I love credit cards so much!

[Alexle2007]

I know PreCheck is only good if the airline participates, but Global entry doesn't matter correct?

I have GE with my nexxus card and I haven't flown international since I got it. I've only been through customs once in the Edmonton airport, my other trips to/from Canada were via an FBO so we went through a separate area without doing much more than getting our passports scanned.

Will using GE be similar to what I went through in Edmonton? Also, with just going through regular customs in Paris and probably Iceland were I change planes, what should I expect. This is the part of the trip I'm most nervous about but would rather get info from friends than random people I find through googling

I have only used it on my return flight into the US. At BWI, it is so simple and there is never a line. While everyone else goes off to the regular customs, you go to the GE kiosk, place your passport on it, answer questions, it takes a picture of you, you take the printout to the customs agent. Then you wait for your luggage and use the special GE exit and walk out with your bags while everyone else is placing them on the scanning machine.

 

[Alexle2007]

I know PreCheck is only good if the airline participates, but Global entry doesn't matter correct?

I have GE with my nexxus card and I haven't flown international since I got it. I've only been through customs once in the Edmonton airport, my other trips to/from Canada were via an FBO so we went through a separate area without doing much more than getting our passports scanned.

Will using GE be similar to what I went through in Edmonton? Also, with just going through regular customs in Paris and probably Iceland were I change planes, what should I expect. This is the part of the trip I'm most nervous about but would rather get info from friends than random people I find through googling

Looks like neither France or Iceland participates.
Countries currently participating in Global Entry include the following:[6]

• 
  Argentina[7]
• 
  Canada
• 
  Colombia
• 
  Germany [1]
• 
  India[8]
• 
  Mexico
• 
  Netherlands (temporarily no new applications possible due to the FLUX program being replaced by RTP-NL[9])
• 
  Panama
• 
  Singapore[10]
• 
  South Korea
• 
  Switzerland[11]
• 
  Taiwan[12]
• 
  United Kingdom[13]
• 
  United States (U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents

 

[mom2elal]

I just had an interesting realization. When I applied for the Hilton biz card, I forgot that I had frozen my credit after the Equifax hack. So...either Amex didn't do a hard pull on me, or my credit isn't really frozen?

 

[Albort]

I just had an interesting realization. When I applied for the Hilton biz card, I forgot that I had frozen my credit after the Equifax hack. So...either Amex didn't do a hard pull on me, or my credit isn't really frozen?

did u get an approval? Im told that if you dont pass their first test, then they wont hard pull.
If you did get approval, they probably pulled from one of the other 2 credit bureau.

 

[mom2elal]

did u get an approval? Im told that if you dont pass their first test, then they wont hard pull.
If you did get approval, they probably pulled from one of the other 2 credit bureau.

Yep, got an instant approval and I froze all three bureaus. I am an existing customer and logged in to my account when I applied. Is it possible they just used that info? I guess I'll find out if the hard pull shows up on Credit Karma.

 

[jujubiee4]

We paid quite a bit for a refundable one-way flight in premium--I want to say in the $850 range--we weren't going for the cheapest fares on this one. We wanted the flexibility in case British Air did another upper class sale. I think they do sales fairly often, but with summer I'm not sure.

Thanks. Im looking at fares around 850-900 for the very BASIC ECONOMY and another 100 for add ons like picking seat and lugguge
Yikes!

 

[Albort]

Looks like neither France or Iceland participates.
Countries currently participating in Global Entry include the following:[6]

• 
  Argentina[7]
• 
  Canada
• 
  Colombia
• 
  Germany [1]
• 
  India[8]
• 
  Mexico
• 
  Netherlands (temporarily no new applications possible due to the FLUX program being replaced by RTP-NL[9])
• 
  Panama
• 
  Singapore[10]
• 
  South Korea
• 
  Switzerland[11]
• 
  Taiwan[12]
• 
  United Kingdom[13]
• 
  United States (U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents

i think GE for other countries requires you to apply for the other countries GE like program... I know for Taiwan, you need to apply for it on their side.

Yep, got an instant approval and I froze all three bureaus. I am an existing customer and logged in to my account when I applied. Is it possible they just used that info? I guess I'll find out if the hard pull shows up on Credit Karma.

Biz card too, usually they dont pull your credit report i guess. I dont have a hardpull for my Amex SPG biz card either...

 

[kmc8826]

Yep, got an instant approval and I froze all three bureaus. I am an existing customer and logged in to my account when I applied. Is it possible they just used that info? I guess I'll find out if the hard pull shows up on Credit Karma.

To actually freeze your credit it takes some work...you have to have a police report and then submit it. What you probably did and what is fairly easy to do is put a fraud alert on. The fraud alerts go onto your report but are only good for 3 months and then expire. You can renew after 60 days. If it was more than 90 days since you put the alert on it probably has simply expired. You contact one of the big three and they have to notify the other two.

Doing it from the existing site doesn’t have anything to do with it. The need to verify identity is right on the report.

DH had his identity stolen (thief actually contacted Chase and had enough information to have his complete CSR and CIP number. Pretty sure they even knew his mom’s maiden name. I only found out because I got the alert that our home address had changed. So since then I have been totally on it and been renewing the alert every 60 days. It has slowed down playing this game two player. It has also meant we get to talk to the fraud department every time we do anything with his cards and Chase.

 

[afan]

I have only used it on my return flight into the US. At BWI, it is so simple and there is never a line. While everyone else goes off to the regular customs, you go to the GE kiosk, place your passport on it, answer questions, it takes a picture of you, you take the printout to the customs agent. Then you wait for your luggage and use the special GE exit and walk out with your bags while everyone else is placing them on the scanning machine.

Thank you! This is the kind of info I was looking for.

