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

[kidsfirsttrip]

Does anyone know if I book a flight with AA miles and the points price drops can I rebook the lesser point flight?

 

[Mopedmom1]

Guys I just booked a Disney cruise! We are doing the San Juan to New Orleans in February on the Wonder. Tons of delicious sea days. Used my placeholder and got a good price. We have never been to San Juan. I wanted to go there and spend some money to help the economy.

Now I get to do the fun stuff of booking the flights with miles and the hotels with points. I'll be saving my soon to be acquired 150,000 Hilton points for this trip! Yeah!

Awesome! Are you able to fit Mardi Gras into the trip?

I am currently looking at an NCL cruise this October on the Mexican Riviera. I think it's time to travel from my coast instead of winging all the way across the country. Plus we will try to squeeze a few days in DL as we celebrate our 27th anniversary. Despite living on the left coast, we haven't been there since our belated honeymoon in 1993!

 

[elgerber]

Happy Easter everyone!

It’s supposed to be 80 here today!!

It was 78 here yesterday, it was glorious!!! Tomorrow, 48 and rain :-(

 

[elgerber]

Quick Venmo question. Still haven't used it yet, can I use DH's card on my account, or will that not work?

Also, if I get him a CitiBiz, is there an option for employee cards, for me? I didn't pay attention when I applied for mine.

 

[calypso726]

Does anyone know if I book a flight with AA miles and the points price drops can I rebook the lesser point flight?

You can but they will charge you $150 to reinstate the points from the first flight. It only makes sense to do this if it is a significant amount of points. When we initially booked Antarctica the departure flights were 300k AA miles for both of us and the return was 390k AA miles. Down the line saver award flights opened up for the departure flight at 115k for both of us (57.5k each). I re-booked at the lower amount and had to pay the $150 to get my 300k miles. It was worth it because I'd be getting back 185k miles which is worth well more than $150 to me. Unfortunately saver award never opened up for the return. So it depends on what the points saved are worth to you.

 

[miztressuz]

Hey! I'm seeing an extra 75,000 Marriott bonbon points in my wife's Amex account for her legacy SPG card this morning, but they haven't posted to her Marriott account yet. I guess she got her 75k SUB despite getting hit with the dreaded pop up on the Amex Gold in October and on the SPG card in January, before finally getting approved without the pop up in February. I half expected these points not to post, so I haven't been in any rush to meet MSR. So yay!

AmEx approval dance parties turned into Amex bonus posting dance parties Congrats!

 

[DisneyMandC]

Hmm just checked my Citi application status and it says “a system error has delayed processing your application.” It said it was still being reviewed about 2 hours ago. Maybe just Citi IT?

ETA: Disregard, Citi IT as usual. My application is now back to being reviewed.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

You can but they will charge you $150 to reinstate the points from the first flight. It only makes sense to do this if it is a significant amount of points. When we initially booked Antarctica the departure flights were 300k AA miles for both of us and the return was 390k AA miles. Down the line saver award flights opened up for the departure flight at 115k for both of us (57.5k each). I re-booked at the lower amount and had to pay the $150 to get my 300k miles. It was worth it because I'd be getting back 185k miles which is worth well more than $150 to me. Unfortunately saver award never opened up for the return. So it depends on what the points saved are worth to you.

Thanks!! From BOS nonstop to Cancun it’s 27K. I’m afraid it will go up but also it seems a touch high to me. I can gamble and wait it out but it might go up too. Flights are in November. That’s one way

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Hey! I'm seeing an extra 75,000 Marriott bonbon points in my wife's Amex account for her legacy SPG card this morning, but they haven't posted to her Marriott account yet. I guess she got her 75k SUB despite getting hit with the dreaded pop up on the Amex Gold in October and on the SPG card in January, before finally getting approved without the pop up in February. I half expected these points not to post, so I haven't been in any rush to meet MSR. So yay!

I missed that you lost the pop up! Was this around when Amex started giving back the SUBs they were denying

 

[Alexle2007]

Happy Easter everyone!

It’s supposed to be 80 here today!!

It’s a beautiful day for Spring in the Park, aka Hersheypark. It’s in the high 60s/low 70s. For those heading to Hershey this year, change is the air. Next year should be pretty awesome when ChocolateTown is completed.

 

[Lain]

I missed that you lost the pop up! Was this around when Amex started giving back the SUBs they were denying

No. DW was approved for the SPG on 2/11. Reports of the no-pop-up denied SUBs posting happened about a month later. I'm almost certain it was significantly increased spend on my wife's existing Amex cards that finally freed her from the pop up. For some history, DW got the pop up when trying to apply for the Amex Gold just before the refresh in October. At that time, she only ever had 2 Amex cards in her own name – the SPG Biz and Hilton Biz – both opened in 2018.

