I love credit cards so much! v6.0 - 2023 (see first page for add'l details)

[becauseimnew]

My first charge on my current Ink was 11/22, and I am 3/4 of the way done with the spend??? wth? How does that keep happening. Guess I will be on the lookout for my next card very soon. Insanity.

Have you done the Alaska?
https://secure.bankofamerica.com/applynow/welcome.go

I guess it's the last day for the elevated offer.

 

[elgerber]

Have you done the Alaska?
https://secure.bankofamerica.com/applynow/welcome.go

I guess it's the last day for the elevated offer.

I have not done Alaska. I would have to see where they fly from here. Oh, BoA, my favorite LOL.
I should mention I am personally 4/24 until May.
DH is 3/24 but after what I went through with my current BoA card, no way I would apply for one for him.

 

[georgina]

Anyone else stuck in Chase review for the SW elevated offer? Referred P2 on 12/1/23, got neither accepted nor denied and haven’t heard anything yet. I know 7-10 biz days is possible, but seems longer than normal. Thoughts/experiences recently?

DH applied Nov 23, still waiting any news. I assumed a denial but have heard nothing either way. Just used some Chase offers to buy SW GC ahead of Thursday's schedule opening.

 

[leeniewdw]

We did a quick-ish trip to Zion NP, Bryce NP, LV last week (Sunday to Friday, 5 nights). Here's a quick recap of points/cc redemptions:

Airfare:
We flew direct RDU-LAS on Delta (Skymiles for me, a $100 delta credit + ~$100 in cash for DH)
Return LAS-DEN-RDU on SW (using RR points)
Out of pocket ($100) edit: Add another $100 because we added Early Bird.

Accommodations Zion:
3 Nights at Zion Lodge (in the nat'l park), ~160/night. During the off season they offer a Bed/Breakfast deal so we got 3 breakfast buffets included. We just took a day trip to Bryce Canyon NP. Cash for 1st night + used Cap1/VX points to erase the 2nd two nights. Total out of pocket for 3 nights at Zion Lodge+3 breakfasts: $160.


Accommodations LV:
2 nights at the Bellagio booked via Amex Plat FHR. Prepaid $485, received the $200 credit. At check-in got the sheet with the FHR benefits: 2 free breakfasts on site ($30/person), $100 Food/Bev credit for any MGM property. Since our flight was so early on our final morning, we didn't use the 2nd breakfast, but they noted it in our account and covered any overage from breakfast/dinner. Final bill on checkout (taxes, resort fee, random tip) was $118. Total out of pocket was ~$400 for 2 nights in a Tower King (got a fountain view) plus 1 breakfast and 1 dinner.

Car Rental:
Ended up booking thru Hertz directly. Booked a small sedan but since VX offers President's club, was able to select a Mercedes SUV. I expected the bill to be $196 but for whatever reason it was $146. I never could find a better price thru Costco, so booked direct (which is my preference). I used URs to pay myself back for this (first time I've ever done that), so out of pocket was $0.

Other notes: we arrived back in LV at noon on 12/6. Basically 15 minutes after the shooting at UNLV. We knew something bad had happened based on the number of police/emergency vehicles were passing us as we made our way to the rental car return. Searched "vegas" on twitter to find there was an active shooter. Took us an hour to get to the Bellagio via Uber as many roads were closed, including parts of the strip..obviously a minor inconvenience given what was taking place.

We saw the U2 concert at The Sphere. Amazing and definitely a highlight of our time in Vegas. If you like a band/artist that's playing, I suggest you GO! I've been back since Friday night, so I guess we've perhaps escaped bring covid back as a souvenir, although the ingress/egress to the Sphere made me think there was no way I wasn't catching something from someone.

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

Quick trip from our weekend trip to Disney. We spent 2 nights at the Waldorf Astoria using 2 FNC (me & DH from 2 SUBs). We arrived at 4PM on Saturday and our room wasn’t ready. So we headed to the pool restaurant for some appetizers to use the $50 F&B credit ($62 with tip). Lots of families waiting for rooms. Not happy with the room delays since we missed the 5:35 shuttle to Disney Springs, we had to take an Lyft ($10). Room finally ready at 6PM, we had just gotten our bags from bell check to change in the public restrooms when I got the alert that our room was ready. Disney Springs was so busy (Saturday night), we did a little shopping, dinner and did a little more shopping. We missed the 9:20 shuttle back to WA so another Lyft, next shuttle wasn’t until 11PM.
The next morning we checked out and back in before walked over to Signia to use the pool, had lunch and some drinks ($105 w/tip).

