I love credit cards so much!

[trenty]

I agree. The only thing I pay for is Disney GCs, and I have used cash rewards cards to help with those too. I pay a fee (ie Plastiq) only when meeting MSR, and I’ve only done that 2 or 3 times.

I try not to even pay for the Disney GCs, but I do sometimes buy them discounted.

 

[elgerber]

Funny you should say that. I was just thinking that Peter P some of the crowds will be dashing to Mine Train.

Oh yeah! HUGE rush to the mine train, you will be fine if you go straight to PP but you will not be alone

 

[trenty]

I'd look at it per card then. If it's something that you can use a statement credit against, I'd see if it's still worth it. Like my new CIP. I'm putting most if not all of the $5k spend on my car with Plastiq. That would be a $125 fee for all $5k. I'll get 85k URs including the minimum spend points. If I was aiming for completely free like you, I would probably do it still and cash out 12.5k URs to offset the fee. Unless I had other ways to keep hitting big spends completely organically. I see you were talking about Delta points and I'm not familiar with flying them, so I don't know anything about their points/cards.

Yes. I am willing to cash in points to cover fees, but have not done so. The only cards I have now with AFs are my and DH's CSP. And DH's CSP will either be cancelled or more likely PC'ed to another product once his year is up, so technically no fee there. He also has the United Card which I will downgrade to the free version once the year is up.
So I guess technically my free travel is costing me the $95/year AF for my CSP. I can live with that.

 

[trenty]

Fair enough, we all have different ways of approaching things. Since I primarily travel delta then not only are skymiles of some meaning to me, so are MQMs which are also allotted with spend thresholds. For example, paying $60,000 tuition for out of state school would, with 2.5% fee cost $1500. The DL Reserve's fee is $450. So I'm out $1950. However, currently the Reserve is offering 70,000 skymiles for $5k MSR--easily met with $60,000 spend. So 130,000 skymiles plus the 15k plus 15 k skymiles and 15k plus 15k MQMs equals 160,000 skymiles and 30,000 MQMs(lowest value $0.01/skymile) so $1600 value.

Still out $350. But...how much do you value MQMs? The most one can purchase (in December only fwiw) is 10,000 MQMs and the price varied last year from $1100 - $3000 (DL has a formula based on your medallion level and I'm sure other things). Twenty thousand more MQMs can be earned flying RT to Australia from LAX in Delta One (which costs anywhere from $5-10K). In other words, 30,000 MQMs are (if one values MQMs which I do) worth a heck of a lot more than $350!

If, instead, we go the Delta Amex Platinum for the same $60k tuition, we'd earn the 70,000 offer plus 60,000 plus 20,000 spend miles (plus 20,000 MQMs). Cost for this card $195 plus the same $1500 for estimated 2.5% charge. Again, the skymiles value is cancelled out by the fee and I'm in the hole $195 but the MQM value is exponentially higher (to me) than $195. So it's a winning situation with either card.

Everyone is different and views this hobby differently but that's how I approach it. Of course, being a primarily Delta flier and a platinum medallion affects how I perceive the Amex Delta cards and their value.

That definitely works for you and if I had to fly Delta - yes, I would probably do the same. I am looking into Delta for a few trips over the next few years, and then probably won't need them anymore.

 

[AmyAnne]

MK - Peter Pan, Mine Train, Space Mtn
Epcot - Test Track or Frozen, Spaceship Earth, Mission Space.
AK - FoP, Everest, Safari
DHS - Slinky Dog, RnRC, ToT

Then if we have more days at MK we do different ones, depending on what we want. Epcot usually just varies between Frozen and TT, I always feel like it's easier to get an extra FP for Soarin and TT. The others tend to stay the same because I use them for things I know we want to do but I expect to have longer lines, or if I think it'll be easy to pick up an extra FP for another ride (like Toy Story Mania right now) I won't use it as a main one.

I usually start our FPs around 10am, and do them 10/11/12. Usually we get there about rope drop, do some rides, hit the 10am one at the end of the hour (I like to do PP/Mine Train for these and hit one at the end, the other at the beginning of the window, and then we either do something else or try to move the next one up). I like to do the Safari as a 10am one as the animals have still been pretty active for us. Then I start searching for extra FPs. We're only 2 people.

