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

[SBWB48]

This article is wrong in so many ways. The only thing I will say is Amex manages to make most of their money from swipe fees and not interest charges (I guess because most of their customers are a higher class and don’t carry credit card debt) but I have no problem with their rewards structure.

I have to respectfully disagree, mainly because Amex is a company I cover for a living (research analyst). The common misperception is Amex doesn’t make much on interest charges given their higher quality portfolio; yes and no. While Amex boast higher asset quality than their fellow peers, they have had to expand their customer base given earnings pressure and margin compression, and with that, interest fees. Small business loans, and believe it or not, personal loans, do account for a meaningful stream of revenue, but you are correct in that in its unique capacity as both a payment processor and its own bank, a sizable portion is attributed to interchange fees, but that has since been diversified.

I need to stop before I put everyone to sleep...

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

What don't you like about 'SUB'? It's really fun to say

Diet Mt Dew Just yuck.

Well I had come around to it but then you told me you’d prefer that I stay opposed to it. Now I play the role I’ve been given and you’re critical again...so much confusion!! Haha!

 

[speedyfishy]

What do you think is wrong in the article?

These are my two biggies.

Encouraging the Postal Service to enter banking seems both foolhardy and unnecessary. Sure they already own real estate (‘branches’) but they’re neither known for service nor financial savvy.

Senator Sanders and AOC Promise the End of Rich Credit Card Reward

First, I love how the writer assumes your average postman delivering mail with now be a banker. They aren’t financial savvy? Like yeah no **** they deliver mail obviously if they entered the banking world things would expand. I’m also a fan of the government offering banking services as an option for various reasons. This goes back for years. Alexander Hamilton’s idea.

The second statement, there is no basis for. One competition for customers business would still exist. Company’s would still have to offer SUBs to compete. Also, even if you pay your cards on time and don’t pay interest the company often makes up the rewards by a customer using the card with swipe fees.

 

[wendow]

I have no MSR I am working on. I feel kind of lost on where to go next. Dh ordered mulch that was delivered today. It was $250'ish. Asked me what card to use. I was like Then, today I picked my dd16 up from school at 1 and everyone was hungry. Went through drive thru and since I PC'ed the CSR to a CFU, I was frantically googling my cards IN THE DRIVE THRU LINE to try to figure out what card to use. Used the Costco citi since it's 3% cb at restaurants. But overall, I was left feeling rather empty and sad. I think I am addicted to having a MSR.

 

[wendow]

Well I had come around to it but then you told me you’d prefer that I stay opposed to it. Now I play the role I’ve been given and you’re critical again...so much confusion!! Haha!

We women live to confuse you men lol! You do you

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

These are my two biggies.

Encouraging the Postal Service to enter banking seems both foolhardy and unnecessary. Sure they already own real estate (‘branches’) but they’re neither known for service nor financial savvy.

Senator Sanders and AOC Promise the End of Rich Credit Card Reward

First, I love how the writer assumes your average postman delivering mail with now be a banker. They aren’t financial savvy? Like yeah no **** they deliver mail obviously if they entered the banking world things would expand. I’m a fan of the government offering banking services as an option for various reasons. This goes back for year. Alexander Hamilton’s idea.

The second statement, there is no basis for. One competition for customers business would still exist. Company’s would still have to offer SUBs to compete. Also, even if you pay your cards on time and don’t pay interest the company often makes up the rewards by a customer using the card with swipe fees.

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think the post office thing is a fair criticism of the article - but I don’t exactly have any faith our government could execute on that haha (I have no faith in politicians executing anything effectively though ). I honestly somewhat glossed over that part as I was more interested in the CC changes.

If the govt achieved capping interchange that would definitely change the game but I think there’s way too much lobbyist money for that to ever change. So that portion is potentially fear-mongering BUT if it happened I think the conclusions are fairly accurate.

