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

[amalone1013]

@wendow or @amalone1013 and whomever else is a colorado person...

any ideas how to save on breck lift tickets? Does costco carry the GC in your local stores or any other ideas?

I'm no help as I get terrible altitude sickness and haven't been skiing since I was 10. Actually the last time I went to Breck was in Sept 2015 for a night and I was so sick the next morning we kept having to stop on the way back to Denver.

You know you're not in the midwest when you're sitting in the grass at the edge of the rest stop, dry heaving, all alone, and the only people who stop to ask if you are okay have midwestern state plates on their car

I can check Costco next time I go though

 

[schmass]

This is terrible! I'm so sorry this is happening to you. This happened to my Dad but many years ago and it was such a fight with the bank to have it corrected. But so far it sounds like your bank is on top of this and you may have an easier time now. Unfortunately fraud being so more frequent now I actually think it's easier to correct now than before with banks being more flexible. When it happened to my Dad it was suspected to be an inside job, like someone from the bank possibly giving out or selling account details, but I forget all the whys to how it pointed to that. However, the bank pushed back during the investigation and wanted to make it sound like it was my Dad's fault all these fake checks were getting cashed, to the point where I think he went into the bank with all his checkbooks to show he has all his stuff and nothing was lost or stolen! And it wasn't just a couple checks, the bank kept cashing the fake ones after it was reported that they were fake and the account was supposed to have been closed down. It was insane but eventually they put it all to rights.

I hope everything goes smoothly for you getting your cash back. Just confirms for me my pseudo strategy of not keeping money in my checking accounts is still a good idea. That is a scary situation.

Thank you! That is horrible that they weren't working with your dad! So far it seems like they are going to reverse everything and give me my money back which better be the case. I am going to leave work soon and stop by the bank in a little bit to hopefully get this straightened out. The good thing is they know me at the bank so hopefully don't think I'm involved in anything shady.

 

[Lain]

Heading back home from Disneyland now. We had a great time. We stayed at the Fairfield inn. The hotel was amazing from the moment we got out of the Lyft, there were people welcoming us and taking the bags out of the trunk. (Didn’t have that at the Disneyland hotel or the Grand Californian.) They also texted me during the stay to ask how everything was (again never happens at Disney hotels) the chargers near our bed weren’t working so I texted them and they fixed it. It broke a few nights later, but I forgot to text them again. Overall, the service was amazing and the hotel was clean.


We got a water and cookies when we checked in for being Gold elite members and we were upgraded to a theme park view room.


Disneyland thoughts:

The parks are crowded. I was kind of expecting it because of the holiday, but it was so packed. I really can’t blame them for raising prices on tickets. I wish they would just expand capacity instead of raising pricing but Disneyland really has no room for that lol.


The pricing for other things is off the rails. 24.99 for a Mickey sipper that I can get filled with a soft drink once? The same sipper that world has for $13.99? I really thought the 24.99 was a mistake. It’s a shame because it was adorable and I would have gotten one for $13.99 lol. Also, we got a 6 pack of beignets and a mint julep and it was $13!!! I feel like when we were there in August it was a good deal maybe like $9ish? There are still good deals to be had tho. A large soft serve ice cream at Clarabelle’s in Toon Town was only $4.79.


The garbages in toon town were overflowing. I think I’m Pete Werner and Disney will care about my opinion so I tweeted them and they said they would have their custodial staff take care of it. Disney’s cleanliness is what separates them from others in the industry and I know they are cutting back in staff and it pisses me off.


There are plaids everywhere in Disneyland. I wish I had money like that. Trying to convince SO to join club 33 (so we get 4 a year) it’s not working lol


Food thoughts:

Carnation cafe: amazing as always, best deal on property. I tried the chicken fried chicken and it was great. We also shared a sundae that they said was two scoops... it was way more than two scoops lol we couldn’t finish it and it was only $7.


Blue bayou Fantasmic Dining Package: our reservation time was at 1:45 got seated earlier at about 1:35 and we were out of the restaurant by 2:15. No joke. Wayyyyyy too rushed for a three course meal. The food was good but no way did they cook my food that fast. they just make a bunch of food and it’s probably sitting out. The meal is too expensive for that. Next time we will try River Bell. I did enjoy the butt cushion and the view from the Blue Bayou section is the best so we will probably do it again.


