I love credit cards so much! v7.0 - 2025 (see first page for add'l details)

[orangecuse]

Happy 2025!

Just a reminder to apply for your UK ETA which you now need coming from most places for travel to the UK as of 1/8/2025.

We have our first European cruise booked for 2025! Flights on VA to London, BA to Dublin, and Aer Lingus home to the US- all on points! All hotels also on points. Our cruise is covered because we all became severely ill this past fall and had to reschedule our trip that was already fully paid. That counts as a free vacation right? Lol

 

[gottalovepluto]

applied for the Alt Connect Biz, I didn't get instant approval. Did you ever have that issue? I can't remember, when I got the Triple Cash if it was instant.

Neither I nor my other players got instant approval on the triple cash. For me it was a few hours, one player like next day and the other player was like a week or something.

 

[mmmears]

Happy 2025!

Just a reminder to apply for your UK ETA which you now need coming from most places for travel to the UK as of 1/8/2025.

We have our first European cruise booked for 2025! Flights on VA to London, BA to Dublin, and Aer Lingus home to the US- all on points! All hotels also on points. Our cruise is covered because we all became severely ill this past fall and had to reschedule our trip that was already fully paid. That counts as a free vacation right? Lol

I'm sorry you had to reschedule. Where are you going on your cruise? Nice work with the points bookings.

 

[elgerber]

Neither I nor my other players got instant approval on the triple cash. For me it was a few hours, one player like next day and the other player was like a week or something.

I am so impatient LOL. Already looking for plan B. I wait too long, till my spend is done and want another asap.

I got another gosh darn Amex Gift Card today! I still haven't emptied the other ones and now I have one more I have to try to use in a useful way LOL.

 

[AmyAnne]

Anyone know how often you can (re)apply for the Chase Hyatt personal card?

 

[orangecuse]

I'm sorry you had to reschedule. Where are you going on your cruise? Nice work with the points bookings.

Bruges and Hamburg! They looked like relatively kid friendly ports for kids who like to travel but are too young for serious historical sights just yet!

 

[LilSweetPeaPhoto]

Well on my way to hitting my spend on the Venture X. I love that my son hit the deductible at the end of 2024, and is kicking off 2025 hitting it again. He's going to need shoulder surgery. He's wanting to hold out until the end of his hockey season. We'll see if he makes it.

I downgraded my CSR to a CFU. I already have the OG Freedom and CFF. So I thought why not get the CFU. I'll close one of my CIU now that I have the CFU. Then I can try for another Ink someday, LOL. I need to active my PP for the Venture X now that I lost my CSR one. Do I need to create a new PP account, or can I just apply the Venture X card to my existing one?

The BF messaged Hilton to get his FNC extended. He asked how long they were extended and the CSR said for a year. He asked them to confirm it was a year several times. When they only extended for a week he contacted them, and they honored the year! So we have his 2 FNC and my 1 FNC now to use MUCH later this year! YAY!!!! We're heading to Vegas in 2 weeks. We booked a room at Paris for $25 thanks to our Diamond status. And then we'll use my Marriott 35k FNC for the other night. We'll use my BF's $100 celebration dinner. Bummed we missed out on using his $150 at FB. But oh well. I may fly to PHL and run to AC to match to Bally's to try and match back to Hard Rock and Ocean's later this summer. We'll see. Somehow we still have MGM Gold. Not sure it's worth it, since we'd need to gamble the 250 credits to get the Wynn free nights.

they were Christmas gifts a year ago! I hate them. I won't bore you with details, but I have odd amounts on them, due to holds that won't drop off. What else can I do with them? I have $24.80 on two of them and 90 cents on the last (which I will just chock up to a loss). Where can I spend an odd amount?

Home Depot will drain GCs. I've had to help lots of people do that recently working there, LOL.

I can’t believe I am soon to have a P3 so need to start planning his CC strategy. Suggestions on where to start with his CC journey?

Discover It. I had my daughter do it when I had a $100 referral (she got the $100 and I got the $100). She got to learn how to use it with a free $100, LOL.

