I love credit cards so much!

[SouthFayetteFan]

Where do I find this offer? Is it targeted? We could probably make 10K spend if we have 6 months to do it.

This was the previous 35k point offer which expired a few months ago (it was available through referral links to anybody - not targeted). We are guessing that if the higher offer came back it would look like this. Unfortunately it's not available currently.

 

[PrincessMom98]

Anyone have any recommendations on flights to Italy? I'm sending my daughter there to
visit her friend for the summer? Transfer UR points? get another card? lol

I see Norwegian air is not that expensive. Im hesitant to because this seems to be a new
route for them. Anyone fly with Air France?

I am still catching up on this thread. I see that you have had some responses but I wanted to offer my experience. My DD was studying in Rome last semester. I used AA miles to go visit her. I don't know if it is helpful from the west coast, I flew out of PHL direct to FCO. Barclay and Citi both have AA cards. The Barclay card is currently 50K miles after first purchase and $95 fee. The CitiBusiness AAdvantage is 60K after 3k spend with first year fee waived. I saved my UR points for hotels. My DD loved Rome, I hope yours has great time!

 

[disneedee]

Wow, this thread moves fast! I was busy and didn't check it for about a week, and came back to what seemed like 100 new pages! LOL. I gave up on catching up and just skimmed the last few pages, so apologies if I've missed anything that pertains to what I'm about to post/ask.

We recently finished the MSR on my wife's CSR/CSP double dip she did in Dec. (CSP bonus posted already and CSR bonus is pending for next statement, woohoo!) Then I had her apply for the IHG card so our free nights will line up in the future (these cards will be keepers for both of us) and she was instantly approved. We'll be able to knock out that MSR quickly since it's only $1K. Now I'm trying to decide which card to go for next for myself. Here's what I have/had already:

AmEx Blue Cash, Disney, Amazon, Freedom: all 8+ years old
IHG: 2/16
CSP: 3/16 (just PC'd to Freedom Unlimited)
BofA Amtrak World: 12/16 (closed in 12/17)
CSR: 5/17
CIP: 9/17

So I'm currently at 3/24, and will be down to 2/24 when the CSP drops off next month. This makes me feel like I should go for more Chase cards, but the only one I'm really interested in that I don't already have is Marriott since it will probably be going away soon. I could also do Hyatt or British Airways but those aren't high on my list of wants. Also, if I did the personal Marriott or Hyatt I'd want DW to apply for one at the same time so the free nights would line up, and I think she should slow down with Chase since she's now gotten 3 cards with them in less than 3 months. (We don't fly SW or United so I'm not interested in those.) I could do Marriott Biz though.

Outside of Chase, I am interested in getting into SPG points since I don't have any of those yet & from what I've read here they are very versatile/useful. I could do the SPG Biz first since that won't affect my 5/24 for Chase, but is 25K for $5K spend a good offer for that or does it ever go higher?

I also want to have a JetBlue card in hand before we fly with them again in July, and the bonus on the Plus ($99 AF) version is up to 40K points. (I think it was 30K previously.) I'm leaning toward just doing the JB card now even though it will use up one of my 5/24 slots since there aren't many other Chase cards I want and I'd hate to miss out on the extra 10K JB points.

Any thoughts/suggestions? Our trips for this year are already covered, so I'm just looking to build up some useful point balances while we decide on next year's trips. We're thinking about a snow trip (Poconos, most likely) for February break and London in the summer. I just hate that the taxes/fees are so high on award flights from the US to London, so I'd have to figure that out. Would those code as travel for the CSR credit? If I could get $300 off the taxes that way it might be doable.

 

[disneedee]

becareful counting those ??/24. it counts cards opened not cards still open. does that make sense? even though you closed the "BofA Amtrak World: 12/16 (closed in 12/17)" it still counts toward your ??/24 as an opened card. at least that is how is was explained to me.

 

[3 DD love princesses]

Is there anything better than Girl Scout Cookies? Yes, paying for them with apple pay and Freedom!! Oddly super excited about this

I was excited that we could pay online this year. Even better many gave us checks or cash so I put the order in online to use my card!

 

[3 DD love princesses]

How long to wait on CIP approval before calling? For mine I didn’t have a problem calling right away. But DH applied and status is still you will be notified in 30 days.

 

[Albort]

How long to wait on CIP approval before calling? For mine I didn’t have a problem calling right away. But DH applied and status is still you will be notified in 30 days.

best to wait for rejection letter.

or

follow flow chart
https://i.imgur.com/AZuA0tj.jpg

 

[3 DD love princesses]

best to wait for rejection letter.

or

follow flow chart
https://i.imgur.com/AZuA0tj.jpg

Thanks this waiting takes forever. Hoping he gets approved so he doesn’t have to call. Maybe we will get back next week to a card in the mail

 

[Lain]

How long to wait on CIP approval before calling? For mine I didn’t have a problem calling right away. But DH applied and status is still you will be notified in 30 days.

How long has DH's application been pending at 30 days? I've seen DPs of 5 days or more, although most seem to be approved after a day or two, maybe longer if they applied over the weekend. Being stuck at 30 days isn't bad, but if the message changes to 7-10 days then it's likely denial. If DH gets the 7-10 days message, he could proactively call recon then and see what issues Chase may have with approval; or he could wait for the denial letter, find out what's wrong, and call recon then.