River Bell Terrace Breakfast

We never ate here before and we were pleasantly surprised. I got the chicken and biscuits and SO got the short rib and eggs. We both loved our food. Idk how tho place was dead.


Steakhouse 55

I wasn’t in the mood after the meh steak the night before at Blue Bayou so I asked to order off the lounge menu. The lady made a face but they did it. I got the loaded potato chips and the burger. I asked for the burger customized no bacon, bbq sauce and a cheddar cheese. They did not listen but I didn’t bother sending it back. It was still good I just wish the service was better. SO got the steak which I tried and regret ordering off the lounge menu lol oh, and of course he got the 24 layer chocolate cake.


Naples:

I’m always nervous about getting Italian food outside of NY but this was really good. SO and I both enjoyed our meals here.


Overall, we had a great time. Idk when we will be back (I may have said that in August when I left lol) when we go back though we want to stay at the Grand Californian again. Even though the Fairfield inn has better service and the room was great and close. I’m brainwashed and I love the Disney bubble.

Wow, your experience at the Fairfield was completely different than ours, and we’re both Gold Elite? The staff barely acknowledged our presence much less my status, and I thought our room was just meh — we got a second floor room overlooking a noisy pool and the bathroom was so tight there was a, let’s just say, “brown” stain on the white shower curtain. The room was fine, but the renovation looked rushed and the fixtures weren’t very high quality. For a motel-like experience, I felt like the Candy Cane Inn up the street is cleaner, quieter, with much nicer staff and a complimentary breakfast.

Best Disneyland deal for us is sharing the fried chicken plate at the Plaza Inn. We also do like the country fried chicken at Carnation Cafe, and have had several debates which chicken is better.

We do the Blue Bayou Fantasmic Dining Package for the seats, and this is our favorite nighttime show. We’ve got 9? seat cushions (at least 3 of the old design and the rest in the new motif), which I debated purging this weekend but they bring me “joy.” Our most recent dinner at the Blue Bayou was a terrible experience. My wife’s ribeye was undercooked, my lamb was overcooked, and our waiter was so blasé, chatty with his coworkers and inattentive to his guests, and practically dropped our dishes onto the table. When he brought us the wrong dish, he was like oops. I always try to tip well because I’ve worked food service when I was younger, but I couldn’t. For a ~$200 meal, I expect my waiter to at least care about his guests. The waiter’s attitude just infuriated me and my wife all night. He got a complaint to Disney instead.

My guess why the River Belle Terrace is dead in the mornings is everyone is taking advantage of the short lines at the attractions. We keep meaning to try the new breakfast options at River Belle, but from about 8-10:30/11 am, we’re on rides.

How do you plan on saving on the Grand Californian stay? I’ve been planning our Thanksgiving trip to Disneyland, which for the past two years we booked the Disneyland Hotel using UR points. With that option out, I planned to pay for it using discounted Disney GCs, but Disney won’t take Disney GCs as payment on a deposit for a room-only reservation.

 

[happ]

ARGGGGGG classic me..... I just closed the SPG personal ,intending to keep the biz. stupid choice I now see... I'm not paying $125 to keep the biz for a measly 35k night!(stupid stupid) my only question now is do I bother trying for the lux offer which would net me 3 50k nights (in effect) for the 5k spend? is it even worth it? OR should I just cut my losses and focus on Hilton/Hyatt/IHG now?

I was planning on keeping my spg biz, too. Do you think there's a chance that the old fee will be grandfathered?

 

[miztressuz]

I don't know on one but the woman who got my checks last year and wrote over $4000 off my account was caught. I was very proactive about it and worked with local police departments (several involved) and they worked with Target & 7-eleven to get photos of the person passing my checks. She also had my drivers license. Anyway, she was involved in another terrible case (mugging an 80 year old at Kroger) that got a lot of news so they linked her to my crime. But had I not reported the bad checks to the local police departments she probably would not have been charged for using them.

ETA: Thankfully, Target was very understanding when they came after me for writing $4,000 of checks on a closed account. They were never rude to me even though I was basically dealing with collections. My life was a complete nightmare for a while because even after my account was closed by Wells Fargo they kept clearing checks because they had linked my closed account to my new account.

