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

[trstno1]

AmEx Biz Plat Dell credit question.

TopCashBack is 13% cash back today, and Rakuten/Ebates is 12% MR or cash back. I think it was higher on cyber Monday last year, so I make take a gamble and wait. Both offer terms exclude gift cards, but TopCashBack paid out the last two times I purchased Microsoft gift cards. Have any of you had success with with Rakuten paying out for Microsoft gift card purchases?

 

[MKTokyo]

We are finally back from our wedding! (I just really wanted to use this emoji once) & our honeymoon! & all the work we had to catch up on while we were away, exploiting the kindness of our coworkers!

Wedding:
Royal Hawaiian, Honolulu

I really could not be any happier with the venue or the service we received. They do keep tight control over the vendors they allow on property but all of what we needed (seriously everything - planning, catering, flowers, harpist, rooms/valet/bellhop etc for our guests... they even made us our own event specialty cocktails!) was coordinated in-house so we didn't have any issues there. They even found us a new photographer when our original one cancelled. We had about 60 people & not one person had a negative thing to say, including my grumpy uncle who is known in the family as "Send it Back Sam."

They have a bunch of rooms/event locations within the hotel & obviously we didn't use all of them, but those that we used for the ceremony, dinner, and brunch for everyone the next morning were beautiful.

We sent thank you letters to the staff & I hope they will read them. They probably do 500 weddings a year but we will only ever have one So, it meant quite a lot to us that they made it so wonderful and easy. I have watched a lot of friends struggle with wedding planners, vendors, venues etc that don't seem to care at all. Royal Hawaiian definitely made us feel like they cared about us.

Honeymoon:
Hurawalhi Island Resort, Maldives

This is a couples/adult only resort & I think it was about 45 minutes between the main airport & the resort. I have never been somewhere that you needed to fly to on a seaplane. That was extremely cool. Tons of honeymoons & anniversaries. We met a lot of nice, interesting people, including a couple who got married more or less down the street from us, on the same day we got married. That was funny.

We did a lot of snorkeling, beaching (it's a word), eating, relaxing. They have their own reef & a huge underwater restaurant, which is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. The bartenders remembered the drinks we liked, which made us REALLY like them. We went on a dolphin cruise & many other talks/tours with the resident marine biologist. We tried some flyboarding, which I loved, and diving, which was absolutely not for me and I should have known better because I have weak lungs. My fault. The spa was amazing & offered couples' treatments. DH went out fishing with another guy he met there while the other guy's wife and I hung out at the beach... and maybe went to the spa... again. The guys caught our dinner that night. The rooms were beautiful & we loved our butler.

I didn't go into too much detail because I have a lot of thread to catch up on & I don't think any of this information would be useful for our shared hobby. But, if it's relevant to anyone personally, please PM me & I will be happy to elaborate

 

[Ngwira]

so excited for you! And you'll be flying the SYD-IAH almost a month before us, so you can tell me all about it lol

I hate scrapple. I think you need to be raised with it. Dh loves it and has passed his love of it on to our kids, all 3 who don't eat much meat generally We get ours from a local farmer. Once last year we were out of our freezer stash and substituted some commercial stuff. They all turned up their noses!

Sorry I didn't see this yesterday! I just do a white sauce, add some cream cheese and cheddar cheese, chopped onion and water chestnuts, and top with buttered panko. It's a dairy bomb for those in the family who can eat dairy.

Did I miss your Italy trip report? Never mind, just found it. I’m glad you had your ground transportation taken care of. I also paid the extra money for ground transportation so that we aren’t attempting to navigate an unfamiliar place on our own. I booked welcome pickups to get us to the Milan train Station and to our Rome Airbnb . I also am using them to get us to Malpensa airport. I have a private water taxi getting us to our destinations in Venice.
Thank you for your trip report.

 

[Ngwira]

Saw Gift of College $100 gift cards at my local Target store in New Jersey. We were able to snag the Apple watch version 3 and the 20 percent off coupon.

 

[Judique]

We always book the SV rooms too at BWV...I look at it as those 29 points are almost 3 extra nights in a SV studio....

And we are very like minded! Plus, using BCV points - I'm at the point where I almost prefer to book BWV standard view with those points at 7 months using waitlist or stalking.
During food and Wine I'm fine in a standard view - or for that matter I'm fine anytime in standard view.

 

[Judique]

Grrr... ordered $200 worth of stuff from Lowe's today on my CIC with the 15% back offer to max out the $20 cash back. Apparently Lowe's is shipping them separately so they're showing up as two separate $99 transactions. It says the offer is one-time use only, so I guess I'm only getting 15% back on one of them

Call.

