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

[Mswiza]

Do you mean pending as in not the close of a statement or a pending charge?
Recently did CSP to CFU. Any charges already posted using the CSP credited as 1x and all charges after change credited as 1.5x. so if the charge has posted then it should credit. If it’s pending charge I’d wait a day till it posts then change.

Pending charge, so I will wait a couple days and then change. Thanks for the info

 

[Judique]

No drama in DVC booking this morning. I got up a little after 6 and got distracted and forgot about it until about 10am. Booked up to Nov 1. Now, I'm pretty sure the walkers are all heading to early December, so should get what I need. And, right now I'm going to leave on November 1, if booking goes okay, rather than prior to Halloween as I like to spend Halloween with my grandchildren. That said, I'm booking more nights then I actually want because if I change my mind a few more times, I won't get what I want easily.

 

[LB002]

They are good for 3 moths months- Jan Feb and March, so not bad as the bonus cards that are only 1 month elsewhere. Or 3 weeks I think for Panera. Last year I used about 7, some cards and slices were gifts.

Panera is buy $50 GC get $10 bonus to use in Jan. I'm eating a grain bowl right now bought with a GC to maximize value, LOL. (My kids like Panera, we eat here often).

 

[elgerber]

In on topic news, dh's CIP (and my employee card) will be here tomorrow and my CIP spend has been met. It always gets met soooooooooooo much faster than I think it will LOL.

 

[Alexle2007]

Delete

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I the idea of the BH tree but as long as the pittie eats glass ornaments no large tree here, just a bunch of small ones out of his reach. I swear my dogs are like really dumb children

Our newest dog was adopted last January so no idea what she’ll think of the tree and other decor. I guess we’ll find out today. Over the years, I have lost tons of ornaments (some antique ones DH had pre-marriage) because of silly dogs. For a few years, we would tie the tree to the wall because the dogs knocked it over multiple times.

This has nothing to do with anything, but for the love of Mickey Mouse, can it please stop snowing?!?!?!

No snow but rain here. It sucks too. We Christmas tree shopped in the rain yesterday.

 

[*WDW*Groupie*]

Have you also reached out to AC via DM on Twitter to try to get them ticketed? No idea if they can help or not.

I so wish I had Twitter. Maybe after this....

 

[EACarlson]

Agreed! Although we happily left MSP today for Disney World. I hope it ends soon for your sake!

I left yesterday, my mom left today. Same flight 24 hours apart, same deal, pushed back 3 minutes early and took 90+ to de-ice. Had to quick change and get to MK for 7DMT FP. But we are here, where it is 80+ degrees and I'm in shorts.

 

[WVMomof3]

@CyndiLouWho or anyone else familiar with Chicago. DD is scheduled to land at midway at 5:00. She would like to catch the 6:22 Southshore line at Millennium station. Is that possible? Should she take an Uber? Looks like the L takes awhile.

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Ok - I am dominating the off-topic right now...so I will just continue. Sorry I've been quiet the last few days. Thanksgiving was busy and then Black Friday and today were too. Here's what I've been up to... (this is SUPER long so feel free to skip if you don't want to read all about my weekend)...

Thursday, great day, lots of family time! Totally disappointed in Drew Brees and Alvin Kamara as they left my fantasy team hanging in a must-win game. I still have a major man-crush on Brees though so I'll be quick to let that go. The team won and as my 2nd fave team, that makes me happy.

My wife went out for Black Friday on Thursday evening at 8pm. Black Friday and the Christmas season is the one time each year that I sort of let down my guard on our "super savings" mentality and splurge a little. She basically shops for everybody in a few hours that night using gift cards that we'd already sourced leading up to the day. We try to get at least something for each member of her family and mine so that ends up being 12 adults and 3 kids altogether. Kohl's is our go-to! She got back after 11:00pm. I should've been in bed at this point since my brother-in-law was picking me up at 5am the next day, but of course I'm still stewing over my fantasy team.