Looks like neither France or Iceland participates.
Countries currently participating in Global Entry include the following:[6]

• 
  Argentina[7]
• 
  Canada
• 
  Colombia
• 
  Germany [1]
• 
  India[8]
• 
  Mexico
• 
  Netherlands (temporarily no new applications possible due to the FLUX program being replaced by RTP-NL[9])
• 
  Panama
• 
  Singapore[10]
• 
  South Korea
• 
  Switzerland[11]
• 
  Taiwan[12]
• 
  United Kingdom[13]
• 
  United States (U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents

I wouldn't expect my global entry to work anywhere other than the US or Canada, since I have a nexus card, though I haven't done the iris scan in Canada so I don't think I could actually use their's until I've done that.

 

[chattadisser]

Just as an FYI, there are Am Ex offers out there for Big River Grille for anyone that might be going to Disney soon. We have one locally so it works well for us. We also have an Am Ex offer for another local restaurant, I haven't seen Am Ex offers before for non-nationwide businesses before.

 

[GlamMistress]

I'm keeping in the game with business cards. Thought I had too much risk with Chase so went with SPG Biz.
How about SPG Biz or the new Hilton Biz?

Yeah I've been tossing around the idea of the Hilton biz. I do collect Hilton points. It's another credit card slot from Amex for me, but I do have room for it... right now it's the most appealing offer out there for me.

 

[FredtheDuck]

A fun two-player story: we were talking about our upcoming roof replacement. Original plan was to put it on the CSP to make the spend. DH says, “Wait, shouldn’t I just PC my Slate to the CFU? Then we get 1.5x instead of 1x on that hunk... we can deal with the min on CSP organically.”

Well. Yes. Yes we should do that. Good call. He said “I’m totally down to play this game, as long as I know what goal we’re focused on.”

 

[GlamMistress]

To actually freeze your credit it takes some work...you have to have a police report and then submit it. What you probably did and what is fairly easy to do is put a fraud alert on. The fraud alerts go onto your report but are only good for 3 months and then expire. You can renew after 60 days. If it was more than 90 days since you put the alert on it probably has simply expired. You contact one of the big three and they have to notify the other two.

Doing it from the existing site doesn’t have anything to do with it. The need to verify identity is right on the report.

DH had his identity stolen (thief actually contacted Chase and had enough information to have his complete CSR and CIP number. Pretty sure they even knew his mom’s maiden name. I only found out because I got the alert that our home address had changed. So since then I have been totally on it and been renewing the alert every 60 days. It has slowed down playing this game two player. It has also meant we get to talk to the fraud department every time we do anything with his cards and Chase.

You don't have to do a police report to freeze your credit, although it is a different process than a fraud alert. I have all three major bureaus frozen, plus Innovis and chex system.
When I got my Uber card, I just called Transunion to lift using my pin. I left the other two major bureaus frozen.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs#place

 

[3 DD love princesses]

Yay DH got approved so when we get back from Disney hopefully the card will be at the house so we can start working on the spend.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Yep, got an instant approval and I froze all three bureaus. I am an existing customer and logged in to my account when I applied. Is it possible they just used that info? I guess I'll find out if the hard pull shows up on Credit Karma.

Amex doesn't always hard pull credit for cards if you're already a customer. No one has established a pattern on this. I think (am not sure) that if you already have an existing relationship with a company they can continue to soft pull your credit report even when it is frozen (and I mean frozen, not fraud alert).

 

[gottalovepluto]

...Unrelated note: have you heard anything about GameStop being hardcoded against GC>GC? Read that this happened last week.

I thought that happened well over a year ago. Idk what is up with that DP. I remember some people getting stuck with GameStop gift cards mid Disney churn. Some over on the gift card thread here became expert game churners buying games from GameStop & selling them to BB in an attempt to turn their GS cards into Disney. I did not get stuck as I was never willing to try it- not having another way to spend GS cards- & reading others experiences with it reinforced that so deeply that I have not forgotten it.

 

[Lain]

Rough weekend for earning bonus points. No more 5x UR at Gift Card Mart on CIC/Ink+ (or 3x UR on CIP) through PayPal: http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2018/02/19/another-one-down-no-5x-gift-card-mart/

I wonder if this affects Gyft and Swych, which works similarly.

 

[Lain]

I thought that happened well over a year ago. Idk what is up with that DP. I remember some people getting stuck with GameStop gift cards mid Disney churn. Some over on the gift card thread here became expert game churners buying games from GameStop & selling them to BB in an attempt to turn their GS cards into Disney. I did not get stuck as I was never willing to try it- not having another way to spend GS cards- & reading others experiences with it reinforced that so deeply that I have not forgotten it.

GameStop was hard coded against VGCs, Amazon/Kindle, and I believe eBay, but the POS still allowed GS gift cards for most third-party gift cards. Eventually however, cashiers (at least at stores near me) wouldn’t even let me use GS gift cards to buy anything but digital credits like Steam, Google Play, PlayStation Store, etc. I tried buying a gas card a few months ago with a GS gift card, was denied but the cashier wouldn’t even run the transaction (so probably wasn’t hard coded); got a PlayStation gift card instead.

 

[Albort]

Rough weekend for earning bonus points. No more 5x UR at Gift Card Mart on CIC/Ink+ (or 3x UR on CIP) through PayPal: http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2018/02/19/another-one-down-no-5x-gift-card-mart/

I wonder if this affects Gyft and Swych, which works similarly.

:\ :/ :|
im holding on tight!!!

 

[Lain]

:\ :/ :|
im holding on tight!!!

I just made a test purchase of an Amazon GC using CIP on Gyft. Swych is telling me PayPal is currently unavailable as a checkout option.