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

[Haley R]

This is probably 50% of the reason I've procrastinated app'ing for an AMEX Plat for DH.

It's not under pending URs on the UR page? I met ours on 5/6 and 5/7

Nope it’s not pending at all

 

[Ngwira]

I think this may have to be my next card! I am locked out of Chase for 2 months and use JetBlue all the time. I have 8 roundtrip tickets I need to book this year so 60,000 with good deals will come in handy.

I've never had any Barclays card ever so I will need to do my research. The enhanced 60,000 offer is too hard to pass up.

Love Jetblue for the free wifi, free live TV channels, great snacks and free checked bag for up to 4 people for being a cardholder! In terms of applying, I'll say that Barclays doesn't like to see too many inquiries. I am 6/24 with one dropping off in June and November.

 

[afan]

Per Kevin from the Dis/Dreams twitter - All of the 2020 Egypt trips have sold out and all carry a waitlist. Some sold out in 10 minutes.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I love going out to eat. Waiting for quick service and then struggling to get a table ugh. I’m like you though I very rarely spend money on drinks.

Lol me too. Although we haven't been out to eat at all yet this month, which I'm super proud of! But I definitely love TS meals at Disney. I'm actually kind of sad our first day at MK will be two quick service meals, since we're doing Cali Grill one night and need to save another TS meal for that.

 

[DisneyMandC]

I believe they judge us for our travel

Totally understand what you mean. I get that feeling sometimes from people at work. Of course, I'm the only person in my age group married too, and DH does make quite a bit more than me, so I think they all just assume we travel on his money. I haven't mentioned churning to anyone but one coworker, but I did tell a couple people about our plans for Tokyo next year and that we're hoarding airline miles and hotel points. Still, not sure I'm going to tell anyone we'll (hopefully) be flying business or first class there...

 

[Calfan]

Per Kevin from the Dis/Dreams twitter - All of the 2020 Egypt trips have sold out and all carry a waitlist. Some sold out in 10 minutes.

My fabulous TA got DD and me booked for the December Egypt trip. That trip apparently sold out in 13 minutes!!!

 

[Oscar Madison]

We've decided to do a cruise for our anniversary this July. Finally going to use some of our UR stash. I've combed dischurners, but didn't see any info on cruises. Could someone please point me to some info for first timers?

Thank you

 

[Lain]

Yesterday I drug him over to the local Chase branch.

There you go drugging poor Zack again.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Per Kevin from the Dis/Dreams twitter - All of the 2020 Egypt trips have sold out and all carry a waitlist. Some sold out in 10 minutes.

My ds and I are booked for October 20, 2020 Egypt! Super excited for this trip (and a bit anxious, but mostly excited ). Definitely won't be doing any pre or post-days in Cairo on our own. Maybe in another city before Cairo, but definitely not Cairo.

 

[DisneyMandC]

There you go drugging poor Zack again.

Wait, I thought it was Zack drugging people in the van?

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Totally understand what you mean. I get that feeling sometimes from people at work. Of course, I'm the only person in my age group married too, and DH does make quite a bit more than me, so I think they all just assume we travel on his money. I haven't mentioned churning to anyone but one coworker, but I did tell a couple people about our plans for Tokyo next year and that we're hoarding airline miles and hotel points. Still, not sure I'm going to tell anyone we'll (hopefully) be flying business or first class there...

I was trying to very mildly explain to a friend at the gym how she could get to Italy in business class on cc points (she is from there and her family still lives there), to say that she wasn't even mildly interested is an understatement. I said she could use points from credit cards for flights, but she said she uses her points for other things . I didn't ask any questions after that as she seems to think that she has the points system mastered, however she uses it. I guess as long as she's happy it's good, but when people tell me they cash out points for gift cards I smile and bite my tongue while inside I'm all . To each their own I guess!

I love that there is a community of like-minded thinkers on here that I can chat with and learn (a lot) from.

 

[amcc]

I think it really speaks to the psychology behind what we do and typical vacation planners.

The biggest (saddest) problem is there's probably a whole group of people who want to go on vacation but have no idea how to afford it. They're primary concern is coordinating work schedules, school schedules and saving enough money to pay for it. By the time they figure it all out they're booking too late to take advantage of some deals. This is sad - but for some reason they can't understand how CC points could alleviate a lot of this stress.
...
For these people who can't plan a vacation more than 6 months out, there's no way they can fathom earning points. They don't even know where they want to go! I try to tell them to earn flexible points that also have a cash value - ummmm hello URs?? Then when they finally figure it out, the points will be there. But again, that seems to require way too much planning. Is it really this hard to hand people free bags of cash??? I guess so! .