My gosh I never connected it before when you went through all that but I think my Dad's account was also with Wells Fargo at the time. (it was a Wachovia account that converted so I'm fuzzy on the timeline) I'm pretty sure the same thing happened to him then too. But what was worse was these were fake checks! They were supposed to have closed it and flagged it or something to not allow checks and yet they kept cashing fake checks. It's just another reason I try to avoid Wells Fargo. Have been tempted to open a checking account with them just for the bonus, as they finally sent me an offer with a bonus attached, just to stick it to them but have mortgage with them because of the Wachovia Mortgage buy out and not sure I want to rock the boat there.

 

[AmyAnne]

OMG someone from my bank just called me and asked if I recently wrote out two large checks from my account. I had no idea what he was talking about and logged into my bank app to see that my account is negative by several hundred dollars! I clicked on the image of the checks and someone actually printed out fake checks and wrote them out. I am seriously freaked out now! Thankfully my bank caught this and contacted me but this is pretty scary.

Wow. That's awful -- so glad your bank was on top of it. You would think that the person who did this could be fairly easily caught since they left a paper trail.

 

[amalone1013]

We’ve got 9? seat cushions (at least 3 of the old design and the rest in the new motif), which I debated purging this weekend but they bring me “joy.”

I feel like all I do is move our cushions around the room because I don't know what to do with them but don't want to get rid of them. And I like the new pattern, with all the little icons in different colors.

 

[jhoannam]

Who has the SW Priority card??? Do you find the fee is worth it?

 

[Lain]

Debating how fast should I meet the MSR on DH's Hilton Biz. I'd like to use the points to book our pre-cruise hotel (Doubletree San Pedro) in April. I could just pay property tax early and be done. But thinking I should spread out the MSR to hopefully help with avoiding the AmEx pop-up. He also has a new Rose Gold, but I can spread out the MSR on that and plan to keep using afterwards for restaurants. Not sure how much that'll help.

Thank you! Since it's fast, think I'll spread out the MSR over 2 billing cycles. Statement close is in 2 weeks, so I'll do half now, then half right after the statement closes.

I think spreading out the spend is a good idea. It’ll make the monthly statements look more even and less obviously a drop off in spend after the MSR period. With the Gold, it’s a card with solid bonus categories that’ll get ongoing spend easily. But with a Hilton card, I think it was FrequentMiler that wrote last week there’s very little reason to put spend on Hilton cards, and I’d agree outside of Hilton stays, Amex Offers, and appeasing the Amex RATs.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I'm no help as I get terrible altitude sickness and haven't been skiing since I was 10. Actually the last time I went to Breck was in Sept 2015 for a night and I was so sick the next morning we kept having to stop on the way back to Denver.

You know you're not in the midwest when you're sitting in the grass at the edge of the rest stop, dry heaving, all alone, and the only people who stop to ask if you are okay have midwestern state plates on their car

I can check Costco next time I go though

oh my. I am scared one of us will end up with this problem.

 

[Lain]

I feel like all I do is move our cushions around the room because I don't know what to do with them but don't want to get rid of them. And I like the new pattern, with all the little icons in different colors.

I figure we can always use them for picnic parties when the weather is nice and warmer.

 

[miztressuz]

quoting myself to say I sent this to my mom:


She replied: "do you have a recent picture of me? You will need it for the missing persons poster."

Poor thing. This trip is completely out of her comfort zone, but she will do anything to be present for her 1st grandbaby's milestones.

LOL because that's exactly what my mom would respond! She gets lost in the mall...

 

[speedyfishy]

Wow, your experience at the Fairfield was completely different than ours, and we’re both Gold Elite? The staff barely acknowledged our presence much less my status, and I thought our room was just meh — we got a second floor room overlooking a noisy pool and the bathroom was so tight there was a, let’s just say, “brown” stain on the white shower curtain. The room was fine, but the renovation looked rushed and the fixtures weren’t very high quality. For a motel-like experience, I felt like the Candy Cane Inn up the street is cleaner, quieter, with much nicer staff and a complimentary breakfast.

Best Disneyland deal for us is sharing the fried chicken plate at the Plaza Inn. We also do like the country fried chicken at Carnation Cafe, and have had several debates which chicken is better.