 

[gottalovepluto]

becareful counting those ??/24. it counts cards opened not cards still open. does that make sense? even though you closed the "BofA Amtrak World: 12/16 (closed in 12/17)" it still counts toward your ??/24 as an opened card. at least that is how is was explained to me.

Yes, that is correct. X/24 is counted by counting all cards you have opened in the last 24 months regardless of their status today. One of the reasons it's important to pull your actual credit report if you're really trying to figure that out because the Credit Karma app does not show cards you've closed.

 

[jujubiee4]

I am still catching up on this thread. I see that you have had some responses but I wanted to offer my experience. My DD was studying in Rome last semester. I used AA miles to go visit her. I don't know if it is helpful from the west coast, I flew out of PHL direct to FCO. Barclay and Citi both have AA cards. The Barclay card is currently 50K miles after first purchase and $95 fee. The CitiBusiness AAdvantage is 60K after 3k spend with first year fee waived. I saved my UR points for hotels. My DD loved Rome, I hope yours has great time!

Thanks for responding!
Did you fly American/British Airways and how was the flight? I am looking for as direct a flight as possible and the one that
consistently shows up from the west coast is Alitalia (which is in bankruptcy).

 

[Lain]

Some chatter on /r/churning that MPX may be dead. Give it a few more days and we'll see what's up.

 

[Ava]

becareful counting those ??/24. it counts cards opened not cards still open. does that make sense? even though you closed the "BofA Amtrak World: 12/16 (closed in 12/17)" it still counts toward your ??/24 as an opened card. at least that is how is was explained to me.

Yes, that is correct. X/24 is counted by counting all cards you have opened in the last 24 months regardless of their status today. One of the reasons it's important to pull your actual credit report if you're really trying to figure that out because the Credit Karma app does not show cards you've closed.

I am counting the BofA card, but not counting the IHG (fell off this month) or the CIP (doesn’t count because it’s a business card). I think this is correct, from what I understand.

 

[kmc8826]

I need to book flights: 2 on Delta and 1 on Jet Blue. Should I use the CSR for 3X travel and card travel protections or buy gift cards using Freedom at 5X to pay for the flights?

Thoughts??

I would probably just make your life easy and use the CSR. 3 times the points and the travel protections makes it seem worth it to me rather than dealing with a gift card.

Yes - Delta gift cards are a PAIN to use. I tried to use a $50 gift card to pay toward a multiple person flight (paying cash not points). It would not go through. I was told by customer service that I could not use the gift card with more than 1 person on a reservation and that I would have to make 2 separate reservations - #1 with a single person in order to use the gc, #2 - everyone else. Since I wanted all of us under the same res for free luggage purposes, I didn't want to split our reservation. I also learned the hard way that you also cannot use a Delta gift card to pay the taxes on a points flight. So I still have my $50 Delta card . . .

Man I don't want to hear that! For first time I bought Delta gift card 2 months ago on their site. My cunning plan was that I would buy it with my Capital One Venture and then use the purchase eraser so I could then downgrade the Venture to a no fee one. Of course it coded as business Cashstar (my bad) and was not a travel expense. So I just cashed out the miles and got a Target gift card. Now I have the $100 Delta gift card and am waiting to buy flights for a May WDW trip but I am buying 3 with miles and 2 with a companion certificate. That is really disheartening that the stupid Delta gift card that I shouldn't have even bought anyway I might not even get to use! And the flights actually went down last night and I thought "book now!" but then didn't want to deal with the drama and so didn't. And now of course they are up. Ahh the pains and travels of credit card hacking. #firstworldproblems.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I am counting the BofA card, but not counting the IHG (fell off this month) or the CIP (doesn’t count because it’s a business card). I think this is correct, from what I understand.

Yes - your count was correct all along. It's possible somebody was trying to count your CIP or forgot that it's February haha.

 

[magickingdomprincess]

Just applied and was approved for the biz SPG card! Excited and a little nervous, this is my first Amex! I used a dischurners link

 

[brownhaired_girl]

My Marriott business card arrived today. I went to the Chase site to try to set it to pay online. I fumbled around the Chase site for a while and decided my life would be easier if I just asked my Dis friends. I have the CIP in a business account and my other cards listed in my personal account. Do I create anther Business account, add it to the personal account, or call Chase to add it to the page with the CIP?

 

[magickingdomprincess]

Ok, I have a question already! Any reason to not get DH an adt'l card under my biz spg card? I wouldn't want it to count as a /24 slot for him. I assume not

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Ok, I have a question already! Any reason to not get DH an adt'l card under my biz spg card? I wouldn't want it to count as a /24 slot for him. I assume not

AMEX Biz cards are an instance where adding an AU is safe. It won't report to their personal credit report.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I've always enjoyed a good weekend trip to Orlando for Seaworld or Universal. I know you don't have Hilton points but just figured I'd throw this out there for those interested: The Doubletree (Hilton) http://doubletree3.hilton.com/en/ho...rance-to-universal-orlando-MCOUNDT/index.html located here is walkable to Universal and at times can be booked for 25k Hilton points a night

Sorry that doesn't directly help you at all though, haha. I'd just been meaning to post about this and your comment reminded me of it.

We are Hilton people and my boys are finally getting old enough for Uni, so thx for sharing!

Just applied and was approved for the biz SPG card! Excited and a little nervous, this is my first Amex! I used a dischurners link

I am going to apply soon. I don’t currently have an Amex since Costco cut ties. Did you get instant approval then? I have to mentally prepare if it is going to be like CIP and I have to wait for several days.