My big takeaway from it is really how “laws of unintended consequences” continue to happen and be proposed.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I have no MSR I am working on. I feel kind of lost on where to go next. Dh ordered mulch that was delivered today. It was $250'ish. Asked me what card to use. I was like Then, today I picked my dd16 up from school at 1 and everyone was hungry. Went through drive thru and since I PC'ed the CSR to a CFU, I was frantically googling my cards IN THE DRIVE THRU LINE to try to figure out what card to use. Used the Costco citi since it's 3% cb at restaurants. But overall, I was left feeling rather empty and sad. I think I am addicted to having a MSR.

Always be MSRing!! Yeeeeaah!! Other than some minor periods of time, I haven’t been without MSR since Feb 2015!!

 

[speedyfishy]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I think the post office thing is a fair criticism of the article - but I don’t exactly have any faith our government could execute on that haha (I have no faith in politicians executing anything effectively though ). I honestly somewhat glossed over that part as I was more interested in the CC changes.

If the govt achieved capping interchange that would definitely change the game but I think there’s way too much lobbyist money for that to ever change. So that portion is potentially fear-mongering BUT if it happened I think the conclusions are fairly accurate.

My big takeaway from it is really how “laws of unintended consequences” continue to happen and be proposed.

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/c.../emxzuny/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

This comment also made some good points but I know we aren’t allowed to get too political here and I think this maybe at the line so I will stop now lol

 

[bernina]

I didn't even know you could use UR's for a cruise!

How many did it cost you?

For my NCL cruise the cash cost was the same as my original booking.

So I booked direct with NCL for around $4000. Made a deposit of $250 direct with NCL at time of booking.

After the booking was moved to Chase I was allowed to make a 1x payment using UR points. I used DH’s CSR so I ended up using around 250,000 UR to cover the $3750 balance. 1.5 redemption rate. If I had been short on points I could have paid the rest on the CSR card.

 

[wendow]

My problem is Advil and the like cause ringing in my ears. The more I take the louder it gets. So I stick to Tylenol for mild pain, even though I agree it doesn’t work as well, and only use Advil sparingly.

My dh notices advil causes his ringing to be worse as well. Is that a known thing and he should only take tylenol?

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/c.../emxzuny/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

This comment also made some good points but I know we aren’t allowed to get too political here and I think this maybe at the line so I will stop now lol

Oh I think it’s fine lol! This to me isn’t really political - it’s an interesting discussion really.

The possible problem I see with capping interest rates is that banks could just stop approving people they see as too risky and as the author said, with no CC they’ll potentially turn to more dire options. But I can’t very well come up with a better solution (and requiring banks to lend to people with lesser credit probably wouldn’t work very well...)

 

[wendow]

Always be MSRing!! Yeeeeaah!! Other than some minor periods of time, I haven’t been without MSR since Feb 2015!!

For the first time in a long time, I do not know what to do next. Dh getting pretty much kicked off the train has thrown me.
Can I go for the Schwab plat while holding a plat card?

 

[pillow]

Denali was beyond anything I had even anticipated. Staying inside the park was well worth dealing with trying to level an RV during pouring rain

Or trying to figure out how to flush the sewage! We enjoyed the RV - was such a novelty for us. The sewage thing was a small snafu. Luckily my brother was along to help figure out the issue. If only I could rent one on points!

 

[speedyfishy]

Oh I think it’s fine lol! This to me isn’t really political - it’s an interesting discussion really.

The possible problem I see with capping interest rates is that banks could just stop approving people they see as too risky and as the author said, with no CC they’ll potentially turn to more dire options. But I can’t very well come up with a better solution (and requiring banks to lend to people with lesser credit probably wouldn’t work very well...)

You know how people say the cost of college has skyrocketed because the government has made student loans available to everyone? Couldn’t the same argument be made that since access to credit has become more widely accessible the cost of goods has gone up? If less people have access to credit would the cost of goods go down? Not sure what I think of this honestly but I’m interested in hearing your thoughts.

 

[speedyfishy]

Can I go for the Schwab plat while holding a plat card?

I just did this. Got the Plat in December just got the Schwab a few weeks ago.

 

[AmyAnne]

For the first time in a long time, I do not know what to do next. Dh getting pretty much kicked off the train has thrown me.
Can I go for the Schwab plat while holding a plat card?

