taking the family to Tokyo instead. If we spend Thanksgiving Day at Tokyo Disneyland, that still counts right? Anyway, I booked our flights using United miles. Sadly, no lie flat seats for us. I’m flying a family of 3 and have a little redshirt who’s not in the game yet, so I need to budget our points and miles. I’ll be using my airline fee credits to bump us up to Economy+. I transferred some UR over to Hyatt and booked three nights at the Andaz Toranomon Hills for 30k/night. I used Hilton points, and booked three more nights at the Hilton Tokyo Bay for 80k/night. I need to math that last one out. Anyway, it’s an amazing feeling to have planned all this out in less than two hours, and very humbling to realize I have the points and miles to do all of this. I ran all this by DW in the morning, and she eagerly agreed it was a good change of pace. But before then, it was 2 a.m., and like my man Ted Mosby said,

Keep on churning on!

Congrats on the DVC purchase...