I began putting more regular spend on her two Amex cards, taking advantage of gas and dining categories and Amex Offers, amounting to a few hundred on average every month. I never did try applying for the Gold again, as we decided it wasn't a good fit for her to use continually, since I do most of the grocery shopping, and she's still holding a CSR for dining and doesn't like juggling cards or remembering bonus categories.

When the changes to the Starriott cards were announced in January, I tried applying for the SPG card for her out of FOMO but got the pop up. After that pop up, I maxed out the Staples Amex Offer with $500 in MCGCs, made a $2.6k payment and a few miscellaneous small transactions on my wife's Hilton Biz, pumped several tanks of California-priced premium gas and ate/ordered out several times on her SPG Biz. No pop up after about $4k in spend across the two existing cards in a month between applications.

Since then, spend on the SPG Biz and Hilton Biz dropped back down to a few hundred on average per month, but I've also been taking the SPG's MSR slowly so its statements balances are pretty evenly ~$1k.

 

[Psychodisney]

Thanks!! From BOS nonstop to Cancun it’s 27K. I’m afraid it will go up but also it seems a touch high to me. I can gamble and wait it out but it might go up too. Flights are in November. That’s one way

Seems reasonable to me. I feel like saver fares are for less desirable flights such as ones with stops, change of plane etc. I

 

[spacerangerqueen]

My week was pretty crazy so just finally got all caught up with the thread!

I think the Hyatt card is worth looking at. That'll probably be the card that takes me over 5/24 again eventually. The Hyatt card gets you Discoverist status, an anniversary Cat. 1-4 FN cert., and a tiered 50k bonus after $6k/6 months spend. UR transfers to Hyatt 1:1 so you can add to your Hyatt SUB balance, and is usually regarded as a deal as far as redemptions go.

Discoverist looks pretty nice and a free night cert is also enticing. I think i could be sold on this.

Yeah, but as of yesterday, those stars have been massively devalued. You're not going to get nearly the same amount of espresso drinks, sandwiches, salads, or protein boxes as you would've before.

That's why I need more stars lol

I'd go for CIP2 since that's 105K URs minimum... I will say that I love my AMEX Gold card for dining and groceries. It's bringing in a good amount of MRs without much spend on it. I like it better than my Chase Hyatt, but I do like the Hyatt card because the staggered MSR period made it less stressful plus the status and the Hyatt points of course.

I just hope the CIP2 option doesn't go away in the next month. I definitely would love 105k more URs! Glad to hear you like the Amex Gold and the Hyatt as well. It's so hard to wait to get cards I really want even though I know now isn't the best time to go for them!


A DP on the Adobe Amex offer: I have the $9.99 a month Photography plan and I poked around and there was no way to add anything to the charge to bring it up over $10 without doubling the cost of my plan. I went ahead and switched my payment over to my Plat anyway since it was no longer getting 5x on the CIC. I switched it the night before my monthly charge and I got the "You used an Amex offer" e-mail the next day when it charged it. So fingers crossed I actually get two free months of lightroom out of this! Not sure if maybe it got triggered by a combo of the $1 authorization charge from switching to a new card and the monthly payment.

 

[Ngwira]

Anyone else get the Amex offer “use Apple Pay on a $5 or more purchase get 200 points, up to 5 times”. Reloaded my Starbucks card 5 times for $5 each and got 1,000 MR.

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

No. DW was approved for the SPG on 2/11. Reports of the no-pop-up denied SUBs posting happened about a month later. I'm almost certain it was significantly increased spend on my wife's existing Amex cards that finally freed her from the pop up. For some history, DW got the pop up when trying to apply for the Amex Gold just before the refresh in October. At that time, she only ever had 2 Amex cards in her own name – the SPG Biz and Hilton Biz – both opened in 2018.

I began putting more regular spend on her two Amex cards, taking advantage of gas and dining categories and Amex Offers, amounting to a few hundred on average every month. I never did try applying for the Gold again, as we decided it wasn't a good fit for her to use continually, since I do most of the grocery shopping, and she's still holding a CSR for dining and doesn't like juggling cards or remembering bonus categories.