So she starts talking about how she doesn't like our tree. Granted, our tree is probably 8-ish years old and it was probably only $25 as some end of season cast-off. It truly is a crappy tree, but once she puts all the ornaments on it, I always felt it looked nice anyways. Apparently Hallmark movies exclusively use Balsam Hill trees, and they are the best. So being the wonderful husband in "splurge" mode I start pricing these trees. HOLY CRAP, people can spend $1,000+ on a Christmas tree...this is insane. But we find one for $159 on some sale...except it's "Traditional". Apparently at Balsam Hill you can shop by "REALISM" and they have categories of Traditional, Realistic, and MOST Realistic. We price out a few other options and we just weren't finding exactly what we wanted. I signed up for their "welcome email" and it's now past midnight so we call it a night...or so we thought. Get ready for bed, catching up on the DIS...and the welcome email comes out and it's $50 off a $200 order... This apparently excites me because I suggest we get out of bed, back downstairs to shop for trees on the computer. 12:57am we're pulling the trigger on a tree all-in cost of $202 from the "Most Realistic" category. Between their Black Friday deal and the coupon we found something that worked. This is still more than I've spent on the 3-4 prior trees we had combined, but my wife is happy... So 1:30am or whatever...finally off to bed.

4:45am is ridiculously early. There is absolutely no reason that any human should wake up at 4:45. At any rate, here I am, awake... Mind you that I do not wake up before 9am 4 out of 5 workdays a week. The only thing that gets me up before 8am is a vacation...I love getting up early on vacation because there's so much to do and experience! So we started at Old Navy and then hit Walmart and things were just super chill. It didn't feel like Black Friday...very boring and blah. We grabbed some Starbuck's around 6:30 and then headed to Home Dept. Dude...Home Depot is WHERE IT IS AT on Black Friday. Tons of employees, they're serving donuts on the way in...people everywhere buying Christmas Trees (I mean not trees as good as Balsam Hill..haha!) and there was just this great ENERGY in the air there. It was exactly what we needed - we were already dragging just a couple hours into our day but WOW, that was just what we needed! I got my older daughter a drone for $30 there. I figure it probably is kinda crap but if she likes it and uses it we'll buy a nicer one and if it's a one and done kinda thing nothing lost.

When we buy for our kids we try to get them 1 big item from us and then some other odds and ends (some of which in their mind might be from Santa). Sometimes we end up with 2 "big-ish" items from us if there isn't 1 big item that fits the bill. We try to keep Christmas low-key budget-wise as I just want to impart good priorities in my kids. I'm certain my older daughter realizes that we value experiences over things. Examples of the big item in recent years are (Disney Inifinity, Lego Cinderella Castle, Guitar, Golf Clubs, etc.) We had no idea what this years big item would be...

So the morning continues and I end up at Best Buy which is where my "big item" comes to the forefront! Amazon Fire tablets... We are not a big technology family. My wife and I each have an iPhone which I guarantee you I do not use to its fullest capability. I'm typing this message on a desktop computer I took from work after we sold the company that is 10 years old. We have some sort of wi-fi only iPad I got back in 2016 which the girls all share (I don't use it). At any rate, this $29.99 deal on Amazon Fire 7 Tablets sounds awesome for my 2 girls. Of course, I am SUPER over-analytical. So this turns into a debate over the following options:

• Fire 7 16GB for $29.99?
• Fire 7 32GB for $49.99
• Fire 8 16GB for $49.99
• Fire 7 Kids 16GB for $59.99
• Fire 8 Kids 32GB for $79.99
• And of course each of these options exist at Kohl's, Best Buy, Target, & Amazon...
• Buy in Store or Order Online?
• If Online, TopCashBack vs. Rakuten?