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is yes -- I applied for (and was approved) for a regular, "vanilla" Plat while I still had the MB Plat, which was converted (by AmEx) to another regular Plat -- so I had two Plats between October and this week, when I PCed the old MB Plat to a gold.

 

[pillow]

I have to admit though several times I have almost canceled the trip and went back to rescheduling the cruise. Something about being waited on hand and foot appeals to me. lol

I definitely know what you mean. We enjoy cruising too, but we mostly stick with the Caribbean/Bahamas these days as our cruise destination. I'm hoping we can continue to do BOTH every year!

Although I would like to cruise around the Galapagos Islands. If anyone knows of a way to do that on points, I'd love to hear it.

 

[wendow]

Maybe that is the way to go...get the schwab. I'm only interested in biz cards. Are there other MR earning cards I should get? Here's what I have/have had? BGR, Biz green, plat, BBP. I'm sitting at just under 300k MR.

 

[afan]

I just saw the signature for your name. What a great Paris trip report. It was very detailed and thorough.
Going to London in October for a Wedding and will stay a few days in Paris before. I hope that is enough. Was
the train system easy to navigate? I will prob ask you some questions in the Paris forum closer to our date because
France makes me very nervous about going because i speak 0 french lol

You can ask them here Unless you tag me over there I won't notice, I haven't been over there in a few months though I should wander over. It's not a very active board and there are people that can answer better than I can. We did fine just knowing the basics, which is what's needed, hello, please, thank you etc. Google translate also helps, I showed it to at least one person. Their metro is easy to get around. It reminded me a bit of DC because of the different lines and transferring through stations.

Pictures? Now you have me curious.

Spoiler: So you don't have to read about the grossness if you don't want to, read at your own risk

You don't want to see it and I only took a picture of what I cleaned up, the other part grossed me out even more. There was a bird head on the stump the bird bath sits on part of the body and the feet were 20 yards away in the other bird bath. Thankfully I realized what it was on the stump before I picked it up. I thought it was a flower bulb at first. This bird bath isn't very deep and it was empty which is probably why some was in the other. There was also some bones, probably a rib and then some that I'm not positive was the bird. I got that and the head all cleaned up and then continued on watering which is when I found the rest. The normally eat out of the trash at the park across the street, there's never been anything like this and we've had these same 3 crows for at least 4 years making their home during the day in our hard. There used to be 4 of them but one lost its mate.

ETA there isn't a picture, though I did take one. No way I'd post it here.

 

[kmc8826]

Thank you again everyone for your input on my crazy DH and going to WDW so soon. Wheelchair seems the way to go. (And it isn’t because it is cheaper...I actually have reasons which is nice). I think DH is a little tired of “well my credit card friends say...”

I agree with you. We've used a transport chair for my dd for several trips and it's so easy to use and collapse for the buses ,boats, etc. I always cringe watching the ECV's trying to get on the ramp, back up, try again. Looks awful to me honestly.

Pushing the chair is not a big deal to us but we have 3 people who can push and my dd is pretty petite. I'm not sure I'd want to push my dh by myself the whole trip. That sounds pretty tiring.

Well today I decided for sure to take advantage of this crazy split stay and added the deluxe dining plan to our second night. So although doing that maybe I will get enough of a workout I won’t gain weight this trip (which is what I inevitably do when I have the dining plan).

Cyndi Lou is correct that you can take Advil or Aleve when taking Vicodin or Hydrocodone. Those pain meds contain Tylenol, therefore you don not take additional Tylenol with those meds. Best to check with MD whether or not they like their patient’s taking NSAIDS postoperative. Also, talk with MD about any precautions regarding blood clots and air travel.
Best thing is ice and elevation at the end of the day.
I agree that the wheel chair is a much better idea that the ECV. WE rented one for an evening for my DH after ankle surgery. He hated being so low and the crowds were so unforgiving to ECV’s!

Thank you. Tomorrow is his doctor appointment so we will talk to the doctor about it. He gets his staples out so it is a big day!