Toy Story Mania is also perplexing me strategy-wise. Slinky Dog is new, so it makes sense to pick it over TSM, but TSM seems like such a better ride. Frozen seems the same, and even Mine Train -- these would not be my first picks, except they are new so we want to try them. Do people who have ridden these rides really like them more, or is it the newness factor?

 

[calypso726]

I have a long day ahead of me. Our flight home isn't until 9 pm tonight. I had originally planned a park day at HS but it's just too hot - I don't want to be a mess at the airport - despite the fact that I can shower at MCO. I don't want to be sticky and sweaty in the car ride/security line, etc. So we will hang out at Disney Springs and go bowling and the movies. I've never done that here, so there's that.

I really need more discounted Disney giftcards - and fast because finally payment on my Dis cruise is due November 1.

We ate at STK last night and it was really good, but really loud. DH had a steak... I'm a vegetarian but they had a nice squash risotto. Great sides too. We left and he said "Man that was good" and I said "I hope so, it cost the same as a week's worth of groceries!"

The man is a bottomless pit and ate a Mickey bar after that!

Like many who posted earlier in the week, I think I'm Disney'd out on the parks for a minute or two. I think we'll do shorter park trips going forward. Might stay offsite, too.

Oh and Sanaa was great - bread service!!!

*waving hi from Epcot!*

We’ve seen movies there but have never done the bowling. We will have to try that at some point.

Yasss on the Sana’a bread service. I could totally use some of that right about now. I did another wine and cheese seminar at 9:45 this morning and this time it has wreaked havoc on my stomach.

I think next year after the Japan ABD we might be slowing down on multiple international trips and actually going to the Disney parks more than we do now. The China ABD, Antarctica trip and Japan ABD all within a 16 months span has done quite a number on the vacation budget even with discounted Disney gift cards for the ABD trips. We also need to get the PTO bank of days replenished.

Some “longer than a weekend” than our usual Friday to Sunday trips to the parks, WDW and DLR will give us the break from reality that we need and allow us to regroup without sacrificing 2 weeks of PTO at a time. In the meantime, we will keep racking up the points and miles until we are ready to put them to use.

 

[mmmears]

With a little digging you can find your pending points and it will say something like Business Platinum Card 1---2 (last 5 numbers of card) Sept 2019 151 points. In my case, I know my Biz Plat closed yesterday so today or tomorrow my 151 MRs will post from Sept. Next month, after closing my Oct points will post.

Hope this makes sense!

Yes! I can see them under pending points, but they aren't showing up as points yet on my main page. I was trying to explain it, but clearly wasn't clear! They don't make it super easy to see the pending points.

 

[tink1970]

Yes! I can see them under pending points, but they aren't showing up as points yet on my main page. I was trying to explain it, but clearly wasn't clear! They don't make it super easy to see the pending points.

Glad you can see them! Now it's just a matter of time I can't wait to see all of my new rose gold pending points in the next several months

 

[schmass]

Whew, got all caught up here and am glad to see that nothing earth-shattering happened in the past week. It looks like I missed out on the discounted Disney GCs at BJ's .

I'm pretty confused on the new ticket price changes. We're planning on getting DVC APs for our May trip. Will it still work to buy tickets through UT and then bridge to APs when we get there?

 

[palhockeymomof2]

Toy Story Mania is also perplexing me strategy-wise. Slinky Dog is new, so it makes sense to pick it over TSM, but TSM seems like such a better ride. Frozen seems the same, and even Mine Train -- these would not be my first picks, except they are new so we want to try them. Do people who have ridden these rides really like them more, or is it the newness factor?

I’d definitely do a Slinky dog fastpass....the standby lines will be a lot longer than TSM...we all enjoyed SD...it’s a better ride in our opinion than 7D and longer
Frozen we went on once....unless you have frozen loving kids in your group..I’d pass and go see the frozen sing a long show at the Studios...the narrators are great
Mine train is cute...but short

 

[afan]

My only other fp comment, if you are ok riding single rider do that and use the fp for something else. We have Navi (cause I couldn't get fop on day 2), safari and dinosaur. We don't mind riding separate and the line is usually short enough for us. Same with Test Track.