 

[Judique]

l

I’ve been getting some great deals but perhaps my favorite is Chewy 30% off my dogs’ food PLUS stacked with my autoship discount. I placed 2 autoships so I got 4 bags for $126 when normally I pay $95 for 2!

I also got dog beds 50% off plus 10% off for ordering online and doing instore picking PLUS a $10 egiftcard for spending $60 (I got their stocking stuff too which was also all on sale).
Yea I got some good deals for my husband, kids, and family- but I definitely did the best for the dogs haha

I just had my auto ship delivered Wednesday but checked out and found 20% off the cat food I order so I ordered a bunch of that and spent around $100. And, I had added dog beds to my just delivered auto ship but they were pretty inexpensive to begin with. I buy throwaway beds now. Used to buy expensive stuff - learned my lesson.

Thank you for posting! Now I'm scared to continue reading....

 

[Alexle2007]

so excited for you! And you'll be flying the SYD-IAH almost a month before us, so you can tell me all about it lol

Will do!

 

[jhoannam]

Back to report that DH returned the item he bought using points, and we got our points back woohoo.

 

[StephPlum]

We are finally back from our wedding! (I just really wanted to use this emoji once) & our honeymoon! & all the work we had to catch up on while we were away, exploiting the kindness of our coworkers!

Wedding:
Royal Hawaiian, Honolulu

I really could not be any happier with the venue or the service we received. They do keep tight control over the vendors they allow on property but all of what we needed (seriously everything - planning, catering, flowers, harpist, rooms/valet/bellhop etc for our guests... they even made us our own event specialty cocktails!) was coordinated in-house so we didn't have any issues there. They even found us a new photographer when our original one cancelled. We had about 60 people & not one person had a negative thing to say, including my grumpy uncle who is known in the family as "Send it Back Sam."

They have a bunch of rooms/event locations within the hotel & obviously we didn't use all of them, but those that we used for the ceremony, dinner, and brunch for everyone the next morning were beautiful.

We sent thank you letters to the staff & I hope they will read them. They probably do 500 weddings a year but we will only ever have one So, it meant quite a lot to us that they made it so wonderful and easy. I have watched a lot of friends struggle with wedding planners, vendors, venues etc that don't seem to care at all. Royal Hawaiian definitely made us feel like they cared about us.

Honeymoon:
Hurawalhi Island Resort, Maldives

This is a couples/adult only resort & I think it was about 45 minutes between the main airport & the resort. I have never been somewhere that you needed to fly to on a seaplane. That was extremely cool. Tons of honeymoons & anniversaries. We met a lot of nice, interesting people, including a couple who got married more or less down the street from us, on the same day we got married. That was funny.

We did a lot of snorkeling, beaching (it's a word), eating, relaxing. They have their own reef & a huge underwater restaurant, which is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. The bartenders remembered the drinks we liked, which made us REALLY like them. We went on a dolphin cruise & many other talks/tours with the resident marine biologist. We tried some flyboarding, which I loved, and diving, which was absolutely not for me and I should have known better because I have weak lungs. My fault. The spa was amazing & offered couples' treatments. DH went out fishing with another guy he met there while the other guy's wife and I hung out at the beach... and maybe went to the spa... again. The guys caught our dinner that night. The rooms were beautiful & we loved our butler.

I didn't go into too much detail because I have a lot of thread to catch up on & I don't think any of this information would be useful for our shared hobby. But, if it's relevant to anyone personally, please PM me & I will be happy to elaborate

Congratulations! Sounds amazing.

 

[bernina]

Costco order finally went through for the Arlo cameras. I would not want to be part of their IT team come Monday morning...

 

[Haley R]

What does everyone think are the best deals right now for an Amazon gc and a Barnes and noble gc?

 

[DisneyMandC]

Did pretty well on Black Friday. No big ticket items, but I was happy with my purchases.

Chewy- Seresto collar for $35 for my dog for spring, plus a bag of his food and had a $15 off code, plus 1% back through Rakuten
Charmin- Forever Roll kit (yes, seriously). They were BOGO free! Not sure who I'll give the second one to yet, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.
Tervis Tumbler- 50% off the Hades tumbler for my BIL, plus 8% through Rakuten
Costco- Printed a ton of pictures, mostly from our WDW trip, as Christmas gifts. Used a 20% off code I got when buying our Christmas cards
Ebags- A 2 piece hardside luggage set for DH. Used me $25 off $125 Amex offer, plus 15% back on Rakuten
Target- BOGO 50% off frames to put all my Costco photos in

Going to look at Christmas lights at the botanical gardens tonight and then buying our Christmas tree tomorrow!

