I love credit cards so much! v5.0 - 2022 (see first page for add'l details)

[CyndiLouWho]

what the actual...
we're u suppose to invite them to the funeral then?

Apparently. They are nasty parasites at some health clubs. I kept saying he's not coming in, he's dead.

 

[Albort]

If I understand correctly, the Ink cards earn "cash back" but to realize a higher value from them I convert to URs? Is the cash back /URs only paid upon your anniversary? Or monthly like normal credit card points are paid?

it earns UR but chase advertises as cash back because they dont know if the applicant has other cards. If you only have a CIC, then u can only redeem those URs for cashback and not transfer to partners. URs are paid usually at statement end.

 

[Alexle2007]

We are taking my great niece with us to Orlando next weekend and I’m thinking of taking her to Magic Kingdom for the day. She has never been to WDW or DL (she has lived in CA for the last 7 years but her mom is being stationed in Charleston.) Any advice would be appreciated for the new system. She is 8 and on the shorter side. We are staying at the Grand Cypress. I think I will “book” breakfast at the Contemporary so we can park and walk over.

 

[platamama]

Thanks to those who provided tips on next cards to get earlier in the year. I ended up get the AMEX Platinum for the 150k MR and hit my spend in a couple months. It was my first AMEX card, but it isn't one I'll be keeping long term so I'll be looking at PCing it likely to the AMEX gold early next year. Since I haven't had the gold card before, should I apply for that one now to get the bonus before I would PC the platinum next February? Other things I'm planning to do, PC my CSR (over 4 years old) to a CFF in November, then apply for a new CSR in January.

These steps would put my applications from the last 4 years plus next year something like this:
02/19 - CHASE Southwest Priority
03/22 - AMEX Platinum
07/22 - AMEX Gold
11/22 - PC CSR to CFF
01/23 - New CSR
02/23 - PC AMEX Platinum to Gold

Any issues or risks with this plan?

If it were me, I'd PC the Plat after the AF hits. Then you'll get a prorated refund of the Plat AF and prorated AF on the Gold. You'll probably p-ss off Amex if you PC before the AF hits (Amex has a reputation for being easily ticked off), and from the way you've laid it out it looks like your AF will hit in 3/23. Make sure to use all the 2023 Plat benefits before you make the switch to Gold, and also check with Amex beforehand to see if you have any retention offers on your account just to see if it they offer anything to ease the pain of holding onto it a little longer.

 

[cookiecar]

If it were me, I'd PC the Plat after the AF hits. Then you'll get a prorated refund of the Plat AF and prorated AF on the Gold. You'll probably p-ss off Amex if you PC before the AF hits (Amex has a reputation for being easily ticked off), and from the way you've laid it out it looks like your AF will hit in 3/23. Make sure to use all the 2023 Plat benefits before you make the switch to Gold, and also check with Amex beforehand to see if you have any retention offers on your account just to see if it they offer anything to ease the pain of holding onto it a little longer.

Thanks for the advice! I definitely don’t want to get in Amex bad graces this early. A retention offer would be nice but it would have to be a pretty sweet deal and cover most of the annual fee for me to be interested.

 

[becauseimnew]

I PCed my CSP to Flex last August. Will I be able to PC it to a CSR this week?

 

[afan]

I PCed my CSP to Flex last August. Will I be able to PC it to a CSR this week?

You could call and do it now. The only thing that matters is the first year, you can't PC until a year due to the card act. Only other time the year matters is if you take an upgrade or retention from amex.

 

[Narnia_girl]

I'd appreciate any advice on booking a positioning flight. My home airport (St. Louis) generally requires stops in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta. Some of those stops are short and some can be 10+ hours, plus the flights are more expensive. I'd rather book a cheap flight on Southwest to Boston or another east coast airport and then get on an international flight from there. Any thing I should consider or avoid?

 

[djmeredith]

Both my CSR and CSP annual fees hit. I booked a refundable SW ticket this weekend to get the $300 credit and I (finally) used the global entry benefit today. I have been putting all my UR in my CSR acct. I think I am going to close the CSP and PC the CSR to the CFU (already have CFF). Can I leave all my points with that card?