 

[Haley R]

My only other fp comment, if you are ok riding single rider do that and use the fp for something else. We have Navi (cause I couldn't get fop on day 2), safari and dinosaur. We don't mind riding separate and the line is usually short enough for us. Same with Test Track.

The only time we tried single rider was rnrc and it took so much longer than the normal que that we ended up leaving. Is that typical for rnrc? I assume test track is better since the seating is in 3s.

 

[Haley R]

I am leaning toward this plan, rather than FPs in the afternoon, even though the lines will be manageable in the morning I am afraid if we do not use our third FP until 3 pm, there will not be any FPs left.

Just start your FPS an hour or two after rope drop and it works out well. You can do other rides/experiences for rd and use your FPS after that. Then we usually get our next fp scheduled for after lunch.

 

[mom2elal]

I get thr best fp I can get for each day of the stuff I want to ride. I do try and get them earlier so I can try for a 4th etc but if the 2nd park I'm going to that day is the one I want fps for then that's what I do. Aside from the newer rides that have long lines, it's about your favorites and must dos. My 3 per park will be different than someone elses and also be different based on how many days the trip is. You should see my last epcot day, I got one for figment, haha. But I don't want to do the land for what would probably be the 3rd time by that point.

This 3 fp per day thing is really hard for me to swallow as a DL person. I know you can get more when they expire, but it still sounds like you get a lot fewer over the course of the day than you can at DL. Why do they have to have different systems?

Is it still true that fp+ has caused longer standby lines at rides that used to have short ones?

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

That's a really sweet offer. At this point I'm not even sure what it is that I want in terms of fastpasses! I know that the first ones should be the super-hard ones (FOP, slinky dog, mine train) but beyond that I am kind of confused. I think I read that once you use the first one, you can start to try to move others up, so I'm not sure if I should get the next-tier hardest (like Space Mountain?) or if it would be better to have the fastpasses earlier in the day so we could possibly then add some.

I'm curious, those of you that are FP+ veterans, if you could have your perfect list of 3 fastpasses per park (those that you reserve ahead), which would those be?

For most park days, I book our FPs for 9/10/11 and use the 9 at the end of the time period. That would look like

MK: Space/Buzz (we split up), 7DMT, Splash
Epcot: Soarin or TT (we usually have 2 Epcot mornings, so one each w FP and the other at rope drop), Spaceship Earth
Studios: Slinky Dog, RnRC/Star Tours (split up also), ToT
AK: FoP, Everest, and whatever else

But other days, we start in one park at rope drop without FPs and then hop to another park after our afternoon break to use FPs. For example, in July we started at MK (multiple rides on Big Thunder, Pirates, Jungle Cruise, Haunted Mansion, and then a few other things with no waits like Philharmagic and Mermaid), took a nice long break at Kidani for lunch (dh has to check in with the office every afternoon so we break almost every day for 3-4 hours), then hopped to AK for small plates and drinks at Nomad Lounge, a FP for FoP, a FP for the Safari timed to walk into the queue 15 minutes before sunset, and had a third FP for Rivers of Light.

Toy Story Mania is also perplexing me strategy-wise. Slinky Dog is new, so it makes sense to pick it over TSM, but TSM seems like such a better ride. Frozen seems the same, and even Mine Train -- these would not be my first picks, except they are new so we want to try them. Do people who have ridden these rides really like them more, or is it the newness factor?

Slinky Dog is a great ride for people who enjoy coasters. it's a mild coaster that seems so much more thrilling because it's open with no "mountains" underneath. The wait times are also horrendous. You need to use a FP unless you plan on being near the very front of the rope drop crowd or if you plan on riding at the end of the night. We hit two 7am openings in July and were right at the front. Like, first or second trains/dogs. After we got off SDD, we walked onto Aliens and then walked onto TSM. One of my dds can't spin at all so she did TSM twice. We returned to Toy Story Land an hour or so later after doing RnRC/ToT/Star Tours to grab some breakfast and use our Slinky FP.

Frozen was a one-and-done for us. We'll ride again in the future if we ever go with small kids. I think everyone should ride it at least once though because it is cute and fun.