If you give an analytical person like me this many options...analysis paralysis will set in QUICKLY. Holy crap...I must've gone back and forth a million times on what to do. We got home around 12:30 and on the drive home I had decided Kohl's for the least expensive version was the way to go. Boom, it was decided...and of course Kohl's is sold out... You've got to be kidding me!! I spent 5 hours debating this and it's sold out!! It probably does not surprise you but this happens a lot to me. I wait too long and lose out on things! I re-think things and Amazon is the way to go...so I go to my local grocery store to by Amazon GCs (18% back in fuel!) but then I get there and can't figure out the optimal amount to buy after tripping in to the DoC post about the Amex MR Amazon deals. I literally stand by the gift cards with iPhone calculator in hand doing math for 30 minutes and drive home having bought nothing...because I want to analyze on the computer

At any rate, I ultimately decide to buy 2 of the Fire 8 Kids 32GB version. If you bought 2 they knocked $20 off the price. So $159.98 - LESS $20 from Amazon - LESS $30 by using 1 Amex MR - LESS $10.99 in TopCashBack - LESS $18 in Gas on the $100 GC I went back to buy = $87.58. If you factor in the CIP MSR this went towards you could call this a $68 net purchase for 2 tablets!

So basically from about 7:30am on my day was spent thinking about tablets... while shopping, eating, playing video games, basically whatever I was doing, lol!

Today I grabbed some Disney GCs on that 18% (3x fuel perks) promo (combined with my CIP MSR that puts me @37% combined). I'm now only bout $1,500 short of paying off my January trip. BUT I've maxed out the fuel I can redeem in the next few months so I need something else to come along. PLEASE RAISE - hear my prayers! I'd love to see a way to get 10%+ through Raise and then combo that with my CIP MSR which I need to finish off. I could also do another tank of gas after 12/18 but by then the gas deal will be back to a 6% value.

Tonight's excursion (after a lovely dinner at Red Lobster) was buying Jeans. My mom wants ideas for Christmas so I told her she could buy me some jeans. I'm hard to shop for me...I really want nothing, lol! At any rate...a pair of jeans for me is a 10+ year decision, so you don't just buy jeans. 12 pairs tried on, a few of them tried on twice, 75 minutes...but we found 3 pairs of jeans!

And then when we got home my wife and I spent a couple hours putting together a cart for Barnes & Noble. I redeemed a bunch of Amex MRs for B&N gift cards and we rounded off their Christmas items. Ended up getting 14 items altogether (a mixture of books, games and puzzles). It probably wasn't the best deal we could've gotten but I still have a lot of MRs so finishing their shopping "for free" was a good deal for us. We might put a few items away for the birthdays later next year but between the Tablets, Drone and this we basically have them handled. Probably some shirts, socks and underwear to come too, gives them more to open that morning!

Yes...I am a crazy person... But that was my weekend so far. How was yours??

EDIT: I totally left out 2 super important things!
- We ordered that tree at 12:57am on Friday morning... it showed up at 1:43pm Saturday! 36 hours and 46 minutes to get this tree...that was AMAZING! (And admittedly it does look pretty nice...)
- After getting 3 hours of sleep on Thursday night...I slept for 12 hours last night, haha! I was SOOOO tired at various times Friday. And now here I am typing to you all at 2:30 am with church in the morning so I best get at least 6 hours tonight!

One last edit... I also broke a record for buying things in person on Black Friday. I typically go out with Brother-In-Law and buy nothing...maybe 1 thing in some years. I'm honestly just there for the camaraderie of it all...It's strange but I enjoy just going out with him and hanging for the day. BUT this year I actually physically bought 2 things (shirt and drone) which is a record for me!

Ha, before reading this post I was just deciding on my perfect BH tree on their website that I did NOT order, it's a "most realistic" 9 ft led fir tree. Currently $1499. I've been wanting a new tree for several years ever since the prelit lights quit working. I actually bought one after Christmas last year from Home Depot but realized it was the same height as our old tree so I returned it. Maybe one of these days I'll splurge and go for a BH...maybe...