We took the 3:05 shuttle for the Christmas party. Arrived at MK via ferry boat at 3:40 and I think we were in by 4:15. The park wasn’t busy at all, we were having a good time when a big storm moved in around 5PM. We had a great time at the party, I think it was pouring rain until 7:30. We got lots of cookies, rode all the rides we wanted (no characters pics), saw the first parade and the fireworks, even rode Tron for the first time. It was a successful trip. DH ended up not going to the party, he came down with a fever and just couldn’t get out of bed when we got back from the pool (he was feeling sick since the morning). At 9:20PM, I went to Guest Services and they gave us a Disney GC for the value of the party ticket.
After the party we walked to the Contemporary to catch a Lyft back the our hotel.
Thanks @IFlossU for all the tips, specially about checking our bill before leaving, they didn’t apply the F&B credit to our second night, so I’m glad we got that fixed before leaving this morning. With the F&B credit and DH $50 Surpass quarterly credit, we only spent $20.

Really cool that guest services gave you that GC!

6pm check-in, poor shuttle timing, checkin/checkout and fussing with the final bill= a hassle. A hassle shouldn't be what you get at a WA. Sounds like you had a great attitude about it though.

 

[tink1970]

@elgerber @wisconsinmom --I've done both the ABD Christmas Market river cruises and while wildly overpriced they were so well done---I did the Danube the first year (it was the only year they were able to do the Vienna Boys' Choir) as well as the Rhine (the first year also...now that I think about it...) and although you certainly don't have to do the ABD ones...I would definitely say if Christmas markets are on your wish list, this is a wonderful way to do them! It's just so magical at that time of year With or without a river cruise, the Christmas Market experience is so fun--I've also done the one in Edinburgh (of course!) and would happily return to any of the ones we've been to -from my beloved Edinburgh to Amsterdam to Strasbourg to Salzburg to Budapest.

 

[platamama]

Question for anyone who has an Amex business checking account: If you have a Biz Plat, can you combine all the MRs from the biz checking account with the Biz Plat MRs? I see you can transfer MRs to select airline/hotel partners from the checking account alone, but the list is not as extensive as the one that the Biz Plat can transfer to. Also, transfer bonuses don't exist for just the checking account but they do exist for the Biz Plat.

 

[wanderlust7]

Question for anyone who has an Amex business checking account: If you have a Biz Plat, can you combine all the MRs from the biz checking account with the Biz Plat MRs? I see you can transfer MRs to select airline/hotel partners from the checking account alone, but the list is not as extensive as the one that the Biz Plat can transfer to. Also, transfer bonuses don't exist for just the checking account but they do exist for the Biz Plat.

My understanding is all MRs go into one pot, except when there's a glitch like you've encountered and now you have 2 pots. My biz checking account shows my MR total, just like any other MR earning card. I have multiple logins, that also show the same total.

Are you thinking of opening a biz checking for your second pot? I wonder if it would get attached to the second or first pot.

 

[hsmamato2]

My family of 3 has done BOS/PVD to NAN in Aug 2022 and Aug 2023 via LAX. The LAX to NAN non-stop is an 11 hour flight that typically leaves at 11:55PM, arriving in Fiji at 5AM 2 days later. DD is only 7 so both times we've made the trip we flew out the day before the LAX-NAN, and spent the day doing stuff in LA before the late flight. The past year we did a 1-day Disneyland whirlwind and she slept for 9 hours straight on the flight.

SFO is also a west coast option for a non-stop flight.

FIJI Airways is a oneWorld member and you can supposedly book with Avios via BA but everytime I do a search on BA.com it shows no flights.

I highly recommend the Castaway Island resort in the Mamanuca Islands.

Thank you!

 

[FreeDiningFanatic]

I saw on DoC that once you hit your maximum ($500?), then neither supporter nor supportee will get the bonus. Link

Terms:
"(4) your Referrer must not have exceeded their referral-based Shopping Reward payout maximum in the current referral period;"

That's basically 2 supports, so can you let us know (or remove the link) when you hit it?

Thanks for this tip, as always. I signed up in Nov when it was $75, utilizing some blog link, thinking I was being helpful supporting their content. But I bet that's why I never received the bonus.

 

[platamama]

My understanding is all MRs go into one pot, except when there's a glitch like you've encountered and now you have 2 pots. My biz checking account shows my MR total, just like any other MR earning card. I have multiple logins, that also show the same total.

Are you thinking of opening a biz checking for your second pot? I wonder if it would get attached to the second or first pot.