We no longer do the race to Seven Dwarves in the morning; instead we prefer to start in Frontierland at Big Thunder or in Tomorrowland at Space/Buzz. Sometimes the kids (they're 25, 23, and 18!) feel nostalgic and we start in Fantasyland at PP/Pooh/Mermaid/Small World

 

[trstno1]

Those of you who prefer Delta - tell me how you rack up points (besides Amex MRs). DS prefers Delta over SW to get back and forth from school...I need to put some Delta earnings cards on my list of future cards. No business cards, please.

I was in your boat - obviously signup bonuses on new cards are the best way to go, but I received signup bonuses on all of the AmEx Delta cards, and I couldn't find another way to generate Delta miles. I was able to transfer Chase UR points to Flying Blue (the Air France program), and that worked pretty well to purchase fights operated by Delta, but the value wasn't always as good as I could get with other UR redemptions.

I have to tell you that I think you should reconsider whether you can apply for and use American Express business cards. I understand that it may not work out for you, but I think combining an AmEx Business platinum (with 35% rebate on MR points used to purchase flights on your designated airline) with the new AmEx personal gold for 4 MR on dining and groceries and the MR Blue Business Plus for 2 MR on everything else, offers the best path for Delta flights. I drive an electric vehicle, but you could also throw in the AmEx Business Gold for 3x MR at gas stations.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

My only other fp comment, if you are ok riding single rider do that and use the fp for something else. We have Navi (cause I couldn't get fop on day 2), safari and dinosaur. We don't mind riding separate and the line is usually short enough for us. Same with Test Track.

The only time we tried single rider was rnrc and it took so much longer than the normal que that we ended up leaving. Is that typical for rnrc? I assume test track is better since the seating is in 3s.

Youngest dd's favorite ride at all of WDW is Test Track. She doesn't care about designing a car so we've done single rider there since she was 10 or so (she's 18). BUT we only use single rider at rope drop as the wait later can be very long. Dh and older dd only do it twice but younger dd and I will go 3 or 4 times or until there's an appreciable wait. if the end of the single rider line is near the merge point inside the building, we turn around and walk out

RnRC's single line can be horrible. We only use that in the mornings if someone wants a second ride after using a FP.

 

[trenty]

I was in your boat - obviously signup bonuses on new cards are the best way to go, but I received signup bonuses on all of the AmEx Delta cards, and I couldn't find another way to generate Delta miles. I was able to transfer Chase UR points to Flying Blue (the Air France program), and that worked pretty well to purchase fights operated by Delta, but the value wasn't always as good as I could get with other UR redemptions.

I have to tell you that I think you should reconsider whether you can apply for and use American Express business cards. I understand that it may not work out for you, but I think combining an AmEx Business platinum (with 35% rebate on MR points used to purchase flights on your designated airline) with the new AmEx personal gold for 4 MR on dining and groceries and the MR Blue Business Plus for 2 MR on everything else, offers the best path for Delta flights. I drive an electric vehicle, but you could also throw in the AmEx Business Gold for 3x MR at gas stations.

Thanks for the UR suggestion to transfer to Flying Blue. I will look into that.

Really against business cards, but appreciate the advice.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

I drive an electric vehicle, but you could also throw in the AmEx Business Gold for 3x MR at gas stations.

I'm curious as to which vehicle you have. I have to nurse my van for another year or so, but am planning on an electric car after that

 

[afan]

The only time we tried single rider was rnrc and it took so much longer than the normal que that we ended up leaving. Is that typical for rnrc? I assume test track is better since the seating is in 3s.

That's why I didn't mention it. RnR has fewer odd numbers I think and from what I've read they don't use it as well as the others. TT is better because it's 3 and 3 so any pairs will get you an empty seat. And Everest seems to be a bit hit or miss but way better than RnR.

This 3 fp per day thing is really hard for me to swallow as a DL person. I know you can get more when they expire, but it still sounds like you get a lot fewer over the course of the day than you can at DL. Why do they have to have different systems?

Is it still true that fp+ has caused longer standby lines at rides that used to have short ones?

Fp only caused longer stand by lines for the rides that didn't have fp before. So it would have done the same if they'd added paper to it. I think it gets more people using fp though too. But this is all a discussion for an fp thread as it's been beat to death in lots of threads since it came out.