We do the Blue Bayou Fantasmic Dining Package for the seats, and this is our favorite nighttime show. We’ve got 9? seat cushions (at least 3 of the old design and the rest in the new motif), which I debated purging this weekend but they bring me “joy.” Our most recent dinner at the Blue Bayou was a terrible experience. My wife’s ribeye was undercooked, my lamb was overcooked, and our waiter was so blasé, chatty with his coworkers and inattentive to his guests, and practically dropped our dishes onto the table. When he brought us the wrong dish, he was like oops. I always try to tip well because I’ve worked food service when I was younger, but I couldn’t. For a ~$200 meal, I expect my waiter to at least care about his guests. The waiter’s attitude just infuriated me and my wife all night. He got a complaint to Disney instead.

My guess why the River Belle Terrace is dead in the mornings is everyone is taking advantage of the short lines at the attractions. We keep meaning to try the new breakfast options at River Belle, but from about 8-10:30/11 am, we’re on rides.

How do you plan on saving on the Grand Californian stay? I’ve been planning our Thanksgiving trip to Disneyland, which for the past two years we booked the Disneyland Hotel using UR points. With that option out, I planned to pay for it using discounted Disney GCs, but Disney won’t take Disney GCs as payment on a deposit for a room-only reservation.

Wow, the Fairfield always mentioned our Gold status at Check in and Check out. That’s awful your room was dirty and only overlooking the pool. We had the complete opposite experience. Very weird. The shower part of the bathroom was small but we kept the door open and that helped. The room overall I thought was spacious.

Share the Plaza chicken?? I eat that myself lol. I actually think SO and I had it on an off night when we tried it last January. We didn’t really like it. I hear the Flos v8 chicken is the same tho and when we got that we loved that. So it was probably an off night when we tried it.

I’m always so hungry in the morning at DL we would waste a lot of our valuable time eating but I get hangry lol

Idk how we will pay for the Grand Californian yet lol I’m willing to pay cash but I’m not willing to pay over $600 a night. I’d probably just sign up for bank accounts and use the bonus money.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

So scary! How did they even get my account information? Do these people ever end up getting caught?

A common strategy is to intercept a check in the mail. Take a picture of it, then move it on to it’s destination. Then you sit on the information briefly and print counterfeit checks a little later.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Bon voyage to my SPG biz. Nice knowing you.

 

[tink1970]

Unfortunately reports are that the RC cards are the same metal stock as the CSR/CSPs now. So I'd hang on to your weapon when it comes time for the replacement

NOOOOOOOOOO.....

Poor thing. This trip is completely out of her comfort zone, but she will do anything to be present for her 1st grandbaby's milestones.

Two things:

First, I'm a blonde and was totally confused when you used the term grandbaby, trying to figure out how the three year old was your mother's first grandchild. Eureka moment...ah, generic term for grandchild. I am sooo blonde!

Second, could you tell her to meet you at chic-fil-a? Everyone knows how to get there (in the food court) and it's a comfort thing if you're a southerner (especially if you happen to be a super flaky blonde). Just sayin'...

 

[Alexle2007]

That is awesome I am looking at a Montessori school for my son for kindergarten and it will be over 20K a year

I think that Montessori is a great environment for boys (or least it was for my son.) He absolutely thrived in the 2 years he went there. I really wish we had left him there but it was totally out of our way. He was excited to hear that the private school offers horseback riding every Fri afternoon and wants to give that a try.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

So scary! How did they even get my account information? Do these people ever end up getting caught?

I guess another strategy is hacking a system you were using for online payments (ie like when you give your routing and checking to AMEX). With that info they can do a lot of bad things. It’s scary but luckily consumers have protections from what I know. I work on the commercial side and businesses aren’t afforded much protection from fraud. We sell a fraud protection package which is a popular service with my customers.

 

[MsOnceUponATime]

Who has the SW Priority card??? Do you find the fee is worth it?

I have it and I do find the fee worth it. I'd flown twice by the second week of January (for business) and because my 12 year old daughter is my companion (thanks Companion Pass!) I was able to fly her with me for free and upgrade her from B'something to A'something on all of the necessary flights. By using my SW Priority, as you know, those fees were "free". So far, the card is a keeper!

 

[wendow]

@wendow or @amalone1013 and whomever else is a colorado person...

any ideas how to save on breck lift tickets? Does costco carry the GC in your local stores or any other ideas?

I'm not going to be much help either! We haven't skied in a few years and not Breck in about 15 years. I don't think Costco sells discounted lift tickets. I'll try to remember to look at King Soopers (Kroger chain) b/c they used to but it's been many years since I checked.