I just had a friend ask for advice on transferring a balance to a zero interest card. I don't carry a balance, so I know nothing about doing this. Are there any cards that are better than others for this? I assume none of these would earn any rewards doing this?

Thank you!

My goto used to be the BOA Americard. It used to be $0 and 0%! Not sure if that is still the promo. Last time I opened one was 2020. I did that twice with that card.

 

[AndreaDM]

Has anyone with an IHG card received their $25 United credit yet for this 6 month period? I'm still waiting on it, I've always received it by the 5th before.

Quoting myself as I just checked again and there it is, I’ve got $50 total now.

 

[disneylover81]

Have him call. Maybe they’ll tell him it’s all good and there’s nothing else he needs to do. If it’s anything else he’s gotta talk to them anyways so best get it out of the way now.

He called back today and they asked him the same exact questions as they did Saturday, then told him to call them back in 3 days to see if they approved him or not. This just seems so odd to me for him to have to keep calling them. He’s already aggravated at the whole situation, by the time it’s 3 days from now, he may blow a gasket with Chase. I mean we have 8 cards with them between the two of us.. his identity should be verified already.

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

Can you guys remind me... for the CSP $50 hotel credit. I can book a refundable hotel, wait for $50 credit to post, and then cancel? I believe that's what I did in the past. Does it matter the price of the hotel? I found one for $46... with tax it comes to total $51.46. Will that use the $50 credit (ie. do they care about the tax?), or does it need to be $50 BEFORE tax? AF just posted, so I'm trying to offset TIA!

 

[MsOnceUponATime]

Happy new year to all! I'm so excited to see all of your '25 travel plans!

I had to get caught up on the new '25 thread. Thanks for starting this. We just got back from Colorado where we spent time getting our property ready to build on sometime either this or next year. It was COLD. Now it's cold in Texas. Like - really and truly cold. But without the fun perk of the snow, which, to put frankly, SUCKS.

Sadly we don't have any travel planned for this year yet. Last year was incredibly hard with two of our fur babies passing away on two of our trips. We had a 10 day Princess cruise booked in March '25, but decided to cancel that at the 90 day mark. We're traveling to my home town next Friday for a 5 day vacation, but that's all that we have planned.

I've got my eyes on Switzerland again. I'd also really like to go back to Paris and London. My husband has been talking about Hawaii. I don't know if we're actually ready to be away from home for too long though because we've made no plans, and all that we do is talk about it.

I have a one month sabbatical coming up next year and we don't have that planned yet either. I feel like the pet situation has tamped down my travel bug. I'm sure that's temporary, but it feels oppressive right now.

I know that it was mentioned above, but here's the link for the ETA for travel to the UK. You've, unfortunatley, really gotta do it this year:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-an-electronic-travel-authorisation-eta

 

[KPK02090]

I'm looking at excursions for our April Costa Rica trip. We're staying at Los Altos for a week. For those who have been did you book excursions through the hotel or separately? Any must dos or ones to avoid?

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

I'm looking at excursions for our April Costa Rica trip. We're staying at Los Altos for a week. For those who have been did you book excursions through the hotel or separately? Any must dos or ones to avoid?

We really liked Nauyaca waterfalls, although we had a car and did it on our own (no advance booking). The drive wasn't bad at all, and when we got there we just paid for whatever option we wanted in their office.

We also did a mangrove boat ride, which was cool because the monkeys all came onto our boat, and then we got to meet some of the farm animals like water buffalo and take pics riding them. We also did that on our own, booked the excursion through Chase portal.

 

[NewbieMom]

Looks like we'll be joining several of you in London this year! Unfortunately, I'm a bit late to planning and our flight options don't look too good. As discussed above, most of the flights are daytime coming home. My kids actually sleep their regular hours on planes, so I actually prefer the redeye. But 10-12 hours daytime on the plane, I'm not sure how I'll keep them entertained!

Has anyone been out to Peppa Pig world? My daughter's absolute favorite character/show is Peppa Pig so it's a must-do. Is it easy for us to get there from central London? Any other must-do? It'll be husband and kids first time in London. (I went many years ago in college.)