We purchased a Balsam Hill tree, a Scotch pine, 2 Black Fridays ago. It makes me sooooooooo happy

I am 100% most excited about my new Cricut Maker I originally passed on the HSN deal I previously posted about, but I went to Michael's earlier tonight because I needed a piece of styrofoam and there it was... the Cricut display. I lost all control and decided to find the best deal when I got home. Sadly the 16% RMN at HSN ended so it was back to the drawing board. I found a deal directly with Cricut that let me stack two 10% off coupons with 9% RMN. I had to get a bundle instead, but I got 3 blades, matts, a sewing kit, and a 1-month subscription to "Cricut Access" for $28 more than the original deal. I priced everything and it was at least $150 in value for the $28 so I was very happy. I am ready to open a new side-biz.

I would really love a Cricut Maker! Dh and I aren't doing presents this year because India lol, but the Maker would make a perfect gift for next year. I hope you have loads of fun with yours!

 

[LuckyMamaInDE]

Trying to keep myself busy---dd's flight to Indy was diverted to Nashville because a de-icer isn't working. No idea when/how she'll get to Indy.

 

[Limes96]

I so wish I had Twitter. Maybe after this....

I’ve had fairly quick responses from AC when I messaged them through Facebook Messenger, if you have that, could be worth a shot.

 

[Limes96]

Trying to keep myself busy---dd's flight to Indy was diverted to Nashville because a de-icer isn't working. No idea when/how she'll get to Indy.

My son is driving from Ohio to Nashville tonight. Hoping for rain, nothing icy! Praying for everybody traveling in this mess, especially our college kids traveling on their own.

 

[Communicore1991]

Hard to keep up on this thread so sorry if it has already been posted. I got a mailer for 2,500 United miles for $500 spend on my Explorer card. 5x miles on $500 of purchases? Just in time for some Christmas shopping

 

[disfanforlife]

Panera is buy $50 GC get $10 bonus to use in Jan. I'm eating a grain bowl right now bought with a GC to maximize value, LOL. (My kids like Panera, we eat here often).

I bought $100 of those, my whole family loves Panera.

 

[bernina]

If anyone is doing amazon shopping Top Cash Back (and possibly other portals, haven't checked) has 10% back on amazon devices like Echo. I always forget to check portals when shopping on amazon as usually only clothing, jewelry and a few other items are offered. Just happened to see this while showing SIL how to use portals.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

@CyndiLouWho or anyone else familiar with Chicago. DD is scheduled to land at midway at 5:00. She would like to catch the 6:22 Southshore line at Millennium station. Is that possible? Should she take an Uber? Looks like the L takes awhile.

I’m not good at public transpo since I live in the suburbs but it should be pretty easy. Midway is tiny, SW is pretty much the only airline there.
Either driving or train would take 25-30 minutes probably. Uber might even take longer with traffic (is that 5 pm today or a weekday? ). If it’s a weekday, I’d definitely try the train. Rush hour traffic sucks. Honestly if she realizes she won’t get to the train in time, she can just catch an Uber/Lyft.

 

[WVMomof3]

I’m not good at public transpo since I live in the suburbs but it should be pretty easy. Midway is tiny, SW is pretty much the only airline there.
Either driving or train would take 25-30 minutes probably. Uber might even take longer with traffic (is that 5 pm today or a weekday? ). If it’s a weekday, I’d definitely try the train. Rush hour traffic sucks. Honestly if she realizes she won’t get to the train in time, she can just catch an Uber/Lyft.

Thanks. It is tonight. Hoping she can get there in time because the only other train is 9:15 pm, hate for her to wait that long. Dropped her off at our airport and she realized she left her coat at home. I don't think she can survive without her winter coat until Christmas break. Ughhh This is her first time flying back, either we have driven her or she has taken the train. The flying is not that convenient since she still has far to go after airport, but the times were better for today and I was able to get a good price with the SW change trick.

 

[mmmears]

DH decided to use our Gold credits towards two of those $25 GCs. 5,000 calories (or more) of cheesecake, here we come!

 

[have2getaway]

It will be “pro-rated”. Basically they will divide $95 by 365 days and charge you for the days you had the card and refund the rest. Therefore if downgrading is what you want to do you should do it sooner rather than later.

Thank you! We’re downgrading.