I was out all day and now I'm trying to catch up!
I was tempted by that, too...I just like bright and colorful cards I guess!
Wow, good for you for finishing up. I sort of hope DD will attend someplace that will accept credit cards, but she's been a challenging child all her life so why would she start now to make life easier?
As for
ABD, honestly, I've only been on 3 (4 in June) and a couple of Tauck tours. I don't mind traveling overseas alone (I went to Japan at the age of 21 and 23), lived overseas 3 times and enjoy solo travel. However, as calypso's DH is a plane princess, my DH is more of a travel tyrant. He works very hard and when he's on vacation he does not want to think or make decisions
at all. He also has a terrible sense of direction and no situational awareness. Essentially, an organized tour helps me not throttle him when we're traveling. Expensive? Yes, but so are divorce lawyers
.
The ABD for next year is the podcast London/Paris/DLP adventure which I know is easy enough to do OYO but I think it would be fun to travel with Kevin, John and other Disboarders. If it's not, well, it's a nice itinerary and I get to see DLP. You should consider looking into them now that you're tuition free
Well, we still have one more semester to pay for, so we aren't tuition free yet. Then we need to spend some money on our house (we've been neglecting a few things) but I'm hoping I'll find a way to have that spend help with future travel.
I must admit that whether or not a college accepted credit cards wasn't even noted on the giant Excel spreadsheet that was created for that search. My DD is incredibly frugal about everything... except her choices when it comes to school. I'm ok with that though.
I really appreciate the ABD info. After reading here how quite a few of you love ABD it really made me think seriously about trying it, especially if we want to go to more unkown/exotic locales in the future. The was something about that one podcast that really made me rethink it though - I don't think I was the expected audience for it or something. Your ABD sounds great - I do think it'd be fun to travel with them! Also making planning easier appeals to me... A TON. We really liked our
DCL cruise last month and I loved how I wasn't picking lots of hotels and figuring out how to get from one city to another. Many years ago, when they were more expensive, DH and I bought a navigation option for my car - it was costly, but less costly that counseling and most of our fights centered around not knowing how to get places. Best spend ever.
I know the question wasn’t directed at me but I’m going to chime in too. We’ve completed 10 ABD trips and number 11 is booked for next year. With the exception of China, I would have no hesitation visiting any of the places we went with ABD on my own. In several cases, we have visited places we traveled to with ABD on our own before or after the ABD trip. I also have no issues with my luggage. If you have any specific questions please feel free to ask.
Couldn’t agree more. I plan enough trips on my own for DH and I and travel hack the air, pre trip plans, post trip plan and OYO time for the ABD trips. It’s nice to just show up. DH feels the same. He doesn’t want to have to navigate how to get to where we are going while we are there. He has to do that for our on our own trips often enough.
I also love that ABD usually has some exclusive experience you can’t have or do unless you are with them. I also love their hidden gem experiences. Almost every trip there is something on the itinerary that I’m not even remotely interested in doing. More often than not it winds up the highlight of the trip for me.
Actually, I was hoping you'd chime in, too. It is nice to show up. For some reason that one DU podcast made it sound like it was for people who needed hand holding and it made me rethink things. I know you don't need that, so it's good to hear that experienced travels like it too. I loved our day in the highlands and was looking at the Scotland trip online last night.
The pink Razr was my very first phone so I thought it was the bee's knees lol. I think we got rid of mine awhile ago.
I think I still have mine, somewhere...
We are planning a trip to Europe in 2019, and I've been thinking about the possibilities/point cost of flying 4 of us business class. I may have the points to do business both ways, but am also toying with business one way, cheapo seats the other (also considering business for the grownups and sticking the kids in economy). Having lie flat seats on the way over for the red-eye would be really nice, but I also try to make sure that accommodations improve as the trip goes along, so economy out and business back would be my usual impulse. I don't mind starting the trip at a Fairfield Inn, if we're ending the trip with a suite at the Bellagio
. Just harder to justify spending "all those points" when you look at 4 business class tickets!
Where are you flying from? I'm asking because London is an 11-12 hour flight for us, so we wanted business both ways. If you're on the east coast, then I can see choosing to go one way in coach. I usually plan our trips so that we are upgrading as we go. But in this case the better rest (even if you can't sleep - I can't) on the way there will mean you can start touring that much sooner. In fact, for some I know it means they can save the money on an extra night since they don't need that extra day to recover from the travel. Just my perspective.
I'm torn on colors, for most stuff I don't care, it sees the light of day for 30 seconds. I'm not picking up a CC for the color, although I guess when you've had them all there are worse criteria for picking the next one. There are exceptions for me though, I have a brief visceral reaction of disappointment to the design of my Disney card since they keep discontinuing the ones I like. I'm also still disappointed in my CSR.
Totally agree with you. I was NOT happy with my new Disney card (bye bye Nemo) and DD told DH she wasn't willing to switch her old one for her new one until she had to. And the CSR... when DH got it he said it was pretty light and flimsy for what it cost.
Usually I don't care but in these cases I kind of do.
One more - my Citi AA (with all the titles that are too long to remember) is really ugly. It was much nicer looking many years ago when I first got it. I don't know what they are thinking.
Okay, now I want a Rose Gold card!
SQUEEEEEEEE!
Between this and DD being officially announced by the school as a NMSQT semifinalist today...best Tuesday in a long time!!
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
I remember when my DD was named one 4 years ago! I'm assuming you're aware that there are lots of big scholarships out there for finalists... but guessing from what you said earlier yours might be like mine and opt not to take one of them. But there are some good opportunities out there for these kids. (in my DD's defense, DH's has a tuition benefit from work so she knew going in we weren't going to have to pay full tuition no matter where she chose to go). Anyway, take her out for dinner or ice cream or something! It's nice to see hard work pay off!
It got 2x points at supermarkets, drugstores, gas, USPS, and wireless phone bills. So I could rack up enough points to come ahead of the AF but, being broke for most of that time, just barely and we didn't really travel either 