I think if you aren’t going to plan with a lot of time, you need flexibility. I started opening cards in January planning to go to Europe. In April, when I had enough to book, we ended up with Germany because those were the flights in our points range.

It will get harder as your girls get older. ... Add in sports, mandatory practices, tournaments, mandatory band camp, and and and it was super hard to plan ahead! ...

3 of mine are in high school and school year trips have become a nightmare. Even a weekend trip to Disney - I changed my May trip 4 times and June is shaping up the same.

Yeah - I don't see any of our kids doing any of this overseas stuff. TOTALLY not saying this in a judging way but there's no way my wife and I would support that, haha. (again not judging...just not for our family). We're always going to prioritize church and family time over sports and tournaments and other stuff like that. We're already starting to pull back on sports things because of the schedule paying no mind to our Sunday morning church schedule. School schedules and summer activities are announced well in advance here so I don't see an issue planning around them. We typically have the school schedule for the next year before we go on our trip in January each year. We plan to stop that trip in the next 2-3 years (don't want to keep pulling out of school) so this will really become about 2-3 summer trips and something over a long weekend in the fall. I'm pretty sure we'll have no issues but I'm just generally optimistic that things will work out in our favor because they always seem to

For us, the line in the sand is travel sports. None of them are Olympic caliber but even if they were, I can’t dedicate that amount of time and $$$ to one in lieu of the others. Now, when they were little, determining what they would do, participate, and skip was easy. As they are older, they also participate more in the decisions and each of them has different opinions - one cares a lot about school, one doesn’t like to miss swim practice, one broke up with a girlfriend and feels he needs to get back into the social scene

@WVMomof3 Thats a confident and impressive DD. Congrats

We spend about $9000 monthly on cards and pay everything off at the end of the month. Thanks I will check my PM

I’m not a big player in this game (or even small) but this sounds like ideal conditions for this hobby.

How about a fun Tuesday exercise for the greatest group on the DIS...

.

My card business is eBay - I sell to pay our vacations. This summer points will pay airfare for 6 and the car, eBay will pay for the rest.
Im also a licensed civil engineer but I don’t practice because I hate it. I do know that consulting is an option if I need it.
At one point, I used to do some small grant writing. I know there is money in that but I no longer have contacts. And, when I lived in Atlanta, I used to do English to spanish translations of phone menus.

 

[Lain]

Wait, I thought it was Zack drugging people in the van?

Plot twist!

 

[Lain]

ebates or whatever their new name is?

I could tell you it’s Rakuten, but I can’t be sure I’m saying it right!



It’s so ridiculous! What was wrong with Ebates? It rhymes with rebates! I get that Rakuten bought Ebates a few years back, but why bother to change the name now? And then have to spend millions of dollars in tv and radio advertising to teach people how to pronounce the new name. No joke. Even then, I’m not sure the ads are pronouncing it right. Rakuten is a Japanese company, so the “r” sound rolls almost like an “l,” and you take each syllable at a time, so I think it’s supposed to sound something like “Rah-koo-ten,” but the ads make it sound like “Rack-you-ten.”

 

[Lain]

And on that note, I got my first Ebates MR payout yesterday! 19k and some odd MRs! I’m now sitting on 670k MR!

 

[Haley R]

We’re finally going to see avengers tonight

 

[miztressuz]

Wait, I thought it was Zack drugging people in the van?

I was just going to say it was a bit of a reversal from the creepy van... turnabout being fair play and all

 

[amalone1013]

Tell them you already have plans you can't change. The 1st bday party is for the adults anyway not the kid. And if they do like they are to their house it'll be more than it should be. I also think smash cakes are stupid and a waste of perfectly good cake and the pictures aren't cute. Just give them a piece of cake and you'll get the same result but maybe the kid won't need a bath mid party.