I was thinking of opening it for my second pot, but I don't know if I actually have any control over that. I also forgot that I didn't follow through on signing up for the biz checking account before because I thought the way they requested ID documentation was a bit sketch. So I think I will just pass on this idea.

The options I'm considering for this 2nd pot of MRs are:

1) Speculative transfer to HA in light of the AS acquisition. While this isn't "risky" since those miles will have value with HA at the very least and don't expire, there's the whole question of what conversion would happen in the merged loyalty program which is years down the road. I could see using HA miles to get to East Asia or Oceania if I don't use them for Hawaii proper.

2) Transfer to Delta, and open a Delta card for the 15% award discount. And hope for some good flash sales. Too bad I don't live near a Delta hub, that would make the decision a little easier if I did.

3) Transfer to VS because of the 30% bonus right now. Figure out how to use it later. lol

4) Pay for another AF while I wait for another transfer bonus to come along that I like better (AF/KLM), and use the coupon book to justify the AF. Since I can add Amex offers to this card on top of my other Amex cards, I expect to break even at the very least. Recently on Dell, I bought Rosetta Stone for myself and like it quite a bit, but the app only allows learning one language at a time so I can't share it with DH or DD for them to try a different language. So I would use my Dell credits on that so they also can try another language.

I guess inertia will keep me on path #4 unless something comes along soon that makes another option more appealing.

 

[wanderlust7]

I have not done Alaska. I would have to see where they fly from here. Oh, BoA, my favorite LOL.
I should mention I am personally 4/24 until May.
DH is 3/24 but after what I went through with my current BoA card, no way I would apply for one for him.

There's an elevated offer on the Alaska biz. 75k for $4000 spend. DoC Link

I feel the same way about BoA lol. But I went for it and was approved. I just closed the same card a couple months ago. Was somewhat confident applying since I have an old BoA checking account. Haven't tried for DH since he has no relationship.

 

[georgina]

Gave up on waiting for a response on DH's Chase SW card app (3 weeks ago?). He was instantly approved for a new CIC with $4000 CL from my support link. Too bad I just paid a plumber $4000 for some needed work.

Decided to do it now since I know I will be getting a 1099 from Chase for 2023, hoping to just add it in to that total. Maybe won't get one next year. His last card (CIP) was 9/18.

 

[wdwpluto]

My understanding is all MRs go into one pot, except when there's a glitch like you've encountered and now you have 2 pots. My biz checking account shows my MR total, just like any other MR earning card. I have multiple logins, that also show the same total.

Are you thinking of opening a biz checking for your second pot? I wonder if it would get attached to the second or first pot.

So I opened (in this order
1. Plat
2. Biz checking
3. Plat biz
and all my MRs are in one

 

[elgerber]

There's an elevated offer on the Alaska biz. 75k for $4000 spend. DoC Link

I feel the same way about BoA lol. But I went for it and was approved. I just closed the same card a couple months ago. Was somewhat confident applying since I have an old BoA checking account. Haven't tried for DH since he has no relationship.

Thanks. Seems like a great offer but I don’t know that I have much use for Alaska. I just looked at flights from here to Orlando, Nashville, Phoenix and Portland. No non stop flights at all from here, at least not in miles.

 

[becauseimnew]

Thanks. Seems like a great offer but I don’t know that I have much use for Alaska. I just looked at flights from here to Orlando, Nashville, Phoenix and Portland. No non stop flights at all from here, at least not in miles.

Sooo many good ways to use Alaska miles for international flights.

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[mmmears]

I was just about to post that I never jumped on the Alaska train/plane and was hoping someone here could convince me why it would be a good idea, and while typing this up @becauseimnew posted. Love this group!

 

[elgerber]

Noted on the international flights. I don't really see any of those anywhere in our future, for the next many years. Maybe someday but not for at least 5 or more years.

 

[magickingdomprincess]

For those of you that have purchased a Hilton GC for the Surpass $50 credit, can you please tell me where to find the link? If I remember correctly, someone said they used the DOC link, but I'm not seeing one there, although I'm probably just not looking in the right place. Maybe @afan ? Thank you!

 

[afan]

For those of you that have purchased a Hilton GC for the Surpass $50 credit, can you please tell me where to find the link? If I remember correctly, someone said they used the DOC link, but I'm not seeing one there, although I'm probably just not looking in the right place. Maybe @afan ? Thank you!

I don't remember. Might've been reddit. I would google Hilton giftcard or go to the bottom of hilton.com and see if they have a link for gc, lots of places hide the link at the bottom of the page.