Also has anyone looked at Conrad St. James? We're looking at staying there, as Hilton is preferred. They seem to be playing some game with standard room availability as there's nothing available either close in or calendar open.

 

[jaysraptor]

Not an expert - but have getting these in between Chase Cards. (AMEX mostly hates us too).
Me - March Triple Cash, April Biz Alt Connect and October Triple Cash again
DH - July Triple Cash, August Biz Alt Connect and November Trip Cash again.

All with high credit limits.

@LynnTH Were you able to get the SUB on both March/October Triple Cash apps for yourself & the July/November Triple Cash apps for DH? Asking because looking at the Footnotes for that card is says "One-time $750 cash back will be awarded if eligible". Thanks

 

[sky13]

Yes, the Tree Top Walk is one of the things of interest to me in the area as well! Glad to hear you had a good impression of it I'll have to see if we can fit it into our limited schedule!

I went there such a long time ago though... I actually went there because of a college admissions question which was something like plan an activity for a day for less than $10 and carry out the activity and write about it - at that time the Tree Top Walk was fairly new so decided it would be a nice fun activity to do! I haven't been back since though, though with this thread I'm now vaguely thinking about maybe going back one weekend or something to see what it's like now...

 

[gottalovepluto]

... He’s already aggravated at the whole situation, by the time it’s 3 days from now, he may blow a gasket with Chase. I mean we have 8 cards with them between the two of us..

Maybe remind him generous Chase has been toward him and how little money he gives Chase in return.

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

I went there such a long time ago though... I actually went there because of a college admissions question which was something like plan an activity for a day for less than $10 and carry out the activity and write about it - at that time the Tree Top Walk was fairly new so decided it would be a nice fun activity to do! I haven't been back since though, though with this thread I'm now vaguely thinking about maybe going back one weekend or something to see what it's like now...

I've read a lot of good reviews online. If you go back in the near future, please report back! We won't be there until November, so I'd love an update if you go

 

[gottalovepluto]

Happy new year to all! I'm so excited to see all of your '25 travel plans!

I had to get caught up on the new '25 thread. Thanks for starting this. We just got back from Colorado where we spent time getting our property ready to build on sometime either this or next year. It was COLD. Now it's cold in Texas. Like - really and truly cold. But without the fun perk of the snow, which, to put frankly, SUCKS.

Sadly we don't have any travel planned for this year yet. Last year was incredibly hard with two of our fur babies passing away on two of our trips. We had a 10 day Princess cruise booked in March '25, but decided to cancel that at the 90 day mark. We're traveling to my home town next Friday for a 5 day vacation, but that's all that we have planned.

I've got my eyes on Switzerland again. I'd also really like to go back to Paris and London. My husband has been talking about Hawaii. I don't know if we're actually ready to be away from home for too long though because we've made no plans, and all that we do is talk about it.

I have a one month sabbatical coming up next year and we don't have that planned yet either. I feel like the pet situation has tamped down my travel bug. I'm sure that's temporary, but it feels oppressive right now.

I know that it was mentioned above, but here's the link for the ETA for travel to the UK. You've, unfortunatley, really gotta do it this year:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-an-electronic-travel-authorisation-eta

I don’t know how sporadic you can be but with a nice stash of transferable miles it can make sporadic international trips very possible, so you wouldn’t really have time to dread bad things happening while you’re gone. Routes that aren’t normally available can pop up last minute and if you aren’t really dedicated to one particular place you can follow availability. Something like seats.aero can help with searching for tickets like that.

 

[KPK02090]

We really liked Nauyaca waterfalls, although we had a car and did it on our own (no advance booking). The drive wasn't bad at all, and when we got there we just paid for whatever option we wanted in their office.

We also did a mangrove boat ride, which was cool because the monkeys all came onto our boat, and then we got to meet some of the farm animals like water buffalo and take pics riding them. We also did that on our own, booked the excursion through Chase portal.

Good to know thanks! Nauyaca is on my list happy to hear it was good! There are so many options it's overwhelming!