When the changes to the Starriott cards were announced in January, I tried applying for the SPG card for her out of FOMO but got the pop up. After that pop up, I maxed out the Staples Amex Offer with $500 in MCGCs, made a $2.6k payment and a few miscellaneous small transactions on my wife's Hilton Biz, pumped several tanks of California-priced premium gas and ate/ordered out several times on her SPG Biz. No pop up after about $4k in spend across the two existing cards in a month between applications.

Since then, spend on the SPG Biz and Hilton Biz dropped back down to a few hundred on average per month, but I've also been taking the SPG's MSR slowly so its statements balances are pretty evenly ~$1k.

Thanks for the update! I keep my fingers crossed with DH and getting the pop up. We were ok with his BBP he just got but I made sure to do some spending before applying. Now it’s really his only Amex that sees some love, so we shall see what happens!

 

[speedyfishy]

Anyone else get the Amex offer “use Apple Pay on a $5 or more purchase get 200 points, up to 5 times”. Reloaded my Starbucks card 5 times for $5 each and got 1,000 MR.

I had this too and did multiple $5 transactions at Safeway. SO didn’t have any on his cards. It seems like for the really good offers only one of us gets them.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Over the past month I have done two trips on points that I probably would not have taken if it wasn't for discovering this thread.

At the end of March I flew to NYC with one of my good friends and one of my co-workers to see Sailor Moon The Super Live. They were only doing performances for 2 days and the first time ever coming to the US. I was able to fly round trip on JetBlue points and I got a room at the Hilton Garden Inn Times Square for the three of us using my Hilton Points gained from the Hilton Biz. It was a great very cheap quick trip and I was even able to take them into the lounge at MCO before our flight.

Last weekend my DH and I flew to Vegas for his birthday. We used Southwest points and some of the Southwest gift cards I had gotten with my Amex Plat credit. I used URs to book the Paris hotel. I researched about resort fees and found that if you were Caesars Rewards Diamond that resort fees were waved. I was able to status match my Hilton Gold (received from the Hilton Biz, but also could have gotten it with my Plat) to Wyndham Diamond and then Wyndham Diamond to Caesars Rewards Diamond. Unfortunately when I arrived I was told since I was booked through Expedia my resort fees were not waived. That was a bummer. An even bigger bummer was that the $100 Diamond Celebration Dinner that I had read about and was planning to use on my DH's birthday was not available until a week after our trip. No idea why, no one ever really explained it. We did get a few discounts with Diamond status and short lines places. My status however did save the day when our return flight was cancelled and we had to scramble to figure out what to do.

I ended up being able to get a $30 night at the Bally's. Since I had booked DH and I on separate reservations I was only able to secure another return flight for myself before everything back to Orlando sold out the day. The Southwest agent was able to get DH on standby for my 5:20am flight to Houston but couldn't do anything about getting him from Houston back to MCO. She booked him for a 5pm flight the day after as a backup in case standby didn't come through. I was able to add a comp night onto my $30 reservation at Bally's so in case DH didn't get on my flight he had somewhere to stay until his confirmed flight.

We got a few hours sleep and then arrived back at the airport at 4am to try and figure out DH's standby situation. I thought he was going to cry when the girl told him she could book him confirmed straight through to MCO. Unfortunately he had a different connecting flight out of Houston, but at least he was able to get home within an hour of me! (he ended up going to Memphis before getting to MCO, something he found out as he was boarding the plane haha) We did take advantage $40 credits on my Southwest Priority card for upgraded boarding. We wanted to make sure he was off the plane first when we landed in Houston has he had a very short layover and I had a very high C since my flight was changed last minute and everyone else had already checked in. If I was going to fly by myself I wanted to be able to grab a window.

In the end it worked out ok. We now have $400 in Southwest vouchers to use in the next year which I am sure will be put to good use.

So thanks to everyone here for making these trips possible!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Happy Easter! Beautiful day in nashville...FINALLY!

Can anyone check Dosh? Mine is showing sams club only $5 back new membership...no 3%. I looked at my history and my sams purchases haven’t credited since 4/11...incl DS very expensive rx a couple days ago.

 

[spacerangerqueen]

Anyone else get the Amex offer “use Apple Pay on a $5 or more purchase get 200 points, up to 5 times”. Reloaded my Starbucks card 5 times for $5 each and got 1,000 MR.

I got it, but I don't have Apple Pay

 

[kidsfirsttrip]

Seems reasonable to me. I feel like saver fares are for less desirable flights such as ones with stops, change of plane etc. I've been looking at ORD to Aruba first week of March...35K points for the nonstop. The saver fare flights I would never take!

Thanks I think your prob right that for a nonstop that’s not too bad