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

We are finally back from our wedding! (I just really wanted to use this emoji once) & our honeymoon! & all the work we had to catch up on while we were away, exploiting the kindness of our coworkers!

Wedding:
Royal Hawaiian, Honolulu

I really could not be any happier with the venue or the service we received. They do keep tight control over the vendors they allow on property but all of what we needed (seriously everything - planning, catering, flowers, harpist, rooms/valet/bellhop etc for our guests... they even made us our own event specialty cocktails!) was coordinated in-house so we didn't have any issues there. They even found us a new photographer when our original one cancelled. We had about 60 people & not one person had a negative thing to say, including my grumpy uncle who is known in the family as "Send it Back Sam."

They have a bunch of rooms/event locations within the hotel & obviously we didn't use all of them, but those that we used for the ceremony, dinner, and brunch for everyone the next morning were beautiful.

We sent thank you letters to the staff & I hope they will read them. They probably do 500 weddings a year but we will only ever have one So, it meant quite a lot to us that they made it so wonderful and easy. I have watched a lot of friends struggle with wedding planners, vendors, venues etc that don't seem to care at all. Royal Hawaiian definitely made us feel like they cared about us.

Honeymoon:
Hurawalhi Island Resort, Maldives

This is a couples/adult only resort & I think it was about 45 minutes between the main airport & the resort. I have never been somewhere that you needed to fly to on a seaplane. That was extremely cool. Tons of honeymoons & anniversaries. We met a lot of nice, interesting people, including a couple who got married more or less down the street from us, on the same day we got married. That was funny.

We did a lot of snorkeling, beaching (it's a word), eating, relaxing. They have their own reef & a huge underwater restaurant, which is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. The bartenders remembered the drinks we liked, which made us REALLY like them. We went on a dolphin cruise & many other talks/tours with the resident marine biologist. We tried some flyboarding, which I loved, and diving, which was absolutely not for me and I should have known better because I have weak lungs. My fault. The spa was amazing & offered couples' treatments. DH went out fishing with another guy he met there while the other guy's wife and I hung out at the beach... and maybe went to the spa... again. The guys caught our dinner that night. The rooms were beautiful & we loved our butler.

I didn't go into too much detail because I have a lot of thread to catch up on & I don't think any of this information would be useful for our shared hobby. But, if it's relevant to anyone personally, please PM me & I will be happy to elaborate

Congratulations! It sounds like you had a beautiful wedding and a wonderful honeymoon

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

What does everyone think are the best deals right now for an Amazon gc and a Barnes and noble gc?

For us, right now it's the 10x rewards at Acme/Albertsons/etc combined with the Amex Gold 4x. And the much-more-regional, spend $100 on gc, get $20 off your next order at ShopRite combined with the Gold 4x.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Back to report that DH returned the item he bought using points, and we got our points back woohoo.

I don't think I ever shared the time that dh paid with UR, using Chase Pay (bc it was a promo), to get a $500 Disney gc at ShopRite. 50,000 UR I cannot imagine what my face looked like when he told me that news----like a week later when he was paying his bill and he couldn't figure out why his UR balance was so low! Thankfully, a quick call to Chase resolved the issue but omg he almost was flying in coach to Australia next year

 

[havaneselover]

Dd and I are in NYC! Flight here was short and uneventful. Easy/cheap Uber ride from lga to midtown. Staying at RI Midtown East. Rooms are nice and location is great. Dd and I hit the met, Macy’s, Tiffany’s and a bunch of other stores. Heading to the Rockettes soon!

 

[wendow]

We are finally back from our wedding! (I just really wanted to use this emoji once) & our honeymoon! & all the work we had to catch up on while we were away, exploiting the kindness of our coworkers!

Wedding:
Royal Hawaiian, Honolulu

I really could not be any happier with the venue or the service we received. They do keep tight control over the vendors they allow on property but all of what we needed (seriously everything - planning, catering, flowers, harpist, rooms/valet/bellhop etc for our guests... they even made us our own event specialty cocktails!) was coordinated in-house so we didn't have any issues there. They even found us a new photographer when our original one cancelled. We had about 60 people & not one person had a negative thing to say, including my grumpy uncle who is known in the family as "Send it Back Sam."