I appreciate the outside view point! It helps me feel like I'm not being a horrible person (which I know is very silly, but sometimes you need someone else to point that out...) I feel like I'm also overthinking it as it's the first of my age group to have a first birthday party and I haven't been to once in probably, 12 years? Plus as you said it's for the adults and I've been thinking 1 year or this Christmas will probably be the cutoff on us buying 'things' for baby. Baby gets plenty of things anyways, and can be harder to buy things/clothing for as they grow... I've thought about asking if they set up a college savings or setting one up and just adding to that going forward... I think it will be hard to get out of gift buying with them since I can't break them of it right now for buying each other birthday things. Ahhh, that will be a fun thing to tackle later anyways. Have lots of time to think about it - potentially until LD weekend 2020!

That said I bought a dress for her when we were in WDW a few weeks ago
(also don't get everything with the smash cake.. how bout cupcakes? )

Nope it’s not pending at all

Boo. Maybe next week?

Totally understand what you mean. I get that feeling sometimes from people at work. Of course, I'm the only person in my age group married too, and DH does make quite a bit more than me, so I think they all just assume we travel on his money. I haven't mentioned churning to anyone but one coworker, but I did tell a couple people about our plans for Tokyo next year and that we're hoarding airline miles and hotel points. Still, not sure I'm going to tell anyone we'll (hopefully) be flying business or first class there...

If anyone says anything I just tell them we have lots of airline and hotel points...

I haven't gotten into this with that family though (cousin and his wife) beyond saying we have points. One one hand I would love to help them out with earning points, but on the other... remember when I went back by myself last summer, and was able to book on United RT for 20k points in and out of my little home airport? They picked me up and he just would not leave alone that I had flown in there because "It's normally so much more than OMA, just doesn't make any sense" etc etc etc even after I said I used some credit card points to make up for it (I think I told them it was the same money for my flights as it would have been gas money to drive - which was true!) He's got a bit of 'must always be right' - itis and I give him more leeway on it because I understand why he is that way. But finally I had to be like, I used my credit card points and literally paid the $5 taxes each way! before he'd let it go. And it's funny because they have a small understanding of points because he earns Hilton and United points on work travel, and they used points plus United vouchers from a delay to come to our wedding and stay at a DS Hilton. Maybe he thought I got really bad value on my United points for an hour flight (really, $375 RT for 20k points - good value AND much less time than 16hrs of driving RT!)

 

[Albort]

.does anyone know how to contact ebates or whatever their new name is? I had a purchase that I did in store last week and I got an email saying you earned cashback $9.49 yet my account shows $2.69. Thanks

when u look at your page where it list all the cash back earned, there should be a ? with a circle. Click on that circle, it should have a troubleshoot menu where u can submit what went wrong. copy and paste your invoice and they figure out why u got what u got. I have a couple $0, and all of them basically return saying that the merchant never confirmed it and they just adjusted it.

 

[miztressuz]

I could tell you it’s Rakuten, but I can’t be sure I’m saying it right!



It’s so ridiculous! What was wrong with Ebates? It rhymes with rebates! I get that Rakuten bought Ebates a few years back, but why bother to change the name now? And then have to spend millions of dollars in tv and radio advertising to teach people how to pronounce the new name. No joke. Even then, I’m not sure the ads are pronouncing it right. Rakuten is a Japanese company, so the “r” sound rolls almost like an “l,” and you take each syllable at a time, so I think it’s supposed to sound something like “Rah-koo-ten,” but the ads make it sound like “Rack-you-ten.”

That is similar to how they write it out on the site - RACK-uh-ten. Which is not melodic to the English language, Ebates is the clear winner in that fight. The Rah-koo-ten would be the easiest to convert, could probably convince people to use Rack - oo - ten instead, but Rack-uh-ten is awkward.

I get their thinking that they want new users to relate their larger company with the winning eBates concept, but eBates being around for so long you're just losing brand recognition. Even people who have never used the service before have either heard of it or understand the concept of it just based on the brand name. They'd do themselves a better service to stick with the "Ebates a Rakuten company" branding for a long while as they build better brand reputation/recognition here.

But what do I know, I don't get paid the big bucks so I must know nothing. (only that my privately held multi-million dollar company that had global brand recognition in our industry, completely bit the big one after we sold to a billion dollar company who wanted to break into our scene and they immediately changed our name. I may have mentioned before, my office closed, which had been the headquarters of said private company, after dropping into barely 6 figure revenues. The hasty name change was the opening salvo to other mismanagement issues but I hope for all of us this is the worst decision Rack-em-up makes in the transition.)