 

[Minnie368]

First trip to Staples complete, converted to money orders, deposited at WF. The vanilla visas now have something extra on the back for security and the cards were yellow.

And my FHR $200 credit hit fast which is good since my vanilla Platinum is getting canceled soon. Unfortunately, I never got the 20,000 MRs for adding pay over time back in May

If you don’t mind me asking, where do you convert to money orders? After a long time of easy loads to serve I had a bad experience last week. Went to DG and the girl entered my payment for the $200 load as cash instead of letting me swipe the debit. It was just a quick mistake for her because she had literally just done one the right way right before this transaction. Anyway, between her and the manager on duty they could not figure out how to fix it and tried for like a 1/2 hour. Finally they said they had it solved. Well their solution was to call their FRAUD DEPT!!! The lady said she was afraid she’d get fired for her drawer being out $200 and the only thing she could do was report it to fraud and they’d delete the transaction on their end. I was irate to say the least but they would not do anything about it. So while I’m standing there I go online to serve and use my whole balance to pay a bill because I know what’s coming. That would’ve worked out well except the only thing is they locked the wrong serve acct! They locked the one from the first transaction that went the right way and not the one with the mistake. So unfortunately that account had around $800 in it that I couldn’t access. Two weeks worth of phone calls to serve who would not help at all and I was just about to write off ever being able to use serve again. Finally weeks later I got someone higher up at DG who was somehow miraculously able to fix it in like 5 min. Where was she two weeks ago?!? Anyway she called their fraud dept who took care of removing the fraud report and by end of day my account was unlocked. It all worked out but what a nightmare!! So anyway, I’m looking for alternatives to serve…

 

[havaneselover]

If you don’t mind me asking, where do you convert to money orders? After a long time of easy loads to serve I had a bad experience last week. Went to DG and the girl entered my payment for the $200 load as cash instead of letting me swipe the debit. It was just a quick mistake for her because she had literally just done one the right way right before this transaction. Anyway, between her and the manager on duty they could not figure out how to fix it and tried for like a 1/2 hour. Finally they said they had it solved. Well their solution was to call their FRAUD DEPT!!! The lady said she was afraid she’d get fired for her drawer being out $200 and the only thing she could do was report it to fraud and they’d delete the transaction on their end. I was irate to say the least but they would not do anything about it. So while I’m standing there I go online to serve and use my whole balance to pay a bill because I know what’s coming. That would’ve worked out well except the only thing is they locked the wrong serve acct! They locked the one from the first transaction that went the right way and not the one with the mistake. So unfortunately that account had around $800 in it that I couldn’t access. Two weeks worth of phone calls to serve who would not help at all and I was just about to write off ever being able to use serve again. Finally weeks later I got someone higher up at DG who was somehow miraculously able to fix it in like 5 min. Where was she two weeks ago?!? Anyway she called their fraud dept who took care of removing the fraud report and by end of day my account was unlocked. It all worked out but what a nightmare!! So anyway, I’m looking for alternatives to serve…

What a nightmare!
I use Food Lion in VA.

 

[Judique]

Both my CSR and CSP annual fees hit. I booked a refundable SW ticket this weekend to get the $300 credit and I (finally) used the global entry benefit today. I have been putting all my UR in my CSR acct. I think I am going to close the CSP and PC the CSR to the CFU (already have CFF). Can I leave all my points with that card?

I keep my CSP so I can do point transfers to partners, Hyatt in particular. The CSP has the $50 hotel credit that if you can use it - I haven't yet, but it's on my radar, which would bring the annual fee down to under $50.

On further thought, if you are closing/pc'ing to app again for the cards, carry on! I'm still a year away from 48 months.