They have a bunch of rooms/event locations within the hotel & obviously we didn't use all of them, but those that we used for the ceremony, dinner, and brunch for everyone the next morning were beautiful.

We sent thank you letters to the staff & I hope they will read them. They probably do 500 weddings a year but we will only ever have one So, it meant quite a lot to us that they made it so wonderful and easy. I have watched a lot of friends struggle with wedding planners, vendors, venues etc that don't seem to care at all. Royal Hawaiian definitely made us feel like they cared about us.

Honeymoon:
Hurawalhi Island Resort, Maldives

This is a couples/adult only resort & I think it was about 45 minutes between the main airport & the resort. I have never been somewhere that you needed to fly to on a seaplane. That was extremely cool. Tons of honeymoons & anniversaries. We met a lot of nice, interesting people, including a couple who got married more or less down the street from us, on the same day we got married. That was funny.

We did a lot of snorkeling, beaching (it's a word), eating, relaxing. They have their own reef & a huge underwater restaurant, which is one of the coolest things I have ever experienced. The bartenders remembered the drinks we liked, which made us REALLY like them. We went on a dolphin cruise & many other talks/tours with the resident marine biologist. We tried some flyboarding, which I loved, and diving, which was absolutely not for me and I should have known better because I have weak lungs. My fault. The spa was amazing & offered couples' treatments. DH went out fishing with another guy he met there while the other guy's wife and I hung out at the beach... and maybe went to the spa... again. The guys caught our dinner that night. The rooms were beautiful & we loved our butler.

I didn't go into too much detail because I have a lot of thread to catch up on & I don't think any of this information would be useful for our shared hobby. But, if it's relevant to anyone personally, please PM me & I will be happy to elaborate

Congratulations!!! This sounds amazing! What beautiful memories to cherish

 

[wanderlust7]

Top Cashback for Macy's is 20% today. Frequent Miler has a link to sign-up for new TCB account, $35 after getting $10 in cashback. Stack with Amex offers, there's one for Macy's and one for department stores (if you haven't used them already).

 

[tink1970]

I just spent 2 nights at the Boston R-C. It was pricey since I decided to stay on the Executive Lounge Level and I paid OOP (yes, yes, send me to the shun corner). Let's just say for the 2 nights I'm pretty sure I earned enough Bonvoy points for a free airport positioning stay.

Anyway...

Location-near Boston Common (I was upgraded to a Boston Common view), walkable to Shake Shack and other restaurants, retail and the T.

Room-since DD was spending the night, 2 double beds, which were comfortable. The bathroom was lovely-a separate soaking tub from the shower, commode had a door and the towels were large and soft. Almost every amenity was provided (qtips, individual soap, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, mouth wash, shower cap-with a hair tie) except bath salts (bummer). The amenities were Asprey Purple Rain and the conditioner was excellent-moisturizing enough for my long think easily tangled hair. The room was large enough for us and our stuff. I arrived at noon and despite check in being officially three pm, a room was immediately available. We were also allowed late checkout which allowed us to have Thanksgiving lunch and return to our room and pack.

Executive Lounge-as someone on the Concierge Level, we were eligible to access Equinox gym (otherwise it would have been a $15/day charge), in addition to free pressing of 2 items (did not take advantage of this) as well as the lounge itself. There were copious food offerings-continental breakfast (including scrambled eggs and oatmeal, pastries, and fruit), lunch (soup, sandwiches, veggies, cheese, etc), hors d'oeuvres (which could substitute for a light dinner) and desserts/cordials. I though all food offerings were good, and the wine and liquor was enjoyed by others in the lounge. There were also large glass containers filled with cookies, candy and popcorn (and take out containers were provided if requested). Bottled water, canned pepsi products, and beer were always available during lounge hours and my favorite part- coke products were kept in the back on request. Since the R-C is a Marriott, they are contractually obligated to put out pepsi products but stock diet coke/coke for their guests-I was so impressed with that!

Gym-the Equinox was very large but had everything one could want in a gym.

As a lowly Gold, I appreciated the room upgrade and late check out. I expect excellent service and was not disappointed.

I really enjoyed our stay, but I suspect that had something to do with seeing my DD after 3 months, lol. The executive lounge was very nice (DD had chocolate covered strawberries while bathing for her 19th- " it's a fancy birthday") and I think if we stayed here again it would be worth it for us to use this again. A regular room seems to run about 50K Marriott points/night which could be a good redemption for FNCs.

If we're in Boston again I'd likely stay again, although there are other great properties in Boston others have reviewed, too.