 

[Shannon G]

I'm getting ready to pay fall tuition for both of my daughters & feel like I should be using it toward an MSR. I am currently at 5/24, but one of those is a SW Biz card (applied for based on occasional selling on Poshmark, FB Marketplace, etc). Next year I will hit the 4 year mark on my CSP, at which point I'd like to PC it to another Chase card and apply for the CSR (or possibly do a MDD for both cards if that still works), so I don't want to get another personal card right now. I'm thinking that the CIP may make the most sense for me right now - am I correct, or there something else I should be considering?

The 100,000 URS would be helpful to start replenishing my UR balance - just last week I transferred 120k URs from Chase and 120k MRs from AmEx to Air France for flights next spring. I feel like I got a pretty good deal - there are 4 of us flying JFK to Venice and then returning Athens to JFK, and I spent a total of 240,000 AirFrance miles (transferred 1 to 1 from URs and MRs), plus $1418 in taxes, for preferred economy seats.

 

[wed100105]

Good morning! I hope everyone is doing well! I have a lot to catch up on!

We're looking at the next few years of travel. Washington State, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho are all left on our 50 states progress with the kids. I'm looking at getting the Alaska Airlines card so we can fly nonstop from St. Louis to Seattle. (We haven't figured out how we're doing Alaska yet.)

Is anyone willing to share the best strategy for Alaska Airlines? I have a business and could get a business card. I have a second player.
Second player is 3/24 (Also opened a new RV loan in that time.) I am 2/24. Second player was denied a Chase Business Unlimited on 5/25/2022 for too many recent account openings.

ETA: We are a family of 5. DH, myself, DD14, DS11, and DD6.

 

[sinnika]

Has anyone purchased Broadway show tickets this month using their CF for the 5x rewards? I’m looking for the best site to order from. Www.Directbroadway.com seemed to have the best pricing. Going to see the Music Man August 7 with DS.

Just a quick update on my post. I purchased my Broadway tickets using my CF and received the 5X points. It coded as Entertainment. Still looking for hotel recommendations for NYC for August 7-10. Two people-mom and DS 25.

 

[havaneselover]

I'm thinking of getting a new IPad Air for graduate school. I know dd uses her IPad pro for textbooks and taking notes. Wish I'd thought of this when Chase had their Apple deal! Right now they are 60k UR points or I can get one on Amazon for $570.

 

[Shannon G]

I'm thinking of getting a new IPad Air for graduate school. I know dd uses her IPad pro for textbooks and taking notes. Wish I'd thought of this when Chase had their Apple deal! Right now they are 60k UR points or I can get one on Amazon for $570.

Tomorrow and Wednesday are Amazon Prime Days, so you may be able to find an even better deal.

 

[lsutigers03]

Can anyone tell me some of their favorite things to do in London? I'll be there for four days at end of September into October. One day we'll be going to an NFL game but the other three we're looking for things to do. I really want to do the Harry Potter tour but not sure if that will happen as I doubt the other people we're going with will want to and I would like to stay together as much as possible but we'll see.

Would it be best to bring cash and have it exchanged or use a no foreign transaction fee credit card or a little of both?

 

[Crazed4DisneyinSC]

Has anyone been to Yellowstone/Tetons in May? We are looking at rebooking our trip to mid-May next year, as it's still "off-season" so it would save us a good chunk of money. I checked roads, and right now they are scheduled to open all entrances within a day or two when we arrive. So it looks like that won't be an issue. If you've been, was it really cold? We don't mind like 60s. But I don't want to be 30s and freezing! lol. I know it's no guarantee with weather, but anyone have experience around this time of year?

 

[havaneselover]

Can anyone tell me some of their favorite things to do in London? I'll be there for four days at end of September into October. One day we'll be going to an NFL game but the other three we're looking for things to do. I really want to do the Harry Potter tour but not sure if that will happen as I doubt the other people we're going with will want to and I would like to stay together as much as possible but we'll see.

Would it be best to bring cash and have it exchanged or use a no foreign transaction fee credit card or a little of both?

Tower of London and see a show. We saw Mama Mia—it was fabulous.

I ordered pounds from Wells Fargo before I left. Only needed cash for tips.